Tuesday 15 May 2018

Plonking it Down?


There seems to be a growing debate about a return to 'natural' wines (https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/may/15/has-wine-gone-bad-organic-biodynamic-natural-wine). This, essentially, involves using the ancient methods of wine production starting with grapes untreated with pesticides (traces of which are found in many commercial wines) and fertilisers as well as relying upon the highly-variable natural yeasts on the skins of the fruit. Natural wines are reportedly smellier, cloudier and taste very different from their commercial cousins. The article contains the remarkable claim that grape production occupies only 3% of land but uses 20% of pesticides in France. There are no regulations (these would be difficult to specify) for a wine to deserve the epithet 'natural' (causing some folk to describe it as a 'scam') and, as the products are highly variable, it is impossible to specify a marketable 'character' (as beloved by wine buffs).

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