🤫 CLICHÉ OF THE DAY 🤫 Natural white wine = cider ? We say "Bulles-shit!"

Another myth that persists in the world of natural wine! Natural white wines have a sparkling side or a hint of apple, reminiscent of cider... Some people love to point the finger at a tiny minority of bottles to generalize, and that's a shame! Come on, let's debunk this cliché once and for all!

Natural white wine, the "roots" fermentation that makes all the difference

For us, natural wine is an artisanal product made by artisans. To transform sugar into alcohol, our rockstar winemakers avoid laboratory yeasts, those aromatic clones. No, here, we let the indigenous yeasts, the ones that live on the skins of the grapes and in the vats, do their own thing! It's a traditional fermentation process that requires a great deal of observation and control, and above all, it gives rise to unique and unique aromas, sometimes even "fermentation." But this is far from systematic! Examples include our magnificent, straight-forward natural white wines, produced in collaboration with winemakers The Wine Witch 2024 and 0.72 2023 (with Les Grandes Serres and Christophe Bosque). Two delicious and playful white wines, and not a gram of cider in them... 🍇

Aromatic complexity: when natural white wines go off the beaten track

A wine, whether red or white, is a symphony of aromas! Take the immense Munjebel 2022 from Frank Cornelissen, a great white from Mount Etna with undoubtedly unrivaled complexity🌋. It comes from the grape variety, the terroir, but also from the winemaker's touch, its aging... And precisely, this absence of "controlled" yeasting in natural wine opens the door to other aromatic dimensions. These aromas can be subtle or more pronounced, fermented or not; it's a question of dosage, of sensitivity... A bit like farmhouse Camembert, which has more character than its pasteurized cousin 🧀. It's a question of taste and tolerance for rawer, more "artisanal" flavors.

So yes, some natural whites can have more pronounced fermentation notes, and this is often the sign of a lively and complex wine, far removed from a standardized taste. But let's open our minds (and our nostrils!): natural white wine has much more to offer than cider aromas, and we have proof of this with Théo Einhart's Oberer Altenberg 2023, a Gewurztraminer with notes of candied fruit, saline, and jasmine... and still no cider taste in sight....
 

And what about "perlance" then? 

What we call "perlance" is the few bubbles that we can sometimes encounter when opening a natural wine that we were expecting to be still. It comes from fermentation, which naturally generates carbon dioxide: among our winemakers, this gas can be used to protect the wine against oxidation, replacing sulfites. However, this phenomenon is not (at all) present in all natural wines!

Nothing serious, just be patient: when there's a sparkle, further aeration will gently "degas" your wine...