Additive-free wine finding favour

So-called "natural wines" may be finding favour in Australian bars and restaurants, but the term rankles many in the industry.

"It infers the rest of us are indulging in unnatural winemaking, which is not so," said John Rymill from Rymill Wines in South Australia's Coonawarra region.

While there is no official definition, "natural" wine is generally understood to contain no added acid or yeast and less sulphur dioxide than more conventionally made wine, and it is often unclarified.

Followers of this approach are also described as minimal intervention winemakers.

Glenn James-Pritchard with one of his white wines that have been fermented on skins in a terracotta amphora pot.

"If it gets people interested in wine who might not otherwise be interested, you cannot argue against that being a good thing," said Australia's most prominent wine writer James Halliday.

"The worry is of course that people will try a natural wine as their first encounter and will run away shrieking in horror at what's been put in their mouth."

James Halliday tastes around 9,000 wines a year and is a little sceptical about the less is more approach.

"The converts to the arch high priests of natural wine really love these things that are hissing and breaking wind and look murky in the glass and taste murky in the mouth and the murkier they are the better they are," said Mr Halliday.

But sommelier at Melbourne's acclaimed Attica restaurant Banjo Harris Plane says they offer a flavour and texture, not found in more conventionally made wine.

"I've been working with wine most of my adult life and when I came across these wines they were so new and exciting that they really took my breath away," he said.

Glenn James-Pritchard's skin fermented white wine

"Wines made with this lack of intervention really offer a purity of fruit and also of the soil. You can really taste the area that the wines were grown in."

One of the early adopters of the wilder approach to winemaking was Anton van Klopper from Lucy Margaux Wines in the Adelaide Hills.

The former professional cook may have graduated from the University of Adelaide's oenology course, but he doesn't believe in sticking to recipes or text books.

"I worked in Germany for someone that didn't add things and I found it intriguing," he said.

"So I just started playing around myself with things I was fermenting at home. I had Stuart's Bathroom Riesling, which was making riesling in Stuart's bathroom without any additions and that seemed to work."

The award winning winemaker now releases around 18 "natural" drops every year complete with corks and wax seals.

"In 1990 if I had a wine without addition it would just be seen as a dirty wine," he said.

"But the consumer has changed, people are after interesting things and people trust their palates a bit more so there's a new world in wine."

'Lo-fi' wines nothing new

While lo-fi wine, as it's sometimes called, may be considered new, one of the country's most celebrated winemaking families is watching this development with a sense of déjà vu.

Fifth generation Eden Valley winemaker Stephen Henschke says "it's probably very similar to the wines that my grandfather used to make and before that for generations and generations".

Professor Vladimir Jiranek, who has lectured in oenology at the University of Adelaide for 20 years, also believes many of the modern tools of winemaking are good rather than bad for the end product.

"We need to make sure we don't totally throw everything out of the window and start from scratch," said Professor Jiranek.

"We need to recognise the importance of pH, acid balance, the use of preservatives and so on."

Prue and Stephen Henschke tasting some of their wines.

He says the ability to adjust acidity means winemakers can save grapes that over-ripen and accumulate too much sugar, which is an issue in warmer wine growing regions.

He also says the main commercial yeast is more efficient than the wild yeasts, found on grapes and in the environment, that minimal intervention winemakers rely on for fermentation.

And he says there's nothing particularly unnatural about it.

"The yeast cultures are really just yeasts that have been isolated from wineries and grown up on mass and they're supplied to a conventional winery in a dried form much like the yeast you find in supermarket shelves for baking," he said.

The other much talked about tool is sulphur dioxide - an antioxidant that helps preserve wine but an input some consumers are sensitive to.

Supporters say the legal levels are very low, it allows wine to age better and prevents the formation of a yeast that at higher levels can lead to spoilage.

"That is really, very very important in terms of the long-term stability of the wine and shipping wine," Professor Jiranek said.

"You'll see that some producers of natural wine can't actually ship them very far at all because the wines just don't hold up."

But minimal interventionists say the wine holds up just fine with around a third of the amount of sulphur dioxide, usually added just prior to bottling, and the results are better.

"When you add things it changes the whole nature of the beverage," Anton van Klopper said.

"When you don't add things you have all these other paths that you can use."

While Mr van Klopper's former teacher at the University of Adelaide says he's not opposed to experimentation, his priority is to teach sound and reliable winemaking.

Anton van Klopper from Lucy Margaux Wines sealing his bottled wine with wax.

"They (the students) need to know where are the limits of what they're able to do within the winemaking process, so what are the safe boundaries in terms of acid levels, sulphur dioxide levels, the use of yeast or not yeast," Professor Jiranek said.

Natural winemakers call on Australian industry to loosen up

Natural winemakers say the Australian industry needs to loosen up and not be so technical.

"Often in the wine industry it is about right or wrong and it should never be about right or wrong," said James Erskine from Jauma Wines.

"It should be about producing something that you're proud of and you think is unique and genuine."

Mr Erskine is a sommelier turned lo-fi winemaker in the Adelaide Hills.

The qualified soil scientist says while some critics dismiss "natural" winemaking as romantic, there's just as much science involved in the hands-off approach when dealing with common challenges like bad bacteria and wine turning to vinegar.

"The natural winemakers I know are some of the hardest geeks around," he said.

James Erskine from Jauma Wines bottling wine without additives in his Adelaide Hills winery.

"There's easy solutions to these that come from packets, but there's also other solutions you can learn to think through."

Someone who is experienced in all styles of winemaking is Glenn James-Pritchard.

The McLaren Vale-based producer used to make millions of litres for some of the biggest high-tech companies in the business.

He's now swapped industrial for a more individual and old school approach, including fermenting grapes in terracotta amphora pots.

While he still filters some of his wine, he doesn't use extra acid or yeast and has embraced the more experimental and wild nature of natural winemaking.

"It's not so much being better. I love all sorts of wine," he said.

"I guess it's letting go. It's often a little bit white knuckled and just see how far you can go."

Minimal intervention wines being judged in a wine competition.

James Halliday says he has no problems with Mr James-Pritchard's change of pace.

"He has demonstrated he can make really good wine using conventional methods," said the wine writer.

"Where I sort of take leave to say I don't want to have anything to do with you is the person I believe doesn't know how to make good wine or correct wine and will only ever let the will of Allah determine the outcome."

While the extremes of "natural" wine may not be to his taste, James Halliday says the core principal of minimal intervention has merit and is being adopted on some level by many mainstream winemakers.

"I think it has gone hand in glove with a concerted movement by the best Australian winemakers where they are seriously trying to grow grapes in the right varieties, in the right way, so that when they come into the winery they just become quality control officers with absolutely minimum inputs."

Source: ABC News, 14 September 2013