March 27: After following up with the authorities for 10 years, French producers of Natural Wine have succeeded in France formally allowing the recognition of Natural Wines but labelled as Vin Méthode Nature (VMN) and the French appellation authority, French National Institute for Origins and Quality (INAO), accepting the newly formed Natural Wines Union as the professional body to represent such producers currently numbering over a hundred writes Subhash Arora who expects several labels being available during the current year
The new denomination will be defined by a quality production charter and marketed under the term Vin Méthode Nature (VMN) since the European regulations currently prohibit the use of the term Natural Wine. The production will be initially limited to European Union and initially the denomination will be subject to a three-year experimental period, according to a Report by Wine Business.
The Project has been conceptualised in collaboration with the French Ministry for Agriculture, the French National Institute for Origins and Quality (INAO) and the French Fraud Control Office. The Natural Wine Union is headed by Jacques Carroget, an internationally recognised producer from the Lore Valley, which has established itself as the cradle for the organic/biodynamic/natural wine movement in France. He owns a 23 hA farm with his wife Agnes and started making wine in the present avatar in 1997. He is considered a pioneer in the production of Natural Wines in Loire Valley.
Charter of Natural Wine Union
Natural wine refers to a generalized movement among winemakers that started in the Beaujolais region of France in the 1960s. However, there have been no sets of rules and many producers have sprung up making this category of wines getting popular across the world, especially with millennials in the US and with the new set of rules, the movement will get a boost.
The Union has set up 12 criteria for the wine to be labelled as VMN. Besides being produced from hand harvested certified organic grapes, they must be fermented with indigenous yeast and contain no additives. No modification of the constitution of grapes is allowed of any kind.
Cross-flow filtration, flash pasteurisation, thermo-vinification and reverse osmosis are not allowed during the winemaking process. It can have a max. of 30 mg/ liter of sulphites in which case it would be labelled as ‘<30mg/l de sulfiites ajoutés’. It may also be made without adding any sulphites in which case it would be ‘san sulfiites ajoutés’. Separate logos have been designed for both categories and must be displayed as such on the bottles. Moreover, when a winery is producing both the natural and conventional wines, these must be distinguishable clearly.
The producers have to agree for the auto-certification every year, and commit their details to be made public online by the Union. There are about 150,000 wine producers in France; barely 1% make organic/biodynamic wines. Natural wines will be made out of this universe. About 100 French producers and also a few from Italy, Spain and Slovenia are expected to be in the forefront of the movement as of now.
According to the report, about 1000 hL (over 11,000 cases of 9 liters) of vin méthode nature are expected to be released in 100 labels in the coming months. “The first wines bearing the designation were made last year by vintners who agreed before the harvest to fulfill its requirements,” says another Loire Valley-based Sebastien David, one of the founding members of the new trade body which has over a hundred French producers and a few Spanish and Italian winemakers as members.
Isabelle Legeron MW, France’s only Master of Wine has been in the forefront in this area. In order to help wine lovers understand what they drink and to promote the need for transparency in the wine world, she created ‘Raw Wine’ in 2012. It has now become the world’s largest community of low-intervention organic, biodynamic and natural wine producers. Featuring four annual fairs in London, Berlin, New York and Los Angeles, Raw Wine leads the charge globally for fine, clean, low-intervention wine. She has written a book, Natural Wine: an introduction to organic and biodynamic wines made naturally. As a Speaker at the Must Fermenting Ideas wine conference in Cascais, Portugal she came out as a Champion of Natural wines and felt that these wines will have a sizeable chunk of wine connoisseurs relishing them, once some rules were formulated.
With the rules being set and the definition becoming tighter in terms of description, France has taken the lead in promoting Natural Wines and one would hear a lot more in India as well and hopefully, some importers would bring in these wines for their discerning clients.
Subhash Arora
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