Natural Wine Reaches the Masses in Texas
By: Christiana Sullivan
Tags: Wine

A selection of natural wines that grocery stores like Central Market and Whole Foods now offer.

“Natural wine” is the French Revolution of the wine world in all but one sense: it’s a success.

Starting in central France in the 1970s, a group of winemakers began practicing a method of producing wine that minimized human intervention as much as possible. This group was the first to create what is now known as vin naturel, or natural wine. In the succeeding decades, their philosophy spread, creating a movement towards natural wine production that is now ubiquitous in France and has taken root across the world.

However, it took some time for the movement to trickle into the United States — and Texas. Only in the last few years have both winemakers and wine sellers, such as wine shops, bars and restaurants, begun to dedicate themselves solely to natural wines. And while the number of these places is growing exponentially, they mainly serve niche markets that cater to other natural oenophiles.

Now the natural wine movement in Texas appears to be turning a corner from the exclusive world of natural wine enthusiasts to the mainstream market. In Austin alone, grocery stores like Central Market and Whole Foods have dedicated sections of their wine departments to natural, organic and biodynamic wines and integrated more of these wines into their overall inventory at price points the average consumer can access.

“About a year and a half ago when we started focusing on some producers that we got excited about, I noticed that that conversation led to an unexpected interest,” Jim Louisell, the assistant department manager at the North Lamer Central Market, says. “Then the ability to continue that conversation opened up a willingness of the customer — the consumer — to seek it.”

Walking through Central Market’s wine section, blue, purple and green tags dot the aisles identifying certain wines as biodynamic, natural and organic respectively.

“We have these signs to let people know: look for these! Natural wine purple. Blue biodynamic. And it’s to help guests because we can’t fit it all over there,” department manager Cristina Lee says, referring to the rack dedicated to natural wine squeezed onto what had to have been the only uncovered wall in the department until then.

The labels certainly help customers who know what they want, but for others, the different labels may seem confusing without staff guidance. After all, what is the difference between a natural and a biodynamic wine? Or between a biodynamic wine and an organic one? Or between a natural wine and a conventionally-produced wine?

“The whole natural wine thing is tricky because the definitions are kind of concentric circles,” Jim explains. “There’s no pure definition for what it is other than farming biodynamically and limited winemaker interference. But you can play around with different things.”

The most significant distinction to make is between “naturally”-produced wine and conventionally-produced wine. Commercial wine production prioritizes yield, appearance and taste in a wine, in that order. It uses pesticides and chemical fertilizers to maximize grape production to make — and sell — more wine. It uses animal proteins to filter their wines to make them clear and chemical additives to add color. It adds foreign yeast and sugars to make the wine sweeter or to balance out the acidity.

Not all conventional producers are commercial however. These producers don’t manipulate wines to the same extent mass producer do, however, their methods still favor human control over organic methods.

Natural winemaking, on the other hand, strips the winemaker of his or her controlling power, and puts the emphasis on their knowledge, experience and dedication.

“Natural wine means minimal manipulation to the wines,” Lee says.

It requires the organic farming of grapes and a winemaking process that neither adds nor removes anything in the cellar. That means no non-indigenous yeasts, no added sulfites, and certainly no chemicals. Additionally, there is no fining or tight filtration, which results in an almost cloudy appearance to many natural wines.

While it may appear as a set of cultist rules, the core of the natural wine philosophy is to produce wine that is as true the essence of the terroirand grape varietal as possible. These winemakers are seeking to extract the purest possible expression of a wine. And they also want it to taste good, which means they have to have extensive knowledge about the factors that affect a wine’s profile, from their vineyard’s elevation to the number of months dedicated to aging.

These production methods also limit the amount of wine they can produce. It’s a quality over quantity dilemma that has been a big factor in keep their wines in small shops and restaurants and out of large retailers like grocery stores.

“By definition, most of these natural wine producers don’t produce a lot. It’s a difficult thing to do. It’s an expensive thing to do. And at our level of sales, we can blow out a distributor’s inventory in a month or two, which gives us this big window to either introduce new things or we have to wait until the next vintage gets released, which can be 10 or 12 months later,” Louisell says. “So, a blessing and curse in that regard.”

Austin restaurants like Bufalina, Lenoir and Texas French Bread that have dedicated their wine lists to natural producers don’t have to worry about blowing out an inventory, and so have an easier time obtaining wine from natural distributors.

Houston restaurant Nancy’s Hustle has an extensive wine list made up entirely of natural wines. Above is a bottle of a skin-contact German white (or “orange”). The wine is slightly cloudy because it hasn’t been fined or tight filtered.

Their wine lists have also certainly exposed natural wine to people who haven’t heard of — or tasted — it, but it can’t engage customers with the wine in the same way a wine shop or grocery store can. Primarily, this is because wine is part of the overall dining experience, so they might leave not knowing that the outstanding Cabernet Franc form the Loire Valley was one of only 300 cases of naturally produced wine from that vintner. But even if they did, people can’t afford to regularly invest in those wines at the price point restaurants offer. Stores like Whole Foods and Central Market provide access to these wines at prices most potential consumers can meet.

“The goal isn’t to entirely eliminate mass production from our set,” Louisell says. “But I think the more that we can offer smaller, more conscious producers and higher quality at that golden value ratio, we can both be selling better wine but also kind of showing people that there’s a better path.”