Bursting Bubbles by Robert Walters

Author:Robert Walters
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781846892554
Publisher: Quiller

Tasting at the cellars

One key factor in the great grower movement that cannot be overstated is Selosse’s generosity and talent as a teacher. He has played a key role in helping many young vignerons gain a deeper knowledge of their work. A number of the growers mentioned in this book – Jérôme Prévost, Olivier Collin and Alexandre Chartogne – have benefited from working directly with Selosse; others have profited from his advice and encouragement; almost all have been inspired by the path he blazed.

Selosse’s iconic status in the wine world has seen him held up as a poster boy for everything from biodynamics (he prefers his work not to be restricted by a label and long ago rejected biodynamics’ faith-based approach) to any position regarding Champagne that is anti-establishment (he isn’t). Perhaps the most misleading of these associations has been with so-called natural wine, a slippery, ideology-laden term that is most commonly associated with low- or no-sulphur wines. In fact, Selosse is no fan of the term or the movement. He once told me, ‘This idea makes no sense. The vineyard is not natural. The vineyard is a monoculture. Nature is the forest.’

He is right, of course. The vineyard and the wines that result from it are far from ‘natural’ in any meaningful sense. In the vineyard, a single plant dominates in a way that could not occur in a natural setting, and this creates a quite unnatural imbalance. Nature – whose logic is to introduce biodiversity to compete with and feed on any imbalance or abundance (in this case the vines and their fruit) – must be kept at bay, at least to some extent, if quality wine is to be produced. In many ways, the work of the vigneron (even a vigneron who works as closely with nature as possible) is in direct opposition to the forces of nature. Many crucial decisions revolve around when to intervene in order to help the vineyard resist the threats that nature will inevitably throw at it.

The great growers never kid themselves. They do their best to work as closely as possible with nature, yet they know what they do is not natural. ‘Natural’ means ‘of nature’, and it literally points to the work of the natural world – specifically, without the influence of humankind. That is the root of the word. For a vineyard to be planted, the land has to be cleared and the vines selected: in the case of Vitis vinifera, the European vines we use today, this selection process occurred over thousands of years, so that they are quite removed from their wild ancestors. These vines must then be propagated, (often) grafted and artificially protected from competition, rot, insect pests and animals (even if no synthetic chemicals are used). And that’s before we get to the winemaking. No, the vineyard and the wines that result from it are the products of thousands of years of culture, not nature, a reality that we should both marvel at and celebrate.

Speaking

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