A Holiday Gift from Not Drinking Poison
The year's five most popular natural wine reports. Plus: Auvergne vigneron Aurelien Lefort's gallery opening.
I was otherwise occupied back in November and completely forgot to mark the occasion of this newsletter’s first year on Substack1. Despite continuing COVID fears and aggravating travel snarls, it’s been an eventful year.
We’ve uncovered unsung natural wine progenitors. We’ve battled sexism in French wine. We’ve gone to school in Burgundy, disgorged pét-nat in Ardèche, broken big news in the Jura, avoided curfew in the Gard, and saved a stampeding flock of sheep in the Languedoc, among various other adventures.
All the time I spend writing all this down, I owe to subscribers like you. By way of thanks, here’s a holiday gift from NOT DRINKING POISON. I removed the paywall on the five most popular articles of the year.
Here they are, with hindsight commentary:
The Rising Star of Moulin-à-Vent: Elisa Guerin - November 2020
Writing about talented natural vignerons is often sort of thankless, since international demand for their work is enormous, and most have little need for positive press to sell their entire production. Elisa’s circumstances were different, it turns out. With the interest garnered by this article, she was able to convince her father to partner with her to reorient the entire estate - not just her parcels - towards natural vinification and organic agriculture. She sent me the kindest message about the changes back in May. Later we spent the latter half of the evening of Beaujolais Nouveau together at Le Verre Volé.
Patrick Desplats’ Qvevri Garden - January 2021
I returned to see the Anjou natural wine legend in June this year, shortly before he racked the 2020 qvevri wines. They were all dry, all stellar. He said my article came out precisely at the right time for him, just as he was offering the first 2019 qvevri wines to his importers. He prepared an eel over an open fire for lunch and I opened a bottle of riesling from Jakob Tennstedt.
An Oral History of L’Anglore - July 2021
In my conversation with Pfifferling, he alluded to a certain vague disagreement with his friend and mentor Jean-François Nicq. I didn’t pursue the issue at the time. But I learned a little more about the episode in a subsequent conversation with another Roussillon vigneron. It seems to have been related to Nicq’s unsuccessful push, in the mid-2000s, to convince fellow southern French natural vignerons to break with La Dive Bouteille in order to draw international natural wine buyers south to La Remise. I.e. the sort of controversy that today feels like a storm in a teacup.
The Maenad of Orbagna: Katie Worobeck - June 2021
Unsurprisingly, the initial wines of this dazzling Canadian émigrée and Ganevat disciple have caught the attention of importers and sommeliers the world over. I caught up with Katie on several occasions since that first visit, most recently at a splendid tasting organized by my friends at Le Doyenné in Saint-Vrain. She has since signed for the purchase of 3ha of her own vines in Saint-Laurent-La-Roche.
The Golden Age of Brutal!!! - September 2021
Antony Tortul’s efforts this year to rein in the Brutal!!! label phenomenon have been as discreet and quixotic as its initial dissemination. I suppose I didn’t help the situation by hiding my article about changes to the Brutal!!! labelling behind a paywall. Anyway Brutal!!! continues its impressive, unmanageable half-life as a meme. I was bemused, during internet research the other day, to discover Brutal!!! coffee on offer at a natural wine spot in Montreal.
Lastly, for paid subscribers, here’s something new:
The Art of Aurelien Lefort: A chat with the Auvergne vigneron-artist about his parallel career and his recent Belleville gallery show.
That’s all for now. Seasons greetings to everyone out there supporting small-scale organic agriculture and natural vinification. Here’s to being the annoying one at family gatherings, always insisting that wine be natural and food be organic and homemade! Keep fighting the good fight!
Aaron
It’s December 22nd. Need an intangible stocking-stuffer for a natural wine lover in your life?
After, yes, a decade on Blogger and a year on Wordpress. Don’t remind me.