Byron Bates: Natural Wine Is Not A Flavor

Ten questions for Byron Bates, NY-based wine importer - as Goatboy Selections - and founder of Texas-and-Brooklyn's Wild World Wine Festival.

Texas native Byron Bates is the brain behind New York-based natural wine importer Goatboy Selections (est. 2013 with renowned New York sommelier Bill Fitch) and, as of 2019, Wild World Festival, a biannual celebration of natural wine and other fermented beverages held in Austin, Texas and Brooklyn, New York. Bates’ own involvement with natural wine circles goes back to the first inklings of a US scene in New York in the 1990s, a time when he notably worked as a server at influential Manhattan wine destination Balthazar alongside other future natural wine mavens like Arnaud Erhart (of 360 in Red Hook), Frenchette’s Jorge Riera and Loir-et-Cher vigneron Laurent Saillard.¹ (Bates later did wine programs at New York / Brooklyn restaurants including Bette, Isa, and Five Leaves.)

Wild World Festival features fifty-to-seventy producers, of which half are winemakers from the US and abroad; recent editions have drawn in the range of 500 attendees. This year’s Brooklyn edition will comprise a day of panel discussion on October 29th, featuring as keynote speakers authors Dr. Patrick McGovern and Alice Feiring alongside brewers Garrett Oliver and Sam Calagione. The tasting event itself will be held on October 30th at Strong Rope Brewery in Red Hook.

I caught up with Bates this week to chat about his intentions with Wild World Festival; the challenges facing producers of natural cider and mead; and why he avoids booking sommeliers as panel speakers.

Aaron

---

BYRON BATES OF GOATBOY SELECTIONS: AN INTERVIEW

Byron Bates. Image courtesy of Bill Fitch.

The following interview was conducted on Sept. 10th, 2023. It has been condensed and edited for clarity.