In Alsace, we won the first step, which is to be known as a natural wine region. and I’m happy about that. But now we have to make a second step. It’s to say, “Yeah we can produce some cheap wines - and it’s also good to have everyday drinking wines - but we also have great terroir and we can making fucking good wines.” - Christian Binner
Christian Binner is the head of Domaine Binner, a 17ha estate in Ammerschwihr in the Haut-Rhin in Alsace, and the president and co-founder of the Associations des Vins Libres d’Alsace. His father Joseph Binner had never gone in for synthetic chemical viticulture, which paved the way for Christian to oversee a transition to certified organic and soon after biodynamic viticulture after joining the estate at the turn of the century. Initiated into natural wine circles by a meeting with Marcel Lapierre around the same time, Binner and his family embraced an ethos of natural winemaking; from 2012 (the year a new bioclimatic cellar was inaugurated) until 2022, Binner produced all his wines without added sulfites at any stage.1
In addition to his estate work, Binner has been at the forefront of négociant natural winemaking in Alsace for over a decade, starting with a limited collaboration with Stéphane Bannwarth in 2009. In 2014, Binner partnered with the team behind DUO Oenologie, Pierre Sanchez and Xavier Couturier, to found Les Vins Pirouettes, an innovative négociant agency model that aimed to introduce neighboring estates just debuting in natural winemaking (with the aid of Sanchez and Couturier) to the wider natural wine market. Les Vins Pirouettes has since seen sizable growth and success on export markets, such that in 2023, Binner sold his shares in the business to his partners, preferring to concentrate on production at his own estate - and the founding of a smaller, higher-end Alsace Grand Cru négociant project entitled Mëralla, in collaboration with his wife Michèle Ramponi.
I first met Binner years ago at Camille Lapierre’s Festival Dézing in the Beaujolais, and have purchased his estate’s wines for a variety of restaurants and wine bars over the years. I joined him on an unusually sunny morning in May to chat about the precipitous rise of Alsace natural négociant wine; the challenges facing the Syndicat de Défense des Vins Natures; and the generational change that has taken place in natural wine service since COVID.2
FURTHER READING & LISTENING
What is the Cost of Bargain Natural Wine?
Everyone Wants A Recipe: An Interview with Xavier Couturier of DUO Oenologie
Fighting with the Weapons of Big Wine: An Interview with Pierre Dietrich of Pépin
We Have to Re-do the Work: An Interview with Jean Walch of Au Fil du Vin Libre
Ep. 23: Mathieu Lapierre of Domaine Lapierre
My 2019 feature on Christian Binner in Sprudge.
Due to troublesome fermentations, vintages since 2022 have seen a return to limited sulfite addition on certain cuvées. Binner laudably never fails to specify which are which on his price lists.
Astute listeners might catch a reduction in ambient background noise in the latter half of the recording. It’s because the morning was so intensely sunny that my recording device shut down due to overheating, and we had to re-record part of the podcast in the shade in-doors.
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