Ten Natural Wine Fascinations of 2023
Ten bottles that counted. Plus: a podcast with musician, writer, and wine lover Damon Krukowski of Damon & Naomi and Galaxie 500. And a chat with south Beaujolais biodynamic vigneron Bernard Vallette.
Bonjour, folks! As is tradition, I’m closing the year with a wholly subjective annotated list of the ten natural wine bottles that most fascinated me in 2023. You’ll find it below - along with a special episode of the podcast, recorded back in September with a musical hero of mine, DAMON KRUKOWSKI of Damon & Naomi and Galaxie 500.
Like many an alienated youth, I spent my high school years skipping class hunkered beneath bleachers with my headphones on blasting Galaxie 500. I’ve followed Krukowski’s career ever since, incorporating Damon & Naomi’s hypnotic indie-folk into the amateurish DJ sets I used to concoct at Marais cocktail bar Candelaria (really), and appreciating his emergence first as a writer on the changing nature of listening and recording, and later as a leading advocate for the rights of musicians whose livelihoods have been upturned by streaming services. So sharing a bottle with Krukowski and conversing about natural wine and music with him was surely a highlight of my year. Check out the podcast HERE. (No paywall.)
For subscribers, here’s a new report on BERNARD VALLETTE, an oft-overlooked biodynamics yeoman of the southern Beaujolais, who for the last decade has enjoyed the vinification counsel of natural winemaking legend Jacques Néauport. (A masterpiece from Vallette and Néauport made it onto the list below.)
Lastly, I’d like to send thanks to food journalist JOE MCNAMEE of the Irish Examiner, for kindly naming The World of Natural Wine his Food and Wine Book of 2023. My early years in the restaurant biz were devoted to an unforgettable and highly Irish1 restauratrice in the Boston suburb of Brookline Village, so it means a lot to me to be big (or, at least, recognized in some way) in Ireland 🍀
Sláinte, everyone! Here’s to a superior 2024!
TEN NATURAL WINE FASCINATIONS OF 2023
In alphabetical order. As with previous lists, I removed from consideration any impossible-to-find micro-cuvées. I tried to limit the selection to wines I returned to several times throughout the year, seeking them out on wine lists, or opening them at home with friends.
Ajola by Jacopo Battista - Vino Bianco (se) 2021
I had the pleasure of meeting Battista and discovering his entrancing Umbrian work back in May at London’s Spring Tasting, organized by Gergovie Wines and Tutto Wines, and later enjoyed several of his wines at Osteria Iotto in Campagnano. A two-day maceration of procanico, malvasia toscana, verdello and drupeggio, “Vino Bianco (se)” is saline, sunny, and energetic, a far cry from the lumpen Umbrian archetype. It recalls the most successful work of Battista’s mentors at Le Coste - with a certain handmade precision, befitting Ajola’s smaller production.Nicolas Carmarans - Vin de France “Josette” 2022
A recent dinner with Carmarans and several mutual friends was the occasion to discover this new-ish cuvée from the natural wine veteran. 2022 is only the second vintage of “Josette,” a young-vine, whole-cluster-macerated fer servadou named in honor of Carmarans’ mother. Rarely does the promise of a clay-schist terroir sing so powerfully from such a young vineyard (it was planted in 2015). The wine is a delirious flourish of buoyant, expressive black fruit, crunchy with extraordinarily well-mastered CO2.Fabrice Dodane - Arbois “Château Renard” 2020
The mid-2010s saw Fabrice Dodane’s masterful Arbois wines climb firmly onto the region’s undisputed A-list. For a few years, the inside word from his peers was that his work with red grapes nonetheless outshone his white wines. On the basis of Dodane’s patiently fermented, panoramically-detailed 2018 and 2020 vintages, I no longer agree with the inside word. Dodane’s nuanced and abundant 2020 Arbois “Château Renard,” which I enjoyed over dinner at Restaurant EMA in the Beaujolais back in June, exists at the zenith of the region’s fresh, ouillé style of chardonnay. (Further reading: My 2021 interview with Fabrice Dodane.)Jean-François Ginglinger - Alsace Pinot Blanc 2022
In the mid-2010s, I seemed only ever to encounter Ginglinger at the Les Anonymes salon in the Loire in January, when, it must be said, his new releases were always in various slovenly stages of lactic transmutation. Only in the past five years have I become aware of the perfection they can attain with proper cellaring. The bottles of Ginglinger’s 2022 Alsace Pinot Blanc I drank with my agent at Paris restaurant Mokonuts felt almost like anomalies: they are already, precociously perfect, ample and sonorous, with seamlessly integrated acidity and structure.Jérôme Guichard & Daniel Millet - Vin de France “Arrêts Frequents” 2022
If you are inclined towards suspicion, or fearful of volatility, or both, you might misread the name of this cuvée as referring to frequent stops during fermentation. In fact it is named for the sign bearing the succinct French equivalent of “This Vehicle Makes Frequent Stops” affixed to the back of Mâconnais vigneron Jérôme Guichard’s truck, and indeed, the propulsive, linear wine itself bears all the hallmarks of a healthy, vigorous fermentation, along with the unsulfited purity and altitudinous acidity familiar to fans of his brother-in-law Daniel Millet’s gamay. An old college friend and I bolted down two bottles in quick succession at Café Les Deux Gares this summer.Axel Prüfer - Vin de France “Fou du Roi” 2021
Among Haute Languedoc maestro Axel Prüfer’s many amusing habits is a tendency to explain or re-explain something quite changeable and hard-to-follow - the precise composition of his different cuvées each year - as though it were as simple and as widely understood as tying a shoe, or frying an egg. I believe his 2021 “Fou du Roi,” a blend of carignan, cinsault, and grenache, contains the last carignan he acquired from retiring Languedoc vigneron (and Loire winemaking legend) Emile Heredia. It brims with fine garrigue herbs, an elegant and forthrightly red masterpiece from someone more famous for diaphanous off-whites and light reds. (Further reading: Prüfer’s Purchase - from 2022.)Margot Roussot-Petit & Natalia Santo - Vin de France “Bathyscaphe” 2021
Chenin in Anjou since 2020 is perhaps what pinot gris, muscat, and gewürztraminer were to Alsace throughout the 2010s: an increasingly rewarding frontier of orange wine production, as local vigneron(ne)s gain experience and appreciation for nuances of the style. Roussot-Petit and Santo are relative newcomers, but they bring to bear on their radical, boutique production two broad, well-educated palates and impressive rigor. Their 2021 “Bathyscaphe” is structured and fruitful - and easily as luminous as any direct-press peer. It gets bonus points for reminding me of a Smog song. (Further reading: More on Margot & Natalia in my 2020 piece on En Joue Connection.)Bruno Schueller - Alsace Grand Cru Riesling “Eichberg” 2018
Among the many reasons I was delighted to show my book at Salon Brut(es) in Mulhouse this past November was it provided another opportunity to purchase wine from Bruno Schueller, the Alsace visionary whose singular wines, I often like to say, reveal more about the taster than they do about themselves. His 2018 “Eichberg,” which derives from just two rows of the grand cru, is among his towering successes, a tall, detailed edifice of savory riesling; its architecture bristles with life, like a Mayan ruin.Martin Vajčner - Riesling “Jaroslavice” 2021
In 2023, I overcame mild journalistic scruples and began importing a very small amount of wine to France from Central Europe. (I figured it couldn’t hurt to diversify the ways in which I lose money.) The chief inspiration behind this tiny venture was Martin Vajčner, a prodigiously talented Moravian vigneron working near the Austrian border near the town of Znojmo. As I show the wines around France, it has been gratifying to see like-minded zero-zero connoisseurs do double-takes at tastes of his luminescent grüner veltliners, frankovkas, and more. Unlike much of his production, which typically sees partial aging in Moravian amphora, Vajčner’s 2021 riesling from marine sediments in Jaroslavice was aged exclusively in Hungarian acacia. A twelve-hour whole-cluster maceration is imperceptible in the finished wine, which evokes less Moravian riesling than 2016 Jurassien chardonnay, hovering at a mysterious, voluptuous nexus of oxidation and reduction. But perhaps I’d just never encountered a grand vin from Moravian riesling before. (Further reading: Znojmo’s Zero-Zero Virtuoso.)Agnès & Bernard Vallette - Vin de France “Esprit de Jarre” 2021
The name of Vallette’s principle red cuvée “Esprit de Jarre” is unintentionally misleading, for it is vinified in steel tank, not qvevri like his smaller cuvée “Jarre.” For “Esprit de Jarre,” Vallette employs small clay amphorae only for his pied de cuve. (An eccentric and inspired touch, incidentally, since it would theoretically hyper-oxygenate the starter ferment, providing further aid for yeast activity.) The wine’s rich, soulful black fruit is the result of years of patient biodynamic farming on south Beaujolais clay-limestone; its supreme balance and grace, almost unprecedented for the area, are gifts of the cool 2021 vintage. (Further reading: Agnès & Bernard Vallette: Wine Makes Better Choices Than Most Vignerons.)
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FURTHER READING & LISTENING
NDP Podcast Ep. 13: Damon Krukowski of Damon & Naomi and Galaxie 500
Agnès & Bernard Vallette: Wine Makes Better Choices Than Most Vignerons
Ten Natural Wine Fascinations of 2021
Ten Natural Wine Fascinations of 2022
The World of Natural Wine
The World of Natural Wine Turns One
Errata in The World of Natural Wine
In 2009 I endured the excruciating experience of briefly appearing in her stead on local TV, as the conspicuously non-Irish face of a conspicuously Irish pub.
New info for this Aussie drupeggio - I had to go to wikipedia