Looking for a funkier flavor in your next wine selection? In this debut episode of the Cornell Keynotes podcast, global wine expert and Senior Lecturer Cheryl Stanley from the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration joins host Chris Wofford to discuss – and taste – natural wines you’ll have to try.
Dive into the unfined and unfiltered world of natural wines. Cheryl Stanley, global wine expert and senior lecturer at the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration, joins host Chris Wofford to explore the scrubbing bubbles, oxidized apples and sediment in a variety of wines, from pétillant naturel to orange to Beaujolais.
This debut episode of the Cornell Keynotes podcast covers a range of topics, including:
Learn more in Cheryl Stanley’s eCornell certificate programs:
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Chris Wofford: Welcome, everyone. Today, we're going to be popping some corks and talking about natural wines. I'm Chris Wofford.
Cheryl Stanley: I'm Cheryl Stanley.
Chris Wofford: Cheryl Stanley is a lecturer at the Nolan School of Hotel Administration. She's also, of course, author of several online courses on wine that we will be talking about later as we get into it. So natural wines is the topic today. Cheryl, why are they trending? What's going on out there?
Cheryl Stanley: Oh my gosh, Chris. Wow. Well, they’re unique, they're different, they create an experience, whether it's good or bad, that's all in the eye of the person enjoying the wines. And I think it's, as people discover and and go begin their wine journey, they're curious and they want to try so many different wines and these natural wines, and I use air quotes, and these natural wines are an extension of that curiosity.
Chris Wofford: What is natural wine? Tough to define.
Cheryl Stanley: Yes. I had to write some notes down because I needed to stay on topic. Because natural wines is a huge conversation in the wine industry right now. Because all wine is natural, right? Wine was not, is not, created by humans. We certainly, there is human contact, but it is a natural product created by Mother Nature. And Dr. Patrick McGovern from UPENN wrote an amazing book all about the history of wine and natural product.
Cheryl Stanley: But I like to, I want to actually read the Oxford Companion of Wine Definition of Natural Wine, because that is really like one of the wine Bibles of the wine world. Grapes are typically grown by small scale independent producers. Grapes are hand-picked from sustainable, organic or biodynamic vineyards, so going into the farming practices. Wine is fermented with no added yeast, i.e. native yeast.
Cheryl Stanley: No additives are included in fermentation, such as yeast nutrients and little to no sulfites are added. And it's interesting because when I started learning about natural wines, it was just no sulfur added. That was what was considered a natural wine. And now there's so much more that kind of get grouped into this natural wine category.
Chris Wofford: And just to back up real quick, so what do sulfites do for wine?
Cheryl Stanley: Sulfites are an anti-microbial, so they will kill off any unwanted bacteria and they can be added at different times during the winemaking process. So it could be added in the very beginning when the grapes are coming in to kill any yeast that's on the outside of the grape skins. Or it could be added during the fermentation process, further along in the method of production. It can also stop fermentation, leaving residual sugar.
Chris Wofford: What about the variability of those native yeasts? That's a, that's a, that's a big variable. It, potentially.
Cheryl Stanley: Well, potentially, yes, because some native yeast can't handle higher alcohol. So they, you know, die off at 5%. And then you have what is oftentimes considered stuck fermentation. When we think about styles of natural wine, one of these styles is glou-glou, kind of sounds like glug glug out of the bottle. And those are specifically low alcohol wines, traditionally red.
Cheryl Stanley: Now they're white rosé, orange, color of the rainbow kind of thing. But they're lower alcohol wines. And so, you know, and this is where it gets into human intervention and winemaker intervention in the winemaking process. Traditionally, people say or talk about more commercially-made wines. A winemaker might add certain yeast strains, whereas these native yeast would be just au naturel or even what's in the winery, within the winery, that can take part in just in the air that you breathe.
Chris Wofford: What else about process and production is involved? Labor intensive. I’m really thinking about cost of operation. You know, if you've got a relative hands up, hands off approach, you would think this is economical to produce or is it quite the opposite? Is it a little more challenging because of that?
Cheryl Stanley: I think it depends. No black or white answer.
Chris Wofford: Got it.
Cheryl Stanley: With hand harvesting, that definitely is labor intensive and where you are in the world will increase that. If you take, if you are a natural wine producer and you take the hands off, no intervention, even in the vineyard, that can cause challenges because say, for example, you get mold. Now with sustainable practices, organics and biodynamic farming techniques, which have very strict rules, and not sustainable, but organic and biodynamic have very strict farming techniques that can, the winemaker has some options to use if they follow those.
Chris Wofford: That's right. Biodynamics, very labor intensive. There's a whole process with the, you know, microbial management is its own thing just alone.
Cheryl Stanley: Yes, it is very labor intensive and it takes a lot of knowledge in order to do it correctly. Also documentation, too.
Chris Wofford: Great. Let's talk about styles. Let's talk about output. We're doing a tasting today. We've got five different wines, a little bit all over the place, but in the best way. Let's talk about broadly, for the uninitiated, how do we think about the styles of natural wine?
Cheryl Stanley: Sure. Well, and this is what's fun, but also can be challenging for a consumer, is, since there is no government definition, what is a natural wine? And we already talked about that but, WCT, The Wine Spirits Education Trust, referred natural wine as an ethos, you know, from the winemaker. But now, we're looking in the market even subcategories. Those low alcohol, you know, oftentimes referred to as juicy wines that you can drink easily.
Cheryl Stanley: They're not high tannin, usually high acid and oftentimes made using carbonic maceration. And then you have the orange skin contact slash amber and that's where, to, where you are in the world will be. You know, a winemaker will use a certain term over another. Orange wine here in the United States, we know that that has been skin contact. It might just say skin contact on the label.
Cheryl Stanley: It might say ramato for Italy and, you know, all of that knowing, or amber, we have to think about amber too, having the juice sit on the skins, extracting color. And then we also have pét-nats. And that's going to be really fun because we're trying two different pét-nats, pétillant naturel.
Chris Wofford: What is that about?
Cheryl Stanley: So that is the ancestral method, and the ancestral method has been around for hundreds of years.
Chris Wofford: In production of champagne bubbles?
Cheryl Stanley: Bubbles.
Chris Wofford: Okay.
Cheryl Stanley: Bubbles. It's bottling the wine while it's going through fermentation. And some producers will disgorge that yeast at the end, others will not. And so that's why sometimes you'll get some funky chunkies down in the bottom of the bottle.
Chris Wofford: Yeah, prices. A little bit pricey. So you'll see as we go through each of these wines, once we dig in, the cost of these, these are at minimal $25 a bottle or thereabouts. And I'd ask you, is there any opportunity for bargain wine, everyday chuggers? And the answer was sort of.
Cheryl Stanley: Sort of. I should say, more challenging to find that in the market. I've seen a couple for $12, but very, very few. If you're in Europe, of course, the pricing will be different. Even here in the United States, different states have different tax laws, so you can find various price points. But, exactly as you encountered at the Cellardoor, you're talking $25 and up, you know, even $100.
Cheryl Stanley: And really it's supply and demand. There is a high demand for these wines, especially at, you know, wine bars or I mean, you go to restaurants and it's, we only serve natural wines, very curated list. And because of that, you'll find some that are over 100.
Chris Wofford: What do you think about digging into some of these? Let's go through in sequence and do some tasting. So we have wine number one, is the Chemin de Bassac Batieur. How's my pronunciation there? Yeah.
Cheryl Stanley: Yeah.
Chris Wofford: Okay. Not bad.
Cheryl Stanley: Well, and this wine is fun. Well, just look, looking at the glasses themselves, and this is when, for those of you who are going to be trying these wines at another time or tasting them along with us, you see, we're so used to that brilliant color of wine where it's super reflective. You have the blind tasting standard, you know, star bright.
Cheryl Stanley: These are not star bright.
Chris Wofford: No, these, you can't see completely through any of these.
Cheryl Stanley: Right? And this is where, as a consumer, it can be challenging because if you don't know that this is in that natural wine category, you pick up the bottle and you're like, something's wrong here, something's going on. But this is just a stylistic preference of the winery. And this is fun. This wine is specifically from the Languedoc-Roussillon area.
Chris Wofford: What kind of grapes are in this?
Cheryl Stanley: Viognier and Roussaene, I believe from the importers website and again, bottle during fermentation. But oftentimes you'll see with pét-nat, that they're not cork closed. They're actually closed with a crown cap. Crown caps, are they recyclable? No. Are they sustainable? Not as much, you know, but a cork might not necessarily be able to handle.
Chris Wofford: Okay. I was going to, I was going to say it's about efficiency in working.
Cheryl Stanley: Exactly.
Chris Wofford: Keeping the wine in the bottle.
Cheryl Stanley: Exactly. And keeping the bubbles. I mean, when you're buying a pét-nat, you want a wine with bubbles, which is going to give it texture, as well as, you have some texture from the unfined and unfiltered.
Chris Wofford: All right. Let's give this one a taste. Let me know what you think.
Cheryl Stanley: Well, it's fun because when we opened up the initial bottle, the bubbles were present, but they weren't out of control. And you'll see this if you drink a lot of pét-nat, that the bubble situation can vary based off of the amount of sugar in the wine, the method of production, disgorging, and whatnot. Okay. Well, cheers.
Chris Wofford: Cheers, Cheryl
Cheryl Stanley: Okay color and having it be unfiltered aside, I get some kind of apple skin. There is oxidized apple, a little bit.
Chris Wofford: Yes.
Cheryl Stanley: But also you get some peach and floral notes, you know, knowing viognier and roussanee-viognier being a very aromatic grape variety, not getting as much of that intense white flower as I would assume from other wines. But that's okay.
Chris Wofford: How would you talk about the acidity in this wine? How would you describe it?
Cheryl Stanley: I would say acidity is medium, but it has scrubbing bubbles. And with that carbon dioxide, the carbon dioxide cleanses your palate. This wine would be a really fun wine to pair with food, and you can up the intensity of the food because this wine has a lot of texture. Do you like it?
Chris Wofford: I like it quite a bit. The oxidized apples is the thing that's really just sticking with me. That's exactly what it is.
Cheryl Stanley: Yeah, okay some people think I'm a little weird with my apples, but it's not Granny Smith, It's not green apple.
Chris Wofford: No.
Cheryl Stanley: It is. And it's not necessarily even Red Delicious. It's more of like a Gala, Honeycrisp wine. There is a ripeness to fruit. And, but that makes complete sense from the growing region too. But this wine, and this is where, you know, you think about the different certification bodies like Court of Master Sommeliers or Wine & Spirit Education Trust, and you're blind tasting wine, you're evaluating the site, and you're also saying, does it smell clean? Does it smell faulty? And some natural wine producers tend to lean towards the, what is perceived in the mass wine world as false? But then, it's not a fault. It adds character to their wine. And this wine, I think, is fairly clean.
Cheryl Stanley: You're getting that fruit to it. Okay. This sounds, again, you know, this is why, you know when I go, when I taste wine, sometimes it has a little bit of a strawberry shortcake plastic doll note to it.
Chris Wofford: I know the doll.
Cheryl Stanley: But then, like Caribou candies, but the wine is dry. The aromatics are so ripe. And I think the carbon dioxide in the wine is also allowing those aromatics to come out without having to give it a big swirl.
Chris Wofford: It's lovely, really enjoyable. So, you know, at first blush, what would you pair with this.
Cheryl Stanley: A bean stew.
Chris Wofford: There you go. Yeah.
Cheryl Stanley: Yeah, I, you know, something with a little bit of heartiness to it, but not overpowering.
Chris Wofford: Right. And they're not going to fight each other.
Cheryl Stanley: No exactly.
Chris Wofford: That’s ultimately what we're talking about.
Cheryl Stanley: They're going to complement between the bodies and the, the sparkling, the carbon dioxide in the wine. I think it would just, it would be really good.
Chris Wofford: All right. Let's keep things brisk.
Cheryl Stanley: Okay.
Chris Wofford: Let's hit number two. The second wine is called Macari’s Sparkling Horses Cabernet Franc. Cab Franc did not make our list for recommended bottles that people should buy. But nevertheless, Cellardoor said, you must try this because it fits the bill. And it would be really interesting.
Cheryl Stanley: Well, and I think it's another wonderful expression of a pét-nat. So this pét-nat was cloudy, whereas this pét-nat is not
Chris Wofford: It’s a beautiful rosé.
Cheryl Stanley: Exactly. And it's, it's that wonderful kind of dark salmon color. And one thing I'd like to make note are the bubbles. The bubbles are much higher. There's much more carbon dioxide in this wine.
Chris Wofford: Yep.
Cheryl Stanley: And what's fun to, about rosé pét-nat? You know, you just see between these two wines, various spectrum. A various spectrum of cloudy to clear and brilliant. And pét-nat is more in reference to the method of production.
Chris Wofford: This looks like a sparkling rosé.
Cheryl Stanley: Yeah, exactly. And it smells like one too. It has that bright, juicy, red cherry and strawberry, and something that's different or makes these wines unique is you're not looking for that secondary ferm- well, you have some secondary fermentation in the bottle, but it's not like a traditional method wine, like champagne or cava, where you have that yeasty development.
Cheryl Stanley: Here, you don't have that yeastiness. It's not as pronounced that brioche cracker-like note that you would find in the wines.
Chris Wofford: Bubbles still hanging out.
Cheryl Stanley: Yeah.
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Cheryl Stanley: Exactly.
Chris Wofford: Serious action going on there.
Cheryl Stanley: And so this is a wine, too. Something to consider when you're buying pét-nat is supply chain and keeping it cold throughout the supply chain. They ship it cold and sometimes it'll even say that on the bottle is to make sure that you keep it cold. Don't put it in your cellar. Don't let it warm up to room temperature. You get it home, you put it in the fridge.
Chris Wofford: There you go. Really good advice. Smart advice. I wouldn't have known to do that. So with your pét-nats, keep them in the fridge. Right out of the case when you bring it home. This one's lovely too. We're locking out.
Cheryl Stanley: It is.
Chris Wofford: This is a pretty good tasting so far.
Cheryl Stanley: Well, and you think about Cabernet Franc as a grape variety.
Chris Wofford: Love it.
Cheryl Stanley: Yeah. And it's so perfect in the Finger Lakes, one of our signature red grape varieties. And same thing with, from Long Island as well. You get a little bit of texture and tannin from this wine. So you got bubbles, but you also have tannin. So you can do some really fun, like as we're approaching summer, barbecue with this wine would be beautiful. Some nice grilled chicken, nothing too spicy, unless you really wanted to, but I don't do spice.
Chris Wofford: Okay.
Cheryl Stanley: But that's why I just think it's really enjoyable.
Chris Wofford: Just to reiterate, this from the North Fork of Long Island. Right? So this is a temperate oceanic type area that's very much different from here. You know, we're several hundred feet higher up in the woods.
Cheryl Stanley: Yes. But they have a longer growing season.
Chris Wofford: Got it
Cheryl Stanley: Down on Long Island. So that's why you see more Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc being grown there because of those extended growing days.
Chris Wofford: Perfect, lovely wine. Moving right along.
Cheryl Stanley: Yes.
Chris Wofford: What's next on our list?
Cheryl Stanley: Okay.
Chris Wofford: So this is the Christian Binner Eros De Raphael Pirouette. What are we getting into here?
Cheryl Stanley: Look at this color.
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Cheryl Stanley: Look at the color. And we were talking a little bit about this beforehand. Where would a restaurateur put this on the wine list? Is this a white wine? Is it a rosé? It's really in the orange wine category. And what some restaurateurs have done is kind of group these with rosés, because if a guest ordered this and wasn't familiar with the wine and were expecting a white wine, they would look at it and be like, no.
Chris Wofford: This looks like red grapefruit juice.
Cheryl Stanley: Right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. But we also noticed that it is very cloudy. This wine is also unfined, unfiltered. And looking at the wine, it's Pinot Gris, Riesling and Silvaner. So grape varieties that we so much associate with white wines. Now, Pinot Gris is a grape variety that does like to mutate, and you will find Pinot Gris around the world that have a pinkish, reddish hued skin.
Cheryl Stanley: And so this wine has done 25 days of skin contact, and that's where we're getting the color from. But then also aged on lees for eight months. And aging on lees for eight months is not crazy. We see Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadets from the lower valley being aged on Lees for that long as well. So the differentiator in this wine is really the skin contact for 25 days.
Chris Wofford: This is the wine that was supposed to line up with the Pinot Grigio Ramato, right? The Italian. I just had that fairly recently. Last year was the first time I kind of had those, those Pinot Grigio that are a little off orange and they're delicious.
Cheryl Stanley: And isn't it fun because they add texture? Yes, because often, and I don't want to say, there are some Pinot Grigios in the market that tastes like water.
Chris Wofford: Yes.
Cheryl Stanley: They have no character. And with that Ramato, it just ups the character a little bit to make it really like, wait, what's going on in this wine? And beautiful with fish.
Chris Wofford: This one's got a heck of a nose.
Cheryl Stanley: Peach skin.
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Cheryl Stanley: I mean, dry peach skin, orange peel. And I think what's so important to note on the palate is the texture of this wine.
Chris Wofford: Yep. Not very acidic, not very biting. It doesn't really hit you too hard. It's laying off actually, quite a bit.
Cheryl Stanley: But what's funny is the acidity is kind of competing against that tannin you're getting from the grape skins. And oftentimes you'll say, well, white wines don't have tannin. They can in this case. And I mean, of course they can get it from wood tannin as well. You think about drinking a rosé. A rosé has that texture and tannin.
Cheryl Stanley: And this is just a white wine that has texture and tannins.
Chris Wofford: We talk about where this is from in France. Do we know?
Cheryl Stanley: This wine is from Alsace.
Chris Wofford: Okay. So there we go, mountainous eastern France.
Cheryl Stanley: Yes, eastern France, longer growing season, drier area. So the fruit can get really ripe here, but still maintain their acidity because of the northerly climate.
Chris Wofford: So other wines that we might associate with Alsace would be the Pinot Blanc is growing up there. Rieslings.
Cheryl Stanley: Pinot Blanc, Rieslings, Gewurztraminers, always fan favorites. I love Cremant d’Alsace, which is a sparkling wine made in the traditional method. Delicious.
Chris Wofford: Right on the money.
Cheryl Stanley: Yeah. And this is a fun because it's an association of wine, a wine grower, winegrowers, as they call themselves. But grape growers and winemakers that have come together to make many, many different styles of wine from the area.
Chris Wofford: This one was lovely.
Cheryl Stanley: And also zero sulfur. Kind of going back to how people associate natural wines starting, very, very much hands off.
Chris Wofford: It's lovely. Next we take a detour to Italy. Catturato, what's, what's going on with this wine?
Cheryl Stanley: This wine is even more orange than the Alsace.
Chris Wofford: It's iridescent.
Cheryl Stanley: Yes. Yep. The Alsatian wine is kind of like a peachy, cloudy. This is like spot on orange. And I think what's also important to note is when we opened up the bottle, there were, there was a lot of sediment in the wine.
Chris Wofford: Oh yeah. Visible. Looking through this one little.
Cheryl Stanley: Little chunks.
Chris Wofford: A little dark, dark chunks. Yeah. Suspended.
Cheryl Stanley: If you know that you're, you know, expecting that in the wine, great. That's fine. That adds a little bit of texture. If you poured the wine and you're not expecting it, you're like, what is this?
Chris Wofford:Yeah.
Cheryl Stanley: And that's, you know, education. It's education of the people selling in the retail stores, the distributors. Everyone needs to be educated in order to properly, in well, no, not necessarily properly enjoy the wine, but may manage expectations.
Chris Wofford: I think so too, right? It might be a little much to say that wine sellers should issue a caveat with some of these, but frankly, they kind of should.
Cheryl Stanley: Yeah, and there's no requirements from labeling.
Chris Wofford: Right.
Cheryl Stanley: Right. So it's dealing with what you see in the bottle and with some natural wine producers looking at alternative packaging like bag in a box, you can actually see the wine. So you wouldn't know that it had skin contact or it was unfiltered and having, you know, sediment at the bottom.
Chris Wofford: What do you think of this one?
Cheryl Stanley: Well,
Chris Wofford: Let's check it out.
Cheryl Stanley: I mean, Colorado, as a grape variety, produces full bodied, fair, you know, not overly intense, fairly medium intensity aromatics, even to, you know, some people even describe it as low used in marsala production. But, it is making, that grape variety is making some really interesting white wines from Sicily. And we see being blended with Grillo or Chardonnay as well.
Cheryl Stanley: But this one has a little bit more earthiness on it. And we haven't even talked about Brettanomyces in.
Chris Wofford: You're not.
Chris Wofford: So tell us a bit about Brett.
Cheryl Stanley: Brett, yes, this is a wine that again, depending on where, how much Brettanomyces is in a wine, can be seen as adding a little bit of complexity or can be a straight fault. Once a winery is infected with Brett. Very, very hard to get out, but some producers like some cider producers, love Brettanomyces in their Wine and Brettanomyces, what it is, it’s sweaty horse.
Chris Wofford: Yeah.
Cheryl Stanley: Barnyard often described, for those of you that are old enough to remember the metal boxes for like Band-Aids or adhesive bandages, that it gets that rubbery smell. But this one has dried orange peel. Like there is a dried fruit character. While this wine is young, it's not described as like, fresh. There is a little bit of a dried, dried note to it.
Chris Wofford: You know, like the dry garnishes at a bar, you get a little that it's kind of like that orange that you get and you're not supposed to.
Cheryl Stanley: But even like a smoked, you know, some cocktail bars are taking it, dehydrating the oranges and then smoking it a little bit.
Chris Wofford: Sure. Yeah. I'm a little bit more challenged by this one than maybe the others.
Cheryl Stanley: Yes.
Chris Wofford: You know, I want to like it, but I'm not sure I'm there.
Cheryl Stanley: It's not as forthcoming in the glass.
Chris Wofford: How about the fruitiness? How would you.
Cheryl Stanley: It doesn't have much. At all.
Chris Wofford: Right? Okay.
Cheryl Stanley: Yeah. And that's why I went down that dried orange peel note because you don't get a lot of fruit from this. It's.
Chris Wofford Where did it go? Like in the process, you know, how do you end up here? Right?
Cheryl Stanley: Well, skin contact, aging.
Chris Wofford: That's the thing, right?
Cheryl Stanley: Yeah.
Chris Wofford: The skin contact.
Cheryl Stanley: And this is a 2021. Oh sorry, 2019. So it has a little bit of bottle age to it.
Chris Wofford: Right. Speaking of aging, we talked about this a little bit. You were talking about, you know, whether to cellar or how to store it. But what about the relative age? I mean, we've got some that are, the oldest one iss this one, right?
Cheryl Stanley: Yeah.
Chris Wofford: So you only have a few years, right? With these?
Cheryl Stanley: I would say one to 1 to 3 years.
Chris Wofford: Okay.
Cheryl Stanley: Yeah. As you think about how a wine evolves, you know, you have the fresh fruit and then the secondary, those earthy characters and then tertiary. So, it's on your, oftentimes, well, not oftentimes. There are some natural wines that start much more earthy and so you don't have the fruit character in it. It gets covered up because of the method of production.
Cheryl Stanley: Or if, say, for example, Brettanomyces.
Chris Wofford: You were a certificate author for several online courses related to a lot of what we're talking about here, Wines of Italy, Wines of France, and Wines of the Worlds. Tell us a little bit about what's involved in the creation of those courses, what your desired outcomes and objectives are for the learners and people who are with us today.
Cheryl Stanley: Really to go on a wine journey that lasts a lifetime. You know, something about wine is that every year is different, every vintage is different. So, and there's so much to learn about, and it can really bring people together, whether it's learning the material to do business deals, learning the material, because it's just something that you are truly passionate about.
Cheryl Stanley: I think it's so much fun and you get, you know, we talk culture, we talk food and wine pairing and then of course, and how the classes are structured too, with the second course being hosting an event of some sort where again, it's bringing people together to enjoy. And I think that's so important and life.
Chris Wofford: Perfect. I've always admired your instruction style.
Cheryl Stanley: Thank you.
Chris Wofford: It's great. I just love spending time with you as is also the case. Okay, let's get back to France. We're going to deal with the Beaujolais now. This is a, what it's considered a true Beaujolais. It's called Fleurie. What do we know about Fleurie?
Cheryl Stanley: Fleurie is one of the ten crew Beaujolais.
Chris Wofford: Okay.
Cheryl Stanley: And Chris, you and I love Beaujolais.
Chris Wofford: Gamay grapes.
Cheryl Stanley: Gamary grapes. And so many people write off Beaujolais because they think of Beaujolais Nouveau. And while, hey, I'm all about celebrating Beaujolais Nouveau and the first harvest of the Northern Hemisphere every year. Once it comes out, it's always at my Thanksgiving table because it tastes like liquid cranberry juice. Cru Beaujolais have aging potential. They are complex wines and not all cru Beaujolais are natural.
Cheryl Stanley: And this is where the producers are so important to understand which wines are more traditional and which wines are under this natural wine movement. The reason why is partly because of method of production. We talk carbonic maceration. Carbonic maceration is how Beaujolais Nouveau is made. That's, the fermentation is so fast. That's how it can get released in November when it's harvested in September.
Cheryl Stanley: But with the natural, it's hands off, it's whole cluster, including the stems, including the seeds, the skins, literally just putting in a tank, putting some carbon dioxide in there, having the bottom grapes, you know, break, release their juice, start to ferment, and then you have intercellular fermentation going on as well. And they can be some producers like a little bit of, and I'm just going to say it, funk to their wines and that's great in various amounts, you know, and then some are much cleaner, some producers are much cleaner.
Cheryl Stanley: Again, all based off of the stylistic preference.
Chris Wofford: Let's check out this Fleurie.
Cheryl Stanley: Sure. Color-wise, this wine, no sulfur in this wine.
Chris Wofford: No?
Cheryl Stanley: Or, I should, excuse me. Minimal sulfur, but half of it's done in carbonic maceration to keep it really fruity. And this goes to that glou-glou style. We see this even being done in Spain, where some producers are making Tempranillo or Granata with carbonic maceration to keep the alcohol levels low, to make it really juicy and fruity and an easy drinking, and then they'll have the oak-aged as well as an extension in their portfolio.
Chris Wofford: So this one runs at three tables in New York at $24.99. I think you can spend a lot of money on a cru Beaujolais, yeah? No?
Cheryl Stanley: I mean, it depends.
Chris Wofford: We can hit $60.
Cheryl Stanley: Yes, but I think $25 is a very fair price.
Chris Wofford: Yeah. Okay.
Cheryl Stanley: We're still getting the cranberry, but it's not as juicy cranberry. It's more of a dark cherry. Hey, no influence of oak, but getting some of that whole cluster influence.
Chris Wofford: I'm not feeling the funk in this one.
Cheryl Stanley: No.
Chris Wofford: No.
Cheryl Stanley: But it is clean. But again, this is still considered a natural wine because of the minimal amounts of sulfur that's being used.
Chris Wofford: Delicious. Tannins right on, nice and dry. That's a pretty wine.
Cheryl Stanley: But still with beautiful acidity, where the tannin gives it a little bit of texture and you're still looking for the components of the wine to be there. And I think that's important with all natural wines. You still want acid, you still want tannin or texture of some sort to bring in the whole picture, make it a very balanced wine.
Chris Wofford: So that does it for our tasting. This has been fun.
Cheryl Stanley: It has been.
Chris Wofford: I've learned a good deal. Any any parting words for those who are getting ready to explore the world of natural wine?
Cheryl Stanley: Don't be afraid to ask and do research. This is where I have had conversations with people in the wine world that say natural wines are better than all of the other wines. I tend to disagree. I think natural wines is a stylistic preference of the winemaker. And just like some winemakers use 100% new oak and some winemakers only use 50% new oak, you as a consumer, being able and knowledgeable enough and comfortable and confident enough to ask those types of questions to the retailer, to your sommelier, to find the best wine that's right for you at the at the right occasion.
Chris Wofford: Again, no mainstream appeal here. Probably will never be the case. You have to be an active participant, effectively to, to enjoy these and make the right decisions around them.
Cheryl Stanley: Right. And these all are wonderful, I mean, especially the Pét-nats, good, good ones too, to kind of start to experience the category. Six Eighty Cellars here in the Finger Lakes, they also have a lot of really interesting Pét-nats of different grape varieties that you might not necessarily know. You know the orange wines, just going into them knowing, okay, this wine is going to be different.
Cheryl Stanley: This is not going to be a Pinot Grigio. And just approaching the wine with an open mind and then exploring reds, very different types of reds along with the carbonic maceration or, and if you get wine that has a little bit of Brett, if you like it, great. If you don't, okay, just know that you don't like that style.
Cheryl Stanley: But something to note in terms of service is going from a wine that's very bready, Brett-ty, not bready, but Brett-ty, and then going to a wine that does not have Brett, it could influence your perception of the next wine. So you need to have some sort of cleanse in between. And reusing a glass from a Brett-ty wine to a non-Brett-ty wine, it will contaminate the glass.
Chris Wofford: Good to know. Good advice. Hey, we're doing this again next week. We have a podcast next week where we're doing appellations, designations, and geographical indications, and new wine laws.
Cheryl Stanley: It is going to be so much fun to talk about what's going on in the wine world because things are changing.
Chris Wofford: That's right. Thanks for joining us, everyone. This has been a lovely tasting, Cheryl Stanley. As always, a pleasure to have you.
Cheryl Stanley: Thank you, Chris.
Chris Wofford: See you next time. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe so you don't miss new episodes as they are released wherever you listen to podcasts. To learn more about wines from all over the world, check out the episode notes for more information on Cheryl Stanley stack of online certificate programs on wine. Thank you for listening.