Natural Wine Roundup; Pure Juice Part 2! (Eben and David Pour Wines with No Added Sulfites at Racines, Tues. 5/16)

5/13/17 -

As part of a new monthly feature on natural wines, we offer new arrivals and a few old friends. Though it won't always be the case, today we're focusing on natural wines that are produced entirely without added sulfites. "Natural" may be an unfortunate word, due to the extensive misuse of the term for everything from toilet paper to potato chips, but it still seems to fit the wines produced and the methods used. ("Call them Wines of Nature" says Didier Barouillet of Clos Roche Blanche.) Sulfur is a naturally occuring substance, in many different forms, and is found in wine, often up to 15 milligrams per liter without adding anything - so perhaps it's use should not be considered "un-natural." But "Natural Wine" seems to have become an accepted term for for wines made from grapes that are farmed with organic or biodynamic methods and that are made with little intervention in the cellar - thus without the huge list of additives often found in conventional wines, and with zero or minimal added sulfites. How much free or total SO2 is normal for a wine to be called "natural?"  It depends on who you ask of course, but levels up to approximately 40 milligrams (total) per liter seem commonly acceptable. A little sulfur is frequently necessary, especially in difficult vintages, and a level that small is hard to detect and won't cause headaches for most consumers. At CSW we love wines without added SO2 and we applaud those growers willing to do the extra work to present a delicious natural product to their customers. (And happily the days of defective and "mousy" no-sulfur wines are largely behind us.) The wines in todays email are 100% delicious, we urge you to try them....

Join Eben Lillie (and his father) this Tuesday at Racines NY, 94 Chambers Street, at 6pm as they pour ten different delicious natural wines - glass prices start at $7!