The VA Storm Is Passing Over
Halleluia!
I bear tidings of great joy. I just returned from the 2026 Unfiltered festival at Donkey and Goat in Berkeley. The sea change I observed from a mere two years ago was worthy of a Disney movie happy ending.
In 2024, I was invited to appear on a panel to discuss (believe it or not) whether the various flaws we commonly observe in Natural Wine were vices or virtues. The make-up of the panel was telling: three nattie wine advocates of hands-off benign neglect plus me in the role of Dr. Evil.
The conversation was eye-opening to say the least. One winemaker said his wife did not share his deep love for volatile acidity, so they had to have his-and-hers wines for dinner. Another panelist extolled wine flaws as a good housekeeping seal of approval that the winemaker was adhering to the zero-zero creed, thus assuring that she was not drinking poison. I couldn’t believe my ears.
This year, the mix was quite different. The panel at Natural vs. Conventional: Where Is The Line and Why Does It Matter? was moderated by Jared Brandt, Co-founder of Donkey and Goat and consisted of three conventional winemakers: To wit, Joe Davis (Arcadian), Nicole Walsh (SER Wine and Randall Graham’s partner in crime at Gallo), and Sydney Rogers (Opus One), as well as one reasonably sane nattie, Brent Mayeaux (Stagiaire).
Joe Davis presented an amazing sulfite-free 2021 Chardonnay which despite four years in neutral barrel was fresh, complex and pristine, a real accomplishment. Yet Joe staunchly defended a pragmatic approach to winemaking, i.e. do what needs doing and don’t let your religion get in the way of your terroir. A sensible man.
Sydney Rogers was there to discuss her project of isolating and culturing novel strains of Saccharomyces from Opus One’s vineyards, then growing them up into liquid cultures for inoculation. Did this violate the nattie creed? Did anybody care? She poured around the 2018 Opus as testimony and I’d say that if this isn’t great wine, it will do fine until the real thing comes along.
To one extent or another, all four took a position that although they always wished to do the minimum, they did not espouse radical non-intervention if the result is flawed wine. Brent Mayeaux himself admitted that he was an odd choice to defend nattie fanaticism, and sure enough, when I tasted his wines, they were pretty decent. All in all, the conversation was a refreshing change of pace from 2024.
Now in 2024, I’d estimate that 75% of the wine I tasted was twice the legal limit of volatile acidity. This time, I tasted at least 40 wines and I swear, I didn’t find a single one of that sort. Now, because I invented the reverse osmosis procedure for removing VA and have therefore been exposed to around 35,000 such wines, I have a pretty keen palate for the stuff, and here and there I could detect traces of acetic in the finish of a handful of wines, but I doubt the average wine lover would have noticed.
I bought a lot of wine. I departed the tasting over the moon with joy. Call me a cockeyed optimist. Inspired by Roberto Frega’s post-natural vision, I hereby declare that the world has moved on out of the dark days of the nattie Taliban and replaced it on the winemaking pedestal with a post-natural goal of terroir expression by whatever means necessary. Celebrate the Brand New Day!
I also wrote about this great session. Part 1 is here...https://organicwineuncorked.substack.com/p/opus-one-at-a-natural-wine-festival. Part 2 coming soon.
Wind is changing everywhere and it’s turning against the ideological or religious idea of natural Wine. You can see it everywhere, for example on Instagram where an increasing number of influencers and Wine makers write posts against natural Wine. this would have been simply unimaginable two years ago The fact that those people take these positions says a lot about the new trend.
To be entirely honest we have also to admit that the so-called conventional wines today are the result of increasingly less intrusive ways of Wine making. We are probably learning from both sides and also learning to avoid avoid both excesses.
I am pretty positive that today’s and tomorrow Wines will be way better than what we’ve been drinking lately. We are simply learning and improving.