Why can you buy a chicken for €10 and what kind of welfare can exist in such an exchange? Can I find an apple that hasn’t been sprayed with preservatives? Why on earth does wine contain clay, charcoal, acidifiers or colourants? These questions used to rattle around my head as a consumer and frankly, piss me off.
In the US, 73% of all foods in the supermarket are ‘ultra-processed’. That’s broadly defined as a food that you could not make from raw ingredients at home. Apples can be nearly a year old by the time you find them in a supermarket and Grapes are the fourth most contaminated fruit in the US by pesticides and herbicides.
Unfortunately, today simply finding simple seasonal, organic and high welfare raw foods can be extremely difficult.
Wine is no different. It’s a victim of its own success. Consumers demanded more wine, more cheaply and to achieve that producers looked to industrialisation.
The only thing you need to make great wine is grapes. Bunches of grapes are naturally covered in the yeast that on contact with the sugar from grape juice will ferment into alcohol and make the most delicious wine.
However, nature is not always kind. To grow the best quality grapes you must take care of the land and the vines (painstakingly by hand) then avoid hail, too much (or too little) rain, fight off diseases and not be eaten by insects etc.
When we bought our vineyard, I was told that we could expect to lose the equivalent of 100% of our harvest to some kind of natural environmental event every five years. Maybe not all at once, but 10% here and 20% there.
For industrialists, this is too much to bear. They need consistency to maximise yields and ensure their crops hit strict margins. So they do almost anything to achieve it. Increasingly dangerous pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilisers in the vineyard are just the start.
In the winery, they can not risk a tank going sour due to unwanted bacteria taking hold of the fermentation. Firstly, they can pasteurise the juice, leaving nothing but sugar water adding manufactured yeasts and fermentation stabilisers to start fermentation. Then they can use clay and charcoal to clarify and affect the colour of the wine. For most winemakers, if this year’s harvest wasn’t so good and the acidity isn’t where it should be, that’s no problem. Even organic winemakers can add a massive list of additives to sort it out.
It’s so insidious, that it’s the norm. Just like all the other ultra-processed foods. We barely give it a thought.
Consistency, price and accessibility at the expense of quality and craft.
I’d rather accept the risks, and work to improve our environment. Putting in the effort to hone my craft and produce something genuine and unique.
That is why we produce natural wine.
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