Introducing Resilient Wine

Welcome to the new wine paradigm: inclusive, pragmatic, holistic.

\nat·u·ral
/ˈnaCHər(ə)l
adjective
1. based on an inherent sense of right and wrong
2. being in accordance with or determined by nature

re·sil·ient
/rəˈzilēənt/
adjective
1. capable of withstanding shock without permanent deformation or rupture
2. tending to recover or adjust easily to misfortune or change

rev·o·lu·tion
/ˌrevəˈlo͞oSH(ə)n/
noun
1. a forcible overthrow of government or social order, in favor of a new system

rev·e·la·tion
/ˌrevəˈlāSH(ə)n/
noun
1. an act of revealing or communicating divine truth
2. a pleasant, often enlightening surprise


I’ve always been a sucker for word choice. A writer by nature as well as professionally, having launched my career in magazine editorial in my “previous life” before opening my wine shops and restaurant, I’ve always strived to select the precisely proper vocabulary to accurately reflect what I wanted to convey. Which is probably why I have always had a problem with the word “natural” in reference to wine. What is natural, anyway, about humans intentionally planting crops of grapes in tidy rows, then picking and instigating fermentation before a heavily interventional aging process, then bottling and rituals of consumption?

When guests at my shops, Bay Grape, or restaurant, MAMA Oakland, would ask me, “Do you have any natural wine?” I would, somewhat pithily, cock my head to the side and lob a quizzical face back at them.

“What does that mean?” I would ask sincerely, completely confounding them, as they thought I was the expert and surely had… caught up on the trend?

To be fair and clear, I absolutely know what “natural” could, would, should mean. My wine shops are, depending on your perspective, either among the most progressive standard-bearers of the hip natural wine movement, or vehemently not natty enough. Bay Grape has been routinely praised for its Switzerland-like neutrality on the subject of natural wine (whatever that means)… and also critiqued for lacking a “niche,” refusing to make a definitive political statement on the matter. My partner and I simply always believed there was way, way more nuance to the topic—that this unfortunate term, “natural,” was a cop-out: problematic in its ambiguity, its in-accurateness, its incompleteness, its misleadingness, its base marketing ploy. Depending on your perspective and specific requirements, the question, “Is this wine natural?” could be yes, absolutely or no, not really. I didn’t want to get in trouble for giving my guest the wrong choice.

“Natural” wine is a clever and tidy marketing ploy, designed to make easy and palatable a world of nuance. Like so much of the rest of our world today (politics anyone?), all of the texture, all of the innumerable gray areas, all of the subtlety, the ambiguity—all of that which makes wine (and life as humans on planet Earth) compelling and beautiful in the first place—has been stripped out. Calling a wine “natural” or “not” is a wild oversimplification, a manner of dichotomizing so as to polarize us, to draw sides, to set enemies against allies, to divide us rather than bring us together. All of which seems antithetical to wine, which I ardently believe is one of the products most profoundly capable of bringing people together.

Bay Grape was always built and always functioned as a wine shop for everyone: every drinker, no matter their palate and preferences, their appearance, their race or sexual identity or political beliefs or budget. I often said that I was proud to have the opportunity to serve the most diverse wine-drinking demographic on the planet. In that vein, we made it our mission to have a bottle (and can and box!) selection that mirrored that diversity. We selected all our wines based on seeking a wide diversity of styles (i.e. grapes and regions from all over the world and made in every style possible), made by small and independent producers who were working with what I called “an intentional and pragmatic mindset toward preserving the planet for the next generation.” When I had an extra five minutes with guests, I’d explain that it wasn’t just about being certified organic in the vineyard, and it wasn’t just about using native yeast in the winery; those things mattered, but dogma was a tricky fucker. And beyond that, those approaches said nothing for the greater ethos of the companies when it came to labor practices, fair wages, providing insurance, or not perpetuating systemic inequality or habitual harassment.

It took me twelve years to come up with a word to more concisely describe that clunky but convicted notion of “intentional and pragmatic mindset toward preserving the planet for the next generation.” The word I was looking for is NOT “natural.” It’s not organic. It’s not sustainable. It’s not regenerative. It may consider all of those things, but none of those are quite appropriate to sum up the entire, holistic path forward I hoped would progress in the world of wine. The proper word, I finally discovered, is resilient.

It’s a word choice that is considerate of not just the current state of our planet and its inevitable, indefinite challenges and change, but also of all the nuance in wine, inclusive of viticulture practices, winemaking techniques, financial responsibility, human resource management, and social influence. And, I’ll argue, resilient wine is not an exclusive or trendy revolt, designed to draw lines, push division or make anybody pick sides; it’s a revelation: the reveal of a universal truth.

This space seeks to unpack what goes into a resilient wine revelation. It explores what’s aimed for by makers, what Mother Nature and logistics and supply chains dictate, and what actually ends up happening in the vineyard, in the cellar, in the C-suites of massive operations and at the kitchen tables doubling as home offices for tiny startups. Finally, it considers what happens in society at large when resilient wines land on shelves and bar tops, in glasses and your mouth.