13/12/2022
Meet 2021 THE TWINS: INOC and Native
Cabernet Sauvignon form El Porvenir, VdG.
The only difference between theses 2 wines, is that one fermented on its own and the other from a commercial yeast strain. That is the only difference! We use minimal intervention and although there is no regulation on natural wine, the common idea is that the wine undergoes native fermentation.
So why did we do this 2 ways???
1. Because we could.
And 2. Because we want to show why the most important thing is to know your producer.
As I mentioned there is no regulation on natural wine. As much as I love it, it can be a little trickier to do. Because there are over 50,000 yeast particles on any given grape, not to mention what’s in the environment, the chanse of the right bacteria jumpstarting fermentation can be risky. And natural wine is not new! If you have had French wine there’s a good chance it has been natural. Places like France that have been producing for decades, if not centuries are pretty much guaranteed the dominant bacteria in the facilities. Therefore the trending market of natural wine allowing the idea that wine can taste a little off because it’s natural has no weight. And the impression that if a wine is not natural is must be full of chemicals and other crap, is well, simply crap. Natural wine should be showing the grape or grapes very best expression. Our natural wine is beautiful and the flavors are integrated like home cooked stew the 2nd day.
Now let’s go into minima intervention- which means that a producer does what they determine to be the minimal amount of manipulation in their wine to produce a great wine. Hmmm…. So if they determine that color enzymes, and flavor enzymes and back-sugaring, oh my! Is what will give the best outcome along with heavy sulfiting, and not to mention hundreds of other chemicals, they can still promote wine as minimal intervention? Yes, they can.
On the inoculated version of THE TWINS, we only pitch a yeast strain. A commercial yeast designed to give control over what starts the fermentation. This yeast is manufactured from saccharomyces cerevisiae, a yeast of a grape. Developed from different skins and created for different uses, including breads. The control is evident in the dominant flavors. While the flavors are much more distinct, they are the same. The fact that the flavors match so consistently, tells us we chose correctly on our yeast strain and truly allows you to understand a small instance in the difference between the most basic options of a natural wine versus conventional. We can proudly say we are minimal intervention. I cannot stress this enough, know you’re producers. Labels and certifications can be misleading, hard to get or non applicable under certain conditions. We pay so much attention to where are grapes are coming from and when they are harvested based on variety, allowing the opportunity to truly have delicious wine that represents honestly the grape and terroir of this amazing wine region.
So back to why we did this. We knew we were in a facility that was set up to give us a really great shot a a great natural wine. And we wanted these wines to be seen equally.
Being able to see the difference side by side is rare. And the twins are getting equal live which was our goal. If you would like to understand more about the unregulated world of wine, please get in touch.
