Why the World of Natural Wine Is So Intoxicating

This article was originally published in Dutch on MUNCHIES NL. 

While in France, Jan van Roekel fell madly in love with the wild world of natural wine. He gave up his job in finance and now makes his own wine on a French vineyard he purchased. He speaks to us about drinking wine with [Dutch hip hop collective] SMIB, picking grapes in France, and the ways natural winemakers try to escape the snobbish status quo of the traditional wine business.

The past few years went by in a flash. I discovered natural wine in 2012 and only two years later I was busy making my own wine. Now, five years later, I import natural wine full-time. I sell to individuals as well as restaurants and bars like Choux and Bar Central, all while traveling back and forth between France and the Netherlands.

It was easy to give up my boring office job and do this instead. The world of natural wine is fantastic, contrary to the one that produces 'regular' wine. First off, the drink itself is much more pure than 'regular' wine. It's different, because there are no additives, other than perhaps some sulfites. That purity is also reflected on the business side of things, which is much more adventurous. Natural wine isn't a drink served by your rich uncle who has just completed some expensive wine course he can't stop talking about during a stuffy dinner party. [Natural wine] is much more inclusive and a lot less blasé.

Take, for instance, the guys from hip hop collective SMIB. They love natural wine. GRGY made the illustrations for my bottles. For the first bottle, he allowed me to use a drawing he had already done, and for the second he sat at my kitchen table and created something new while we drank a few bottles together. I didn't really know that much about SMIB then—I'm getting a bit old—but his drawings go perfectly with my wines.

In 2012 I spent the entire harvest season working in the Burgundy region in France. One rainy day, we couldn't go out into the fields, so a friend and I drove to a farmer we knew in the Jura. We arrived around lunchtime and they uncorked a bottle of fucking amazing wine. It felt like I had rediscovered wine; I really tasted the people who made the wine in the wine itself.

Tasting the people in the wine they produce might sound odd, but look at it like this: with the traditional way of making wine you also taste the winemakers. Those wines are often just as stiff and fake as the people who make them. When you go out to taste a Bordeaux Primeur, college students will pick you up at the parking lot—which can't be more than a 100 yards from the entrance—and drive you to the chateau in golf carts, where you are welcomed by women in skirt suits and get to shake hands with managers who have never touched a grapevine in their lives. After 30 minutes of tasting, you're asked to leave. To me, there is no fun in that.

Natural wine is different. You are invited to a barn, where you chat with a guy who does everything himself. You'll be invited to stay for dinner and spend the night. The best experience you can have is at Bojalien. The name is a combination of 'bo' because it's in the Beaujolais area and 'alien' because natural winemakers are the odd ones out. At Bojalien, natural winemakers meet up and exchange wines. Everyone who is anyone in the world of natural wine shows up to taste what others are creating.

Everyone also has a green dot on their forehead, which is meant to emphasize connection and the importance of nature. When it comes to wines that are fully natural, nature itself is incredibly important. The drinking continues throughout the day, until 7 PM. All leftover wines are combined to make a new wine. Shortly afterwards, a bigger wine expo takes place and you'll see all of these neatly dressed people looking at all of us with our green dots, thinking: who are these idiots?

Having these experiences inspired me to learn everything I could about natural wine. These days, I spend every harvest season in the vineyard. The days are long and feature lots of wine (as well as beer) and delicious food. It's hard work, but a lot of fun—sometimes too much fun.

In Domaine des Grottes, which is in the Beaujolais area, the vintner will sometimes wheel his piano out into the fields on a buggy to play for the people picking the grapes. So many different kinds of people work here: seasonal workers, villagers, and people who are here for fun, like me. When the harvest is completed, everyone who contributed is invited to party. The celebration, of course, involves a lot of drinking. That's the catch: natural wine is so easy to drink. It's a light, no-frills kind of wine, and usually contains less alcohol. Luckily the headaches caused by natural wine aren't as bad.

I started making wine by accident in Domaine des Grottes. I saw some leftover grapes on this patch of land overgrown by weeds. I decided to go with my gut and make wine out of them. In one week, we made 600 bottles. This year I'm exporting my wine to Japan, Denmark, and Sweden.

Other natural winemakers are often new to this part of the business. A lot of them are cooks or sommeliers. I think because it's much easier to make natural wine if you don't know anything about the traditional way of making wine. People who make natural wine tend to avoid more traditional areas like Burgundy, because the real estate there is very expensive. Areas like Auvergne are popular in the natural wine community. It's not easy to make natural wine, but that's part of the fun. The wine isn't mass produced, and you can only do so much to change it. You can't use sulfites or other additives to fix the wine. The only thing you can influence is the time of harvest, whether you keep or discard the stems, and the temperature. This usually yields much more surprising wines, but the downside is that the quantities are much smaller. Finding a great natural wine is definitely a cause for celebration.

Natural wines are unpolished; they don't color within the lines. That's what I love about them, and what makes the world around them so intoxicating. It's much less stiff, and totally different. Young people who don't know anything about wine only notice that it tastes good. Maybe too good.

As told to Wilbert van der Kamp, while drinking natural wine.