I have often heard it said, ‘For a long time organic wines were generally worse than other wines, some frankly undrinkable. This is the reason why organic wines, in the past, did not have an image of quality with tasters.’ To be truthful, given my age, I was not there to taste them. It is therefore difficult for me to say if that was indeed the case, or rather, if it goes back to a time when organic wines were simply too revolutionary and so their taste, not being the norm, was more shocking than it is today.
There are certainly extreme organic wines that the current norm qualifies as ‘faulty’: oxidation, cloudiness, microbiological contamination, even refermentation in bottle, high volatile acidity (when the wine comes dangerously close to turning into vinegar). Before making any comment, let us note that there are probably just as many faulty wines produced by conventional viticulture.
Yet what really annoyed a number of professionals, journalists in particular, was to imagine how people could rave about a wine obviously displaying such flaws, and forgive it simply because it was organic. As an American friend of mine would say: ‘There is an overwhelming opinion today that too many organic producers purposely make bad wine because they say that is what organic is. Too many winemakers believe they should do nothing in the cellar and the wines suffer.’ At least one French journalist became so angry as to talk about ‘organic-idiots’, condemning fanatics who had lost all sense of judgment and blindly followed the organic bandwagon.
Such language of condemnation was strong and in his rage, the writer presumably did not see the real change at work: a reorientation of wine lovers’ own personal tastes, so redefining the norms that separate quality from fault. In any case, there was a great wave of enthusiasm on the part of wine lovers, professional wine merchants and sommeliers, supporting these organic producers in their pursuit of authenticity. Thus, consumer wine appreciation is becoming more personal and it is up to each individual to determine what they like and dislike in a wine. Then, in the end, every individual has to decide for themselves if they find satisfaction or a sense of well-being when consuming the wine.
I admit that there was also a time when, with great pleasure and tremendous curiosity, I would taste wines that were sometimes truly extreme. Today, I wholeheartedly accept certain faults, aromatic in particular, provided that I feel an authentic soul (personality, vitality, energy) that transmits emotions to me.
Now is it my turn to ask you a question: in your pleasure-seeking search through the world of wine, what really gives you enjoyment? Does your enjoyment honestly lie in the idealistic pursuit of near-perfection, a wine without fault but with the risk of being lifeless? Isn’t such enjoyment a bit too cerebral, encouraged by modern society with its magazines endlessly displaying pictures of models perfected by plastic surgery, and retouched by Adobe Photoshop? Or, on the other hand, does your enjoyment stem from a real encounter with a product free of any covering up? This is what fairy tales (such as ‘The Ass’s Skin’ by Charles Perrault) tell us. By looking beyond surface imperfections, those who make the effort can arrive at a wonderful discovery. Is it possible to discover a prince or princess behind the appearance of an ‘organic idiot’?