I am very excited to be able to offer the wines of Morgan Seuillot and Christian Knott. I've been a fan of Christian's winemaking since his days at Savigny-lès-Beaune’s Chandon des Briailles, but haven’t been able to get my hands on bottles from his newer project with his partner Morgan, Domaine Dandelion. Until now. The property, just a hair under 10 acres, is essentially biodynamic and organic +++. Rather than treating their vineyards with copper and sulfur to combat mildew, the couple uses milk from the local dairy. Morgan, her father, and their trusty draft horses manually plow the rows between the vines. All of this is to say, everything is done by hand with intentionality and respect. Even the label paper, from an old mill in the Auvergne, is layered with flowers in the fibers, hand cut and glued onto each bottle. A massive amount of labor for wines that are as beautiful as they are hard to find. But onto this wine! In the very difficult 2019 vintage, the yields were so low that Christian and Morgan decided to ferment their co-planted Aligoté, Pinot Noir, and Gamay grapes together for the Corail. Instead of bottling it immediately, as would often be the case with rosé, they left it to develop in barrel until the spring of 2021. —Billy Smith
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About Natural Wine
Great question! There are a lot of definitions for natural wine with the main term you'll hear being that it has had minimal intervention. To be more specific, our definition is that the wine must first be sustainably farmed, which typically means it was organically or biodynamically farmed.
Then, in the cellar the natural winemaking process has some differences as well! The wine is typically unfined, unfiltered, and goes through spontaneous fermentation with native yeasts. If you want to know more about what natural wine is, we have an entire guide under our reference section!
The short answer is that natural wine can taste like any other kind of conventional wine (we like to call these stealth natural wines) or it can taste quite a bit different, as production methods can vary and potentially be lighter, or in a style you've never had before (like orange, pet-nat or amphora).
The natural wine community is also more accepting of some qualities in wines that conventional would consider a flaw, like Brett, some oxidation, or volatile acidity. We would consider these in high amounts to also be a flaw, but in many cases a touch of these qualities can ultimately improve their flavor and texture and be happily accepted in a natural wine.
To find out more about what natural wine tastes like, check out our full blog and podcast on the topic here.
The short answer is, no! But many are. Glou-glou describes winesthat are easily chuggable, impossible to put the glass down, and seductively delicious! They tend to be young and fresh, designed to be drunk early with an average ABV of around 10%. Check out different styles or glou glou natural wine here on our site.