Coup du Terroir

Sitting between a jungle and the Caribbean Sea, eating dishes prepared by some of the finest chefs in the world, Katie Culbert stopped short. She had to know—“What is this wine?”

At the time, she probably wouldn’t have quite described the taste of Bichi (which translates to “naked”) as “rebellion.” But she wasn’t far: “It was like nothing I’d ever tasted before. It tasted alive.”

It warms the belly, you see—breaking the rules. Sticking it to the man. It tickles the toes, electrifies the blood. Feels just a little wrong, but much more right. And certainly all the more so in communion. Joined by like-minded, open-minded folk clustered tight, toasting to—toasting with—revolution.

So it was with the early pioneers of the cultural phenomenon that is “natural wine,” gathered in small scattered groups upon unpoisoned, wild, and often tiny vineyards across the globe––and later, crowded in the few, secret places that served the pure—, albeit sometimes strange—, concoctions they created.

As Uncorked Fine Wine & Spirits’ Jonathan Gray puts it, “Natural wines are like the punk rock subculture of the wine world.”

Joining hands with the farm-to-table movements of the increasingly health- and environment-conscious twenty-first century, the natural wine trend has emerged over the last two decades as a somewhat exclusive, oft-misunderstood indie niche. Pushing against the century-old, multi-billion-dollar modern wine industry’s intrusive farming practices, use of chemical additives, flavor manipulation, preservation tactics, and overall corporate nature, natural wine-makers and -drinkers seek to cultivate—in practice and in spirit—that oh-so-sought-after virtue: authenticity.

"Natural wines are like the punk rock subculture of the wine world." —Jonathan Gray 

Though natural wine is not altogether new (in fact, it’s thousands of years old—one might even consider it the “original” wine), apart from a handful of low-intervention winemakers in mid-to-late twentieth century rural France, the widespread resurgence of the stuff is often traced back to wine critic Alice Feiring’s exposé-esque coverage of the wine world throughout the early 2000s, a body of work which critiqued the chemistry lab acrobatics producers employed to, as she described it, “homogenize” the product, increasing consistency and maximizing production.

Natural wine refers to wine that has nothing removed from it, nothing added. In its purest form it is, essentially, fermented grape juice. Though the definition has less than clear parameters, its purveyors and consumers generally agree on the term as a concept referring to wine production adhering to most, if not all, of the following criteria: vines are grown using biodynamic, organic, or dry farming methods––meaning that no irrigation is used to water them; grapes are not sprayed with pesticides or herbicides and are then harvested by hand; the fermentation process is all-natural, using no commercial yeasts; nothing is added for flavor, color, or preservation—excepting, on some occasions, a small quantity of sulfites. The wine is often unfiltered, holding onto the yeast particles and microbes used in fermentation. 

“People are getting more concerned with where their food comes from,” said Gray, who manages most of Uncorked’s natural wine portfolios. “There’s all this movement towards organic produce, humanely raised meat, locally grown food. It’s only natural that people start asking questions about the things they drink.”

But then there’s also the taste.

Following that sip of Bichi at the Noma Mexico dinner in Tulum, Katie and her husband Denny started chasing that sensation all over the world. “From there, I was looking, going to all these little wine spots, searching for that flavor, trying to understand what I was tasting. Was it the grape? Was it the winemaker? Eventually, we came to understand that it was how it was made. Not that all natural wines taste the same—they don’t. But there is this underlying thing, this essence to it. It opened everything up.”

Gray described this essence as energy. “These wines, they’re often more immediate,” he said. “They’re lively on your palate, often taste fresher, and are made in a way that makes them easier to drink­—easier to digest even—, with a refreshing acidity, lower alcohol levels. A lot of people describe them as ‘alive,’ and they do taste that way, but they are also literally, biologically alive thanks to the lack of filtration and sulfur—which kills off good bacteria and microbes in conventional wine.”

Gray has been in the South Louisiana wine business since 2014, and said that he’s watched natural wines gain traction little by little each year. “It’s certainly been focused in New Orleans, which is likely just due to the restaurant scene there, all the transplants from bigger cities, and then tourism,” he said. “But it’s started to spread out, with smaller retailers offering selections across the state.”

After years of only being able to enjoy natural wines when they traveled, or when they got the chance to take a trip to New Orleans and stock up, the Culberts decided they would bring natural wine to their hometown of Lafayette themselves.

Katie, who co-founded Lafayette and Baton Rouge’s Kiki boutiques, had already been searching for a new project, with her eye on Downtown Lafayette. “We were just getting so excited about these wines, kind of obsessed, and we couldn’t get them here,” said Katie.  “It all kind of clicked. We are by no means wine professionals, have never really been in the wine world. But I know the retail world, and Denny [a nationally published freelance photographer] is in the food world, and in food marketing. It was something we wanted here, and it seemed like we could do it.”

In January, Wild Child Wines opened in the front half of Denny’s photography studio, which has been transformed into an intimate square of a space, walled on two sides with bottles, on one side with a window view of Downtown Lafayette, and on the fourth with a by-the-glass tasting bar.

“We knew from the beginning that having the bar was super important,” said Denny. “People will come in who are interested like us, but others who haven’t tried it will come in curious, or even skeptical. The bar is our way of introducing people to these wines little by little.”

“In Louisiana, we have such a relationship to our regional delicacies, our distinctive dishes. Strawberries from Ponchatoula, crawfish from Breaux Bridge, boudin from Scott. This same sort of language—all tied into the preservation or revitalization of culture and economy—is the spirit of terroir when it comes to wine, especially natural wine.” —Jonathan Gray

Part of the overall mystique of “being introduced” to natural wines is discovering the stories behind each bottle. Much like the charm of the farmers market and the makers revolution, with natural wines, a much smaller distance divides those who make the wine and those who drink it. Produced on small operations—sometimes just a handful of acres of land worked by a dozen or so hands—each vintage tells a story of specific people and of a specific place.

“These farmers are mostly picking for lower yields, better grapes,” said Denny. “The batches of wine end up being so small because there is so much concentration. It goes back to what we’ve always supported in our community—eating local, at places where they aren’t necessarily buying their food straight off of the Sysco truck. It comes from a better place.”

Gray believes that if anyone can understand the value of a product capturing the spirit of a region, it should be the people of Louisiana. “In Louisiana, we have such a relationship to our regional delicacies, our distinctive dishes,” he said. “Strawberries from Ponchatoula, crawfish from Breaux Bridge, boudin from Scott. This same sort of language—all tied into the preservation or revitalization of culture and economy—is the spirit of terroir when it comes to wine, especially natural wine.”

Because natural wines are produced with the least amount of human intervention possible, they are the most authentic expression of a specific region’s terroir—its environment. “It tastes like it’s from a place,” described Denny.

And while conventional wine producers have long treated the changing nature of terroirs as a detriment to their product—adjusting each batch with chemicals and additives to achieve a certain storied flavor year after year—natural wine producers have leaned into the idiosyncrasies of their little vineyards. “It’s a really, really complex web of influences that make a wine what it is each year,” said Gray. “Given that the code of conduct for natural wine is to do as little as possible and just try to translate it into a finished product called wine, it ends up being a bottled snapshot of what happened on your little slice of earth in a specific place in time. What the weather was like in a particular place, how many days of sunshine there were.”

[Read this: The Elegant Art of Day-Drinking—A Guide to New Orleans Aperitives]

By relaxing the human hold on this ancient practice, producers of natural wine discovered something they believed to be more nuanced, more pure. And slowly the long-held rules of the industry begin to lose their sway. Your wine no longer had to look a certain way, its flavors can range from a traditional pinot noir to something totally wild and unprecedented. If you want to grow grapes in a vineyard in Anjou, but don’t want to follow the strict protocols required to market your wine as an Anjou, well hell—call it something else. “It’s a tiny—well, no, really massive now—rebellion against the commercialization of wine,” said Denny. Gray agreed, saying “People start to decide they aren’t going to play the bureaucracy game, they decide to step out of the traditional market entirely and to make the wine they believe in.”

Denny and Katie’s collection of around 250 wines is constantly shifting. Because most natural wines are produced in such small yields, the couple can often only get a few crates of each at a time, and it might be months to a year before they can acquire that wine again. “We have some wine that, maybe ten cases made it to the United States, and only one made it to Lafayette,” said Denny. “We didn’t really understand how difficult it would be to keep up with, but it’s fun. This selection, at any given time, is totally unique to anywhere else in the world because it is made up of what the two of us are excited about right now.”

Before having to halt their bar service due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Wild Child Wines was squeezed tight on most evenings—downtown lawyers coming together with the service industry crew and a handful of ULL professors. “It’s like an alt coffee shop, an unpretentious setting for a diverse crowd of people to just come and drink wine,” said Denny. “It’s what it’s all about. We want everyone to have it in the community, to drink it and love it like we do, and to support these small winemakers around the world.”

On recommendation, I took home a bottle of Weingut Beurer rosé, which Denny described as some of the “most delicious red wine in Germany, with a fantastic, bright taste,” and that Katie proclaimed the one—“This is the one. It’s delightful.”

Across my friend’s coffee table later that week, I poured us each a glass, prefacing with the fact that the rosé’s maker is an ex-BMX champion whose vineyard grows wild with over twenty-five grape varieties—many from rare medieval-age vines—which themselves coexist with peach trees, almond trees, quince trees, herbs, birdhouses, and an insect hotel.

I sniffed, swirled, and soaked my unrefined tastebuds in it, searching for elements of the ancient, for a hint of peach, the sweat of the worker who plucked its fruit, or even the oft-quoted “barnyard” taste often attributed to natural wines. Did I feel something? Sure.  A tingle, a twist.

But, really, in the end, it was just a truly wonderful rosé—a fresh, bright, intoxicating balm on a summer evening shared with the not-to-be-taken-for-granted-these-days gift of companionship. As the Germans say, trinkfreudigkeit—a joy to drink. And grown, crafted even, with care.

So we toasted: to friendship, to great wine, to small business, and to rebellion. 

Katie and Denny's Natural Wine Recommendations 

RED

Dufaitre, Cote de Brouilly (2017)

Hands down our favorite red wine in the shop. We’ve carried Remi Dufaitre’s wines since day one. This bottle is the quintessential gamay from Beaujolais. $34

ROSÉ

Konpira Maru, I Dream of Tangerine (2018)

A wildly delicious Sangiovese rosé from an unexpected region of Australia. Konpira Maru, like many Aussie winemakers, produces serious wines with a playful attitude. $35

ORANGE

Enderle & Moll, Weiss & Grau (2018)

Sven Enderle and Florial Moll are just a two man operation in Germany who have gained a true cult following in the natural wine world. They are the benchmark producer for natural, Burgundy-esque German Pinot Noir, period, end. The white wines, though a small part of their production, are revelations in skin-contact whites, transparent and energetic. $24

SPARKLING

Kobal, Bajta Muscat Pét-Nat (2019)

The Kobal pét-nats from Slovenia are the perfect companion to Louisiana summertime. A pét-nat, or pétillant natural, is a light and fizzy wine made by bottling the juice before it completes it’s first fermentation. The result is a crisp, refreshing, and a little bit rustic sparkling beauty. $23

Wild Child Wines

210 E. Vermilion St. 

Lafayette, Louisiana

wildchildwines.com