The tabloids and media have, for as long as we can remember, reported on the anti social behaviour and violence on our streets caused by the availability of cheap alcohol.

There are people in our society who sit around all day consuming cheap booze then make a nuisance of themselves to innocent members of the public with violent aggressive behaviour often resulting in police intervention. And consecutive governments have failed to do anything about it.

Well this time we’re not talking about a Wetherspoons day centre for the long term unemployed, it has finally kicked off in the House of Commons with Labour MP Eric Joyce planting a “glasgow kiss” on a Tory MP!

 Apparently Mr Joyce had spent the day drinking in the Stranger’s Bar in the House of Commons, open to MPs and guests only, selling cheap TAX FREE alcoholic drinks.

We all used to enjoy an “all dayer” once in a while when we were younger, but at 51 you would have thought ex soldier Mr Joyce would not only know better, but also have passed that stage of life by now. During the fracas he is alleged to have hit a Labour whip as well, and was finally subdued when other MPs sat on him!

Mr Joyce is likely to face severe consequences including losing his job as an MP. He’ll be kicking himself – if only he had left it till the kebab house or Indian like the rest of us, then it would have gone unnoticed by the authorities!

The Natural Wine Fair 2011 was a big hit with fans of natural wines so naturally everybody has been eagerly awaiting announcements for the dates of the 2012 show. Well then great news – there are 2 natural wine fairs running this year!

The not so good news though is that they’re both on at the same time, a few miles apart in London, and both charge the public £20 a head. While some lucky ones amongst us will get to go to both, the likelihood is many people will have to choose just one.  They’re both open to the general public on the Sunday (20th May). For those of us in the trade, RAW has a trade only day on the Monday and The Real Wine Fair has trade only days on the Monday and Tuesday. Each show is reportedly bigger than last year’s fair so getting round both of them in one day (and getting across London in the middle) will not be easy. So which should you go to?

Why have the organisers of last year’s fair gone their separate ways?

The 2011 natural wine fair was organised by Isabelle Legeron, Master of Wine, and self proclaimed champion of natural wines and their producers, together with a small consortium of UK importers. I’ve already written a piece on my opinion of the fair, that the wines on show were neither the best available nor competitively priced. In fact as all 5 importers stood to benefit from showing only the wines they imported, there was no representation from any independent producer, importer or retailer.

(The organisers of the Real Wine Fair have been in touch since I originally wrote this post, to update me and correct a few misapprehensions, so I’ve now made some ammendments).

I suspect that is why Isabelle has organised her own independent fair this year called RAW, to give her more flexibility and ensure a range of better quality more affordable wines are on show. Ive been told that the two parties couldn’t agree on the best way forward to move on from last year’s Natural Wine Fair so they amicably decided to hold separate fairs this year. While I’m naturally cynical about financial motivation, the organisers of the Real Wine Fair have explained that last year’s fair was not financially motivated and that it actually cost the consortium of importers tens of thousands of pounds each to put on the show.

Coordinating the Real Wine Fare is one of the major members of last year’s consortium, Les Caves de Pyrene, together with another 6 importers/retailers including Vine Trail, Indigo Wines and Roberson. This suggests to me that one or two of last year’s consortium have also dropped out and gone their separate ways this year, perhaps because the majority of wines on show last year came from one or two major members of the consortium and the cost of tens of thousands of pounds was a bit high for promoting natural wines with no financial gain for themselves? These are tough times in the UK and it is a lucky company who can afford to invest this kind of money to support a principle.

RAW is being held at The Old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane, London E1 6QL. The Real Wine Fair is at B1, 6 Victoria House, Southampton Row, London WC1B 4DA. Both are open to the public on Sunday 20th May, both open to trade on the Monday, and the Real Wine Fair open to trade again on the Tuesday.

It’s great to see the movement gathering momentum with two shows this year. That can only be good for natural wines as a whole, and it is clear that the public are becoming more aware and more accepting of them. I just hope that they lift the quality this year. Yes, there were some very good wines there last year, but they were very few and far between. There was also an awful lot of “cider” and “soup”.

I’m a massive fan of natural wines but only the ones that taste like wine! I sat in a natural wine shop in Macon called PUR with the owner Cyril while he ploughed me with several of his wines which were frankly awful, as he waxed lyrical about the time and work that went into them - and that the oxidation of the whites was deliberate! What could I say? They tasted like vegetable soup, but at 15 to 20 Euros a bottle trade, they were a lot more expensive than a tin of Campbells.

Yet you buy a bottle of “cosmic nectar” (according to Oz Clarke) from Domaine Viret in the Rhone, they are completely natural, and beautiful wines in their own right. In fact Philippe Viret has several wines rated in the Rhone Top 100, and his white La Coudee D’Or was voted Best White Wine in the Rhone by food and wine critic Michel Breton. Why can’t we have these wines at one of these two shows? – now we do, Philippe Viret is showing these wines at RAW!

I would like to see a completely open fair where every producer, importer and retailer of natural wines was invited to take part, not fairs organised by importers with only their own wines on show. But in this modern commercial world the chances of that are very slim indeed!

I will be attending both shows as I hope to find an improvement this year as more quality producers will hopefully be attracted as the natural wine movement gathers momentum in the UK. For a wine to be “natural” it doesn’t have to be flabby or semi oxidised, but I fear that was the image generated by last year’s show, as many of the wines were poorly made. This isn’t a phenomena of natural wine, it is a lack of skill and expertise by the winemaker. Let’s show off the good stuff this year and give the general public a genuine reason to switch to drinking great tasting healthy wine.

Battersea based wine bar and wine shop Artisan and Vine closed it’s doors last week for the last time. Owner Kathryn O’Mara stated a combination of several reasons for the closure but the major one was the rising costs of the on-trade side of the business.

The rent and rates in a bar/restaurant are always a major expense but the constant increase in wholesale food prices is having a major impact on reastaurants all across the UK. Basic ingredients like butter or cooking oil have almost doubled in the past two years, and the price of meat and fish has steadily increased too as the demand in emerging countries like Russia and China has squeezed availability.

This must have been even harder on Artisan and Vine as they only sold natural or local produce which of course costs even more. Energy prices have also risen dramatically and these are a major expense for a bar or restaurant. But the biggest blow to the trade in general was the increase in VAT to 20% which increased prices at the table just when the consumers’ disposable income was reducing due to the effects of the recession. Even though raw ingredients also increased in price, many restauteurs daren’t put their own increases on top of these so were forced to take a drop in margin instead. Most European governments faced with a similar situation bowed to pressure and reduced VAT for on-trade premises to between 5%-7% which not only saved them from closure, but actually increased revenue. There is now some pressure on the UK government to do likewise, but even if it does happen it will be too late for many like Artisan and Vine.

There were other reasons too of course. Kathryn cites their location,  but a residential district can be good for a restaurant. And even for a specialist shop. She said to survive they would have had to move away from their core market(s) of English and natural wines into more mainstream wines where they would have struggled to compete with the bigger operators.

While natural wines is a growing sector, it is still a tiny sector and growing slowly with the general public as there is an awful lot of confusion about what is natural and what isn’t. Even Artisan and Vine themselves weren’t clear on this as they listed biodynamic certified wines as “natural” although they still had plenty of added sulphites – to me these wines aren’t natural (or even close to it!). I’m a big fan of (good) natural wines but I think it will be an uphill struggle for them to get a foothold in the market until a clear definition of “natural” is agreed upon and adhered to. To me “natural” means without chemical intervention, but already we’re seeing the term bastardised by certain growers, importers and retailers who use it to sell cheap organic or biodynamic certified wines with plenty of added chemicals. The term needs clarification if the consumer is to be able to rely on it to source the healthy natural wines they’re looking for.

They also specialised in English wines. While some of them, the sparkling in particular, are decent quality, the price is simply prohibitive. Basically land in the UK is expensive so wines can never be produced here to compete on price with the rest of Europe. While people may want to “buy British”, ultimately they are constrained by budget. As a very niche sector on a small scale this may work, but as a commercial enterprise it was always going to be challenging.

I think combining these different sectors, and the on and off trade,  into one business gave them the best chance possible to succeed. It is very sad that the pressures of the struggling economy and high costs of running a business in the UK forced them to close.

By all accounts Kathryn is well respected and well liked, and those in the trade that know her well say she’ll be back. The natural wine movement is slowly but steadily growing in the UK so let’s hope she finds another niche to get involved with soon. We wish her well for the future.

Little disclaimer and explanation – I’m talking about GOOD WINE made without chemicals. C4L is encompassing all alcoholic drinks under one umbrella which is their big mistake!

While watching TV last night I was shocked to see an advert from Change 4 Life telling people that drinking 2 glasses of wine a day will give them cancer! How irresponsible is this? Not only is this absolute rubbish, but it beggars belief that somebody has decided to pay for it to go on national television! Change 4 Life is promoted by the NHS but there is no doubt that this completely false message was invented by central government – exactly the same as the completely ficticious alcohol unit limit farce. (The government employed a think tank of medical experts to come up with a “safe recommended limit” then decided they didn’t like the number they came up with and basically chopped it in half!)

I’ve been on the Change 4 Life website this morning and seen a list of all the negative effects this “excessive” drinking can cause, and frankly that is a load of rubbish as well. In fact drinking good wine  – IN MODERATION – has a positive effect on people’s health in virtually all the areas they ‘re telling us it is negative!  Below is the text taken from their website, with the truth in bold!

(PLEASE NOTE – I’m talking about good natural sulphite free wine (in moderation), made without the addition of harmful chemicals. This does not apply to mass produced wines or other mass produced alcoholic drinks, which contain substantial quantities of artificial preservatives and other chemicals, and which can be harmful).

Regularly drinking over the lower-risk guidelines increases the chances of suffering from any of the conditions below:

• Cancer of the mouth, throat, oesophagus or larynx
• Actually good natural sulphite free wine reduces the risks of cancer because the natural antioxidants block the free radicals which cause damage to the cell’s nucleus. Cheap mass produced wine has the opposite effect.
• Breast cancer in women
• As Above
• Stroke
• Likelihood of a stroke is in fact REDUCED by up to 50% .
• Heart disease or an irregular heartbeat, which can lead to heart attack
• Again REDUCED by up to 50% . This is because heart disease, stroke, aneursyms, DVT and kidney failure are all part of the vascular tree, and drinking good wine reduces the likelihood of vacular disease by a whopping 50%!
• High blood pressure
• No – drinking good wine actually reduces blood pressure!
• Liver damage such as cirrhosis and liver cancer
• No, not if you drink sparingly and slowly. (Drinking any acohol to excess is not good for you though!) - because good wine doesn’t contain masses of harmful additional chemicals (as in factory produced wines, beers, alcopops etc) the liver is free to process the alcohol which, in reasonable amounts, it can handle easily. In mass produced drinks where nasty chemicals are present it processes them first leaving the alcohol to cause damage. However too much alcohol in one go is still not good for you, remember – drink in moderation.
• Pancreatitis
• Most pancreatitis is caused by gallstones, but drinkling good wine actually reduces the likelihood of getting gallstones by 30%
• Depression, memory loss, brain damage or dementia
• No – exactly the opposite in fact. The natural antioxidants stimulate nerve enzymes called MAP kinase, which regenerate nerve connections reducing neurodegeneration, the cause of Parkinsons and dementure. The nutrients and vitamins in good wine are a positive tonic and combat depression.
• Reduced fertility
• I couldn’t comment on this one!

The major point that the government are missing here is the difference between good wine made naturally without additional harmful chemicals, and mass produced alcoholic drinks infused with artificial additives. We’ve said for years that the excessive use of sulphites in both food and drink, including virtually all mass produced wines, is causing cancer. It is great that the government has finally admitted this, although they’re not brave enough to differentiate between quality well made natural products and the mass produced crap that dominates our high streets. Rather than risk the wrath of powerful global companies they’d rather mask it all in one obscure misleading generalisation! You’ll notice the supermarkets have all converted their own brand foods to “no artificial additives or preservatives” precisely because they know the damage these additives are doing. However at the present time it simply isn’t possible to do it with their cheap factory made wines because they are mainly nasty chemicals with a little grape juice!

If the government did publicly admit this we would have a national panic on our hands as people everywhere would stop consuming all these mass produced foods and drinks. The supply chain would collapse, and so would many global companies. So it is a delicate issue, but I still believe people’s health should be put before corporate profit. Interestingly parliament has an incredible wine cellar – no supermarket plonk full of chemicals in there – and the House of Commons bar sources real ales from micro breweries produced without excessive chemicals – what a coincidence!

Some of us are fortunate enough to have discovered the harm these chemical infused food and drinks are doing to us, and we’ve been able to change our eating and drinking habits.

For a full medical health benefit report on why good wine is actively good for us by renowned doctor and winemaker DR Phil Norrie MBBS, MA, MSc, MSocSc(Hons), PhD, MD(cand), click here. It is fascinating reading, although slightly heavy going on page 1 – all the benefits are summarised on two pages at the end. To benefit most we should drink a moderate amount of good wine EVERY DAY as the human body is not able to store these natural anti oxidants for future use.

Dr Phil actually says that “people who regularly drink good red wine in moderation have the lowest death rates of all causes” – great news indeed!

You can find good chemical free natural wine here!

Mills Reef Winery is one of New Zealand’s best premium wineries, particularly noted for producing some of New Zealand’s best Syrah, Cabernet and Bordeaux blends. Their vineyards are in the Hawke’s Bay region, although the actual winery is further north at Bethlehem just outside Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty.

The stunning winery was purpose built on a 20 acre site and is a visitor’s delight. There’s an award winning restaurant catering for 150 covers with a sun drenched terrace, somewhere to escape the hustle of the busy port a few km down the road. If you’re touring New Zealand it’s a great place to stop for lunch as the only other winery in the region is Morton Estate, and although they also make great wines they don’t have a restaurant on site. Tauranga itself continues to develop and what was once a beautiful getaway to the beach is now a major industrial port over shadowing the pretty low level town centre. It’s got so big with miles of cement factories that driving into Tauranga is no longer a pleasant experience – just pop to Mills Reef instead and sit in the sun with some great food and wine!

Mills Reef was developed by the Preston family with a dedication to producing the best hand crafted wines. They now have a very impressive array of awards and continue to produce exceptional wines.

Mills Reef wines have never been available in the UK before, but most of their top two tiers of wines, Elspeth and Reserve, are available to buy retail through www.goodwineonline.co.uk. Unfortunately many of their top wines are so sought after they are sold out on release, so getting hold of “New Zealand’s Best Syrah” is not easy!

Check out the Mills Reef website for more info: www.millsreef.co.nz/

While we’re waiting on dates for the natural wine fair 2012, let’s take a critical  but objective look back at the first one last year.

The natural wine fair was heralded as a big success in Borough Market, London on it’s first outing in May 2011, showcasing natural wines to press, trade and public. But was it really a success for natural wines and their producers? Or was it just a commercial success for the small group of organisers who happen to be importers of the wines on display?

Click here for a great selection of affordable natural wines.

Was it any good for the reputation of natural wines in general? I have my doubts. I tasted quite a selection of the wines that the importers told me were the best, and I found less than half a dozen that I would consider drinkable! Let alone a pleasure to drink. And the prices of these wines were way out there making them unaffordable for most people. And the consistency and reliability of the wines was a major doubt – very often 2 bottles from the same batch would taste completely different to each other, and I didn’t find a single winemaker who would guarantee his wines wouldn’t be susceptible to early spoilage.

So did the public and press have the same experience as me? And did they come to the same conclusions? Namely that a lot of  the natural wines on show were not necessarily nice! Many of the whites in particular were part oxidised, and the producers tell you that is deliberate - that is like making a chocolate biscuit that tastes like sprouts! It isn’t deliberate, they just don’t have the winemaking skills to prevent it happening. Many natural wines are very expensive – again because they are hand made, but also because certain importers are taking a hefty slice for themselves as they are fashionable and in demand. So why would the public choose these wines over standard wines, which are much cheaper, more reliable and generally taste better? This fair didn’t give us any reason to switch to natural wines. In fact it did the opposite.

I’m a big fan of natural wines, and their health benefits so I believe this fair did more damage than good, which is a real shame.  The Natural Wine Fair didn’t do anything to improve the reputation of natural wines to me. In fact it did the opposite and made me realise there’s an awful lot of poorly made expensive wine out there selling purely on it’s credentials of being “natural”.

But the irony of all this is that there are several wineries making delicious natural wines which can hold their head up and compete on price AND quality with mainstream wines, but they weren’t at this show! These wines would have shown all the visitors just how good natural wines can be, and that they don’t have to be part oxidised, expensive or short lived.

Domain Viret in the Rhone for example, who’s wines Oz Clark described as “cosmic nectar” on  his BBC programme French tour with James May. And Frey Winery from California, the USA’s oldest organic winery who have been winning awards for their natural wines for over 30 years. These wines weren’t at the show but are available to buy retail in the UK. Not only are they completely natural but they are more mainstream in style – without their whites being oxidised. The reds are full flavoured and delicious, and best of all they will keep in good condition for years. Last year I drank some sulphite free Viret reds from 1999 which were in perfect condition and outstanding wines in their own right!  

So should it be called “The” Natural Wine Fair? – No, I don’t think so. “A” natural wine fair would be more like it, as it only showcases wines on sale in the UK from the group of the 5 importers that organised it - Yapp Bros, Les Caves de Pyrene, Dynamic Vines, Aubert & Mascoli and Wine Story. Ok, they went to the effort of organising the fair so they want to see some benefit for their businesses, but to imply that they represent all (or possibly just the best) natural wines in the UK isn’t doing natural wines any favours, and isn’t fare to the consumer or to dedicated winemakers who strive to make good quality natural wines. There were a handful of good wines there such as those from Arianna Occhipinti in Sicily, but there weren’t many considering the several hundred wines on show. This fair implied that what was on offer is the best available – well that’s a long way off the mark!

I’m surprised Isabelle Legeron MW who co-organised the event didn’t insist on a wider choice of natural wines to show the diversity and quality that is available from other countries outside northern Europe. It is her self stated mission to promote natural wines wherever possible - or is this just natural wines available to buy through certain importer friends? I’m not naive enough to think that reviewers and critics give all wines an equal chance – there is always an angle from these people – but this is one person who I would have expected to put the bigger picture before commercial gain for her co-organisers. Perhaps I have read the situation wrong? We will learn more when the next natural wine fair is announced when we’ll see if they invite wines that they don’t make a profit on!

This group don’t have the monopoly on natural wines, so please don’t be fooled into thinking everything has to be this expensive or that these funky and often mediocre tasting wines are the norm when it comes to natural wines. If you want good quality, reliable delicious wines made without the addition of any chemicals, they are available in the UK at perfectly reasonable prices from independent specialists like www.goodwineonline.co.uk

To me this was like Volkswagen Audi  organising a motor show event and branding it “The Motor Show” then only having their own vehicles present – no BMW, no Mercedes. That means very limited choice for the consumer, and no competition on price either!