{"id":6050,"date":"2012-11-20T23:20:41","date_gmt":"2012-11-20T23:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/?p=6050"},"modified":"2012-11-24T13:08:25","modified_gmt":"2012-11-24T13:08:25","slug":"presenting-natural-wines-to-a-curious-audience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/natural-wine\/presenting-natural-wines-to-a-curious-audience","title":{"rendered":"Presenting natural wines to a curious audience"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Just finished a tasting for the Oxford Wine Club. I presented nine natural wines, all sourced from Les Caves de Pyrene. I knew it would be a challenge, because some of these wines were taking people well out of their comfort zone.<\/p>\n

In some cases, these are the strong, smelly cheeses of the wine world. In other cases, the flavours are more conventional: it is just the names of the grape varieties and regions that are less familiar.<\/p>\n

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My approach was not to tell people that they should like each of the wines; rather, I asked them to keep an open mind, and think about what they taste.<\/p>\n

Do you like this wine? Can you imagine yourself enjoying these flavours, even though they may be unfamiliar?<\/p>\n

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I think people who haven\u2019t been educated about wine find this easier than those who have. But even among those who have a lot of wine education, and know all about wine faults, there are those who fall in love with natural wines and their sometimes challenging flavours.<\/p>\n

It was a good group, and the tasting was fun. I expect some people will go home sure in the knowledge that natural wines are not for them. That\u2019s perfectly fine. I just hope a few will have had their curiosity awakened.<\/p>\n

I love flavour. I love to explore as much of flavour space, and find areas where I want to hang out for a while. Think about the pioneers of seafaring: they put themselves in danger and discomfort while others stayed safely at home just because they HAD to discover what was out there.<\/p>\n

Some of these wines tonight were complex and profound, just as they were challenging and unconventional. And tastes that are acquired are often those that endure, and satisfy the most.<\/p>\n

Now I am in my hotel room drinking hot chocolate. It’s nice, but I wish I had a glass of that Georgian Qvevri Rkatisteli from the Alaverdi Monastery to drink, or maybe a slug of Thierry Puzelat’s fabulous Romorantin, preferably with a hunk of cave aged gruyere.<\/p>\n

For full notes on the wines tasted here: http:\/\/wineanorak.com\/naturalwinetasting3.htm<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just finished a tasting for the Oxford Wine Club. I presented nine natural wines, all sourced from Les Caves de Pyrene. I knew it would be a challenge, because some…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[377],"class_list":["post-6050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-natural-wine","tag-natural-wine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6050"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6071,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6050\/revisions\/6071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}