Wine with Leslie Williams: Food-friendly natural wines

Happy Birthday to Green Man Wines in Terenure who had their fifth anniversary recently. I’m delighted for their success.

Green Man sells classic Bordeaux, Burgundy and Rioja, etc, but is better known for their ‘natural’ wines. I sat down for a chat with owners Dave and Claire recently and soon we found ourselves discussing the mini explosion of wines in restaurants and shops these days made from organic grapes, wild yeasts and minimal (or zero) addition of sulphur. A few grams of sulphur added at bottling prevents oxidation and helps a wine stay clean — if you are not careful ‘off’ aromas and flavours can develop including volatile acidity (vinegar), oxidation and brettanomyces which gives an animalistic, sweaty saddle taint to the wines. To be fair these faults are sometimes found in conventional wines also. Omitting sulphur affects a wine’s shelf life and can dull or obliterate terroir — a natural Sancerre won’t taste of Sancerre but of something else (which admittedly you might actually prefer!).