drinking and being happy at coturri winery
an afternoon of farmthought and vino, walking the vines with winemaker nic coturri. nic is twenty seven years old, and is a lifetime apprentice to his family’s celebrated natural vineyard, championed by his pioneering father, tony coturri, since the early sixties on a Sonoma creekside hill in glen ellen, ca.
if you read my recent post on the hunter’s wine, the wine of the forest—as inspired by an event at Blackberry Farm featuring Aleš Kristančič from slovenia’s movia—then it will be no surprise that coturri, my number one favorite wine from Sonoma, produces their wine through an emphasis on good farming practices and basically, at the end of the day, “not getting in the way” of their product.
this weekend, in mixed company, I mentioned my preference for only drinking wines which are produced such as coturri and movia et al.--no added sulfites, no dilutions, stabilizers, filtrations, etc. a friend asked, "how come?" I felt as though the implication was clear: how could I simply eliminate ninety eight percent of the entire world of wine? including some of the world's "greats"?
my answer was simple. I feel the same way about wine as I do about any food that I grow or eat—wine is an essential part of the diet! if wellness or culture are to have any place in our society, soils must be built not destroyed, and food must nourish not sicken. wine is a gift from the universe, not a creation of man. I would rather not drink a single drop of wine again, if I couldn’t drink wine made like this.
it was a true pleasure walking the vines with a producer who truly lives these words.
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many thanks should be given to our friend and culinary consigliere chef Andrea, from new york’s mamma duchess, for turning us on to these beautiful wines.
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