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WINEMAKING making in the narrower sense, but ap- parently preferred a racier adjective for the title. The difficulty in formulating a precise definition, which all three authors ac- knowledge in different ways, stems ulti- mately from the fact that no wine on earth is entirely natural—and yet every wine is, at its core, natural. Wine does not make itself; human intervention and conscious choice is involved at every step from plant- ing to bottling. Even in its most bare-bones form, winemaking is far less "natural" than, say, foraging for wild mushrooms. At the same time, every wine depends fundamentally on the act of fermenta- tion, which sets entirely natural forces to work. Grapes are full of sugar, and yeast just wanna have fun. Even in the most highly engineered setting, the vast majority of flavors in the bottle trace their lineage to the madness of the ferment, no matter how many other tweaks and fiddles and oak adjuncts come into play. Researchers often construct "model wines" by combin- ing water, alcohol, flavorings and so on in wine-like proportions; but no one drinks these fermentation-free concoctions. So if every wine is both natural and not natural, that may not be the most useful word Jared and Tracey Brandt of Donkey & Goat Winery maintain strict standards of cleanliness in their cellar to help avoid microbial contamination in their wines. with which to make a point. Worse, as Clark Smith pointed out in a recent column for Wines & Vines ("Natural Wine Nonsense," May 2011 issue), the varying understandings of the term held by different stakeholders of- ten mask irreconcilable differences. Feiring starts her journey hoping to confirm the validity of the simple proposi- tion, "nothing added, nothing taken away." That, among other things, would translate to mean no sulfites, no commercial yeast, no enzymes or tannin boosters as well as Two years ago, we told the world we could replicate the fl avors of a French oak barrel by alternative means. Experts balked, then proved our point in blind tastings, actually choosing our fl avors over those of prestigious French barrels. We didn't stop there. Today we' re offering the tools to recreate fl avor profi les of a whole range of different barrels. Whether they come from France or Kentucky, Hungary or Spain. Never before have winemakers had such a wide array of fl avor controls at their command. ® StaVın Inc, P.O.Box 1693, Sausalito,CA 94966 (415) 331-7849 f (415) 331-0516 stavin.com Wines & Vines DeCeMBeR 2011 41 TOM HOOD © 2010 StaVin Inc.