Natural Wine with Marc Papineau

The Umami Podcast

Marc Papineau has been filling our wine glasses all over Seattle for decades. Marc is the proprietor of Cantina Sauvage — a wine shop that recently opened in Melrose Market in Seattle alongside Cafe Suliman, where he curates a selection of independent wines he identifies as “unfuctwith”, meaning wines that have been only minimally altered by human intervention.

Wine is in the throes of a renaissance these days, in part fueled by the natural wine craze: those “pet nat”, “skin contact”, “orange” bottles with colorful labels and a frequent sidestepping of the appellation system. Some are delicious. Some are...challenging. But however you feel about them, they deserve a closer look. They're a stark contrast with big-name, mass-produced wines that are manipulated to the point of homogeneity.

Stick with this episode: at first it may sound like its more of a conversation for wine nerds, not for the casual wine drinker.

That is until about minute 2:24, where Chris asks, “um, which one of them is dry?” and we all crack up because his question cuts through our heavy conversation like an acidic wine through fatty cheese. It's a funny question because “dry” is one of those words people often use when pressured to describe what they’re looking for in a wine. It's a question that, to a wine purveyor, can signal a lack of knowledge about or interest in wine.

Which patrons sound most knowledgeable to servers and winesellers? People who just ask questions. People who are willing to place trust in their purveyor to guide them on a discourse about the right wine for that moment in time.

This episode is just that, really: a conversation with a guy who knows wine. Chris and I ask things we always wanted to know but were afraid to ask, for fear of sounding clueless. I’ve been in that position, Chris has been in that position, and a casual survey among friends indicates that many of us have been in that position.

We’ll talk about what makes a good wine good and what makes a tank wine industrial. We’ll talk about how to identify the differences among all the degrees between those two ends of a spectrum. (Hint: if you’re buying it at the supermarket, it is probably industrial).

“If you care, then you’re probably not in a grocery store buying wine. You should go to a place where they know their wine.” --Marc Papineau

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