DoctorWine and NaturaSi in search of organic wines

Our collaboration with the NaturaSi food chain has allowed us to expand our knowledge of the world of organic and biodynamic wines. Our many tastings and the subsequent selection of these wines will be the subject of a guide book compiled using a fairly original approach, the result of confrontations and exchanging points of view.

I was quite surprised when I received a phone call from Fausto Jori, the AD of the NaturaSi food chain, which has over 400 outlets in Italy, and the group’s manager Casto Ianotta. “We’d like to do a study on the wines we offer at our stores and we thought you could lend us a hand. We can then see if we can put together a joint publication dealing with organic and biodynamic wines”.

The idea was to meet, taste and then evaluate together their wines as well as those of other producers according to the “principles” that govern the philosophy of NaturaSi. It was a very interesting challenge and so we got down to it almost immediately and have been working together for several months now.

For DoctorWine, the tastings involved yours truly along with Sissi Baratella and Flavia Rendina, while the NaturalSi team included, aside from Casto Ianotta, Mattia Da Ros and Michele Bonato. We have tasted and evaluated over 600 samples so far and we are moving ahead diligently with the intention of bringing out a book that for the moment will be entitled In Search of Organic and Biodynamic Wines. It will be a “guide non-guide”, more of a guide book than a guide because there will be no number ratings, only information on the producers and descriptions of the wines that impressed us the most.

A good number of producers sent us samples and we have now begun to write the book which should be ready by April 2022. Many aspects have come out of the tastings, first of all that the world of organic wine is undergoing a truly amazing evolution. We found very few “defective” wines, while many have been able to combine environmental sustainability and moving away from single-variety production with organoleptic quality.

We made many discoveries and found some very interesting wines and a consensus gradually emerged with each of the two groups taking into account the point of view of the other, resulting in a friendly and collaborative effort that few would have expected.

At the end, we singled out some 200 wineries and selected at most three wines from each to include in the guide that will be published. I am sure it will be a good book, very innovative, without any claim of being a be-all and end-all work, rather just a quite original approach, the result of confrontations and exchanging points of view. And I think this is an excellent thing.