It would be too glib to say the qualifications for hosting a table at the first Natural Coast Wine Fest on a gorgeous Saturday, April 22, was that you had to pour an orange wine or a pét-nat. Then again, there sure were a lot of them, many delicious, if often funky in the friendliest of ways. Given this was the actual Earth Day, and one of the first weekends after our surprisingly sodden winter, the fest seemed like an open-armed embrace of sunnier seasons. Especially since so many of the wines, even the reds, tasted best with a slight chill, eager to help us lubricate summer afternoons with friends on the porch.
“Natural,” of course, is a term that too easily gets jammed between the unkind gears of good intentions and marketing malarkey. That the fest was sponsored by Satellite S.B., which has been pouring natural wines for years, meant things very much leaned to the former, as event organizers Drew Cuddy and Lindsey Reed know their stuff. Producers ranged the Central Coast in its biggest sense, from Los Angeles to Contra Costa, and their wines had to be farmed organically at a minimum, had to be fermented natively, had to skip “techno-wizard winemaking tricks” (I think that was a course in one of the later Harry Potter books), had to avoid fining, and sterile filtering.
As with most revolutions, there has to be dogma and a threat of beheadings. That said, a lot of tastiness got poured, and isn’t that the ultimate goal? Take a 2020 Outward Presqu’ile Vineyard gamay that tasted like an x-ray of a pinot noir — you got to lick all of its visible bones. Or a Stirm 2021 benitoite. Named in honor of one of San Benito’s rare gems, this odd duck blend brings together négrette, zinfandel, and cabernet pfeffer (there’s only 10 acres of that in the world) to create something that’s like zin’s sweet little sister. And to pick just one of the pétillant naturel, let’s go with the luscious 2020 Lo-Fi mondeuse, sourced from Tres Hermañas Vineyard. Offering a lovely musk from its unusual fruit, it’s fresh and bright, even if they warn you have to drink it before it goes too funky. That probably is never an issue.
