This expanding offering of wine is like a Cambrian explosion of biodiversity… or at least stepping out of a monoculture field into some kind of intentionally curated food forest. Orange wine, white wine made with red grapes, new climate change resistant hybrid varietals, red and white blends, numerous fermentation methods, and biodynamics, all contributing to a burgeoning diversity of wine product from an increasing number of new and converted natural wine makers. Many of these colorful offerings will charm anyone with a slight penchant for a well delivered story and an appetite for paradigm shift.
Those of us involved with delivering the physical product to the consumers are standing in an abundant and diverse garden sometimes feeling a little bit of harvest anxiety.… so many options! And yet we are in a position to connect the (often) urban dwelling person with an intimate account of a maker in a rural setting living a very different life experience. It can be thought of as a product assisted storytelling sale rather than the other way around.
And as the storyteller, we have to be careful not to be overly distracted or bogged down by the growing quantity of shiny new products coming available, and to make sure not to compromise the attention we give to the quality of stories that we represent.
Quality vs quantity is an important distinction here. After all, we are using alcohol as a vehicle for an experience that is multi-sensory and highly imaginative- and is an intentional shift away from the alcohol component as the focus. People can only consume so much alcohol and we should not be encouraging an increase in the quantity of alcohol consumption but rather the quality of the consumption (which may even slow down the quantity).
The retailer has the opportunity to design the customer experience and be a powerful guide to the consumer of wine. And so, the Natural Wine movement is asking us to shift some of the awareness from the product to the story, and to transact in quality storytelling as much as any physical product.