Natural wine fanatics know the struggle: finding quality natural, low-sulfur wines often requires research and preparation. Via Imbibe, renowned Portuguese port and wine producer Dirk van der Niepoort is seeking to change all of that with a new category of wines: Nat’Cool.
To be Nat’Cool, a wine must be natural or low-intervention, low alcohol, terroir-driven, and affordable (on the lower end of £10 to £20). Ideally, Nat’Cool wines also should be bottled in a 1 liter quantity. It’s unclear why the 1 liter criteria exists, but it likely plays into the affordability element of the wine. Additionally, drinkability is a key goal for Niepoort and his Nat’Cool wines, and if a wine is truly drinkable, an entire liter should be easy to put away!
Nat’Cool will be a stamp that labels each qualified wine, making them easy to identify on store shelves. While the wines are not publicly available until September 2017, they do appear to have surfaced in private, boutique wine tastings on Instagram.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BWArJFGDSZY/
The first few Nat’Cool releases will come directly from Niepoort himself. They include an unfiltered, low-alcohol, sulfur-free 2015 Vinho Verde with light effervescence, and an unoaked Baga from Bairrada.
What’s next for Nat’Cool? Expect releases from more German and Portuguese winemakers within Nieport’s winemaking community. Further down the road, we can also look forward to teas and food with the similar goal of providing a consistent, all-natural guarantee of quality and deliciousness for consumers.
We’ll be staying tuned to find out when the first wines are available for purchase.
- Dirk van der Niepoort to create ‘new category for wine’ – Imbibe