Natural Winemaking and the Egg

May 31, 2010

If you can spare a minute or so, check out this link:

http://www.naturalselectiontheory.com/

It’s a challenge in itself to cut through the spiel, but the concept itself sounds interesting – Hunter Semillon done in an extreme natural style, fermented in 44 litre eggs that are sunk underground (in 3 different soil types) until ‘birth’ and then sold in 3 packs of 900ml ceramic ‘birthing chambers’ (one for each soil type) complete with a 12′ Ambient LP.

The question is, does Hunter Semillon require this novelty to sell it? And on the question, would you fork out the $250 for one of these three packs?

Personally, I like how much effort has gone into this project, but I’m always sceptical when I see this much hype….

Natural Wine, Wine

Andrew Graham was once voted the 23rd most trusted wine critic on the planet. A WCA Journalism Young Gun now old hack with 25yrs as a buyer, judge, journalist, marketer and too much more.

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5 responses to “Natural Winemaking and the Egg”

Stuart Gilchrist

May 31, 2010 at 11:42 am

My first reaction is to give a disapproving "humph", as I'm a geneticist. Charles Darwin would be perplexed. If it really involved natural selection, they'd chuck out the lesser "eggs" and only sell the best. Selling everything you produce regardless of quality is not natural selection, it is just modern agriculture.
On the other hand, marketing is so important nowdays, this may reach people who might not give a hunter sem a second look otherwise. Good luck to 'em, I guess it is all pretty tongue-in-cheek.

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Andrew Graham

May 31, 2010 at 10:34 pm

Good luck to them indeed. I'm still very keen to try it, principally as the winemakers involved are astute and I like Hunter Semillon.

Still can't convince myself to fork out the $250 though.

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legros1952

June 1, 2010 at 1:43 am

Today is June 1 not April 1.

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Anonymous

June 1, 2010 at 3:14 am

I see there is an article on this experiment in today's SMH

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Anonymous

June 2, 2010 at 11:50 am

If they sold the wines with a Flaming Lips Zaireeka-style 4 disc psychadelic soundtrack I would consider taking the punt on this. In saying that, $250 buys me quite a bit of Thomas Semillon!!!
RB

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