NATURAL WINE

As the food industry at large inches toward a cleaner, lesspesticide-ridden world, so, too, does the oenophile community. For a few years, natural wine—loosely, wine made without additives, chemicals or intervention during the fermentation process—has been on the uptick everywhere delicious things proliferate, and the proof is in the pinot. From Montreal’s Mon Lapin to Vancouver’s Grapes & Soda to Toronto’s Grey Gardens, Canadians have more options than ever. Producers like Ontario’s Pearl Morissette and Quebec’s Vignoble Les Pervenches are showing up on more and more wine lists across the country, with offerings ranging from the savoury, smoky and downright weird to the elegant and refined. Call it the universe balancing itself out after decades of quantity-over-quality wines and mass-marketed grape varietals dominating the industry, but wine enthusiasts and dabblers alike are waking up to appreciate smaller producers and beyond-the-citrus-and-oak flavour profiles. “After 10 years of working as sommeliers and wine buyers, we were tired of our smart and conscientious friends paying attention to the food they ate and the clothes they bought while drinking the equivalent of fast-food wine,” says Krysta Oben. Oben and Nicole Campbell are the duo behind Grape Witches, organizers of bicoastal wine-swilling events that are educational and convivial. “These wines make the world feel like a global village,” says Campbell. “Plus, they tend to be really freaking delicious.”