If you have been following our blog, you should have seen the post we put up earlier about natural wine. As a follow up, a new trend (or maybe anti-trend, it's so hipster) has been to use porous concrete wine vats, instead of the traditional stainless steel.
"It's about coming back to the beginning,” [Bartier] says. “To revolve back to what is correct and traditional is to go back to the original vessel for winemaking, earthen pots buried in the earth. This is not technology at all. It’s anti-technology."
For what it's worth, being "traditional" doesn't necessarily equate to being good, and that's something worth considering. If the quality is kept under control, there's no reason why concrete wine vats can't produce excellent quality wine. Then there's hygiene...
"The giant tanks are not lined with anything on the inside. The rough, stony surface is constantly in contact with the aging wine, and that surface is home to a world of yeast and bacteria."
If you understand what is going on in your tanks, and what strains of bacteria are present, then this may be beneficial to your final product. We like to think that as wine is a publicly consumed drink and that equates to maintaining high standards of hygiene so as to reduce negative contamination.
What are your thoughts? Keen to try some natural wine?
**Update**
So the boffins in the lab have said that you just need to treat the cleaning of your concrete eggs like you would your oak barrels. So if you wanted to keep your concrete vats clean, apply your oak cleaning regime to them! If you don't have an Oak Regime, then why not chat with us and we can help you develop a sustainable cleaning program for your concrete or oak vessels.