Do old people dream of industrial wine?

It’s a fact: you won’t often see the silver-haired crowd at a natural wine fair, a natural wine bar, or a natural wine shop. Every time I step out, I tend to be the oldest face in the room, a detail I’d rather forget if it weren’t so inevitable.

Ask an average fifty-year-old or older person to try natural wine, and their reaction is usually as hesitant as admiring modern art for the first time. This isn’t a diatribe blaming elderly people; there are a lot of not-so-old people who love natural wine. It’s merely an observation about a cultural trend that seems to span the globe.

There are some explanations. The generation born between the ‘60s and ‘80s was the first to load up on supermarket fare, food that’s been aseptically processed, standardized, and industrially produced.

What we eat in childhood builds our receptors for taste and determines our openness to new flavors. In those decades, meals often meant cheap canned ravioli, tasteless, rectangular fish fillets, and other culinary aberrations. Sure, they filled the nutritional bill, but they did little to encourage an adventurous palate. I consider myself lucky; my father made me sample artisanal products: real fish, offal, and even fruit ripped straight from the tree. Lucky, or perhaps we were just too indigent to afford the supermarket stuff and eat things from the farms.

This generation’s first encounter with wine took place in the supermarket aisle, with cheap bottles of Bordeaux or Chianti. The main determinant in picking a wine was its price or the discount offered by the supermarket chain.

Naturally, they tend to repeat that formula when choosing wine later in life. For many, the intricate pleasure of sipping a well-crafted natural wine feels like too much effort, so they retreat to the comfort of industrial bottles.

Still, some brave souls persist, eventually discovering that first thrilling moment of genuine wine appreciation.

Even for those intrepid explorers of flavor, finding a good natural wine spot is an adventure. Not all venues are created equal; discerning drinkers must navigate a maze of questionable selections, think muddy orange wines, overly mousy whites, and reds that seem to be missing something fundamental, or other wines full of Brett. For the young, these missteps might just be part of the learning curve, but for older aficionados, they can be a dealbreaker.

Service can sometimes be as disappointing as the wine itself. I’ve even had to explain, rather rudely, that a corked bottle is more fit for the sink than my glass. And if our potential connoisseurs do find that perfect spot, with an excellent selection and genuinely friendly staff, they might still face one last hurdle: the DJ set and loud music commonly found at many fairs and bars. While this isn’t universal, it’s a common theme in cities where wine culture is still finding its footing: Amsterdam or Copenhagen, for instance, although you’re less likely to encounter a thumping beat in Paris, London, or Rome (except during the night).

It’s easy to conclude that natural wine is the province of the young but remember: many prized natural wines come from winemakers who were in their twenties to forties during the ’80s. Indeed, older generations tend to appreciate natural wine for its authenticity and the artistry behind it, but they have no time for mediocrity when it comes to a true winemaker’s craft.