NOT DRINKING POISON Podcast

We flew to Lyon, and you drive through a lot of forest to get here. It was sort of suffocatingly claustrophobic, just pine trees, pine trees, pine trees, all through the Livradois-Forez [national park], and then when you arrive in Chassignoles, suddenly you can see again, and there's light. We were like, ‘Ah, this is nice.’ It felt like a blank canvas for doing whatever we wanted. - Harry LesterHarry Lester is the British chef-restaurateur behind a trio of beloved Auvergne natural wine destinations, namely L’Auberge de Chassignoles, Le Saint Eutrope, and, as of this month, Le Comptoir Central des Bazars. Lester first drew acclaim in London as a chef-partner in the Anchor & Hope (est. 2003) before a chance tip from a friend (among other factors) inspired him to decamp with his young family to the remote Auvergne village of Chassignoles, where he and his wife Ali Johnson would transform a neglected rural auberge into an internationally renowned natural wine dining destination. In 2013, after selling the Auberge de Chassignoles, Lester opened the Clermont-Ferrand bistrot Le Saint Eutrope, which he ran until selling it to his former employees Michael Hazlewood and Manon Descombats in 2023. Earlier this month, Lester opened a new establishment in Clermont-Ferrand, Le Comptoir Central des Bazars, retaining the name of the toy shop that formerly inhabited the site on rue Lecoq. At the new address, one rediscovers all of the hallmarks that have made Lester’s restaurants so essential to the contemporary Auvergne natural wine renaissance: masterful yet unfussy cuisine, simple thoughtful décor, and an aficionado’s selection of natural wine from throughout Europe. I first met Lester on a pilgrimage to Le Saint Eutrope in March 2019, and have since leapt at any occasion to enjoy his fine company on the natural wine route throughout France. I joined him to record this podcast late last August in Chassignoles, where he still lives part of the time. On this occasion he was making an appearance as a guest chef at his former restaurant. Take a listen for Lester’s recollections of his first encounters with Auvergne natural wine; his tips for local food markets in Clermont-Ferrand; and how his tripe recipe helped win over the locals. AaronThis is a free episode of the NOT DRINKING POISON podcast. For access to all the episodes - plus years of vigneron interviews, reports, and natural wine news - please subscribe! FURTHER READING & LISTENINGNot Drinking Poison Podcast Series V: Chefs Who Give A S**t About WineEp. 31: Jonathan Schweizer of Café des Deux Gares & Le GoncourtEp. 30: Mateo Breña A Septemper 2022 piece on Harry Lester by Rachel Signer at La Mescita.A March 2013 feature on Harry Lester during his era at L’Auberge de Chassignoles at The Financial Times.A brief Q&A with Harry Lester at Planque. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit notdrinkingpoison.substack.com/subscribe

I don't understand, but I respect people that can sit and drink Coche-Dury in their left hand, and Axel Prüfer in their right hand. I can understand why they still find [the former wine] interesting, but for me it was something that I'd let go of completely. I couldn't have moved to only working with natural wine without letting go of that other part. - Mads KleppeMads Kleppe is the gravel-voiced Norwegian sommelier responsible for radicalizing the natural wine program at renowned Copenhagen restaurant Noma throughout the 2010s. Upon taking over in 2009 from earlier sommelier Pontus Eloffson (who had already begun emphasizing biodynamic and natural wines), Kleppe soon began championing the entirely unsulfited and unfiltered work of winemakers including Franz Strohmeier, Laureanno Serres, Anthony Tortul, Christian Tschida, Tom Lubbe, and Axel Prüfer. Arguably more than anyone else in Noma’s wine lineage, Kleppe is responsible for what in natural wine circles is often referred to as “the Noma effect”: the phenomenon by which the famous restaurant’s imprimatur encouraged an unprecedented acceptance of - and enthusiasm for - natural wines previously deemed controversial among high-end restaurant buyers and clients alike. Kleppe initially followed a classical sommelier career path, working at Oslo Michelin-two-starred restaurant Bagatelle, while participating actively in sommelier competitions. He cites early encounters with Mâconnais vigneron Julien Guillot and then-burgeoning Etna star Frank Cornelissen (both in 2003) with sparking his initial interest in natural wine; upon moving to Copenhagen to work at Noma in 2009, he pursued the subject alongside peers in the Danish wine scene of the era, including Sune Rosforth and Anders Frederik Steen. Throughout his career at Noma, Kleppe made a habit of traveling to visit winemakers on his days off. Since leaving Noma in 2022, Kleppe has relocated to Tbilisi, where earlier this year he began work as the beverage director for Temur Ugulava’s vast Adjara restaurant group, which encompasses dozens of hotels, restaurants, and nightclubs, in addition to its Tbilisi flagship, the five-star Stamba Hotel. I first met Kleppe in Copenhagen in 2021, when a chance meeting at Den Vandrette led to an unforgettable two-day bicycle tour of many of the Danish capital’s finest natural wine spots. I also owe to Kleppe two sublime visits to Noma before the end of his tenure there. We recorded this episode in mid-May in the private dining room of Copenhagen restaurant Barr, which inhabits the dockside building that previously housed Noma. Check out the episode for Kleppe’s recollections of serving natural wine to U2; his favorite Georgian hangover cures; and why, within his peculiar synesthetic approach to wine mnemonics, “soup” is a color. AaronThis is a free episode of the NOT DRINKING POISON podcast. For access to all the episodes - plus reams of vigneron interviews, reports, restaurant reviews, commentary, and more - please subscribe!FURTHER READING & LISTENINGEp. 24: Sune RosforthEp. 25: Anders Frederick SteenEp. 26: Martin Ho of PompetteEp. 27: Riccardo Marcon of BarabbaAlice Feiring’s splendid July feature on Mads Kleppe. Noma’s Mixed MessagePodcast Series IV: Copenhagen Natural Wine Chronicles, Part IPodcast Series III: Les Emigré(e)s - Expat Natural Winemakers in France, Part IPodcast Series III: Les Emigré(e)s - Expat Natural Winemakers in France, Part IIPodcast Series II: Contemporary Paris Natural Wine, Part IPodcast Series II: Contemporary Paris Natural Wine, Part IIPodcast Series I: Paris Natural Wine Lifers, Part IPodcast Series I: Paris Natural Wine Lifers, Part II This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit notdrinkingpoison.substack.com/subscribe

There's a lot of interest for wine in Denmark. Since we haven't really been a wine producing country, [people are] eager to really go deeply down into what wine is. - Sune RosforthSune Rosforth is the head of influential Denmark wine importer Rosforth & Rosforth, which he founded in 1994, initially concentrating on wines from the Loire valley. Half-Parisian on his mother’s side, he hitchhiked around France as a young man and struck up what became a lifelong friendship while working for the family behind Anjou estate Château de Passavant. Cellar visits Rosforth conducted in the region alongside Passavant’s François David would form the nucleus of his initial portfolio, which also notably included the celebrated Saumur-Champigny wines of Clos Rougeard. Since the early 2000s, Rosforth has expanded his company’s portfolio to include many key natural wine estates in Catalonia, Italy, Chile, Georgia, and beyond. In 2012, spurred by conversations with Olivier Cousin, he began conducting regular shipments of wine from Brittany to Denmark via sailboat. To a large degree, Rosforth’s free-thinking work as an importer (and later, as a restaurateur in his own right) has accompanied - and helped shape - Copenhagen’s emergence as arguably the world’s premier nexus for natural wine and forward-thinking dining. Today, both Rosforth’s office-slash-dining-room-slash-wine-bar-and-wine-wholesaler site beneath Knippelsbro (colloquially known as “Under the Bridge”) and Den Vandrette, the nearby wine bar run by his wife Veronica, represent a spontaneous, informal, and thoroughly vital contrast to the city’s renowned fine dining scene. I first met Rosforth in 2020 over lunch at the home of Gard vigneron Alain Allier. Later we were reintroduced in Copenhagen by then-Noma-sommelier Mads Kleppe, and I’ve since had several occasion in that city to enjoy Rosforth and Kleppe’s supreme hospitality. (This includes Rosforth’s own thoughtful and daring cooking at the office, where he whips up, with little advance warning, dishes like shrimp in tomato-shrimp broth, or sautéed sheep testicles.) We recorded this episode in October 2023 in the Kulturtårnet (or Culture Tower) overlooking Knippels Bridge, a site chosen more for its sublime view than its amenability to sound recording. Take a listen for Rosforth’s take on the future of Clos Rougeard; his memories of Catalonian vigneron Joan Ramon Escoda before the latter began making wine; and his heartfelt apology for the intensity of his fellow Danes in Copenhagen bike lanes. AaronFURTHER READING & LISTENINGEp. 25: Anders Frederick SteenEp. 26: Martin Ho of PompettePodcast Series III: Les Emigré(e)s - Expat Natural Winemakers in France, Part IPodcast Series III: Les Emigré(e)s - Expat Natural Winemakers in France, Part IIPodcast Series II: Contemporary Paris Natural Wine, Part IPodcast Series II: Contemporary Paris Natural Wine, Part IIPodcast Series I: Paris Natural Wine Lifers, Part IPodcast Series I: Paris Natural Wine Lifers, Part II This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit notdrinkingpoison.substack.com/subscribe

Despite the fact that I was in art before, I don’t perceive tending vines and making wine as art. And therefore I myself don’t feel comfortable excusing my prices because it’s a special little artsy thing... It’s not what I’ve been learning for the last fifteen years. - Stephana NicolescouHalf-French, half-Romanian, and raised in Chicago, Stephana Nicolescou is a well-traveled natural wine jack-of-all-trades who, since 2017, has been helping run the 5ha Ardèche estate of her companion, renowned Czech vigneron Andrea Calek. In 2019 and 2020, she also produced négociant micro-cuvées of her own as Une Strop, an Ardèche cinsault and a Loir-et-Cher cabernet franc, respectively. In addition to her winemaking activities, she is an avid scuba diver and amateur pilot, and routinely organizes a natural wine stand at the Django Reinhardt Jazz Festival in Fontainebleau. Nicolescou left the USA to attend art school in Paris at age eighteen. Her introduction to natural wine came a few years later, after dropping out, when she managed the popular 1st-arrondissement natural wine bar Le Garde Robe. She left the position in 2011 to embrace wine production, first working in Andalucia for Bodega Cauzon, and later for Clos Roche Blanche and Michel Augé of Les Maisons Brûlées. She moved to Ardèche in 2014 with her then-companion Samuel Boulay, who had taken up the vineyards of retiring Ardèche natural wine pioneer Gilles Azzoni. When that relationship ended, she returned to Spain, where she worked for Bodega Marenas, before returning to Ardèche at the end of 2016 to work for Andrea CalekI first met Nicolescou shortly after arriving to Paris in 2009, when I worked in central Paris and frequented apéro hours at Le Garde Robe. I lost track of her when she left for Spain, only to re-encounter her in 2018, when I arrived for a tasting appointment with Calek and was surprised to see another familiar face. Nowadays I make a stop at the couple’s handsome bioclimatic abode whenever I’m in the region, most recently before the Montpellier salons in late January, when we recorded this podcast. Check it out for Nicolescou’s plans for her own winemaking; her perspective on the Chicago natural wine scene; and how she intends to survive a zombie apocalypse in Ardèche. AaronThis is a free episode of the NOT DRINKING POISON podcast. For access to all episodes - plus years of natural wine profiles, reports, and interviews - please subscribe! FURTHER READING & LISTENINGNDP Podcast Series III: Les Emigré(e)s - Expat Natural Winemakers in FranceEp. 14: Katie Worobeck of Maison MaenadEp. 15: Hannah Fuellenkemper of ABRACADABRAEp. 16: Joe Jefferies of Les Bories JefferiesEp. 17: Jon Purcell of Vin NoéEp. 18: Michele Smith-Chapel of Domaine ChapelEp. 20: Kenji Hodgson of Vins HodgsonEp. 21: Stephen Roberts of Fondugues-PraduguesEp. 22: Oriane Rosner of Ori VinA Feb. 2021 piece about disgorging pét-nat with Stephana Nicolescou. The Legend of Andrea Calek’s Grande ArnaqueNDP Podcast Series I: Paris Natural Wine Lifers, Part INDP Podcast Series I: Paris Natural Wine Lifers, Part IINDP Podcast Series II: Contemporary Paris Natural Wine, Part INDP Podcast Series II: Contemporary Paris Natural Wine, Part II This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit notdrinkingpoison.substack.com/subscribe

When my two-year visa was over, I asked the Ganevats to help me with a working visa... During that time, I did receive some job offers in Canada. But there was still nothing that was as exciting as the wines we were making in the Jura. And I [figured] I would rather be a little vineyard donkey doing whatever at [Domaine] Ganevat than be the head honcho somewhere making wines that I don’t really believe in. - Katie WorobeckKatie Worobeck is a Canadian vigneronne (and fellow Substack writer!) based in the village of Orbagna in the Sud Revermont, where since 2022 she farms a 3ha vineyard boasting all five classic Jura varieties in nearby Saint-Laurent-La-Roche. Her French winemaking debut came earlier, in 2019, during her four-year tenure working for Jura natural wine legend Jean-François Ganevat. Worobeck’s career in wine traces its roots to 2011, when she decided to take a break after obtaining a Master’s degree in International Political Economy at the University of Toronto to take a trip WOOFFing throughout France, Italy, Croatia, and Turkey. Upon her return to Canada, she worked in restaurants in Ottawa, where an eccentric local farmer encouraged her interest in farming, and a benevolent employer offered to pay for WSET courses. Worobeck followed her burgeoning interest in wine to work at Norman Hardie Winery in Ontario, where fellow cellar hand (and future Ibiza natural wine importer) Cassady Sniatowsky and Montreal wine maven Vanya Filipovic helped spark Worobeck’s interest in natural winemaking. She worked harvest at Bouchard Finlayson in South Africa in 2015, before setting her sights on France, where she arrived to intern at Domaine Ganevat in 2017. I met Worobeck at a party at German Burgundy négociant winemaker Bastian Wolber’s house in 2021. In the years since I’ve had innumerable occasions to be thankful for her friendship and support, whether during visits to the Jura, or at natural wine salons throughout France, or on panel discussions during trips abroad. I joined Worobeck at her home one early evening this past November to chat about living in Jean-François Ganevat’s mother’s apartment; Worobeck’s early winemaking experiences in Prince Edward County; and the time she accidentally attended a Latin dance class in the Jura. AaronThis is a free episode of the NOT DRINKING POISON podcast. For access to all the episodes - plus years of vigneron interviews, profiles, tasting reports, and commentary - please subscribe!FURTHER READING & LISTENINGNDP Podcast Series III: Les Emigré(e)s - Expat Natural Winemakers in FranceEp. 15: Hannah Fuellenkemper of ABRACADABRAEp. 16: Joe Jefferies of Les Bories JefferiesEp. 17: Jon Purcell of Vin NoéEp. 18: Michele Smith-Chapel of Domaine ChapelKatie Worobeck, the Maenad of OrbagnaPulling Wood at Maison MaenadNDP Podcast Series I: Paris Natural Wine Lifers, Part INDP Podcast Series I: Paris Natural Wine Lifers, Part IINDP Podcast Series II: Contemporary Paris Natural Wine, Part INDP Podcast Series II: Contemporary Paris Natural Wine, Part II This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit notdrinkingpoison.substack.com/subscribe

I realized [natural] winemakers in particular were outsiders in their communities, too, in a way. And I’ve always been kind of an underdog, an outsider. - Crislaine MedinaWhat does Crislaine Medina, the Cape Verde-born co-proprietor of Paris 19th arrondissement restaurant Le Cheval d’Or, have in common with legendary MCs MF Doom and 21 Savage? She, too, ran into trouble in the USA as a longtime illegal immigrant. In her case, after high school in Bucks Country, Pennsylvania, she found herself ineligible for university tuition aid in the USA. It inspired her to move to Paris, where alongside studies in literature she apprenticed herself to natural wine at Left Bank traditional bistrot Les Pipos. Before taking over the 19th-arrondissement restaurant Le Cheval d’Or with her husband Luis Andrade and their partners Nadim Smair and Hanz Gueco in August 2023, Medina had a star-making turn as the opening sommelière of 11th-arrondissement yakitori-and-more destination Le Rigmarole. At Le Cheval d’Or, Medina collaborates with young Japanese sommelier Taiki Sakurai on an unusual natural wine list that aims to integrate as many international influences as their kitchen. (Chef Gueco is Philippino-Australian, while Andrade is Cape Verdean-Portuguese.) Alongside natural wine classics from the Beaujolais and Burgundy, one finds familiar favorites from Italy and newly-minted masterpieces from Moravia. (For the Le Cheval d’Or space itself, the new partnership also represents a rebirth of sorts, coming three years after the tragic passing of its former chef, Taku Sekine, who first brought renown to the site with a Chinese-inspired menu.) During set-up at Le Cheval d’Or in early December, I joined Medina to talk about her decade of experience in Paris natural wine circles, and how her perspective as a lifelong immigrant has shaped her approach to hospitality, natural wine lists, and menus. Check out the episode for Medina’s thoughts on her most beloved Beaujolais vigneron; her early challenges selling natural wine in Paris as a foreign black woman speaking limited French at the time; and how she came to consider Paris her true home. AaronFURTHER LISTENING & READINGNDP PODCAST Series II: Contemporary Paris Natural Wine, Part IEp. 7: Oliver Lomeli of Chambre NoireEp. 8: Jessica Yang & Robert Compagnon of Folderol & Le RigmaroleEp. 9: Louis Mesana of Café MontezumaNDP PODCAST Series II: Contemporary Paris Natural Wine, Part IIEp. 11: Oliver Gage of Rock BottlesEp. 12: Nathan Ratapu of Rerenga WinesNOT DRINKING POISON PODCAST Series I: Paris Natural Wine Lifers, Part INOT DRINKING POISON PODCAST Series I: Paris Natural Wine Lifers, Part II This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit notdrinkingpoison.substack.com/subscribe

It was fantastic to sell natural wines to the crowd in Paris, because it is so international. You have so many people from all over the world… I think my role at the time was to pass on the natural wine love to many people, many young people and many older people. - Pierre JancouAn epoch-defining figure in Paris natural wine circles and natural wine at large, Pierre Jancou is the prolific, media-savvy restaurateur responsible for a slew of the French capital’s iconic natural wine destinations of the 2000s and 2010s. Taken together, Jancou’s series of bistrots and caves-à-manger represent nothing short of an influential artistic oeuvre: their patinated, hand-wrought aesthetic and frank service style is nowadays perceptible in fine natural wine spots around the world. Jancou began his career as a restaurateur in 1991, opening the Italian restaurant La Boca near Etienne Marcel. His embrace of natural wine came just over a decade later, shortly after his 2001 opening of La Crèmerie, the tiny, enchanting 6th arrondissement wine shop that would become a touchstone for the cave-à-manger genre. In 2007, Jancou opened Racines, inaugurating his most influential period, when he offered what may have been the world’s first radical zero-zero natural wine program. Jancou followed this success with Vivant (2011), Vivant Table (2012), Heimat (2015), and Achille (2016), before conflicts with neighbors at this final address spurred him to leave Paris behind. He relocated to the Alpine village of Chatillon-en-Diois, where he ran the Café des Alpes from 2018-2020. In 2022, Jancou relocated once again, this time to the remote Aude village of Padern, home also to renowned natural vigneron Fabrice Monnin of La Mazière. Today Jancou runs the local Café des Sports as a seasonal natural wine bistrot, and is establishing a small winemaking practice, farming 1.5ha of carignan, marsanne, and macabeu in the surrounding jagged limestone hillscape. Check out the episode for the lowdown on Jancou’s first wine; his thoughts on Instagram; and his secret to quitting hard drugs. AaronPierre Jancou’s Café des Sports in Padern will reopen for Autumn 2023 on October 20th, offering lunch service Fridays-Mondays until Christmas.Paid subscribers to NOT DRINKING POISON can access all episodes of the podcast - plus the rest of the newsletter’s winemaker profiles, interviews, breaking news, commentary, and more.FURTHER LISTENING & READINGParis Natural Wine Lifers, Part IEp. 1: Paris Natural Wine Lifers - Michel MoulheratEp. 2: Paris Natural Wine Lifers - Kevin BlackwellEp. 3: Paris Natural Wine Lifers - Olivier CamusEp. 5: Paris Natural Wine Lifers - Marie CarmaransEp. 6: Paris Natural Wine Lifers - Guillaume DupréPierre Jancou modeling Comme des Garçons Homme Plus Fall-Winter 2000. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit notdrinkingpoison.substack.com/subscribe

“I like the idea that people were brave enough to say ‘Let’s try [to make wines with zero sulfite addition]. We’ll lose wine, into vinegar, or we’ll dump it in the gutter.' But they still tried hard to learn and pass on their knowledge. To say, we made it: no sulfites from A to Z, and it works. - Michel MoulheratNow largely retired and living in the Touraine town of Loches, Michel Moulherat saw prominence among the second generation of natural wine advocates in Paris, starting in the mid-nineties at his 15th arrondissement bar L’Insolite (1995-2000), and continuing into the second decade of the new millennium at his 11th arrondissement wine shop La Cave de l’Insolite (2002-2011). While he was among the early supporters of radical vignerons like Rémi Poujol, Catherine and Gilles Vergé, and Jérôme Saurigny, Moulherat professes no personal insistence on zero sulfitage. His own classical wine background is extensive, beginning with two years working for Stephen Spurrier at Les Caves de la Madeleine. Moulherat then spent three years working for two prominent expat restaurateurs, Tim Johnston (of Juveniles) and Mark Williamson (of Willi’s Wine Bar). He spent the first half of the 1990s working as a sommelier at the Michelin-starred restaurant of Hôtel de Crillon, before opening L’Insolite in 1995.Check out the episode to learn what sorts of insects he occasionally found in early natural wine bottles; where he’s been drinking 1959 Vin Jaune lately; and why he signed the open letter circulated in defense of scandal-plagued Sancerre vigneron Sébastien Riffault. AaronFURTHER LISTENING & READINGParis Natural Wine Lifers Ep. 2: Kevin BlackwellParis Natural Wine Lifers Ep. 3: Olivier CamusA Suggestion for Sébastien RiffaultAn October 2010 blog post I wrote about Moulherat and La Cave de l’Insolite.A May 2015 blog post I wrote about Moulherat and La Poudrière, the Issy-lès-Moulineaux bistrot where he was then working. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit notdrinkingpoison.substack.com/subscribe