Towards an understanding of the concept of cultiness
What do we mean exactly when we use the term culty to describe a wine? I think generally people mean something like hyped (or perhaps over-hyped), but this does not seem to grasp the social relations that are present in this specific commodity form. That there is a disconnect in the popular understanding of the concept can be illuminated by looking at discursive practice within the natural wine scene. For example, there is a huge distinction between something like Frank Cornelissen, very hyped and abundant wines that many newer fans of natural wine attracted to (in part thanks to his celebrity endorsement by Action Bronson) and Aurelian Lefort, an almost impossible to attain and ifykyk producer that many long time natural wine drinkers may not even be aware of, yet are among the most whispered about wines amongst cavistes. Cornelissen is hyped, whereas Lefort, while also being hyped, reaches beyond the distinction. One of the concepts that is used to describe that gap in the perception and reception of these two producers is precisely this culty quality to Lefort, that Corneliessen, no matter how hyped he is, simply does not have. If this popular conception of the cultic does not grasp the fundamental social relation it is trying to denote, how might we better understand the nature of this phenomena that the concept is signifying?
It seems to me that what the concept is actually signifying is a certain cuvees’ degree of potentia, a certain heightened and overdetermined capacity to affectuate. Because of the social dynamic of our affects, the wines we designate as culty are wines that can evoke emotion at an increased degree (gradus potentiae) than other wines within the same plane. The social discourse itself imbues a greater weight onto these wines and their affectual capacity is augmented by the social discourse which precedes one’s interaction with them. The illumination of this dynamic necessitates a turn to Spinoza, specifically to Ethics III, prop 31;
31: If we imagine that someone loves, desires or hates something that we ourselves love, desire, or hate, that will make us love, desire or hate it with greater constancy. But if we imagine that he is averse to what we love, or loves what we hate, then we shall undergo vacillation of mind.
Demonstration: Our imagining that someone loves something is (by 27) enough on its own to get us to love the same thing; but if we already love it, this imagining provides a new cause for our love, by which it is further encouraged. So we shall love the thing with greater constancy.
Because of this anthropological striving to align one’s desires and loves with the community, you feel joy sensorially but also socially, amplifying the emotion from both sides, and giving the experience of the wine reason for distinction. This experience contributes to your personal affectual history (ingenium) and thus partially determines future desires, contributing to the continued appetite to seek out these culty wines. They, for structurally overdetermined reasons, have more power. By structurally overdetermined here I mean the variety of lines that make up the conjuncture: for example, a producer interned with a certain culty producer, a wine gets put on an important wine list, some caviste with influence come across the wine and decides its special, the producer occupies a unique terroir, or maybe they are a particularly interesting person. There is a kaleidoscope of forces that effect the bottle’s potentia beyond the juice itself, although of course that is a large component. In the last instance, a wine can not be considered culty that is boring. A wine can certainly be “flawed” but never boring. The acceptance and celebration of those flaws, when present, even impresses us with an expanded (perhaps liberated?) definition of “good”.
The very limited production, like Pierre Andrey, also produces a proximity to production that lets one see through the fetishism of the commodity in a way not usually able to be accessed on the world market. One of natural wine’s most intriguing aspects is that the whole culture is built upon de-fetishing the commodity. The definition I am employing here is Balibar’s in the Philosophy of Marx:
‘The fetishism of the commodity,’ Marx tells us, is the fact that a ‘definite social relation between men themselves … assumes here, for them, the fantastic form of a relation between things.’ Or, alternatively, ‘to the producers … the social relations between their private labours appear … as material [dinglich] relations between persons and social relations between things.’
Natural wine, while never able to get beneath fetishism to a Real, does build a system of signification that acts to shed the commodity of its concealiatory manner, opening up the discourse of the commodity to the level of social relations. In fact, in many ways, the social relations in natural wine are primary to the commodity. The producers, the earth they are working, their place within the history and culture of natural wine and so on, overdetermine the affectual composition expressed in the commodity form proper, in its use-value (primarily taste and experience). In other words, the culture and discourse of natural wine is a culture of the illumination of the social relations which produced their commodities. Through storytelling, history, geography, biography, and so much more we reach beyond the commodity form and beneath it discover the world. When you are drinking a wine that is 1 of 66, for example, you viscerally feel closer to those social relations of production, and a part of the normalness of wine-as-commodity slips away, leaving you with clarity on how beautiful it can be. This scalar aspect is also a part of the potentia of cultiness.
One other aspect of the cultic wine was shown to me by my partner one night when she remarked that the wine (of a very culty persuasion) was amazing, but seemed like a lot of other wines we drink. And she is right. Her ingenium (essence, as defined as the historical sum of all of our affectual determinations) of taste has been unconsciously shaped by my tastes, since I usually decide on what to open. The $30 percy/varda/camo bottles that are commonplace in her glass are in many ways quite similar gustatorily to the culty wines we are discussing here. But it is precisely this social, anthropological power of these wines that distinguishes them to the in-group and evokes so much emotion. Another part of the cultic distinction then, seems to be the social territorialization of the wine and the production of subjectivity to those within the territory. From outside that territory, from someone not involved in the natural wine discourse, the same desires are not experienced the same. Prop 51 from the same book: Different people can be affected differently by one object; and one person can be affected differently at different times by one object. Because my partner and I have different ingeniums, our affectual compositions relating to the same object are quite different. This phenomena is also a part of the formation and production of culty wines, since it produces an interior/exterior, magnifying and specifying the desire to be in the community.
So given these three aspects, anthropological striving, commodity de-fetishization, and the territorialization of the ingenium, how should we try to define cultines in wine? Perhaps the best formulation comes from Prieure Roch, these wines are Vins d’émotion. Culty wines are nothing else than wines of great emotion.
Last week I had the great pleasure of enjoying an absolutely orgiastic experience opening some of the cultiest wines out there. Most of these wines were brought by my friend Krys from his cellar for his birthday (shoutout Krys). These were bottles I have been hunting for years and never been able to grasp. And finally they all fell right in my lap all in one night. Sometimes that’s how it goes. Here’s my drunk tasting notes I made on my notes app when I got home + some sober context for each one.
FRED GOUNAN & CAROLINE BILLET – VIGNOBLE DE L’ARBRE BLANC LES FESSES 2021
SAINT-SANDOUX – AUVERGNE
Tense, light red fruit, floral, oxidized orchard fruit, sour acid, singular minerality
Carotte & Fred Gounan (along with Patrick Boujou) were at the forefront of natural wine production in the Puy-de-dôme, the region that really put the Auvergne on the map and in the natural wine imaginary. Fred is a former motorcycle mechanic who returned to his family’s agricultural roots in 2000 and up until 2023 made wine with his partner Caroline “Carotte”. The domain has been since transitioned to a pair of danish cavistes, and while it would generally be seen as worrisome, Le Cave du Mamie caviste (and auvergnat) Jules reassured me that the transition might actually be positive and he has faith in the new guys to continue the legacy.
PRIEURE ROCH VIN DE FRANCE 2022
LADOIX-BURGOGNE
Powerful, cool herb nose, high acid, tanic, long finish, spicy, perfect natty burg
Founded in ‘88 by Henri-Frederic Roch with vineyards purchased from the all-powerful Domaine de la Romanee-Conti, Prieure Roch represents the radical edge of high end (re: collector) burg. Always whole cluster and sans-soufre, I’ve heard these wines described as “really really good Julien Altaber” and I am inclined to agree. The problem is that they do occupy the collectors territory, and have experienced an exponential exchange-value/use-value disarticulation. Definitely a classic in the cult category.
PIERRE ANDREY AUX19DJ90
METZ-MOSELLE
My auxerrois goat. My favorite alsatian variety done perfect. This wine has the perfect balance of flaws. Perfect VA, perfect trapped CO2, a touch of brett. The natty tingle cut through the fatty texture which then faded into a singing acid on the back palate. So so good.
Pierre Andrey and Florence Bouleaux are some of the more avant garde producers in all of natural wine. The couple works in environmental management and medical equipment and makes wine on the side as a passion project. This ameteurality has not stopped these wines from gaining iconic status in just a few vintages. Perhaps it was overdetermined from the start when they began making wine with Schueller Pinot Gris that they acquired in exchange for their labor during the 2014 harvest. All of the wines are produced in demijohn, meaning that each cuvee has a tight production capacity, usually 66 bottles. This scalar dimension is just one, but very interesting, aspect of these wines to me.
DOMAINE LABET ‘CHARDONNAY DU HASARD’ 2015
ROTALIER-JURA
Sous Voile Labet magic. Crazy long and powerful finish. The tannin on it was psychedelic. chewing. Sous voile with energy like ive never had it
So much to say about Labet, but I think the best thing I can do is to point you towards this film. Pure geophilosophy. https://vimeo.com/646011474
HIROTAKA OOKA CORNAS 2015
CORNAS-RHONE
Cornas overflowing with purity. Cornas with everything intensified to its limit and then expanded through the restricted structure of appellated Cornas and into the natty realm. High acid, low booze, meaty, mineral and expressive.
Hirotake comes from Japan, and after moving to Bordeaux to make wine, he became enamored with the wines of Northern Rhone legend Thierry Allemand. He famously originally didn’t work the vineyard at all, no vine treatments, no tilling, no pruning, just undisturbed natural vines. This carried into the cellar as well, which was carved into the side of a mountain and was notoriously natch, with mushrooms growing on barrels. In 2022, from what I have heard due to incessant xenophobia in the Northern Rhone, he ceased making wine in Cornas and moved back to Japan to make wine in the Okayama prefecture.
DANIEL SAGE NYCTALOPIE 2021
ARDECHE-RHONE
Pure.
Personally Sage is one of my most desired producers. I think when I first learned about him his project just aligned with my ingenium; my favorite region, obscure garagiste background, a bunch of my favorite grapes, and those labels…oh man those labels. They are famously pure and expressive, and the hype from some choice heads who I trust really built this one’s potentia up to me. Add on the experience of getting denied the ability to drink these several times last time I was in Paris, and he was really at the top of my list lol. A metal worker by trade, Daniel is a longtime scenester who made wine as a garagiste just for the art before transitioning into full time production. My sense has always been that these are real caviste’s wines.
Vive de vins d’émotion!