Personal Canvas: The Natural Wine Company
This spring’s collaboration between FRAMA and Barcelona-based The Natural Wine Company introduces the first instalment in the Personal Canvas series: a new vehicle to dive deeply into craft processes, both of our own makers and outward practices of interest. Whether weaving, glass-blowing, paper making—or winemaking—the common thread lies in human hands and tradition.
For The Natural Wine Company, natural winemaking is a marriage between nature and craft. Starting from the soil, the winemakers they work with are making decisions at the most minute level: as natural producers aren’t able to rely on additives later on in the process of winemaking, their product each season will be the result of plans made in the field. These choices make up an artful, craft-based element of the practice, while the climate is another element for producers to contend with—each season’s tastes and flavors will also depend on the weather and natural surroundings.
As founder Alfredo Lopez describes, “The true artistry of a winemaker is about guiding the grapes into what they should be, as opposed to forcing them into something that you want them to be.” For Lopez, this mirrors the process of how The Natural Wine Company itself began. The idea—including its distinct visual identity—had been growing in his mind as a point of connection between natural wine, food, and hospitality. A wine club became the right format to bring this idea to life when the pandemic hit and Apartamento Magazine became involved.
- The Natural Wine Company Founder, Alfredo Lopez.
“What I love most is how every winemaker is a world of their own, even within the same region. There are winemakers who are very radical, almost anarchist, and like to operate off the grid, while others have estates that have been around for hundreds of years. Then there are winemakers who combine permaculture and biodynamic farming with winemaking, or others whose wine is made in a small garage or a place you’d never imagine a cellar to be hidden.”
On a recent visit to the producers of Pequeños y Salvajes wines (which translates most directly to “Young and Energetic”) in the Gredos region about an hour outside of Madrid, The Natural Wine Company took in the lush landscape firsthand. The natural surroundings of each vineyard define much of their taste, and this landscape brought inspiration to the FRAMA X TNWC kitchen towel in color, texture, and hospitality.
- The Natural Wine Company Founder, Alfredo Lopez.
Part of the process for Vicky and Nahuel—the couple who operate Pequeños y Salvajes on their own—is to use old “tinajas,” or clay flower pots for the vinification process when grape juice turns into wine. The craft of these vessels imparts a special taste—each one with its own aroma to impact what is fermenting inside. According to Lopez, these vessels are the primary tools in the process of production; in this case made of ceramic clay.
Fittingly, the first collaboration between FRAMA and The Natural Wine Company has resulted in a piece that is ideal for accompanying a bottle of wine: a limited edition version of FRAMA’s light towel, for kitchen use or decorative wall-hanging with a playful illustration by artist Jhon Boy. The towel’s drawing and tones come from vineyards like Gredos, bringing the terracottas and greens of these productive landscapes into any interior, with generosity in each use.
