What's a Pet Nat?

TL:DR - Pet Nat is hipster Champagne (don't tell the French)

To get to the bottom of what Pet Nat (or Pétillant Naturel, or Col Fondo if it's Prosecco!) we need to look a little bit at wine trends. Natural Wine is having or has recently had a massive uptick in popularity. This could be from slightly "edgy" companies like Wolf Wine or Natty Boy Wines and heavily tattooed "wine-influencers" on IG, but in general I think it's because post-pandemic people are just a little bit more concerned about what their putting into their bodies. 

According to Bloomberg:
"Pétillant-Naturel (natural sparkling) is a catch-all term for practically any sparkling wine made in the méthode ancestrale, meaning the wine is bottled before primary fermentation is finished, without the addition of secondary yeasts or sugars."

The Pet Nat technique is actually older than Champagne. It's tried and tested, it's just now that it's having its moment in the sun! The wines can be a little bit rustic - which isn't really to my taste but I'm not here to yuck people's yums - and can be a bit cloudy as they are usually unfiltered. This does mean that most of them are vegan wines though! Due to the fact that they have slightly fewer bubbles than Champagne and the likes they can be secured with a crown cap like a beer bottle rather than a cork and a cage. 

One of the main distinctions from other sparkling wines is that Pet Nats are completely natural - as the name would suggest. The winemaker just leaves the wine to do its thing, nothing added, nothing taken away!

Here's a handy table to help you figure out if Pet Nat's are for you. 

BLUDGE just got our first ever Pet Nat - Daschbosch's Methode Ancestrale. It's a fresh, limey style of Pet Nat, with hints of brioche buns, so if you like Cava it may be the one for you.