Glou-Glou: The Art of Crushable Natural Wine
Light, chillable, and dangerously easy to drink. A guide to the most fun category in natural wine.
Glou-glou (French onomatopoeia for the glugging sound of wine being poured) describes wines that are light, fruity, low in alcohol, and meant to be drunk without thinking too hard.
Think of them as the natural wine equivalent of a cold beer on a hot day. No pretension, no cellaring, no decanting. Just pure, crunchy, joyful drinking.
The classic glou-glou grapes: Gamay (Beaujolais), Trousseau (Jura), Cinsault (Southern France), Schiava (Alto Adige), and Frappato (Sicily). Light-bodied, high-acid, low-tannin.
The key: serve them cold. Like, actually cold. 12-14C. This amplifies the fruit and freshness and makes them even more crushable.
Best producers for glou-glou: Marcel Lapierre (the godfather), Jean Foillard, Yann Durieux, Catherine & Pierre Breton, Gut Oggau, and basically anyone from Beaujolais making Morgon or Fleurie with carbonic maceration.
Snobs sometimes dismiss glou-glou, but it's among the hardest wines to make well. Extracting maximum flavor with minimum intervention takes real skill. The best glou-glou wines are deceptively complex.
What Is Natural Wine? (And How We Prove a Bar Pours It)
Natural wine in one paragraph, why there's no legal definition in most places, and the evidence we need before we call a bar, restaurant or shop natural.
Pét-Nat, Orange Wine, Skin Contact: A Glossary in Plain Words
The words you'll meet on a natural-wine list, each in a sentence or two: pét-nat, orange wine, skin contact, zero-zero, glou-glou, brett, mousiness and more.
The Beginner's Case: 10 Natural Wines to Start With
Ten bottles that teach you the whole spectrum — from juicy Gamay to Georgian amber — and the producers to look for on any list.
Want to discover the bars we're talking about?
Explore barsNewsletter
Get the next crawl
New proven places, events and wine fairs. About twice a month.