Herish, Marc & Paul from Natural Wine Collective

Q: In 1-2 sentences, tell us about Natural Wine Collective.

A: We wanted to create a place that would have the largest and best selection of natural wines in the Netherlands. The idea was to bring together the most interesting wines of our favorite wine importers in one webshop, and to create a central place where you could buy them. At the moment we work with 12 importers and have 400+ natural wines in stock.

Next to having a large selection and catering to wine lovers and aficionado’s, we also wanted to help people out who are less knowledgeable or who are new to natural wine and curious to try it out. It can be quite overwhelming to have to choose between more than 400 wines, so we created an easy way to select wines on our website through filters and recommendations.

On top of all this we have our Home Sommelier subscription. By asking you a couple of questions we try to get an idea about the wines you might like and curate a personalised selection of wines. In the meantime we stay in touch so we get to know you and adjust to your taste better and better.

Q: What about You personally, why are you working with this? What's your story?

A: The three founders of Natural Wine Collective are Paul Witte, Marc van Kempen and Herish Salim.

Paul "Glouglou" Witte discovered the then virtually absent natural wine scene in the 90’s, when he started buying wines at early adapter Helmer Otterman who, against all odds, sold unsulfured wines ‘avant la lettre’. When in 2015 Paul called his translator and copywriter career quits, he opened natural wine bar Glouglou, and the rest is history. Paul enjoys working in the vineyard and has a fondness for wines that are, you might have guessed, glouglou: full of juice, energy, and life.

Marc van Kempen is our Obelix - not because of his build (slim), nor because of his braids (absent), but because he too “fell” into the magic potion at a young age: when five he was allowed to taste the bordeaux and burgundy's his family brought annually from France - yes, at the time people educated their children in miraculous ways. Where most young children don't like (red) wine, he loved it - and believe me, if you know Marc, you can imagine his delight. A few decades later, and an artist now, he opened wine bar Miller, the first natural wine bar of Berlin. In 2019 Marc returned to Amsterdam and applied to Glouglou, where he is doing his best to give Italian and Eastern European wines a more prominent place.

As a physics student, Herish Salim frequented Glouglou because he adored the bar´s wine offer, without being aware the wines were as natural as they get. As he became more knowledgeable about natural wine, his interest grew and soon he too joined the Glouglou team. His interest is in terroir and this immediately explains his love for natural wine: he likes to taste the origins of a wine because they are not adjusted. He discards the assertion that certain natural wine flavours are “wrong”. Quite on the contrary, he insists these flavours belong to wine and give it it's thrill. Herish prefers wine from the northerly wine regions as well as higher-lying vineyards, since they are often more delicate.

Q: What is your favourite bottle in your store right now, and Why should we all buy one?

A: We don’t really have one particular wine at the moment that is our favourite. We think there is a wine for every moment, wether that would be a relaxing, meditative wine, an exciting party wine or something to go with a particular food. Luckily we have a wine for every occasion!

Q: From your shop right now, name some bottles that you consider to be the perfect MOOD BOOSTERS (i.e. pick me ups after a long, dark and cold winter/spring; fun, light friendly and affordable wines).

A: Out Pink by Piana dei Castelli. Great crisp and juicy rosé from Lazio, delicious with seafood.