Natty Chatties

Beth Comatos, a.k.a. Juice Box Beth

About Juice Box Beth

Hello hello. I’m Juice Box Beth. I live in Brooklyn, NY with my partner Jimmy and our dog Effie. I like to drink wine and write about it on my Instagram, @juiceboxbeth. I’m studying for the final level of WSET, the diploma, and in doing so, attempting to demystify natural wine in a classic wine world. 

When I’m not wine-ing around, you can find me outside looking for four leaf clovers, at the dog park trying to make friends, or in bed practicing lucid dreaming. Actually, you can not come find me in bed. You are not invited there.

 The CHat

What’s your natural wine origin story? How'd you get into it?

Beth: I live for natural wine stories. Everyone’s story is different; some are straightforward and some are weird as hell. But they all share that same A-HA moment when you just drink something that makes you realize wine is way more than a beverage. And the rest’s history, right?

My natural wine story starts back in Madison, WI. I moved out there to work at a big healthcare technology company, but after 3 years, I ended up quitting my job, moving back to New York, and falling in love with three things: wine, Effie, and Jimmy. (Not necessarily in that order.)

There was a wine shop right on the capitol square of downtown Madison called Square Wine Company. Every Friday night you’d find me there, partaking in the weekly themed tasting, getting a little tipsy, and spending all my money on wine. The owner Andrea is the embodiment of hospitality; she remembered everything I loved, making the entire experience feel welcoming and personable.

One Saturday, Andrea told me she had something called “Australian natty wine” that she wanted to taste me on. It ended up being a lineup of just-landed Lucy Margaux wines from winemaker Anton Van Klopper, who makes zero-zero wines in Adelaide Hills, South Australia. And while we sipped, Andrea showed us this five minute 2014 YouTube video featuring Van Klopper and his farm in which he talks about biodynamic farming. What the actual fuck? I thought. When asked about how strange this all seems, Van Klopper made a good point: it’s even stranger to make wine in a laboratory with test tubes. Touché, Anton.

Video aside, the wines were magical. They tasted like happy wild berries and dancing flowers and earth. They were lively and refreshing. (Looking back, they all had a hint of volatile acidity that added a layer of strange complexity I had never tasted in a wine.) I was perplexed and bought them all. From then on, I sought out these so-called “natty wines.”

Please write a love letter to wine as a traditional haiku.

Beth:

grapes, they grow outside

fermentation’s the journey

of Juice to my mouth

Picture this: your favorite song of all time (to repeat - of all time) is blasting out of a speaker. You've got a snack bowl handy, and your wine glass is ready for a refill. Name the tune, the juice, and the munchies.

Beth: Crunchy cheetos is the snack. Loire Valley Sauvignon Blanc is the juice. Zombie by Langhorne Slim is the song.

“She was so good lookin'

Wonderin' what she was cookin'

It smelled so good

She’s a zombie through and through”

LOL, I am narrating a typical Saturday at Juice Box Beth’s house.

To a tender wine newbie who hasn't discovered yet what they might like to drink, what advice would you give?

Beth: Find your Square Wine Company. You don’t actually have to go to Madison, WI (although you should because it’s a happy place complete with handfuls of overly friendly midwesterners). But find a wine shop to call your own. Become a regular. Get to know the staff. A good wine shop will guide you to your juice. #takemetoyourjuice

Also, before you start glug-gluging, snap a pic of the bottle and write down some notes. The notes can literally be: smells like socks, drank at Shannon’s, we started dancing, etc. The biggest part of learning wine is creating a benchmark of memories: what you like, what sucks, and how they compare. I find that if I remember small irrelevant details (like the outfit I was wearing or my mood at the moment), I can better remember the wines.

What’s THE one bottle you could exclusively uncork every single day and never be bored to tears? You can't have two. Only one.

Beth: How dare you? One of the things I love most about wine is that I almost never drink the same wine twice. There’s just too much out there to try to put all the same eggs (wines) in one basket (wine fridge). But, fine, if I had to pick: bone dry riesling. Probably from Germany. Probably from the Mosel. Probably from Stein. His wines are just fantastic. They go with any and every food. They make me want to dance. They can be drunk in any season: they give you warm fuzzies in the winter and hydrate you in the summer. They are my ride-or-die.

A skin-contact piquette and a chilled Beaujolais engage in a Medieval-style jousting duel. Who wins and why?

Beth: Let’s set the scene. Skin-contact piquette is the clear underdog here. It just might hold its own for maybe like a round or two. And that’s because it’s scrappy, it makes do with what it has. But I think in the end, we know the carbonic glou of a lightly-chilled Beaujolais will never fail. My money’s on the Beauj.

Lastly, Since you're Juice Box Beth, do you have a favorite non-alcoholic juice box (or pouch, no disrespect to Capri Sun)?

Beth: When I’m hungover, I crave apple juice. I need apple juice. Fucking apple juice. It’s so weird but the act of sipping apple juice out of a miniature cardboard box just checks all the hungover boxes for me. In particular, I keep it classic with the tiny, lime green Juicy Juice Juice Box. (Holy crap, I never thought I’d be able to write the words juicy, juice, and juice in a row and still have it made sense.) It’s so funny because when I was a child these juice boxes didn’t seem so small but they’re actually tiny. They’re like one sip of juice: Slurp. Boom. Done.