Courtesy Little Fox
The featured wines for Little Fox's virtual, cafe-side, wine tasting event (held live on Aug. 28, but available thereafter) are L’Alezan ‘Metonymia’ 2018 and Stéphanie Olmeta, ‘Patrimonio Rouge’ 2015, and can be purchased Thursday through Sunday from Little Fox's online store.
What's old is new again. At one time, all wine was “natural.” When humans harvested grapes thousands of years ago, the juice from those grapes was fermented without additives. This is the way it began and was always done, until winemakers embraced mechanization, the use of pesticides and flavoring and preserving agents.
Natural wines, also known as raw, naked, no- and low-intervention and natty wines, have gained significant popularity in the past few years. With the growth of this popularity comes a great deal of discourse and debate within the wine community. Disagreements over what qualifies as a natural wine, what practices producers should follow, as well as the very ethos of the natural wine movement is one of the most interesting conversations happening about wine today. This is because there is no standardization or regulation for what exactly is qualified to be natural wine.
Trying to distill the definition to a single sentence, Chris Voll, wine manager at Little Fox, explains, “It is the closest you can get to taking nothing away and adding nothing. Essentially, it is fermented grapes.” He's quick to augment this initially succinct answer with mentions of the importance of accurate representation of terroir, concepts like human scale production, dead versus living wine, and ethical employment practices. There is, it seems, no easy answer when discussing natural wines, which is what makes it so exciting.
Little Fox opened last November in Fox Park with Kelly Nyikes as beverage director. Nyikes built the all natural wine list, although he was hesitant to not include conventional wines as well. “I thought that diners may need a slower, more gradual introduction to natural wines," he says, "but the Rivards pushed for an exclusively natural wine list, and they were right in doing so.”
The natural wine list makes sense at Little Fox. Chef Craig Rivard is making food that is simple yet dynamic, with an emphasis on execution and careful preparation. He and his wife, Mowgli Rivard, have found success offering approachable, delicious dishes with no attempts to reinvent the wheel.
Courtesy Little Fox
Courtesy Little Fox
After making the decision to close their dining room due to COVID-19, the Rivards have continued to find creative ways to produce great food. They opened an online store, which offered specialty sandwiches as well as pantry staples including fresh baguettes, pâte, bottles of Fox’s chocolate syrup, and large bags of pebble ice, or, as their site describes it, “as close as you can get to Sonic ice.”
They reopened the 20-seat patio for full-service dining and purchased a large lot across the street from the restaurant where they offer a fast-casual version of the Little Fox dining experience under a grand white tent. Online ordering and carryout continue to be available.
Photo by Holly Fann
Courtesy Little FoxLittle Fox owners Craig and Mowgli Rivard, flanked by Chris Voll and Kelly Nyikes
Courtesy Little Fox
Little Fox launched their newest, perhaps most interesting service in mid-August. Little Fox Natural Wine Club was announced via social media. Here, the term “club” is more indicative of a tight community that shares a similar interest than a structured, scheduled purchasing program. Two times per month, the restaurant selects two bottles of wine to be sold together, packed in a reusable canvas Little Fox wine bag. The bottles are all natural orange, pink, white, red, or sparkling wines. The two selections are accompanied by an appetizer-sized dish created by chef Rivard, such as the Venetian-style salt cod with grilled polenta that he prepared for the launch of the wine club.
“We’re kind of the anti-wine club,” says Voll. “With most clubs, you get locked into buying however many bottles, you receive them, and that’s it. With ours, you can buy each time we offer it—it’s always a one-shot deal.”
While the wine and the food are both compelling reasons to take part in the wine club, the IGTV (Instagram TV) video, airing at 7:30 p.m. on the Friday of the wine club sale, may be the best reason of all.
Courtesy Little Fox
Chris Voll, Kelly Nyikes
Hosted by Voll and Kelly Nyikes, who's now a portfolio manager at A. Bommarito Wines, the video is engaging and informative. The two share a significant amount of knowledge about the wines chosen for that week’s club and natural wines in general during the hourlong feed. There's never a feeling as if you are being lectured but rather that you are simply sharing a bottle with some friends and casually discussing natural wine.
“We set it up on the patio on Fridays, in the middle of some of our busiest service, so that if you're not a person who's willing to go to a restaurant, you're still kind of getting the sound and sights of being in a restaurant,” says Voll.
Courtesy Little Fox
There's plenty of pontification and some debate between the two, but that is punctuated with moments of relaxed humor and some ribbing. In their first video, Voll jokes that the term “bug pressure,” which Nyikes repeatedly mentions, sounds like a band name.
The second wine club tasting will be held live on Friday, August 28, at 7:30 p.m. The installment is called The French Strike Back and features two selections from F&R Wine Imports. Owners John-Paul and Julie Fortney will be on hand as well. The tasting bundle includes a country terrine with grainy mustard, cornichons, and a grilled baguette. Both bottles and the chef's special dish are available for purchase Thursday through Sunday through Little Fox's online store.
As new videos are released, previous ones can be viewed via Instagram.
