What To Expect On Progressive Wine Lists

Five years after the first wave of natural wine bars unlocked the doors to a larger audience, the scene has evolved. We check in with four new wine bars about evolving trends and what to expect on progressive wine lists

- June Lee

Five years ago, drinkers in Singapore were just beginning to understand the terms “skin contact”, “orange/amber”, “pét-nat” and “glou glou” (literally “glug glug”, or easily quaffable wines) that arrived with the proliferation of natural wines in Singapore. Fronting that trend were the rebellious wine bars—Wine RVLT, Le Bon Funk, Bar Cicheti—all of which are still going strong. Nothing much has changed at these establishments: they still largely do not have a wine list (bottles are displayed with prices handwritten with chalk), deploy alternative music playlists, and offer mostly natural wines and fewer conventional ones.

Another thing that hasn’t changed: the ambiguity of the term “natural wine”, which is not codified the same way organic and biodynamic wines are, but are often placed in the same category. (See our sidebars for a quick refresher course on natural wines.) Meanwhile, a new crop of wine bars has sprung up, carrying mainly natural wines or blending them into their wine lists. The folks behind Fool, Casa by Remy Lefebvre’s Wine Room, Club Street Wine Room and Drunken Farmer tell us more about today’s wine bar trends, who the drinkers are, and what wines to look out for.

STILL CURIOUS ABOUT FUNK