Japanese Wine by Nick Rowan (Book Review)

Posted on 11/08/2026 by dccrossley

If you were to ask why you should be in the slightest bit interested in a book on the wines of Japan, I would consider that a fair question. My task here is to convince you that such a book, such a country, and its wines, are well worth exploring. The wider world of people interested in wine hasn’t yet quite caught up with countries like Czechia, Greece or Switzerland, but I’m sure they will, eventually. Just as they caught up with Jura, Austria, or South African artisan wines. So one day Japan will have a moment in the sun.

You might even wonder whether they make wine in Japan? They most certainly do and a fair bit of it is very good. It’s just that the UK market hasn’t really tried to import them. Some enterprising retailers have stocked wines made from what people see as the quintessential Japanese grape variety, Koshu, but that’s more or less it. Koshu isn’t a bad signature for Japan, but there’s so much more, as author Nick Rowan will show you.

I made my first trip to Japan in 2007, a trip that kept us in and around Tokyo. I didn’t really detect any vibrant wine scene back then, though part of that could have been my own ignorance. I did manage to find one or two bottles to bring home, but it being before one of our children studied Japanese, it was difficult to work out what I’d actually bought. A bottle of red reminded me very much of the hybrid, Rondo.

Subsequent visits saw a big change. At first metropolitan Japan began to show a healthy interest in European natural wines. Although there was a market for the classics, Bordeaux and Burgundy, I always felt that China had gone in harder on that market and Japanese buyers showed wider interests. I remember one trip being very fruitful for drinking a host of Austrian producers I knew from the London natural wine fairs and specialist importers. Next, I began to come across natural wine bars in the major cities, usually with a savvy presence on Instagram.

What really remained a mystery in terms of hands-on experience was visiting wine producers, although that has since been put right, if only to a tiny degree. The literature on Japanese wine remains very limited in the UK. The World Atlas of Wine (8th edn) contains two pages on the country, useful if brief. China merits three pages. I wonder whether the imminent 9th edition will expand its coverage?

Back in 2018 Anthony Rose published Sake and the Wines of Japan (Infinite Ideas, now Académie du Vin). Catering well for the nascent and growing interest in sake, it contains thirty-six pages on Japanese wine. Not a lot, but actually a welcome overview with the best producers, both commercial and cult, covered.

One writer who I think also has a good grasp of Japanese wine, and who has been on the ground himself, is Jamie Goode, and for anyone who wants to find out more about Japanese wine his Wine Anorak site is the place to go.

Now, pretty much out of the blue, we have Japanese Wine by Nick Rowan. Nick lived in Japan during his twenties, where he developed a deep interest in the country’s wines. His book is a work of scholarship and effort on an immense scale, and after saving my pennies to buy it I am very happy to be able to review it.

Nick profiles 721 producers and 130 grape varieties, 82 of which are unique to Japan. These are arranged by region/prefecture and show just how widespread winemaking is around the multi-island nation. Each profiled winery is given a star rating. I’m not sufficiently knowledgeable to know whether these would concur with mine, but where I know a winery to have an excellent reputation that does seem reflected on the page. It’s remarkable how many producers Nick self-evidently actually visited and tasted at.

The producer profiles not only cover the wines and their production, but they also have useful information for visitors, such as whether they are open to the public, offer tastings, or have restaurants or accommodation. It should be noted that you cannot taste if you are driving, nor can you if you are riding a bicycle. I admit I unwittingly broke that latter rule once, although the winemaker could not have known I had arrived at his tasting room on a cycle, just as I had not known of the rule until I read Nick’s book.

Each producer is of course grouped by region so that you get a good regional overview at the start of each chapter.

The book also details bars, restaurants and wine shops along with wine fairs and festivals. Nick goes outside Japan to profile thirty-eight Japanese winemakers working overseas, along with twenty foreign winemakers who work in Japan. Those working outside of the country are often pretty well known to us (such as Kenjiro Kagami at Domaine des Miroirs in Jura, or Hiroyuki Kusuda in New Zealand), and they are more often than not working biodynamically or naturally. Within Japan itself, the important natural wine scene is widely detailed, highlighting producers, wine stores and bars.

There’s a lot more besides in the book, even a section on language. Very useful because the effort of a few words and knowledge of cultural things to do with custom and politeness goes a very long way in a country where tourists often appear incredibly rude (to be fair, in the bigger cities etc they quite often are).

One chapter which is worth noting is that on Japanese cheese. The country has more than 330 producers of natural cheese (as opposed to processed cheese), more than half of the natural artisan cheese produced, around 25,000 tons, coming from the Tokachi Plain in Hokaido. This is where Japan’s first appellation for cheese has been legislated (Tokachi Raclette GI).

What do I think of the book?

Well, it is self-published. I think that in this context it is nicely put together. The hard cover and the binding are of good quality. The text is clear and well-formatted and it has been, as far as I can tell so far, well-indexed.

All the photos are in black and white, but I have no complaints there. Full colour would have been prohibitively expensive for a book like this. The photos are often of winemakers, bottle shots or landscapes etc. For me, they are sufficiently evocative, for sure.

The maps are a mixed bag in terms of printing (some lettering appears a little light), but they are certainly sufficient for conveying the information intended, and they are a clear aid to understanding Japan’s viticultural geography. Most are not too detailed, yet they do allow you to locate wineries you may wish to visit, and Nick is always helpful with information as to whether visits are possible and, if so, how to go about it.

As for the price, I paid £49. Amazon was the only place I could find to purchase it and I think it may be one of their “print on demand” publications. I would say that if this is the case it’s the best of those that I’ve bought so far, because some previous purchases of print on demand have been a little shoddy. This is cloth-bound with a thick hard cover. Considering the effort that is not a bad price, and I’m certainly glad Nick decided to publish in a format that won’t fall apart after a few leaves through. But the price is why I did say I’d had to save my pennies.

For me, the spend is certainly worth it. It’s a wine country that fascinates me, with my interests in the far reaches of the wine world. It’s more important than the old wine gurus yet give it credit for, for a number of reasons. It’s a wine scene I’ve had an eye on for a good number of years, watching it grow. That we have this detailed book now is wonderful for those of us who are interested in what is happening at the edges of wine.

The big question you may ask is when we are going to see some Japanese wine in the UK, I mean aside from three or four Koshu cuvées you might find from time to time, with a little digging? Well, Nick does list three potential UK sources (see p408), though that doesn’t seem to equate to availability anywhere I shop. Modal Wines is an extremely innovative small importer, and they’ve done a trip out to Japan. I’m rather hoping they might have some wines to offer us in the near future. Japan may not be the easiest country to import from, but we have access to plenty of Japanese sake now (alongside home-produced bottles), and we have a body in London promoting trade and all things J. So, I live in hope.

I would, before concluding, like to draw attention to one particular winery, which is Domaine Sogga in Obuse, although I should say that although the top wines are labelled as Domaine Sogga, you will also find this producer often listed as Obuse Winery (which is how Nick indexes it). It’s a prickly place because Sogga doesn’t enter competitions, doesn’t much like journalists, no indoor photography is allowed and you can only buy one bottle of each wine, even if you are part of a group. To say that their wider availability within Japan is select would be an understatement. They are never (if he can prevent it) sold online.

However, the wines are amazing. Nick calls them iconic and he’s not wrong. But Obuse itself is a place you can’t miss and which I hope to see again one day. You can visit the spectacular Hokusai Museum, and the house where he had his studio. Hire bicycles and visit two amazing temples on the edge of town (one has a famous Hokusai ceiling). Chestnut noodles are a speciality here.

A little further up the branch line you need to travel up from Nagano you get to Yudanaka, last station on the line. We stayed near here, at Koishiya Ryokan (at Shibu Onsen), which aside from doing what it says on the tin (attractive historic onsen village), is the closest place to the famous Snow Monkey Park. Actually, higher in the mountains is a UNESCO biosphere forest which looks straight out of a Ghibli film (beware of the bears though).

After that brief diversion, back to the book. For me, it is inspiring that the author has devoted such scholarship to a wine country whose day has not yet come on the international stage. But I think the widespread ignorance of Japanese wine within the wine community is already being eroded, and this book (which I think has sold well) will act as a further catalyst to stimulate interest. Japan has everything to offer the adventurous wine lover, including in the widest sense, sustainability. After all, Masanobu Fukuoka was Japanese! Many of the facets of regenerative agriculture we see as new and innovative were born in Japan.

Japanese Wine is a book which will go alongside those in my wine library which I return to as a research tool, but reading it, indeed perhaps just because it exists, it has reminded me both just how much I want a UK importer to get involved with Japanese wine, and indeed how much I would very much like to make one more trip to rural Japan before I am no longer able to do so.

Japanese Wine by Nick Rowan was published in December 2025 under the Wine Fogg imprint (Nick is on Instagram as @winefogg). It is available online via Amazon UK for £49, or via a link in Nick’s Insta profile. It runs to 434 pages, with black and white maps and photos, appendices and it is fully indexed. It is fair to say that the book contains more, in terms of both themes and detail, than I can reasonably write about in this review. Buy it!

Posted in Artisan Wines, Cheese, Grape Varieties, Japan, Vineyard Visits and Tastings, Viticulture, Wine, Wine Bars, Wine Books, Wine Tourism, Wine Travel, Wine Writing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Recent Wines July 2026 (Part 2) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 05/08/2026 by dccrossley

For the second part of my Recent Wines for July 2026 we start off with a sparkling red from England, followed by a rather attractive white blend from Languedoc. After a spectacular new New Zealand red (or is it a dark Rosé?), we hit a Czech cider with its own wine angle. After a Hungarian red wine we finish with another English sparkling wine, although this one is sixteen years old.

If you wondered why I’m only putting up “Recent Wines” at the moment, it’s just summer folks. Following some brief trips abroad and the annual English road trip to see friends, family and music, we are now in visitor season here. This year everyone is trying to escape the southern heat. Some friends left on Monday, temperatures here being 17 degrees. It even rained that morning. They were returning to Kent, where on Monday night their phone app suggested it would be thirty. Anyway, I’ve a few juicy articles lined up, one I’ve been waiting to write for four-or-five weeks, but you’ll just have to wait a bit longer.

Fizzy Red 2025, Matt Gregory (Leicestershire, England)

Matt’s wines come in very small quantities and that often means by the time I write about one it is pretty hard to source. However, Fizzy Red is brand new label and I managed to get a bottle directly from Matt via someone who visited him just before release. This means there could be some of the 673 bottles he made of this still knocking around.

It’s what I see as a classic MG combo, Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris, co-fermented with indigenous yeasts, every other process commensurate with natural wine (barring any stray overspray by local arable farmers), including no added sulphur. Matt is brave, considering his location in the Leicestershire Wolds, but fortune favours the brave as they say. It so often does with Matt, perhaps because despite the vicissitudes of the East Midlands climate, it is at least windy, so a lot of disease doesn’t get a start, even when it’s humid.

Someone has named this “Leicestershire Lambrusco”. I won’t claim it was me but I’m tempted to keep using it. It is gently sparkling with dark, bosky, concentrated fruit and with that savoury and bitter finish the Italian’s do so well. It’s unfiltered and I chose to stand it up in the fridge for 24 hours before serving. I do sometimes like to go with the sediment in petnats etc, but here I felt I’d made the right call. This summer has seen us drink a few fizzy reds or dark pinks and I find them almost more summery than whites, with the summer fruit pudding vibe.

Matt’s agent is now Wines Under the Bonnet who are handling this. My bottle came up to Scotland with Matt from Spry Wines in Edinburgh, who tend to have a good selection of Matt Gregory’s wines. A good bet in England is Forest Wines, who may get some, or contact WUTB direct. It costs around £25. Go for it! You’ll have a lot of fun glugging it.

Faugères “Les Vignes du Puits” 2023, Bardi d’Alquier (Languedoc, France)

The original Domaine d’Alquier sits in the heart of Languedoc’s Faugères AOP. It has been a source for excellent red blends for a long time now, and white wines are now a welcome addition to the appellation. The domaine has been run by Sophie and Thibaud Bardi since 2018, originally in-tandem with Jean-Michel and Véronique Alquier, hence the amended domaine name as they transition to new ownership and identity.

The estate has always stood out in the region, not only for quality, but also as a source of excellent low intervention, or natural, wines. This white is a blend of Marsanne, Roussanne and Grenache Blanc from vines all over thirty years old, grown on the region’s now famous grey schist, all on hillsides. The grapes were partially destemmed and given a long and cold fermentation. After a direct press the wine was aged eight months on fine lees.

What you get is a super-tasty, savoury white wine with a schist-solid edge to it. Refreshing citrus acids lighten a balanced 13% alcohol. The palate has some medium-weight quince and pear, plus your usual garrigue herbs, though they don’t dominate. This will definitely age another year, maybe longer, but I loved its structure, and that edge it has.

This is another relative bargain I grabbed about a year ago from The Wine Society for £17, so don’t necessarily expect to find this 2023 anymore. I hope it comes back in. They do still list several wines from the estate.

Love Letters 2022, A Thousand Gods Wines (Marlborough, New Zealand)

Lauren and Simon, whose family names seem elusive, are a couple who have worked in Europe and the USA/Australia, and made wine for a decade with Fabien Jouves in Cahors, in Southwest France.  Based at Rolleston in Waihopai Valley, Marlborough, they work exclusively with a biodynamic grower to further the minimal intervention philosophy they absorbed working with Fabien, making wines under the “A Thousand Gods” label. This is a literal translation of the Occitan “miladiou” which is an exclamation of surprise (like the English expression “blimey”).

Love Letters is a crazy blend of Pinot Noir with Viognier and Sauvignon Blanc. It’s a dark Rosé with a light red vibe that is fully natural with no added sulphites. It both tastes and smells of red fruits, the palate adding some darker fruit notes and hibiscus (but I had been drinking hibiscus tonic around the time we drank this). It does hit 13.5% abv, yet despite this I’d argue it is a wonderfully summery wine, and in fact a wonderful wine full stop. An absolutely fantastic discovery.

This is a Modal Wines import, one of the fruits of their recent visit to NZ, and I’m very happy to have a couple more of their discoveries sitting at home. This bottle was purchased at Communiqué Wines in Edinburgh for around £34.

Play: lada dýda dádádá 2021, Utopia Cider featuring Milan Nestarec (Bohemia, Czechia)

This cider is made by Ivo Laurin and his wife, Eva. They moved from Prague to make cider, and now drinking vinegars, at an old 15th Century fortified farm at Sudkuv Dul, in Southern Bohemia. They make authentic, natural ciders using both their own and local fruit, all from unsprayed trees, some of which are eighty years old. Fermentations happen long and slow, in old oak

The “Play” series are ciders with a wine co-ferment, this one co-fermented with Cabernet Franc skins from Milan Nestarec, who is a good friend of the Laurins. We have exactly the same philosophy here as with natural wine. Fermentations are on ambient yeasts, there is no filtration, and zero added sulphites, for example.

The colour is a lovely sunset pink. You get pure zesty apples on the nose, which is echoed on the palate, especially the freshness. You’d never guess this is a 2021 vintage. I had drunk a bottle at friends earlier this summer, buying my own bottle on the strength of that. I’d not even considered the vintage. The grape skins add lots more depth and a little complexity, though it really is that apple freshness that stands out.

Around £20 from importer Basket Press Wines. If they don’t have any left, try Forest Wines.

A Change of Heart 2022, Annamária Réka-Koncz (Eastern Hungary)

This 100% Kékfrankos (aka Blaufränkisch) varietal is made by Annamária from grapes grown in Mátra, Hungary’s second-largest wine region, situated in the Northeast, to the west of the River Tarna, and the once-famous Eger region, so in fact a way west of her base at Barabás, near the Ukrainian border. The grapes are organic and the same natural winemaking methods are used as with Annamária’s other wines.

The fruit sees a mix of carbonic fermentation and direct press, ageing taking place in stainless steel. The wine is bottled unfined/unfiltered with minimal added sulphites. From a distance the wine looks dark, like beetroot, but closer up it has a lovely warm magenta glow that is worth remarking on. The nose is very fresh, in the way that wines made from grapes grown on volcanic soils often are.

When I first began to drink so-called “volcanic wines” I used to say that they had a bouquet that smelt like iron filings. Of course, I’m not sure I can recall from my schooldays what, if indeed anything, wine filings smell of. It’s just an image which, for my own appreciation of the wine, seems to provide the visual image for the sensory experience. It may be a super power I have which is lacking in the naysayers of the “minerality” experience, a result of my artistic, not scientific, mind.

Anyway, after that initial freshness we begin to note a bit more complexity on the nose, the wine after all being four years old. Maybe it is reflecting the varied and complex soils and sub-strata of the andesite-rich geology of Mátra? No, that’s not possible…

The vats layer destemmed fruit and stems in alternate layers. The method seems to give the wine both fruit and more complex notes of earth and vegetation. In December 2025, when I last tried this ’22 at Hide in London, I said it tasted like a fine Beaujolais Cru, despite the very different grape varieties. It has even more complexity now but it hasn’t lost its vibrant cherry fruit and good sappy acidity. A lovely wine.

The importer, Basket Press Wines, from whom I tend to buy direct (as can anyone), are now onto the 2024, which I think they list for £32.

“The Trouble with Dreams” 2010, Sugrue Pierre (now Sugrue South Downs)(Sussex, England)

As I mentioned in Part 1, although these Recent Wines articles are usually full of the wines we drink at home, sometimes I’ll take a special bottle when we visit our best wine friends, and this is one such wine. It has been sat in my cellar for many years and I suppose with such wines I build quite a bond of affection, until the day arrives (which I know many of us keep putting off) when they must be opened.

Actually, giving up a bottle which you’ve nurtured for a decade or more is hard, and I’m as bad as anyone for hoarding wine. However, there comes a time, if we are lucky, that we sense the time is right to start drinking the family silver. I think that time has arrived for me. So long as the right people come to Scotland to share them.

In 2010 Dermot Sugrue was still Chief Winemaker at Wiston Estate. He only left in 2022, from which time he has worked under the label Sugrue South Downs. Whilst working for Wiston he also had his own side project, Sugrue Pierre. In 2006 he had planted a vineyard at Storrington Priory in West Sussex. He had hoped to make his first wine in 2008 but the crop was decimated by birds, hence the name he chose for this wine, The Trouble with Dreams. Since then, a second and larger site, further west, called Coldharbour Vineyard, has provided excellent fruit.

The first vintage was therefore 2009, but it was the legendary quality of the 2010 which was first to catapult Dermot to the very highest level, and since then he has achieved great things with the personal project he shares with his wife, near Lewes.

I had admired this 2010 after its release, never having tried the 2009. I selected one bottle of it for longer ageing because the only other English sparkling wine I could compare it to, in terms of thrills and excitement, was also a 2010, from the late Peter Hall at Breaky Bottom. I should add that TTWD 2010 did appear in the top-50 wines of 2014 in Decanter Magazine, that’s a worldwide top-50 out of 4,800 wines.

We have a classic blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier, the Chardonnay dominating at around 60%. This is a mature bottle with stone fruit, biscuit and nuts, but also a clean line of creamy lemon freshness and such lovely, refined, acids. That’s pretty good for a sixteen-year-old bottle of English wine. It’s very fine and astonishingly good. It must be up in the top dozen English sparkling wines yet made. Of course, the fruit was excellent, but this wine does assist in the suggestion that Dermot is a candidate for England’s best living winemaker. He’s also doing some wonderful work today, both with the fizz and with his still wines. I am currently looking out for a bottle of his strikingly-labelled Gamay/Meunier.

This was purchased from Butlers Wine Cellar in Brighton. As well as being great supporters of Breaky Bottom and English sparkling wine generally, they have also supported Dermot Sugrue from the off. They currently list the 2021 vintage of The Trouble with Dreams for £52.50.

Posted in Artisan Wines, Czech Wine, English Wine, Hungarian Wine, Languedoc-Roussillon, Natural Wine, New Zealand Wine, Sparkling Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Merchants | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Recent Wines July 2026 (Part 1) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 29/07/2026 by dccrossley

My “Recent Wines” articles are usually reserved for the wines we drink at home, but there are of course exceptions. One such exception, as you will discover at the end of Part 2, is for a special bottle from my cellar taken to dinner elsewhere. Another, as with the first two wines here, is when I buy a bottle (or two, in this case) on holiday. They are both wines from Ronda in Andalucia, and well worthy of inclusion on account of their quality as well as the fact that such wines are rarely sighted in the UK (as far as I know, although Miguel Crunia or Ben Henshaw might tell me I’m wrong).

For the rest of Part 1 we bounce around like the proverbial pinball between Burgenland sunset, Salento (but not what you might expect), Kent and Moravia. None of these four, come to think of it, are necessarily what you might expect, all being quite singular expressions of their respective terroirs.

Breñal 2024, Cortijo Los Aguilares (Andalucia, Spain)

This is an unusual blend of Garnacha Blanca, Viognier and Vigiriega (slightly better known as Vijariego Blanco or Diego in the Canary Isles). It comes from Ronda and is bottled under the Sierras de Málaga DO.  The vines sit up at 900 masl in a single parcel called “Pelele”, which is the estate’s highest altitude site. Despite the heat of the plains the significant diurnal temperature shifts which the altitude affords mean the wines have a freshness which you certainly don’t get from vines grown at lower levels.

That freshness is enhanced by the wine seeing six months ageing on lees. You are initially struck by very nice aromatics of pear along with a chalky lees element which appears on the nose as well as the palate, where you also find mountain herbs. The texture gives a sense of terroir, however connected (or not) these two elements are.

This is a family bodega farming around 25 hectares of mountain vines. They work within a diverse ecosystem of oak forest and mountain flora. This is not declared as a natural wine, but the family do seem to have a strong affinity with the wider terroir and there is no doubt that this tastes like a mountain wine. It’s interesting that I mentioned the Canaries in relation to Vigiriega. That grape variety plays third fiddle in this wine, yet if I had to search for something as a benchmark, I’d have said the wines of Tenerife. It is worth noting that the alcohol hits 14% but it doesn’t make the wine heavy.

This was purchased in the excellent Birdie Vinos wine store which a friend took us to at Mijas Costa (near Fuengirola). It cost 29€, which, like the Gascon sous-voile Chardonnay I fell in love with (see May, Part 1), was expensive locally, but I regretted not one cent. Very good indeed.

Chardonnay Ciudad Secreta 2024, Bodega Doña Felisa (Andalucia, Spain)

A second bottle from the Sierras de Málaga DO. The bodega is owned by Gema Alonso Araico and her husband José Mária Losantos Hernando, but it is now run by their daughters. The bodega was founded in 1999, with five hectares of vines. The soil here is mostly clay-loam and the vineyards are surrounded by three “natural parks”. The philosophy is to integrate viticulture into the natural environment. All work in the vineyard is done by hand.

This Chardonnay comes from a site at 1,000 masl, where they trellis the vines rather than leave them as bushes, as you will usually see with the autochthonous varieties in the region. Hand-picked into small boxes, the grapes undergo a serious sorting and are taken swiftly to the winery. The grapes see a 24-hour maceration before fermentation and three months ageing in concrete eggs.

The bouquet has a vanilla streak with a nutty undertone and then something quite buttery coming through. That sounds like oak, but no, the real “freshness” and edge given by the concrete egg builds as well. The palate is dominated by freshness and a texture which, though not dominating the wine, is ever present, alongside more nuts (hazel?) and citrus.

This bottle also came from Birdie Vinos (see above), but was half the price of the Breñal. Naturally, what interested me, when chatting to staff there, was the use of concrete eggs because it showed a sense of experimentation. It made for an interesting wine, especially for 14€ (which is a couple of Euros cheaper than the winery sells for online). But bear in mind that a lot of people around there probably look to spend a lot less than 14€ on a bottle to drink at home.

Both of these two Ronda wines are bottles I’d happily buy again, in Spain or in the UK. I drank a few other wines when in Spain, including some local Moscatels from Malaga and Ronda, very nice, but these are the two bottles I chose to include here.

Abendrot 2023, Alex and Maria Koppitsch (Burgenland, Austria)

This is a light red blend from Alex and Maria’s vineyards by the Neusiedlersee, their winery being located, appropriately enough at Neusiedl-am-See, not far from the lake’s northern tip. It’s a co-fermentation of Welschriesling, Chardonnay, Rosenmuskateller, St Laurent, Blaufränkisch and Syrah. The fruit is grown using biodynamics and it is a natural wine with zero added sulphites. Ageing on fine lees takes place in used barriques in this case.

The bouquet is a mix of red fruits (raspberry and redcurrant) with, for me, rhubarb. All of these are mirrored on the palate, along with a citrus note somewhere between lemon and orange, and hibiscus. Someone said “white tea”, and I can understand that.

What also really deserves comment is the colour. We get very beautiful sunsets up in Scotland, and this mirrors the best of them. It’s a luminous sunset red with a tinge of orange to it. Beautiful to look at even before you sniff. I first met Maria at a Raw Wine Fair many years ago and instantly liked both her and the wines. I think that Abendrot is perhaps the cuvée which, for me, shows how far they have come in the past decade.

Roland Wines imports Koppitsch into the UK. This bottle was purchased from Cork & Cask in Edinburgh for £22 (but NLA, I may have got the last one).

L’Archetipo Susumante 2025, Valentino Dibenedetto (Puglia, Italy)

The wines of Salento are often what you would expect from Italy’s hot heel, beefy bottles of dark tomato and basil soup made from Negroamaro. The other side of the coin in the past has been a range of non-native varietals that have fulfilled the needs of some average restaurants where the wine appears on a price point. Am I being unfair? This wine is neither of those, and it is a wine not only of pretty high quality but also one I found exciting. Recommended by Ali at the wine shop you’ll find below, yet again we have proof that you should listen when your wine merchant gets particularly excited about a bottle.

L’Archetipo is a dark pink, or light red, sparkling wine made from the local Susumaniello variety and it comes under the Salento IGT. The estate focuses on regenerative farming, with a no-till approach based on the teachings and observations of Masanobu Fukuoka (cf The One Straw Revolution). They make natural wines, and they grow ancient grains. Soil health is paramount.

The pomegranate/hibiscus colour of this wine is extraordinary, and with apologies to Abendrot (above), is probably the most beautiful colour in a wine I’ve seen this year. The contents of the bottle are not complex, though on reflection the wine has a serious side occasionally lacking in your average petnat (this is a traditional method bottle fermented sparkling wine). Where it strikes the taster is with the purest of pure red fruits which are there on both the bouquet and palate. For under £30 this really is worth seeking out because it’s made for summer in the garden.

The importer of this innovative beauty is Modal Wines (Nic, Roland, you are on fire right now). Purchased at Communiqué Wines in Stockbridge (Edinburgh). This is one of four wines from this producer imported by Modal, in case you are interested in estates working with no-till viticulture methods.

New Rose 2023, Westwell Wines (Kent, England)

Westwell needs little introduction if you regularly read my blog. Located on the North Downs near Canterbury and the Pilgrim Trail, the wines are made by ex-music label owner Adrian Pike, and the singlularly beautiful labels are made by his partner, Galia. They are one of a handful of English estates whose wines I am sure to drink a number of times each year. As someone who drinks as widely as possible, it’s a firm endorsement for what they are doing.

This cuvée, surely named after that very fine first single by The Damned (Adrian?), is made from the second pressing (around 10% of the juice) of the estate’s Pinots Noir and Meunier, the first press of which is used for the Pelegrim sparkler. Waste not, want not, but this is more than just an afterthought. Fermented on native yeasts the grapes had been harvested late, in October. It was bottled one year later, in October ’24, after ageing in a mix of old oak and stainless steel tank. It was bottled with very little sulphur added.

The colour is a lovely pale coral pink. With very low alcohol (10.5% abv), the purity and delicate red fruit shines through in every aspect. It has just a little bit of texture to ground the smooth fruit. It’s a great example of the new wave of delicate English natural still wines coming through, wines we perhaps saw first from the likes of Westwell and Matt Gregory, and now repeated by Sophie Evans and others.

It’s quite a contrast to the fuller-bodied efforts many English estates try to produce, perhaps most successfully in Essex and the Crouch Valley. If those wines seek to emulate Burgundy, wines like this are perhaps uniquely English, with maybe a nod to Alsace natural wine’s younger producers.

This also came from Communiqué Wines in Edinburgh, but this time the agent is Uncharted Wines. It cost £20.

Neuburger Terroir d’Austerlitz 2021, Zdeněk Vykoukal (Moravia, Czechia)

Vykoukal began making wine in Moravia in 1996, on and around the famous Slavkov battlefield where what we know as the Battle of Austerlitz took place in 1805, between France and its enemies Austria, Russia and Italy. A victory for Napoleon was the result, but perhaps not for humanity (24,000 troops died). It is for that reason that I perhaps drink Vykoukal’s wines less than I might, but this is the most exceptional wine of his that I have drunk in a long time, potentially the best yet.

Vykoukal is one of the fine raft of Czech natural wine estates. To be honest, they don’t need a nineteenth century battle to promote them. This 2021 saw twenty-four hours on skins and then twelve months ageing in 600-litre acacia barrel. Finally, it went into stainless steel for six months before bottling.

Neuburger is an Austrian vinifera grape variety, made from crossing Roter Veltliner with Sylvaner. It can produce wines which are quite heavy, but in Austria it is getting a bit more love than it was, and here it has made one of the best, if not the best, Neuburger I can recall tasting.

The colour is quite deep, a golden yellow. It has honey with oranges and lemon all over it, the depth of colour being reflected in the depth of flavour here. It does have a bit of weight and a rounded mouthfeel but it also has some lovely acids, fresh but not at all sharp. The finish has a pleasant savoury, herbal, twist as well and the length is very good.

It was purchased some time ago from importer Basket Press Wines for something like £30-£35, I think. Although they no longer have any left, you might find some at Prost Wines.

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Recent Wines June 2026 (Part 2) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 14/07/2026 by dccrossley

Winding up June’s home drinking here in Part 2, we begin not with a wine but with a cider, and this is something of a conceptual one, and comes from Herefordshire. The first wine is a very good Pinot Gris from Aosta. Then we have a couple from France, a Loire Gamay and an Alsace blend, before we finish with a Mosel Riesling and a Langhe Nebbiolo. These are all wines you might not have spectacular expectations for, but yet they deliver plenty of interest and enjoyment for (in this part) around twenty of your finest pounds.

Cheddar on my Mind #4, Oliver’s Fine Cider (Herefordshire, England)

This is a collaboration between Oliver’s Fine Cider & Perry, Cellarman Sam (Sam Wilkin, a cheesemonger, podcaster and educator) and Rebecca Holden of Hafod Cheddar. It’s a cider made for Cheddar. Oliver’s is, of course, one of England’s most famous cider and perry makers, and they are what you (and they) would call minimum-intervention producers (natural ciders and perry made using traditional methods and equipment). They also create no waste because any leftover pomace is used as fertilizer or animal feed.

This is a blend of Yarlington Mill, Foxwhelp and some barrel-aged Michelin apple varieties. It is meant to accompany a strong cheddar and whilst I didn’t have any Hafod to hand, I had some nice Isle of Mull cheddar, which is probably my favourite Scottish hard cheese.

The cider is spritzy, lively, extremely fresh and appley, with some gooseberry notes on the nose. The palate is pretty dry, which is I think important for the cheese match. It’s not one of those more complex, winey, ciders, which of course can be brilliant, but the palate here has fresh apple and a nice crunch of acidity. Cider is underrated by wine drinkers, and it comes into its own when it’s hot. Not only is a good cider like this half the price of a decent bottle of wine, but at 7.2% alcohol, it will not dehydrate you as much as your average bottle of wine.

This was a gift, purchased at Smith & Gertrude (Portobello), and I don’t know their price, but Cork & Cask list it at £12. The cheese, also part of the gift, came from IJ Mellis. The chutney, our homemade from last year’s apples having run out, came from The Cheese Lady.

Pinot Gris 2021, Lo Triolet (Vallée d’Aoste, Italy)

This lovely white wine is of course labelled with the French name for what you might expect to be called Pinot Grigio in this small, bi-lingual enclave of Alpine Italy. In this case the labelling is logical as well because this wine of the country’s northwest corner should not be confused with its counterpart from the northeast. But nor does it really resemble an Alsace Pinot Gris in many respects.

Marco Martin is based at Introd where he farms at altitude. This cuvée comes from grapes grown at over 800 masl, mostly on glacial moraine. It is fermented and aged for eight months in stainless steel (Marco also makes a barrique version). It is quite rich on both nose and palate with a bouquet that is quite floral (blossom, but I can’t be more specific). The palate has pear, lemon citrus, and mountain herbs, with a texture most drinkers would loosely call “very mineral”.

It’s the kind of wine you just can’t stop drinking. How is it a wine with 14% alcohol can be so moreish? It has to be the rich, round fruit and the balance of the acidity and texture. I have been buying the odd Lo Triolet from The Solent Cellar in Lymington over a number of years, and I have always considered Marco Martin’s wines as possibly the best Aostas that are (or were) reasonably available in the UK. This, anecdotally, seems no longer to be the case. I am not sure where their importer Boutinot Wines are with them and they may just be about to slip beyond my grasp…until I visit Aosta, hopefully in 2027 or ’28.

If it is almost harder to find Aostan wines in the UK than those of almost any other quality European wine region, it’s a shame, but hardly surprising. The Brits seem to think they have access to all the wines of the world, yet they rarely seem to appreciate the delights that are right under their noses, Aosta, like its Swiss neighbour, being a case in point. They may both be small producers, but it’s not as if the market is so strong that an opportunity to supply the UK market would be sniffed at.

Le Bois Jacou Gamay 2023, Domaine Jean-François Mérieau (Loire, France)

I think this is a producer you will find more easily than Lo Triolet because they are imported directly by The Solent Cellar and, I think, one or two other indies. Jean-François Mérieau took over his family’s estate near the banks of the River Cher, between Amboise and Loches, in 2000. He farms in a way that is always difficult to describe, but it is accurate to say that the domaine is “traditional” in terms of winemaking, and that farming is done with an awareness of the impact of chemical vine treatments, which probably means they are used when they need to.

The domaine has some very old vines and makes an interesting range of regional wines, including old vine Pineau d’Aunis. You see less Loire Gamay than you once did, although in France it seems to be having something of a revival. This fruit comes from a six-hectare site near St Julien-de-Chédon, near Montrichard, off a clay/limestone mix facing south-southwest. It is vinified by a traditional carbonic maceration.

What you get is very fruity, very easy to glug down, with rounded smooth red cherry fruit. The winemaker says drink young, but there’s always a time lag with vintages arriving in the UK. Whilst this might matter with some, especially Rosé, wines, that’s not a problem here. At just under three years of age this seems pretty much à point. It even has a bit of remaining structure, which perhaps sets it apart from some of the cheaper Beaujolais you might find. Like much Loire Gamay, if you can find it, it’s simple but very tasty. £19 from The Solent Cellar.

Le Vigne est Notre Jardin [2024], Domaine Lissner (Alsace, France)

This domaine, first founded in 1848, is based at Wolxheim. It was one of the region’s first domaines to embrace regenerative farming and a form of low-intervention vineyard management (almost zero pruning here, and no-mow, no-tilling), based on the writings of Japanese agronomist Masanobu Fukuoka. It is run by Bruno and his son Théo Schloegel, Bruno having taken over from his uncle, Clément Lissner, in 2001.

This is very much Northern Alsace, north of Mutzig and directly west of Strasbourg. Although the Lissner domaine is long-established here, the last decade-or-so has seen a number of young winemakers setting up. From a backwater it has now become yet another exciting part of the Alsace story.

This is a Vin d’Alsace blend, what we old folks used to call Edelzwicker. That’s a name that most people feel has an old-fashioned connotation, and not one that shouts quality wine. Traditional wine names can be reclaimed successfully, as the Viennese have proved with their Gemischter Satz field blends, but then perhaps Edelzwicker doesn’t sound very French?

What we have here is predominantly Pinot Blanc, Pinot Auxerrois, Muscat and Gewurztraminer. It gives off floral scents, greengage (reine-claude) and a lemon/lime citrus. The palate has fresh and zesty acidity, but no harshness. I drank a 2022 bottle last July. I think this 2024 is lighter and (perhaps self-evidently) fresher. It dances on the tongue and is a delicious thirst-quencher. The 12% alcohol hardly registers. The Lissner labels, which remind me of the manuscript copies at the abbey of Mont Saint-Odile, are exquisite.

This came from Communiqué Wines in Edinburgh, via importer Vine Trail.

Riesling Feinherb 2022, Schloss Lieser (Mosel, Germany)

I have a long association with Thomas Haag’s Schloss Lieser, its brooding, grey, Victorian-age castle buildings sitting on the river bank just upstream from Bernkastel, between the Juffer and the Niederberg Helden, the latter always a bargain site which is protected from Northerly winds by the woods which top the hill.

Thomas Haag and his wife Ute have taken this property to the highest level. Feinherb is a loose term, tolerated, not exactly regulated, but traditional. It describes a wine which is similar to Halbtrocken, but perhaps with just a little more sugar (Halbtrocken being regulated as medium-dry with up to 18g/l residual sugar).

What we do have here is an example of that old adage that the entry level wines of a top estate may or may not be a bargain but they will almost always be very good. As an off-dry 2022 this is quite soft, both in its gentle and fragrant bouquet redolent of lemon/lime and sweet blossom, and on a palate which has softer lemon citrus flavours. It is the wine’s fragrance that really captivates me. It drinks easily. It might be a touch gentle if you usually go for a Kabinett, though it is still refreshing, and rather lovely.

It’s definitely in the bargain category. This cost a mere £13 when I purchased it from The Wine Society last year. They don’t have any left, but they do have the next step up, the Juffer Feinherb, at £21, among a fairly wide selection of this producer’s wines.

Langhe Nebbiolo 2023, Produttori del Barbaresco (Piemonte, Italy)

It’s hardly a secret among lovers of Piemontese wines that the Barbaresco growers’ co-operative makes some of the region’s bargains. I’m referring specifically to the very special, and very ageable, single vineyard Barbaresco they make. The co-operative’s growers farm a massive 100 hectares so you will find much else here besides the single sites. This includes plenty of Nebbiolo, much being bottled under the Langhe DOC.

Nebbiolo del Langhe is not always a good bet, especially if you want a mini-Barolo or Barbaresco. I sometimes think that it sells because of the variety, when other grapes like Dolcetto or Freisa, Pelaverga even, might be better suited to the site but would not sell quite so easily. That is thankfully not the case with this wine, which is generally very reliable.

I’d planned to cellar this for autumn or winter but a visitor from America said they liked Nebbiolo so I felt I should oblige. Although this cuvée sees some older wood, it is basically a fruit-forward wine. Its lively cherry fruit was in fact very smooth. High-cropped Nebbiolo can be pretty one-dimensional, but this wasn’t, especially on the finish which had a slightly bitter capsicum note, a savoury foil to the fruit. That made it a good companion to the food.

This was drinking surprisingly well for three years old, but it will clearly go another couple of years. For me, I enjoyed it now and I’m not sure how complex it would get. But as most Barolo or Barbaresco needs more time than this, you have a good early drinker, before you move through Alto-Piemonte towards the big hitters at a decade or more. The 14% alcohol went pretty much unnoticed.

This was another wine from The Wine Society. It came as part of a mixed pack of Nebbiolos and they are not currently listing it. I assume it will come back. If you want to try the Barbaresco Cru wines I mentioned, you can get hold of a case of all nine of their Riservas for £612. £70 a bottle is still good value, though I well remember when they were half that price.

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Recent Wines June 2026 (Part 1) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 06/07/2026 by dccrossley

I have to admit that even by my own standards we are all over the place with the first six bottles of home drinking for June. We begin not with a wine but with sake, which I wish I drank more of if I’m honest. We then jump to Nelson in New Zealand before an even bigger leap to Europe, by way of classic Bordeaux followed by Jura, a classic for me but perhaps not for those for whom the Bordeaux is their comfort. We then take a flight to China’s Ningxia Province for an interesting red wine before ending our pinball wine journey in Sicily, on the slopes of Etna. Fasten your seatbelts.

Junmai Ginjo Sparkling Sake, Akashi-Tai (Hyogo, Japan)

This sparkling sake comes from not only one of the best-known producers in Japan, but one that was the first to make a real push to export to, inter alia, the UK. Their sakes are often the first anyone comes across here. Their brewery, one of seventy plus locally, is in Akashi City on Osaka Bay, west of Kobe. The massive Kobe earthquake in 1995 damaged their premises, but it did lead to updating equipment which, through temperature-controlled vats, enables them to now brew sake year-round, instead of just in the cooler months.

The Yonezawa family, in its current generation, now focuses totally on the quality end of the market, with 50% of their product being exported. This is high for Japan. Sparkling sake is a relatively modern style. Older customers would have habitually drunk cheap sake which may have had alcohol added to it, providing a staple inebriator. Sparkling sake, called “happo-seishu”, is seen as a way of attracting younger customers in Japan, but its ease of drinking makes it equally attractive to Western palates.

The rice here has a high, but not the highest, level of polish (each grain of rice down to 60% of its former weight). It receives its second fermentation in the bottle, on lees, to make it sparkling, and as I said, it isn’t fortified with extra alcohol. The result is soft and easy to drink. The bubbles refresh the palate which has gentle creamy rice favours. At just 7% alcohol it slips down very easily. It also has a slight (if very slight) resemblance to a sparkling Moscato, being right in the middle of savoury and sweet, and it’s frothy more than full-on fizzy.

Akashi-Tai is imported by Marussia Beverages in London. I purchased my bottle from Cork & Cask in Edinburgh after an extensive tasting of Akashi sake at their Summer Fair (see Part 3 of my coverage of that event). You can buy it as a 300ml bottle (£18) or as a 720ml (£37). The smaller size is useful if you want to dip your toe into Sparkling Sake, but I guarantee that you’ll wish you had the bigger bottle, which by price comparison is in any case better value.

Rosie’s Block Moutere Albariño 2024, Neudorf (Nelson, New Zealand)

Neudorf’s Moutere wines are reasonably well known in the UK, but perhaps not so much this grape variety. The estate was founded by Tim and Judy Finn in Nelson in the 1970s, and the importer is right to say that this couple helped shape the direction of New Zealand wine as we know it today. Tim sadly passed away last year, but his daughter, Rosie, runs the estate with winemaker Todd Stevens and viticulturalist Stef Brockley.

Personally, I have found some lovely Albariño in New Zealand (and also Grüner Veltliner if you are interested in exploring off the beaten track). The Upper Moutere’s clay and gravels do suit the variety, made from low-yielding fruit from a single site, and I think winemaker Todd Stevens has crafted an exceptional take on this Galician grape.

This 2024 is also the tenth anniversary for this wine at Neudorf. It is hand-harvested and fermented on indigenous yeasts, and is bottled unfined and unfiltered. It is fermented and aged in tank, so no oak influence. The result is shining purity of fruit with lots of salinity. But there’s also a degree of richness too, perhaps the 13.5% alcohol giving a clue here. It is wonderfully balanced. The bouquet I’d say is peachy, but you also get lime zest, that salinity, and maybe something herbal but I can’t put my finger on it. It is very good. If you want a cracking alternative to your usual Sav Blanc, take a look. This cost just £19.50 at The Wine Society.

The Wine Society’s 150th Anniversary Haut-Médoc 2019 (Bordeaux, France)

This was the first release (I think) in The Wine Society’s Generation Series, made to celebrate their 150th Anniversary, which was in 2024. Châteaux Beaumont is the producer. They are a TWS stalwart, and indeed have long been a go-to for those in the know. I remember being recommended Châteaux Beaumont as a wine newbie in the…well, a long time ago.

Beaumont is a 150-hectare Cru Bourgeois located near Cussac-Fort-Médoc, on the gravels which stretch between the communes of Margaux and Saint-Julien. I don’t know all the production details. It certainly seems like a Merlot/Cabernet blend, close to 50:50, and it doesn’t have overt oak influence, but perhaps used oak.

It has structure still, but is characterised by a smooth richness with a deep if not too complex (yet) plummy fruit flavour. Alcohol sits at 13.5% but it does remind me of the classic Bordeaux of a bygone age, where alcohol sat between 11.5% and 12.5%. That only goes to show not just how times have changed, but also that they have achieved the holy grail of balanced Bordeaux here.

I wouldn’t argue with anyone who suggested this will keep for a decade, yet I do think it’s drinking very nicely now. This was my second bottle, and it was certainly going in the right direction. I’d buy more but The Wine Society seems to have sold out. That is a shame because I’d recommend you try this at say £20. It actually cost a ridiculous £12.50 (which I had to triple check…it may have been on offer).

Betty Bulles Blanc 2022/23, Domaine L’Octavin (Jura, France)

Betty Bulles Blanc is a petnat, one of the wines made in Arbois by Alice Bouvot from bought-in grapes, though always naturally-farmed fruit and from her large circle of friends (after all, who wouldn’t want to be friends with this amazing winemaker?). This particular version of this Jura icon is made from 2022 Chenin Blanc with 2023 Vermentino (now called Rolle in France).

As with all of the negoce wines Alice creates, they are liable to changes in composition. Betty Bulles Blanc is a good example, because the current 2024 version is made from Vermentino, Roussanne, Marsanne and Muscat.

The grapes are more generally direct-pressed into vat with the fermentation finishing in bottle. The wine then rests for a few months before it is disgorged. Despite its age this lacks no fizz, for sure. Yellow fruits dominate and the acidity is lovely, just a bit softer than a younger version. It is refreshing, and perhaps I could say gently bracing.

My bottle cost €25 at Feral Art & Vin in Bordeaux, and it seems they are still listing it. If you are down that way, check their Instagram for their July opening. Tutto Wines is the go-to for L’Octavin in England. I say England because I’m not sure they deliver direct in Scotland. They were listing the more recent 2024 I mentioned, but I didn’t see it on their online shop.

Magma Red Blend 2019, Fei Tswei Winery (Ningxia, China)

A decade ago, China was second only to Spain in area covered in vines, having doubled its acreage over the decade previous to that. Since then, it seems to have dropped back to third place, behind Spain and France. Most of that vineyard area is used for table grapes or dried raisins, but nevertheless, China has managed to establish its place in the world of wine. Perhaps more effectively so than other countries with emerging wine production (Japan springs to mind).

I wouldn’t say you can grab a bottle of Chinese wine from a supermarket shelf yet, but you can buy one from an independent merchant more easily than you can a Japanese wine. This is sad for me because I truly love artisan wines from Japan. Very few Chinese wines have been as objectively exciting for me, but that’s not to say we shouldn’t buy Chinese wine. Far from it. I just wish the wine buyers working for wine importers who are buying Chinese wine should also look to Japan (and beyond Koshu).

This was the first ever Chinese wine listed by The Wine Society, so a big step. Fei Tswei farms 82 hectares, planted in 2013, in the eastern foothills of Helan Mountain. Vines go up to 1,162 masl and are farmed organically. Only estate-grown fruit is used in their wines.

This is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and, somewhat randomly, Dunkelfelder (an early teinturier cross). It has a bouquet which will surely remind you of Red Bordeaux, with lots of cassis. No oak was used here, but the palate does have a little bit of tannin. The cassis fruit of the nose is echoed on the palate, but there’s a slightly tart brambly finish. There’s also some richness and I think you will notice the 14.5% alcohol. Maybe it wouldn’t be wrong to call it quite structured and full-bodied.

If I absolutely loved the Chinese petnat which I’ve bought twice from the same source this year, I would perhaps not give this quite that level of enthusiasm. However, it’s a nice wine and definitely worth the £16 it cost, for which it surely must be worth a try. That petnat was double the price. I believe this Magma Red may be back in stock at TWS.

“Susucaru” Terre Siciliana Rosato IGT 2024, Frank Cornelissen (Sicily, Italy)

There was a time, although it was a long time ago, when Etna was a bit of a phenomenon. It burst onto the wine scene and everyone took notice. They realised that like Furmint and Blaufränkisch, Nerello Mascalese was a grape that could make truly great wines. Etna had its volcanic soils, it had altitude for freshness in a hot climate, and it had a kind of thrill which went with the terroir, an active volcano prone to spew ash and lava down its slopes at any moment.

That excitement hasn’t quite survived. This is almost certainly because as soon as we realised how good these wines were, the prices, in most cases, rose accordingly. That’s always a dangerous thing in a wine world where new regions are becoming flavour of the year with increasing regularity.

There at the beginning we had Frank Cornelissen. Frank, a Belgian by origin, was always the so-called enfant terrible of Sicilian wine. I remember reading a quote from Frank at least fifteen years ago about how much he hated the wine trade, so maybe that’s the reason. At the time he was very much a natural wine fundamentalist. These days he’s not quite so preachy, and some people are shocked to the bone by his engineered synthetic corks, but he still makes wonderful natural wines. In many ways better than before, though to be fair I first bought them from under the hot lights of Whole Foods in Kensington, which may not have been the best environment from which to source wines without added sulphur.

Susucaru Rosato is Frank’s entry level. There’s also a Sussucaru Rosso, though for Bianco you need to go to Munjabel, the designation below “Magma”. The Rosato is a blend of red Nerello Mascalese grapes with white varieties Moscadello, Malvasia and Catarratto, planted as a field blend, picked together and co-fermented. Ageing is in fibreglass and epoxy-lined tanks. It’s still a natural wine with zero added sulphites. It smells of red pure fruits and oranges, the palate very much (to me) tasting of strawberries and blood orange. It’s a strangely beguiling combination. There’s a touch of grainy texture that I’d call “minerality” if among friends, but here I should restrain myself lest the rock police are around. It’s fantastic, frankly fantastic (ouch!). I definitely need to experience some again this summer.

Again, this bottle came from Cork & Cask in Marchmont (Edinburgh), where I may just be heading on Friday. They have three left, at £32. What’s the betting you beat me to it? The importer is Raeburn Fine Wines, who I suspect have more. Note that from the 2025 vintage these wines will have a paper label, not the plastic ones which have to this point graced these wines. Cutting the carbon footprint etc.

Posted in Artisan Wines, Bordeaux Wine, Chinese Wine, Italian Wine, Jura, Natural Wine, New Zealand Wine, Petnat, Rosé Wine, Sake, Sicily, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Merchants | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Recent Wines May 2026 (Part 2) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 18/06/2026 by dccrossley

For the second part of Recent Wines for May I can’t promise that each wine will come from a different country this time (inserts a ROTFL emoji), but they are a diverse bunch. More important, there isn’t a wine here I wouldn’t drink again tomorrow. We have two wines from Spain, one from Catalonia and one from Gran Canaria. We have two from England, one from Kent and one from Leicestershire. The other two bottles come from Greece and Czechia, the last in that list (second-last below) being a Chardonnay every bit as good as that Gascogne bottle we saw in Part 1. There is one coincidental string running through all these wines though, one which I have only just noticed. By chance they all come from the 2023 vintage!

Blanc de Blancs 2023, Raventós i Blanc (Catalonia, Spain)

Raventos is one of the great family names in Catalonian sparkling wine. The name has been going in Catalonian wine since 1497, when the business was founded in what is now the region’s Cava capital, Sant Sadurni d’Anoia. They may well be one of the oldest wine companies in continuous ownership in the world. They first made Cava in 1872. In 1986 Josep Maria Raventos i Blanc sold his share of the business to Cordoniu, but the best vineyards, part of a large estate with woodland and farmland, based around Conca del Riu Anoia, were retained. The vines are now farmed biodynamically.

In 2012, Pepe Raventós withdrew from the Cava DO. There were several reasons, around the rules of Cava, which Raventós felt were too lax, but he wanted to focus on quality way above that which the great majority of Cava were aiming towards at the time.

This wine blends Xarel-Lo, Macabeo, Parellada and Malvasia de Sitges, grown on chalk. It saw 18 months on lees. 2023 was apparently a drought year in this part of Spain. The result is a wine with a special level of concentration, I think. The floral bouquet is exquisite. The palate has fresh and concentrated citrus and a saline minerality. A gentle nuttiness sneaks in under the mat, so to speak. It also has a bit of complexity, the result of twelve months post-disgorgement ageing (it was disgorged in May 2025) after its second fermentation in bottle. It’s Extra Brut, so it is pretty dry but I felt it would work either as a good aperitif or with food, though nothing too heavy.

The agent for Raventós is Liberty Wines, and it retails for around £25. Berry Brothers also stocks it. You’d be pushed, grape varieties aside, to find a Champagne remotely this good for the money, although I guess the uninitiated might not appreciate how good this is, if they are told it is Spanish. More fool them.

Field Blend 2023, Ham Street Wines (Kent, England)

Lucie Swietowska and Jules Phillips are the husband-and-wife team behind Ham Street Wines, named after the village not far from Ashford where they are located. They planted four hectares on the edge of the Romney Marshes in 2019. Their commitment is to regenerative agriculture and biodynamic methods, to create fully natural wines without the addition of sulphur. The field blend is a collaboration with the coincidentally named Daniel Ham of Offbeat Wines, based now in Wiltshire.

This wine is around 70% Pinot Meunier with Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Bacchus and Pinot Gris. It saw a nine-day carbonic maceration before ageing in used oak. There’s just a hint of volatility here, but it actually lifts the wine and adds interest in my opinion. The fruit is remarkably concentrated, both red fruits and yellow stone fruit. The latter is what adds a creamy touch as it tails off on the palate.

This is also one of those wines where it really is apt to comment on the colour, a pale shimmering bronze (though the winemakers call it copper pink). Whatever your perception will be, it looks lovely, and it tastes lovely too. A beautiful low alcohol (10%) summery wine. Drink it chilled down on a warm evening.

It’s also worth mentioning the label. Ham Street have had a label rebrand and the new ones focus on the cover crops and plants that pop up, and are obviously left to help the ecology thrive, in the vineyard. The Red Clover on this one reflects an important plant in their specific ecosystem.

This bottle came from Communiqué Wines in Stockbridge, and is £29 on the shelf. Wines Under the Bonnet is the importer. I am slowly trying all of their new English producers when and where I can get hold of them.

Assyrtiko Jeunes Vignes 2023, Thymiopoulos (Macedonia, Greece)

Assyrtiko may be at its most famous from Santorini, but that is by no means the only part of Greece in which it is grown. Apostolis Thymiopoulos makes wine in Macedonia, in the far north of Greece. Both Apostolis, and the wine region here (we are effectively near the appellation of Naoussa) are better known for red wines. But Apostolis worked for the late Haridimos Hatzidakis on Santorini when he was younger and he has planted Assyrtiko in the mountains here. This wine is labelled as IGP Macedonia.

This young vine wine has something of a mountain character to it. The colour is sunshine yellow, the bouquet is citrus fruit, perhaps a deeper lemon skin than juice. There’s a little mineral texture and a bit of depth too, maybe a hint of herbs on the finish. It might not have the finesse, quite, of a fine Santorini version, nor I suspect the ability to age, yet I can really recommend it. It is fresh, vibrant and clean.

It isn’t difficult to find this Assyrtiko, but The Wine Society sold me this bottle for £15. All the more reason to grab a some.

Tinto 2023, Bodegas Lava (Gran Canaria, Spain)

Bodegas Lava is aptly named. The Canary Isles was really one of the first volcanic island chains to gain recognition for its table wines, although fortified Madeira’s fame goes back further. Even so, for the past decade, Tenerife has been doing most of the running for the Canaries. Finally, other islands have come to our attention. Even so, Gran Canaria is not a name you see on many labels in the UK.

Based in Brígida, Juan Manuel Martín Monzón grows the Listán Negro grapes that go into this cuvée at between 700-to-1,200 masl. That is high altitude viticulture. Naturally, the terroir is volcanic. This is a pale red with an attractive bouquet of red fruits which seems to waft under your nose. The palate has red fruit too, very juicy, but there’s a peppery note that holds it back, like a dam. Bright acidity likewise encounters a little texture.

Very enjoyable, a wine I think best served cellar cool or, as I did, popped in the fridge for ten-to-fifteen minutes. It’s so good to see new Canary Islands coming through, and this was in fact part of an offer of an assortment made a while ago by The Wine Society. It was only £20.

Fermentum Pastor 2023, Petr Koráb (Moravia, Czechia)

Petr makes this Chardonnay from the Malá Hora vineyard, one of his newer sites near his winery at Boleradice in Southern Moravia. The vines are on a sandy-chalky mix of soils, and grapes are fermented and aged in used oak. All very simple. Somewhere along the way he is able to transform the fruit into this very remarkable wine. What’s so remarkable, you ask? Well, aside from it being spectacularly good, it seems we have here yet another unique Chardonnay. No one will say this tastes like a Burgundy, or say an Aussie Chardonnay (whatever such a thing might be?). In winemaking terms and flavour profile, the only name nudging at my memory cells is Pieter Walser of Blank Bottle Winery (S. Africa).

First thing to hit is the freshness. It is off the scale citrus fresh. But complexity is ratcheted-up with some bruised apple which broadens it out a little. Is there oxidation? Perhaps the tiniest bit. Not enough for it to be obvious, but enough to ask the question. It does finish with that old chestnut which sparks heated debate, minerality. I only mean that it has that crisp texture for which the “M” word seems to conjure the right image. It is labelled at a very precise 13.8% alcohol, which disguises itself well, but broadens the wine out in terms of mouthfeel alongside the apple flavour.

I would also say that it’s one of those wines where you can’t quite put your finger on what makes it so different, but it would stand out in a lineup of Chardonnays. Whether as a wine buyer you would select it depends rather on your customer base, which would need a sense of adventure and a willingness to seek out boundary pushers.

For me, this is stunning even by Koráb’s very high standards. I certainly see him in the top three of Moravia’s younger winemakers (and the other two are married). In fact, he’s irrefutably one of the most exciting young winemakers in Central Europe, but perhaps that is connected with the fact that he makes the wines his grapes tell him to, and often a cuvée won’t be repeated next vintage. It’s a wholly different way of thinking. Basket Press Wines is the importer. I can’t see this cuvée on their web site, though they are listing his excellent Neuburger for £27. The Fermentum Pastor can still be had, it seems, at Prost Wines, for £31.

The Orange 2023, Matt Gregory Wines (Leicestershire, England)

Matt Gregory is an exemplar of what I suppose is a new wave of English winemaking, although whether the wave is all that new depends on how long you’ve been watching. It is certainly the case that we have had the quality revolution in English sparkling wine, and there has always been plenty of still wine sitting beside it. It came before the fizz, but wine writers tended to be very sniffy about it. Some very fine English still wine is made in the image of mostly French equivalents. And then there’s this contingent of small, artisan, natural winemakers.

Many of these are now grouped together in the Wines Under the Bonnet Portfolio. Not all of them. The wonderful Westwell Wines are with Uncharted Wines, who Matt was working with until fairly recently. Matt has always stood out for me because his wines all seem to have a certain style and focus, despite the variety of bottlings he makes. This is especially true of his fruit. It struck me this year when a young English winemaker made something which immediately reminded me of Matt. It turned out that the fruit had indeed come from his vineyard in the Leicestershire Wolds.

This version of The Orange is sub-titled “Zero”. It’s the zero added sulphur version, of which there were just 120 bottles made. That Matt can knock out a zero additive, zero sulphur wine up on this cold-comfort wine frontier of Eastern England is remarkable, although poor bloke, he will never get Certification because his neighbours are all farming arable intensively…and it’s windy.

The grape variety is 100% Solaris. The parent varieties of Solaris are a real mix (Seyve-Villard is in there with, inter alia, Riesling and Pinot Gris), but it is very resistant to fungal diseases and ripens early with good frost protection. In a warm climate it ripens with high must weights, but in a cooler (or cold) climate it makes dry wine.

This version spent nine weeks on skins before pressing, and then rested eight months in stainless steel. Amber in colour, to me the bouquet is unmistakably clementine with peach or apricot skin. The palate is quite unique and hard therefore to really describe, but it is beautiful, full of a yellow/orange fruit mix and something just slightly darker and slightly sour. In my imagination I’m mixing four parts apricot juice with one part dark black cherry. Who knows how my senses work, but certainly with enthusiasm.

I picked this up at Spry Wine in Edinburgh. Spry are good friends with Matt, and usually have some of his wines, although I’ve also bought his wines from Communiqué Wines here as well. As Matt admitted, this wine is a bit “spendy”. £40, but I’m glad I got some.

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Recent Wines May 2026 (Part 1) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 16/06/2026 by dccrossley

We begin coverage of the wines we drank “at home” during May with the best two bottles we drank staying in a house belonging to friends in The Gers at the beginning of the month. They were both recommended by a wonderful wine shop in Lectoure, which could have kept me interested for weeks. The second of them was so good I went back for more, but they’d sold out, more expected on the day we had to leave for Bordeaux at five in the morning.

Back home we drank one of the best value orange wines around, from Catalonia, then a superb Chilean Semillon which I had tasted at the Clay Wine Fair earlier in the year, a Chasselas from one of my favourite producers in Switzerland’s Lavaux, and a cracking value Victorian Chardonnay, which had me screaming at the difficulty of finding Aussie wines like this today, as compared to back in the late twentieth century.

Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh Sec 2025, Domaine Laougué (Gers, France)

Sylvain Dabadie is the fourth generation of his family to make wine in Viella, not far from Madiran. Pacherenc is effectively “white Madiran” as the two appellations have the same boundary, more or less. This bottle is made from a blend of both Gros and Petit Manseng, varieties perhaps better known to us in the blend for Jurançon, which is maybe 20-30 kilometres to the southwest, near Pau. Both appellations sit in the foothills of the Pyrenees.

The Laougué Pacherenc is made in tank, without oak influence. It is dry and crisp and quite “mineral”. It comes off a clay and limestone mix of soils and rocks, with galets roulés pebbles scattered across the vineyards in the manner of some parts of Châteauneuf-du-Pâpe. In the glass it developed a nice mix of peachy stone fruit with a touch of fresh lemon. Not complex but very nice. We enjoyed it with asparagus, which was abundant in the markets, and on which we willingly overdosed (white and green) during our week. Others recommend it with shellfish/seafood, none of which we ate this far from the coast.

The Lectoure wine shop I mentioned is De La Terre au Verre, where this bottle cost €12. On returning home I discovered that The Wine Society had the 2024 before they sold out. Tanners does list the 2025 for £17. They list it as pushing out 13.5% abv. My bottle said 14%, but to be honest it didn’t taste like it was that high. A nice fresh white wine, a bargain in France, and to be fair not ridiculous at UK prices either.

“La Voile” Vin de France 2021, Domaine Jeandaugé (Gers, France)

If the previous wine was nice, it didn’t prepare us for this beauty. It was a genuine revelation. It was the kind of wine you want to bring home to drink with your most wine-obsessed friends, but as I mentioned in my intro, it wasn’t to be. I felt vindicated in my judgement by discovering that Christina Rasmussen, whose opinions I value greatly, had visited the domaine for Littlewine (littlewine.io ) a few years ago, and had pretty much felt the same.

Sébastien Fezas is based at the village of Courrensan, not far from the town of Condom. This is Côtes de Gascogne territory, but Sébastien bottles his wines as Vins de France. He took over the family domaine in 2012, bottling the wine himself and cutting out the chemicals. He now farms biodynamically, he makes his own preps, and has the loan of some local sheep to graze the vineyards.

This is a natural wine (no added sulphur at this domaine) made from 100% Chardonnay. It spent a year and a half on lees with no topping-up. The result is mildly oxidative but magically fresh, no hint of heaviness. It has bags of salinity and a mildly nutty undertone beneath fresh fruit edging towards citrus.

Someone really should import this, I thought. Then I saw Doug Wregg had written about the domaine on his blog, so I checked out the Les Caves de Pyrene trade list and lo and behold, there on page 17 sit four of Sébastien’s wines…but not this one. Never mind. I’m sure what they do have is very good. They include a concrete-fermented Colombard called “Partie Fine”, which I brought back from France myself in lieu of the Chardonnay, and three reds. Doug waxes lyrical about a Syrah, though it’s the Tannat I would love to get hold of.

Back to La Voile…as already mentioned, it came from De La Terre au Verre in Lectoure, which is a pretty village on the pilgrim route to Santiago, with a rather fine market on a Friday and an excellent restaurant called Racinette (booking essential but worth it, cooking of a standard way above the €88 including a glass of wine each we paid for lunch). La Voile cost us €24 retail, and it shocked a local couple we went to a bar with that we had paid that much for a bottle of wine. I guess if Les Caves did import it, I’d be paying a lot more, but I would probably deem it worth it at, say, £40 in the new era of societal collapse.

Oníric Xarel-lo Brisat 2024, Entre Vinyes (Penedès, Spain)

This domaine is the project of Maria Barrena and Pep Tort Montserrat. They have revived abandoned vineyards in Penedès to make some magical Catalonian wines. Oníric is a natural wine made from old vine Xarel-lo that has been given a maceration of around two weeks. It then goes into amphora, resting six months on lees.

The winemaking results in a nice texture to the juice, but not too much. Otherwise, we have a wine that is light and fresh. Peach and lemon seem to be the prevalent flavours of the month here, but this has a saltiness and a slightly leesy element which you might think a negative, but it is a creaminess which adds interest and pleasure. Although there’s a bit of grip, this is definitely the lighter side of brisat/skin contact wine, perhaps reflected in the low (10.5%) alcohol.

I probably buy two-or-three bottles of Entre Vinyes a year which, if you know me and my desire for variety, is an endorsement of what this couple are doing. This is a delicious and lovely wine, and it is equally ridiculously good value. My bottle cost £17 from Smith + Gertrude (Portobello, Edinburgh). The importer is Modal Wines. On the subject of Modal, I was thrilled to bag a couple of their latest New Zealand wines last week.

Altos de Guarilihue Vinos Parcella Semillon 2024, Ana María Cumsille (Itata, Chile)

I’m always on the lookout for good South American wines, though perhaps “good” isn’t the right word I’m looking for. Perhaps I should say wines which fit my own expectations, and which don’t fit in with a more commercial vibe, good as those wines might be. I found this on a table at the Clay Wine Fair earlier this year and liked it a lot. It took me so long to get some because I had to put in some serious footwork to a part of Edinburgh I rarely reach.

Ana María Cumsille is Chief Winemaker at Viña Carmen, but this is a side project. She buys grapes from a selection of growers and winemakers to showcase the high-altitude vineyards of Itata. This wine comes from the Itata sub-region of Guarilihue Alto. The grape grower (all the growers are highlighted on the labels) is Ariel Sandoval. He’s growing cool climate Semillon at above 300 masl in this case, and the vines average eighty years old.

This, as befits a wine presented at “Clay”, is a skin contact cuvée, aged partly in amphora and partly in oak. It has a bit of texture, more soft than hard. The fruit rises above that structure, very pure fruit, lovely and rounded, smooth, sensual. A delicious wine.

I bought this at Woodwinters Wine, from their shop in Newington (South Edinburgh). It seemed very reasonable for £26. I tasted a very nice Cinsault at Clay Wine as well, but what intrigued me in the shop was a Pais, though next time I will have to have the capacity to bring back another Semillon beside those reds.

Villette Les Murets 2021, Blaise Duboux (Lavaux, Switzerland)

Blaise Duboux is part of a family which has been farming the slopes of Lavaux in the Canton of Vaud, above Lake Geneva (Lac Léman), for five hundred years, or seventeen generations. Blaise runs a fairly small domaine based at Epesses. He only converted to organics in 2016, so late because that was the year it became prohibited to spray the terraced slopes here (a UNESCO heritage site) with helicopters (meaning no vines were safe, so organic certification would have been impossible). He now farms using selective biodynamic methods and adds very small doses of sulphur if and when needed. He also tries to avoid using copper sulphate, a mainstay for many organic farmers.

Chasselas is the main variety here. If you wish to taste this variety at its finest, then Blaise’s Dézaley Grand Cru Haut de Pierre Vieilles Vignes is the one to seek out. He also makes one of the best versions of Plant Robert, which is a locally specific Gamay mutation beloved by Swiss wine obsessives (like me).

Les Murets is a lighter expression of Chasselas, not a wine you need to age like the Grand Cru, but as you will see from this 2021, not a wine you absolutely need to drink in its first year or two. It comes off sandy soils near the village of Villette, at the western end of Lavaux, a little outside Lausanne. The wine is very dry with a mix of herbal notes plus added lime citrus and a bit of texture. This 2021 is still pretty fresh, although I’d like to see a more recent vintage if it returns into stock (see below). It has plenty of character, wholly expected with any wine from this producer.

This was £22.50 at The Wine Society. It’s was good value for a Swiss wine, let alone a wine from one of the people I’d certainly say is in the top few Lavaux producers I know, a man who would definitely get a bottle in any mixed case of Swiss wine I were to buy given the choice. Perhaps their excellent buyer of the less-trodden paths of the wide world of wine will manage to squeeze some more wine out of Monsieur Duboux? Please.

Red Hill Chardonnay 2024, Port Phillip Estate (Victoria, Australia)

I’ve a strong affection for the wines of Mornington Peninsula. It was far from the first Australian wine region I visited but I did manage to spend a couple of days there on my first visit, and have subsequently been back. It’s a region which, like the Yarra in the opposite direction from Melbourne, caters very well to wine tourism. You can soak up the tasting samples, if you are not spitting, with food ranging from the excellent contents of wood-fired pizza ovens to the sort of posh nosh you’d also find in Melbourne. Naturally you can eat at Port Philip Estate.

Port Phillip Estate, and sister winery Kooyong, sit close to the viticultural centre of the Peninsula, just over the ridge from another excellent estate, Polperro, at Red Hill. Mornington has a maritime climate, as you’d expect from a bit of rock sticking out into the Bass Strait, with its Antarctic currents. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir do not always thrive here, and the wines can even have way too much alcohol in some vintages, but they do most of the time, displaying the thrilling edge that comes with a marginal climate. With this Chardonnay there are no worries. Superstar winemaker, Sandro Mosele, has moved on (also from Kooyong too), and he now has his Elanto Vineyard project at Balnarring, still on the Peninsula, but the winemaking here at Port Phillip Estate seems to be going strong.

The Chardonnay vines here date to 1987, planted on the deep red volcanic loam at between 140-to-160 masl on Red Hill. They use “low intervention” viticulture, whatever that means. The result, though, is a really lovely lemony wine that is way fresher and more spritely than you’d expect from a European version packing 13.5% abv, but I don’t detect any obvious acidification. It was aged in oak, but probably not new oak. You can’t taste any overt oak, just a bit of influence, and I’m guessing the price suggests new oak is unlikely.

When I put a pic up of this originally, on Instagram, I called it “lean but not mean”. Someone at The Wine Society agreed it was a good description, which I meant very much as a compliment. Even today there are some Aussie Chardonnays that are tough to drink, packed with oak chips. This one is pleasantly the opposite. Yet again, it’s a wine that is currently unavailable, but it may return. It cost £20.

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Cork & Cask Summer Fair 2026, Part 3 (Sake, Richmond Wines, Beer and Ciders)

Posted on 08/06/2026 by dccrossley

In this final part of my coverage of Cork & Cask’s Summer Fair 2026 in Edinburgh we have a range of different drinks. We begin with Sake, which I hope is as interesting for you as it is for me. The wine content here is via Richmond Wines. We have beer, dipping into Futtle Brewery (across the water in Fife) and Newbarns Brewery in Leith (Edinburgh). Both have some excellent summer beers, and if any of the three articles are packed with summer drinking, it is this one. We end with some “summer in a glass” ciders.

As with Parts 1 and 2, prices are retail at Cork & Cask, Edinburgh.

MARUSSIA BEVERAGES SAKE

Marussia is a UK Sake importer, well known (but far from exclusively) for the widely available Akashi-Tai Sakes. Fabio from Edinburgh’s own Izayaka bar, Kome, in Broughton Street, Toll Cross, was pouring and sharing his expertise. I first got into Sake via a wonderful Tonkatsu restaurant in Aoyama, Tokyo, called Maisen, back in 2007, but it took me a long time to get to properly understand it in all its nuances. I was helped significantly when Anthony Rose published Sake and the Wines of Japan in 2018 (Infinite Ideas, now the Académie du Vin Library) and I cannot recommend this book more highly. The information in the first para below comes mostly from this book. I really got to appreciate sake when I began to understand what I was drinking, which is no different to wine, after all.

Akashi-Tai

Akashi Sake Brewery is based in Akashi City, Hyogo, on Osaka Bay west of Kobe. In fact, the 1995 Kobe earthquake damaged the original brewery enough that it was moved and updated significantly. It is run by the Yonezawa family, who settled in Akashi in 1856 as rice brokers, moving to the production side in 1917.The focus today is on quality sake, brought in when Kimio Yonezawa became the current president in 1999. They use Yamada-nishiki and Gohyakuman-goku rice, sourced locally and also the excellent local soft water. The updated modern equipment allows for brewing all-year round, allowing for temperature control in Japan’s hot and humid summer months. I tasted four Akashi sakes.

Akashi-Tai Junmai Ginjo Sparkling

Ginjo is a designation for a sake where the rice has been polished down to at least 60% of its original size (the greater the polish, the greater the potential quality and refinement of the sake).  The bubbles come from a second fermentation. It has a lovely frothy creaminess and is bang in the middle of dry and sweet, maybe a bit like a Moscato d’Asti in that respect. It has just 7% alcohol and is vegan-friendly. Sparkling sake is a relatively new style aimed at interesting younger drinkers in sake. That applies to Japan as much as export markets. The sake tasted was a 72cl bottle (£37), but if you want to give it a try (and you should), you can buy this in a 30cl bottle for around £18. You may have noticed we drank a bottle early last week

Akashi-Tai Junmai Daiginjo Genshu

Junmai Daigingo sake sees the rice polished down to 50% or less. Genshu merely means undiluted, so no water was added, and in fact nor was alcohol, which can be added to less fine sake. This is actually polished down to 38% and the alcohol, all natural, is around 16%. It is very refined but it also has massive flavour. It’s quite complex, but a milky rice note underscores other umami elements and a hint of bitter plum, which also floats across the nose. For me, this is a sake to savour with food, but I’m not an expert. However, sake is often a good choice with dishes containing soy, ginger and some chilli. £26 for 30cl, priced to quality.

Akashi-Tai Ginjo Yuzushi

I’ve a bit of a secret soft spot for this and I’ve bought it numerous times. You have a Ginjo sake with fresh and local yuzu fruit juice blended in. The result is a deeply delicious lemon flavour, which is both sweet and yet bitter too, coming in at 10% abv. It’s a bit (only a bit) like a Japanese Lemoncello. It works with fruit desserts, or on its own. 10% abv, £28 for 50cl.

Akashi-Tai Shiraume Ginjo Umeshi Plum

This is something of an Akashi speciality and well worth seeking out to taste if you are in a Japanese restaurant. Marinated plums are added to Ginjo sake which is then aged for two more years. It has deep plum flavour with a touch of almond and a very concentrated sweetness. 14% abv, £26 for 50cl. This is perhaps best sipped on its own, but the producer does suggest pairing with cooked fruit desserts. Cork & Cask suggests mince pies, Christmas cake or Bakewell Tart, which I must remember (Bakewell Tart is a whole family favourite here).

Fukumitsuya Kuroobi Dodo Yamahai Junmai

Fukumitsuya was founded in Kanazawa in 1625. I know little about them but C&C say that this sake “sits among the more ambitious expressions in their range”. It is a blend of Yamada Nishiki and Kinho Nishiki rices milled to different levels and aged separately before blending into ceramic vessels for two more years age. The result is complex, very dry and very umami. It is one of the most complex sakes I’ve tasted, and the bouquet is pretty unique. It might not be the most refined, but that isn’t the point. It’s definitely a sake for food. They suggest izakaya bar snacks, so maybe I need to choose this when I make it to Fabio’s Kome, but at home it would be really interesting to pair it with some complex hard cheeses (from The Cheese Lady in Haddington or IJ Mellis in Edinburgh, if you live near me). 15% abv, £38 for 72cl.

RICHMOND WINES

Pinkpoul Pet Nat, Maison François Ducrot (Languedoc, France)

Picpoul, both the grape variety and the “de Pinet” appellation, have a certain popularity now. This petnat is made from the rare Picpoul/Piquepoul Noir variety. It’s a biodynamic wine, bright pink like pink grapefruit, with lees remaining because the bottle is not disgorged (if the sediment worries you, just stand it in the fridge door for a time). Floral, with red fruit (strawberry) and nectarine flavours, it matches the description of “uncomplicated” for sure, but it’s a really nice summer sparkler, 11% abv and a mere £18.

Muscadet “La Pêcherie” 2023, Jérémie Huchet (Loire, France)

This is one of three Huchet wines they sell at Cork & Cask. There is no “sur lie” designation on the bottle, but I read that this organic wine does spend six months on lees. It is definitely a simpler wine than some of the more complex and more expensive expressions of the Melon grape variety around, but it has a nice freshness and a touch of age has been beneficial. Always a good choice for fish and chips if you’re out of Champagne and good Fino Sherry. Pretty good value at £15.

Artisans Partisans (Languedoc, France)

This is a grouping of four estates between Corbières and Limoux under the umbrella of the Borie family. AP is a range of organic, natural wines. Farming involves agroforestry, winemaking includes all the usual natural wine practices, including zero added sulphur. I tasted three wines from the range.

The Chenin Blanc 2023 was waxy, tasty, though not complex. The Grenache Noir 2024 had fresh red fruits and a sappy mouthfeel with something to chew on. The Carignan 2022 was my favourite. Fruity but with a liquorice twist, and with 14.5% alcohol I’d match it with a mixed grill or a barbecue.

All three are sub-labelled Les Indigènes and cost £20 retail. I’ve spotted these on a couple of restaurant wine lists where I hadn’t expected to see natural wines, which was a pleasant surprise.

Civitas Pecorino, Lunaria (Abruzzo, Italy)

This is a Demeter certified biodynamic wine from the hills of Orsongna (Chieti). A quite pale golden colour gives a soft and aromatic bouquet with a mix of lemon and pear notes combining with a bit of minerality. Again, don’t expect complexity (though complexity is claimed), but do expect a food-friendly wine with a touch of richness from 13% abv, and a decent finish. If you are having cheese on a Wednesday night this might be the wine to go for, if you get my drift. £18

Falanghina Maioliche, Tenuta Viglione (Puglia, Italy)

This is a family producer based up near the border with Basilicata, in the highest part of the Gioia del Colle DOC, near to Matera. The Zullo family have been running it since the estate was established in 1937. Hills of 450 masl suit the white varieties, and Falanghina needs height to retain its freshness. This wine has freshness, which is retained by fermentation and short ageing in stainless steel, and a pleasant 12.5% alcohol too. Plenty of yellow fruit like apricot sits on the nose, whilst the palate adds in honey and vanilla pod. The second Falanghina of the tasting (see the one from I Cacciagalli in Campania in Part 1, from Indigo Wine), this variety is making a bit of a comeback, deservedly so.

Monika poured the Richmond selections

FUTTLE BREWERY (Bowhouse, Fife)

Futtle is based close to St Monans on the south coast of Fife. They make beer using water from a borehole on the farm. All their beers are 100% natural in terms of ingredients and lack of synthetic additives, and they are vegan-friendly and organic. I particularly recommend their Table Beer for summer, which is fresh and light and just 3.2% alcohol.

Cork & Cask stocks a good range, currently seven lines I think. If you like a Wheat Beer (they have one), maybe try the Spelt Beer, especially if you are a fan of Meinklang’s Urkorn Bier, or the same producer’s Spelt Sour. A visit to the brewery is worthwhile for the farm shop and café at Bowhouse, which also holds a renowned monthly foodie market.

Futtle also has a shop/bar in Dundee, where you will also find a small but very well-chosen selection of natural wines. It is handily about a ten minute walk from the worderful Dundee venue of the Victoria and Albert Museum.

NEWBARNS BREWERY (Leith, Edinburgh)

Cork & Cask currently lists a whopping thirteen beers from Newbarns, which is probably proof enough as to their popularity and quality. They are based in Leith, Edinburgh’s port area, where they also have a tap room (13 Jane Street, open Thurs to Sun). The whole range is good but I’d like to pick on two of their beers. The Newbarns Plain Dark Beer is a big stout with no additives and no weird ingredients or flavourings (as C&C say, no cake ingredients). It’s a solid 11% abv, and maybe not my go-to for summer, but it’s still brilliant.

What is super-summery, and really useful for guests, is the Nae Pale Ale. This is a no alcohol beer, or near enough (there’s 0.5% in a 330ml can). Finding good alc-free beer isn’t easy. A lot of people I know like the Guinness Zero. I have enjoyed Lucky Saint, which can now be found in a good number of supermarkets. You’ll pay £3 for a can of the Newbarns, but it is a quality beer made in Scotland with quality ingredients and it tastes great. But I like to serve it very cold. Others might disagree.

NAUGHTON CIDER (Balmerino, Fife)

Peter Crawford was on hand again to pour his wonderful ciders. I had coincidentally only bought a bottle of his Brut Vintage 2021 at Aeble Cider Bar in Anstruther (Fife) the week before. This was described to me by a friend who works in wine in Copenhagen, but is something of a cider aficionado, as “the most wine-like cider” they had tasted. It is remarkably Champagne-like (it’s made by the same method) but unlike many ciders nowadays, no wine is mixed in. At £26 it is not cheap for cider but trust me, it is very good value as a stunning beverage. If you want something a little less wine-like in price, Peter’s Naughton Overture, which is more overtly cidery, costs £20.

The treat at the Fair was an unlabelled, under-the-counter, sample of a new cider which will probably be labelled Overture Single Orchard. It is from apples harvested in 2021, varieties including Kingston Black, Stoke Red, Browns and Bramley, from a single orchard in Oxfordshire. This cider has spent three-and-a-half years on its lees. It combines appley freshness with considerable depth and it already has the kind of complexity you only really get from careful, long ageing (Tim Phillips in Hampshire achieves similar levels in his own way, but I can’t think of many in the UK…certainly you have to go to to Normandy for Eric Bordelet Perry and to Switzerland’s Cidrerie du Vulcain). Amazing stuff that Peter said would probably retail at around £27. I plan to get some.

FLEMING’S CIDER

I missed the other cider table where, among an assortment of producers, I would have found Fleming’s “Le Mariage”. This is a Cork & Cask stalwart which I have bought there, and at the previously mentioned Aeble Cider in Anstruther. Robbie Fleming has a small cider business at Leuchars in Fife (where you will find the closest railway station to St Andrews). Le Mariage is described as a signature blend using varieties like Dabinett, Tremletts Bitter, Tom Putt, Camelot and Yarlingtom Mill, which are fermented with wild yeasts. It’s bone dry and sophisticated compared to more commercial products. It has a bit of spice to add interest as well. At £17 this artisan cider is exceptional value, though it isn’t made in large quantities. Robbie also makes a wonderful Wild Blend from mostly apples grown wild along the local country road verges and field boundaries. I see this around less often but grab some if you do.

Those not spitting were well catered for

Genuine apologies to those tables I just couldn’t get to. Propely tasting the products is essential if I’m going to write something that stands up to scrutiny, and my palate is not as fit as it once was…sadly. Still, the Cork & Cask Fairs in Summer and Winter are as good as anything I’ve been to in the past, large and small, which I hope the three articles I’ve posted this month illustrate. As always, thanks to India, Jamie and the team for inviting me and putting on such a fabulous event yet again.

Posted in Artisan Cider, Artisan Wines, Beer, Cider, Italian Wine, Languedoc-Roussillon, Loire, Sake, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Festivals, Wine Merchants, Wine Shops, Wine Tastings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cork & Cask Summer Fair 2026, Part 2 (Indigo Wines and Moreno Wines)

Posted on 04/06/2026 by dccrossley

For the second part of Cork & Cask’s Summer Fair coverage I’m looking at the gems on the tables manned by Indigo Wines and Moreno Wines. Both boast strong Spanish portfolios, but the range of what they import goes way beyond Spain, as was evidenced by wines here from Indigo which included South Africa, Campania, Germany’s Pfalz and Burgenland, and Moreno which included some tasty Italians, especially the Nebbiolo, alongside the Spanish wines they brought along.

I didn’t mention this in Part 1, but Cork & Cask organises two wine fairs a year in Marchmont Church, around a two-or-three-minute stroll from their shop. Both are well worth the trek for me. Tickets for the public cost £25. At the weekend there were just short of 150 drinks to taste, and even in three parts it wasn’t really possible for me to taste everything, nor indeed at every table. I’m fairly sure that some of the attendees managed it, or at least came close and so £25 (with a 10% discount on shop sales on the day thrown in) is pretty reasonable (about three glasses if you are lucky in a restaurant).

As in Part 1, prices are those charged retail by Cork & Cask.

Vanessa (Indigo) and Hamish (Moreno)

INDIGO WINES

Méthode Ancestral Verdelho Pet Nat 2025, Rebel Rebel Wines (Stellenbosch, South Africa)

Rebel Rebel Wines was founded in 2020 by Kayleigh Hattingh. The wines are all site-specific and minimum intervention. This Verdelho comes from the Bottelary Hills in Stellenbosch. Made by the Ancestral Method, it is first fermented in tank and then, secondly, in bottle. It’s young and zesty with a mix of tropical fruit and apple-like acidity. One might call it “unpretentious” but although simple it may be, it was rightly something of a crowd-pleaser on the day. £25

Falanghina Aorivola 2023, I Cacciagalli (Campania, Italy)

Much of the white fruit grown in Campania is at altitude, meaning the wines are fresher than you might expect in this southern region, and they are often very much underrated. This is bottled as Roccamonfina IGT, and hails from a 12-hectare biodynamic family estate in the north of the region, on the volcanic soils of the Roccamonfina. The estate additionally has olive and nut trees and fifty hectares of woodland. This wine sees time in amphora and is made with minimal sulphur additions. It’s lemony with a wet stone texture. A lovely example, well worth £22. One to persuade you to get involved, as they say.

Riesling 120NN  2023, Odinstal (Pfalz, Germany)

Odinstal was converted to biodynamics by Andreas Schumann around twenty years ago and since then quality has rocketed. All biodynamic preps are now made on-site. This wine is bottled as a Deutscher Landwein, and the fruit comes from the estate’s lowest-lying vineyard, a monopole site, by the river. However, the vines were actually planted in the 1980s. It is fermented and aged mostly in stainless steel with 5% going into old wood. The bouquet is rich, with lime, mango and guava scents. But on the palate, it has a nice bit of salinity to ground it. An excellent wine that I know the Cork & Cask staff are particularly impressed with. £30

Albariño 2025, Zarate (Rias Baixas, Spain)

This is a well-known family estate based in Spain’s windy and wet Northwest, vines being planted on the region’s stark granite terroir. Natural wines are made using no synthetic chemicals, and for over thirty years the vineyards have remained untilled. I am most familiar with the stunning wines made by Eulogio Pomares Zarate in collaboration with Ben Henshaw (of Indigo), Dr Jamie Goode and Daniel Primiak, called Sal da Terra/Salt of the Earth. This Albariño is made in stainless steel with three months on lees. It isn’t as saline as the aforementioned collab but it has bags of fruit and plenty of freshness. £27

Godello “El Castro de Valtuille” 2024, Raul Pérez and César Márquez, Bodegas Castro Ventosa (Bierzo, Spain)

I’ve drunk plenty of Raul’s red wines over the years but I’m not sure whether I’ve ever bought this particular white. That is probably a mistake. This is a single vineyard wine from a site at over 500 masl, called El Val. Vines of just over 20-years-old sit on stony clay. The fruit sees a 24-hour cold soak before direct pressing into 500-litre new oak to ferment. It is then aged 12 months in older oak. The bouquet is smoky with confit lemon and a bit of tropical fruit underpinned by a flinty acidity and a little texture. Excellent. £27. The red Mencia Joven which Cork & Cask list (about £18) is also really good for the money.

Naked Orange, Heinrich (Burgenland, Austria)

I am guilty of over-familiarity with the natural wines of Gernot and Heike Heinrich. They were pioneers of natural winemaking in Burgenland, and now they are joined on the eastern shore of the Neusiedlersee (they are in Gols) by several other now-famous young producers following in their footsteps. Naked Orange is a blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Pinot Gris, and a little Traminer and Muscat Ottonel. Everything is crushed together and is macerated for two weeks on skins. Fermentation is in large wood after which it is left on lees for a year. The bouquet is uncannily dominated by orange and orange peel. The palate is a textured citrus. It’s not as refined as the Freyheit wines in their clay flagons, but it’s a super tasty, individual wine, which retails for only £22, one of four Heinrich wines sold by Cork & Cask.

MORENO WINES

Lambrusco Rosso Dolce Borgofulvia, Il Poggiarello (Lombardy, Italy)

I don’t need to say a lot about this wine, but I do need to say something. It is a simple wine, even by Lambrusco standards, but it is very fruity, like summer pudding. 7.5% alcohol, sweetish, and gently frothy. It retails for just under £10 and for summer glugging on the beach you could do worse. You could do better too…but maybe not easily for £10 (though if you want something drier then that pair of Austrians I have drunk recently (you may have seen them) from The Wine Society would offer a good alternative). There’s a Rosé version at Cork & Cask too, same price.

Palomino Balbaina 2024, Diatomists (Jérez Region, Spain)

In previous years I have tasted, written about, and purchased, the superb Sherries from Diatomists. These are artisan wines made from single vineyard sources and aged traditionally according to the style. They have now followed the modern path of creating an unfortified table wine, made from the region’s staple Palomino grape variety. Fruit comes from the same famous soils as Fino Sherry, but this wine is vinified in stainless steel, and of course is not fortified. You get an 11.5% table wine with a chalky softness and the freshness of apple and lemon, with just a little almond. Lovely balance, light but a versatile, and a very food-friendly bottle. A definite hit! £20

Rioja Nalo Meli 2024, Bodegas Bhilar (Rioja, Spain)

This is a Rioja from the Alavesa sub-region, made by American native, Melanie Hickman, and it is a collaboration with Moreno Wines. Unusually, this is made from 100% Graciano, a minor grape in the more common Rioja blends, where Tempranillo and perhaps Garnacha dominate. The fruit is organic, farmed biodynamically. Aged in concrete, with no oak, we have a bouquet of red fruits and eucalyptus. The palate is all red fruits, pomegranate to the fore for me, and a nice savoury edge to it. Very successful, I wouldn’t hesitate to try this if you get the chance. £19

Langhe Nebbiolo 2023, Camparo (Piemonte, Italy)

Camparo are based at Diano d’Alba, on the eastern edge of the Barolo zone, north of Serralunga. Indeed Cork & Cask stocks their well-priced Barolo (not on taste). This is a family estate run by Mauro Drocco, and farmed organically. This Nebbiolo is slowly fermented before ageing in neutral oak for eighteen months, but it is then kept back a year after bottling before release. The bouquet is very scented, especially of roses (didn’t spot tar, but it did take me back to old school Barolo a bit). On the palate there is something quite sensual about the smooth fruit before the tannins kick in, although they are not harsh tannins. I always look for a good “Nebbiolo” and this fits the bill, especially as it retails for £26, as opposed to £42 for their Barolo. It does pack 14% abv, but on my tasting sip it didn’t seem to be dominated by the alcohol.

I might have tasted fewer wines on the Moreno table but I would be very happy to spend £65 on the three wines above, and I would not complain if a plastic glass of the Lambrusco was thrust in front of me down at the beach.

Posted in Artisan Wines, Austrian Wine, German Wine, Italian Wine, Natural Wine, orange wine, Petnat, Piemonte, Rioja, Spanish Wine, Sparkling Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Festivals, Wine Merchants, Wine Shops, Wine Tastings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cork & Cask Summer Fair May 2026, Part 1 (Element and Raeburn)

Posted on 01/06/2026 by dccrossley

Cork & Cask’s Edinburgh Summer Fair is always fun. Of course, the weather helps lift the spirit, but there is less of a wine focus in the summer. There’s plenty of wine to taste, but equally lots of beers and other drinks. For someone tasting to write (as opposed to pre-loading for an afternoon barbecue, as one couple were heard to say), having slightly less wine to get through at a busy public event is no bad thing.

I shall need to split my coverage into three articles. Part One will cover Element Wines and Raeburn Wines. Part Two will take a look at what Indigo Wines and Moreno Wines brought along. Part Three will cover Richmond Wine Agencies and a rather good selection of Sake from Marusia Beverages. We will finish that article with some very fine ciders and a few beers.

All prices listed are retail, at Cork & Cask of course.

ELEMENT WINES

Lambrusco Bianco Biancospino, Vitivinicola Fangareggi (Emilia-Romagna, Italy)

This wine comes from a 24-ha family estate with roots in the 19th century. They farm organically and follow other low intervention winemaking practices such as indigenous yeasts. It is a “Charmat method” wine, that is tank-fermented, but one of very good quality. I’ve bought this myself a couple of times as it’s a light and fresh summer party wine redolent of yellow stone fruit. I’d rather drink this outdoors in summer than a cheap Champagne. £25

Aerobulles Sparkling Chenin Blanc, Vouvray, Complices de Loire (Loire Valley, France)

Sparkling Chenin is underrated. It can be pretty complex, or it can be fun. This is one of the fun new-style wines, but with a serious side as well. It comes from two local winemakers, François-Xavier Barc and Gérald Vallée. Vines are a decent 25 years old, off clay with flint soils. Fermentation is 90% in oak and 10% in amphora. It sees a decent 24 months on lees and is bottled with zero dosage. The bouquet is quite floral, the palate more creamy-textured, with apricot stone fruit and bags of finesse. Definitely recommended at £27, but not a lot was made so stocks will be limited.

Fuchsentanz Riesling 2023, Weingut Diwald (Wagram, Austria)

I first tasted Martin’s wines at a Soho tasting in the rather faded splendour of Black’s Club so long ago that it must have been before I began this blog. I think back then he was with Red Squirrel Wines. It was great to taste this Riesling from one of Austria’s unsung regions, which follows the Danube immediately west of Vienna. Made in stainless steel with ten months on lees, it is generously ripe with a fresh citrus acidity and a texture that hints at the gravelly soils it comes from. Biodynamic. £25

Temperss Muscat “Skin Contact” 2023, Tenuta Il Nespolo (Piemonte, Italy)

This is effectively a Moscato from Asti, but vinified quite differently to the light and grapey, low alcohol, original. Luca Amerio farms vines planted in the 1960s at Moasca. This rendition of Muscat is quite serious, and very possibly age-worthy, yet it is unquestionably easy to drink. Ageing is 18 months on lees after fermenting to full dryness (abv is 13% yet it still tastes light and fresh). Definitely a food wine, and the producer suggests options which include shellfish and grilled vegetables. £27

Steven Windsor, Director of Element Wines, with a pristine table showing it was early on in the proceedings

Cuvée Z, Les Vignerons d’Estezargues (Rhône Valley, France)

This co-operative not far from Avignon has been a bit of a well-kept secret for years, but I’m now seeing their wines more frequently. And so we should! Since the 1980s, under the direction of Jean-François Nicq, they have been making natural wines using biodynamic methods, and in quantity. The only addition here is a tiny dose of CO2 if absolutely necessary. You get raspberry, liquorice and a bit of texture. A glugging wine with a bit of bite. Barbecue is calling. You get Grenache along with a few of the new PIWI varieties bred to give protection against fungal diseases. £17. If you need a cheap quality red snap it up in multiple bottles. This should fly out the door.

RAEBURN WINES

We had Murray, as always, cheerfully pouring for the crowds at Raeburn’s rightly popular table. There were some serious crackers on show here, and I bought the Palaverga below, among the bottles I took home from the shop after the tasting. These are available at Cork & Cask, but of course Raeburns have a shop in Stockbridge if you are down in that part of the city.

Is the René Leclerc Murray Mcdougal’s favourite?

Old Vine Chenin Blanc 2023, Die Kluise (South Africa)

This is one of Raeburn’s house wines, there being a red made from Cinsaut to accompany it. The old bush vines (possibly Swartland, but I’m not sure) are farmed organically. The wine is really tasty, with a waxy texture and fresh peach fruit topped-off with a hint of almond essence and pear. Excellent value at £25.

Gavi Yellow Label, La Mesma (Piemonte, Italy)

Gavi, in eastern Piemonte, has had to work hard to get a quality reputation. When the appellation’s “G” was added to the DOC in 1998, people seemed a bit underwhelmed by these white wines, made from Cortese, but this wine is proof of its potential. The fruit comes off limestone and red clay and underwent an ambient fermentation. It’s an excellent, quite savoury, Gavi. £25

Same River Twice Orange, Heliocentric Wines (Rhône, France)

This is a brand, created by James Dunstan, to sell wines from the wider Southern Rhône, but labelled as Vin de France. All the wines are sourced from small producers with the intention of expressing their individual terroirs. They are also pretty much natural wines, and in this case biodynamic. This skin-contact wine comes from the Ventoux Region, and is made from a blend of Rolle (aka Vermentino in Italy), with some Grenache Blanc and Muscat. It sees a week on skins, long enough to give it a golden colour, but the texture is more like a gentle Darjeeling tannin rather than the full-on Georgian black builder’s tea tannin. £24

Susucaru Rosato 2024, Frank Cornelissen (Sicily, Italy)

I didn’t taste this at the table because I know this vintage and have more at home. But my wallet has spoken. This Etna pink blends both red and white varieties Malvasia, Moscadella, Insolia and Nerello Mascalese. I’d call it a Rosato that verges towards a light red. It’s a natural wine but Frank does add a touch of sulphur these days. Expect a refreshing red-fruited wine that does carry 13.5% alcohol, and goes well with food. The tasting booklet lists this at £30, Cork & Cask’s web site at £32.

Bourgogne Rouge 2018, René Leclerc (Burgundy, France)

The Leclercs are in Gevrey, and I must admit I do get confused by the Leclerc family members here. The René Leclerc domaine consists of 12-ha which are farmed without interventions and the wines are all “natural wines”. François is now at the helm. The grapes go into a very old (1951) basket press for a short and gentle three hours, and old oak is the medium for ageing. The Bourgogne Rouge is traditional in the very best sense, a chance to drink the kind of Red Burgundy I discovered in the mid-1980s, when it was on song that is. Smooth and almost silky fruit and more depth than you expect from this level. But then it is a 2018, ready now but no rush if you like “tertiary”. £37

Pelaverga Speziale, Verduno DOC 2021, Fratelli Alessandria (Piemonte, Italy)

Out of all the Piemontese wines on show, it was this rare variety I was most taken with. Pelaverga is usually a second-string blending variety, but this estate has been bottling it on its own since 1973 under its own DOC. It’s fermented in stainless steel after a short maceration and then it goes into a mix of steel and concrete. It’s fresh, with gorgeous strawberry scents. Raspberry enters on the palate and the finish has a white pepper hit. A lighter red from its flavour profile, but 13.5% alcohol could surprise the unwary. One rests in my cellar perhaps for autumn. £37

Bardolino Classico Rosso 2024, Raval (Verona, Italy)

Bardolino sits to the east of Lake Garda, with the superior Classico zone in the hills which tumble down to the lake. When I was young Bardolino came with a screwcap, which back then meant cheap and not necessarily very cheerful. Much has changed. This is a simple wine, but it has both charm and a little depth. I would actually recommend trying this to prove to yourself that prejudice is hard to erode yet it can be done. A mix of red and darker fruits are balanced by a nice crispness. £22

Saumur-Champigny Rococo 2021, Bruno Dubois (Loire, France)

There are other more famous names making Saumur-Champigny, but Bruno Dubois makes biodynamic wines which express his terroirs no less well. This is a small domaine of 3.5-ha, all old vine stock. There’s a bit of agroforestry and plenty of regenerative agriculture above the limestone tufa soils. This is a man who worked for Marcel Lapierre in Beaujolais, so he has pedigree.

Like all Bruno’s reds, Rococo is a 100% natural wine with no added sulphur. The grapes are macerated and fermented in concrete to make a wine that is smooth, fresh, with the elegance and blackcurrant fruit of ripe, old vine, Cabernet Franc. A balanced 12.5% abv makes it the complete package. £35

Kin Shiraz 2022, Alkina Wines (Barossa, Australia)

If I’d have taken a small suitcase, I’d have bought a bottle of this this, on account of the bang for your buck it gives you. Alkina is a fairly large (43 ha) estate in the Barossa (South Australia), but they make biodynamic wines from fruit dating back to original 1950s plantings. The Shiraz fruit for Kin (an “old vine” project) is fermented in concrete tulips, all but around 15% being whole bunches. Additionally, about 5% from a vineyard on clay goes into oak foudre. Everything is blended after six months. It is very Australian in its voluptuousness, but it has also got structure too. A tasty varietal which will age further, or just let it breath in a nice big glass I would say. Even in my tiny tasting glass its potential was evident. 14.2% abv, £24

It’s worth noting that I bought the Alkina Kin Field White 2019 made in Georgian Qvevri from Raeburns after tasting it at the first Clay Wine Fair in 2025. That wine was somewhat more expensive, but it was exceptional.

Posted in Artisan Wines, Australian Wine, Austrian Wine, Burgundy, Italian Wine, Loire, Natural Wine, Piemonte, Rhone, Sicily, South African Wines, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Festivals, Wine Merchants, Wine Shops, Wine Tastings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment