We begin the first selection from the wines we drank at home in July with a new (to me) wine from a favourite producer in Hungary. Next up, a classic Bugey-Cerdon, then a classic Saar wine but from the region’s undoubted new star, then a Rosé from Alsace, before we end up, as seems the case quite often at the moment, on the shores of Austria’s Neusiedlersee with a light red from another rising star of his region.

Disorder #4 2021, Annamária Réka-Koncz (Eastern Hungary)

I believe this is the first vintage of Disorder Annamária’s UK importer has brought in, and this is my first taste of it, although labelled as #4 it has presumably been around a while? Although Annamária is based at Barabás, up by Hungary’s eastern border with Ukraine, the grapes for this cuvée come from two terraced vineyards called Hintós and Dancka, at Mád, in the Tokaj region to the west. The wine was made in collaboration with a good friend of Annamária’s, Stefan Jensen, who owns Terroiristen Vinbar in Copenhagen, and who is also one of the most respected and largest importers of natural wine into Denmark.

This is a single varietal wine, made from Furmint, of course. The key to the quality here is old vines. The grapes see skin contact giving a light orange colour. It isn’t especially tannic, not at all, but there is a nice ferrous texture, almost certainly from the volcanic soils at Mád.

We begin with a bouquet of orchard fruits, apple freshness and pear depth. You get pear on the palate, and quite intense minerality, as you do with the best Furmint from the region. Furmint is a variety which really doesn’t get the recognition it is due, but here we see another string to its bow. This is a modern, natural wine and it has real personality. It has edge.

Imported by Basket Press Wines in the UK, this will be sold out because Annamária’s wines barely last a couple of weeks. That said, you might find some retailers have the odd bottle if their customers haven’t yet discovered what they are missing. Prost Wines state that it’s in stock online, £26.

Bugey Cerdon “La Cueille” NV, Catherine & Patrick Bottex (Bugey, France)

I’ve been highlighting the wines of Bugey on my blog for some years, and whilst this small region between Jura and Savoie isn’t exactly going the way of Jura, or even Savoie, it is certainly getting a little more UK coverage than it was. Quite recently I’ve managed to get hold of two wines new to the UK, this being one of them. Cerdon is possibly the best-known wine of Bugey here, although the unique wine it produces is a demi-sec fizz that although being ideal drinking for summer, often shocks people on first taste.

Bugey as a wine region is split in two. Its northern part is closer to Jura, and lies just east of Bourg-en-Bresse, whilst the southern half of the region is based around a myriad of vine clusters over towards Savoie, broadly within a big loop of the River Rhône. Both sectors lie in the Ain Department. Cerdon is in the northern part.

Cerdon, the village, lies on the old road from Lyon to Geneva, on the River Veyron (after which Bugatti didn’t name their famous car, that was racing driver Pierre Veyron, but never mind). It has since been bypassed by the feat of mountain engineering that is the A40 Autoroute, the advantage to vinous explorers being that you now have the roads of Northern Bugey largely to yourself. Not that I think they were exactly crowded before. Bugey is one of those fast-disappearing French “paradis”, a bucolic landscape of rocky slopes, rich woodland, sleepy woodsmoke-filled villages, and islands of vines, many on scree-strewn slopes, amid resolutely mixed agriculture, though the vineyards here once extended to over a hundred hectares in the early 20^th century. Ideal territory for young yet impoverished winemakers to start out, and many here wish to follow an organic or natural wine path.

Patrick and Catherine Bottex are not so young. Luckily their son, Carl, is now on-board and preparing to take over. The “La Cueille” on the wine’s label is a hamlet near the small town of Poncin (west of Cerdon itself), where they farm close to 7-hectares of vines. Patrick bought vines here when they were reclassified as Cerdon VDQS, planting more vines themselves, in 1991. Most are Gamay and Pinot Noir, though they still have a little Poulsard left. This Jura variety is traditional in this part of Bugey, but getting quite rare these days. I myself lament its passing.

Patrick still adds 10% Poulsard to his Méthode Ancestrale Cerdon, though Wink Lorch says he’s not replanting it (Wines of the French Alps, 2019). The rest is Gamay. Fermentation begins in tank and then when around 60g/l of sugar is left the juice is cooled to stop fermentation. It is then bottled, where its second fermentation begins spontaneously. The wine is then disgorged with perhaps 40g/l of sugar remaining. However, there’s plenty of acidity too.

This acidity takes away some of our perception of sweetness, so whilst the result certainly doesn’t taste dry, it does taste more fresh and fruity than overtly sweet, very much like a gently fizzy fruit juice. It almost is, coming in at just 8% abv. You get a magenta-coloured Rosé with a lovely crispness, the perfect garden wine.

Kermit Lynch has been onto the Bottex wines for around three decades, and he manages to snaffle a little short of half Patrick and Catherine’s production for the USA. We are therefore lucky to see any here, but those clever boys (Dan Keeling & Mark Andrew) at Shrine to the Vine in London nabbed some. A little made it up here, to the excellent Portobello wine bar, Smith & Gertrude via GB Wine Shippers. They also happen to have an on-site bottle shop. Their penultimate bottle cost me £19. Ridiculous value. But frankly all the Bugey-Cerdon which comes to the UK tends to be the good stuff. I’ve written about Renardat-Fâche a few times before and the still wines, at least, of Philippe Balivet have appeared in London.

Niedermenniger Herrenberg Riesling Spätlese Feinherb “Onkel Peter” 2020, Hofgut Falkenstein (Saar, Germany)

So, that must be the longest wine name for a while. It’s worth persevering with, though, because Hofgut Falkenstein has arrived as one of the new but radiant stars of the whole Mosel-Saar-Ruwer. The estate’s owners, Erich and Maria Weber, with their son, Johannes, see themselves on a mission to make wines in the way they believe they were made in the past, well before the 1970s when German Wine regulations turned us off the styles made with residual sugar through opaque labelling and the commercial suicide of sugar water Müller-Thurgau.

What is this fabled old-time methodology? Easy, pick early before the grapes are too ripe, and then do as little as possible and add as little as possible. The wines ferment, go into cask, and then are bottled directly from the wood, usually large “fuder”. At this stage a little sulphur is added. They also bottle not only each specific vineyard separately, but there may also be a number of different bottlings from a single vineyard, hence the “Onkel Peter” designation here.

The winery is at Konz, close to the Saar’s most famous sites. The vineyards are on steep slate and are ungrafted (on original rootstocks). Onkel Peter is from the south-facing Zuckerberg sector of the vineyard. In true feinherb style it is off-dry, with a bouquet of creamy almond essence, herbs and white flowers and a hint of sechuan pepper. It has that Saar precision, emerging complexity and wow, magnificence.

I know nothing about wine. I was a fool to open it. It was brilliant, but Mosel Fine Wines say drink from 2026 to 2042. Well, lucky you if you will see 2042, but I think I would have got even more out of it in five-to-ten years. I only had one, though I won’t be so swift to open my other cuvées from this estate.

Howard Ripley is the UK agent for Hofgut Falkenstein, so contact them for distribution. I managed to get most of my bottles from The Solent Cellar.

Rosé Cuvée Nature 2021, Anna, André and Yann Durrmann (Alsace, France)

The Durrmann family has its winery and tasting room close to the centre of Andlau, which itself was close to the heart of the natural wine revolution in the region. Now that André and Anna’s son, Yann, has taken over the estate this past year, he is keen to make sure we are all aware of this natural wine pioneer of green energy and ecologically forward-looking vineyard practices (the Durrmanns had sheep, and bird-friendly trees, in their vineyards before most had even heard of such crazy ideas), and its place in the Alsace natural wine story. I’ve seen a lot of photos of Durrmann wines in articles and online in the UK this past year or so.

In 2021 Yann lost quite a lot of his Pinot Noir to mildew, made worse by his desire not to napalm the fungus with chemicals (being more polite, his refusal to use systematic synthetic applications to curb the disease). So, for this vintage we have a Rosé cuvée made from 50% Pinot Noir and 50% Pinot Gris. This is actually a blend which has become very successful among the north of the region’s natural winemakers.

The Pinot Noir was direct pressed with a six-hour maceration, whilst the Pinot Gris was macerated for one week following destemming. The wine was aged on lees for six months in tank and bottled, as the Durrmann “cuvée nature” designation suggests, with no added sulphur. Pale pink with a bit of attractive funk, the PG specifically seems to lift the soft cherry PN with something a bit twisted (maybe it’s a touch of grapefruit). Acids are good, giving enough precision under the rounder fruit, and there’s just a hint of texture. 12% abv.

Imported by Wines Under the Bonnet in London, purchased from Cork & Cask in Edinburgh (£24).

Piroska 2021, Joiseph (Burgenland, Austria)

Joiseph is the domaine created by three guys, including winemaker Luka Zeichmann, one of the rising stars among an already bright firmament of natural wine makers who surround Austria’s famous shallow lake, the Neusiedlersee. Joiseph is a name I’ve never quite got to the bottom of, except that Jois is a small town close to the lake’s northern shore, where you will find their vines situated.

Piroska is a great example of the brilliant summer red wines coming out of this region. It’s a typical pale red, a style that more conservative writers would have called anaemic a few years ago. What makes such a claim silly is that the pale colour robes a wine packed with fruit. That once reviled gem of a variety (for light reds and pinks), Zweigelt, makes up 47% of the cuvée, along with 38% Pinot Noir (very precise, I know). The remaining 15% (check my maths) is a mix of a dash of Blaufränkisch and white varieties.

Harvested early, the intense red summer fruits are cut with a streak of refreshing acidity and mineral intensity. If you want light but intense this is your wine. For drinking now (well, it’s sunny up here, have you seen Doug Wregg’s photos?), drink cool to stay cool!

Imported by Modal Wines. Nic usually has a decent selection of Joiseph cuvées. This is another bottle which I found at Smith & Gertrude in Portobello (Edinburgh’s beachside). Cork & Cask in Edinburgh had some, though they might have currently sold out, but they may have other Joiseph wines. Around £24 once it passes the tax man.