The last of the Edinburgh tastings for November featured some new wines from Basket Press Wines, actually tasted outdoors on a lovely mid-November lunchtime. It doesn’t always rain here, contrary to the myths put about down south. You will doubtless know Basket Press as an importer of Czech wines (and ciders, etc), but their range also extends into Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Germany and Georgia, and it is good to see a small importer growing outwards.

However, they have also taken on some new Czech producers and one in particular is worthy of highlighting. Most readers will know of Milan Nestarec, the first really famous, and widely distributed, natural winemaker from the Czech Republic. Well, Milan is one of the few major names of this genre who Basket Press doesn’t import (his UK agent is Newcomer Wines). Well, Milan’s wife, Mira Nestarec, is now making wine under her own label and Basket Press has been able to take on the role of UK importer.

These wines are so new that they don’t appear to have a profile yet on the Basket Press web site (I think they are mentioned on their Facebook page, but I’m not on Facebook). They are from the just-bottled 2022 vintage, Mira’s first. There are four wines, two red and two white. They weren’t available to taste, but I managed to bag a Riesling and a Cabernet Franc in a small order I put in last week, all the others in that order being wines I tasted here. I shall try one soon, but I thought a few readers might be interested to get in quick!

The wines tasted in Edinburgh were as follows…

Divide 2019, DVA Duby (Moravia, Czechia)

Jiří Sebela makes very fine natural wines at Dolní Kounice, a small town on the River Jihlava in the south of Moravia, where the soils are very special. They are based on Granodiorite, which is magma from the Pre-Cambrian epoch, 700 million years ago. Although these soils are magmatic rather than volcanic ash, they still give wines with that volcanic intensity which we can recognise from other volcanic terroirs like Sicily, or the Canary Isles etc.

“Divide” in this new 2019 vintage is a blend of around 70% Frühroter Veltliner and 30% Müller-Thurgau, farmed biodynamically and made naturally. Each batch is fermented separately in a mix of stainless steel and oak, and ageing was for ten months in oak. That’s a couple of months shorter than usual, and this year there was no skin contact for this cuvée.

It’s very fresh, with apple and lemon citrus acidity, but there’s also a savoury edge that adds depth. Minerality is, of course, the buzzword from the volcanic soils, and you would definitely say that the terroir shines through.

Malvasia 2019, DVA Duby (Moravia, Czechia)

The Moravian Malvasia has nothing to do with the grape of the same name elsewhere (although Malvasia has to be the most widely used synonym for totally different grape varieties that I know). Here, it is a synonym for Frühroter Veltliner. The bouquet is more floral than the previous wine, and the palate has apple, herbs, a touch of structure and texture, and then the finish brings in some salinity. It’s a wine which builds complexity in the glass and it’s always popular in my house, partly because it goes so well with the Asian Cuisine we eat a lot of.

Pur Jus 2021, Max Sein Wein (Baden, Germany)

Max Baumann is certainly a rising star of German natural wine. He worked with Gut Oggau and came back to his smallholding imbued with the philosophy lived by Eduard and Stephanie, and I think their creativity rubbed off as well. Max’s whole range is excellent, and here we have two from his latest vintage.

“Pur Jus” in 2021 was a blend of fewer varieties, here 50% Kerner with 40% Gewurztraminer and 10% Müller-Thurgau. The first and the last were direct-pressed, whilst the Gewurztraminer saw a one-week maceration. Nevertheless, the skin contact is evident in a deliciously spicy wine which has benefited from Max keeping the bottles back a couple of years before release. Quite delicious.

“Sivi” 2022, Kmetija Štekar (Goriška Brda, Slovenia)

Janko Štekar and his wife, Tamara Lukman, farm five hectares of vines, making natural wine in a region of Slovenia that is effectively a continuation of Italy’s Collio. As you may be aware, cross-border viticulture was common even when Slovenia was behind the Iron Curtain, and still is today. The approach here is one of encompassing the whole ecosystem within the winemaking project. They make lovely wines and I’ve always wanted to try Simon Woolf’s recommendation, Janko’s skin contact Riesling, called RePiko. Basket Press imports several cuvées and Sivi is also an “orange” or “amber” wine.

The variety is Pinot Gris/Grigio. It is fermented on skins in stainless steel with a twelve-hour maceration. It was bottled after six months ageing on lees in March this year. It is certainly a skin contact wine to taste, but it has more freshness than texture, as do all the wines in Janko’s “monkey” range. However, it’s also a little enigmatic, harder to describe than most wines. I can only say I found it intriguing enough to buy. I’ll readily admit that I’m not a big fan of the labels and I got a little bit annoyed at myself for probably not buying enough of these as a result. Very good value too at around £27.

Oranzovy Vlk 2021, Vino Magula (Slovakia)

This is a family winery at Sucha Nad Parnou, and one whose whole range I find irresistible. If wine from Slovakia doesn’t quite have the same profile as neighbour, Czechia, there are a few producers, Strekov 1075 (imported into the UK by Roland Wines) and Slobodné (Modal Wines), who are making wines everything as good as those from Moravia next door. Magula is certainly one of those estates.

Farming is biodynamic on mineral-rich chalky soils with very low rainfall. Their rather unique label shows the vine roots having to delve deep for moisture. We have here a beautiful orange wine, from the “Wolf” (Vlk) Valley, which blends Grüner Veltliner, Welschriesling, Traminer and Děvín, the latter a 1958 Slovakian cross between (allegedly) Gewurztraminer and Frühroter Veltliner (the very same “Malvasia” we came across earlier), or from different sources, Traminer and Röter Veltliner.

Anyway, a pointless digression cos there ain’t much Děvín in this. What there appears to be is rust. It looks like Irn Bru and it smells like mandarin orange. It tastes a little like a dry version of Seville Orange marmalade, as did the 2019, the last vintage I bought. There’s a bit of texture, but there’s also a plumpness which develops and takes away the edge as the wine opens. To be fair, it didn’t open a lot outdoors in Edinburgh, but it did a little in my warm mitts, and I really love this Magula cuvée to bits so I know what it is like. Zero sulphur, don’t serve too cold. I also love the label, which I guess is a bonus.

Rouge 2021, Max Sein Wein (Baden, Germany)

Yes, Max prefers to label his wines in French. He’s up at Wertheim-Dertingen, which, between Karlsruhe and Stüttgart, is a kind of hinterland betwixt Baden and Franconia, so not in any of the bits of Baden close to France. I’m not sure why he chooses to do this, although his wines are all outside their appellation, labelled merely as Deutscher Wein, not even Landwein. What I do know is that Max does have a following in France, even in Bordeaux, as that city’s wonderful natural wine shop, Feral Art et Vin, stocks them.

This 2021 is a 50:50 blend of Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier (previously Meunier has formed the greater part of the blend). Meunier is a grape that Max Baumann really knows how to handle, and his still red wines from the variety are among the best I know. This is a pale red with smooth cherry fruit, but with just a touch of earthiness to ground it. I think it’s one of those wines that you need to pull up the word “purity” for. I’m definitely a fan. It will age and gain a little complexity, and perhaps even more smoothness, although the 2021 does seem more than approachable now.

Impera 2019, DVA Duby (Moravia, Czechia)

The third Duby wine of the day, and whist I do like these wines a lot, this was perhaps on this occasion my favourite. If we look at the name, placing it next to “Divide”, this wine is “Conquer” and it will conquer a few hearts, for sure.

It’s a blend of 70% Saint-Laurent with 30% Blaufränkisch. Although the region where this is made is more famous for Blaufränkisch (Frankovka, locally), this is a cuvée where the grape which is usually the underdog, Saint-Laurent, comes into its own.

This wine sees a month-long skin contact maceration in open-top fermenters. It is then transferred to a mix of acacia and oak barrels for a year’s ageing. Acacia is a local wood here in Moravia and it is becoming very popular. Its tight grain means less oxygen ingress and sometimes the wines possibly seem perhaps more intense as a result. That’s certainly the case here. The bouquet is rich with cherry fruit, and the palate is crunchy. The wine is smoky and savoury, and has depth. It drinks easily yet has a hidden serious side. I especially wanted some of this for my cellar but I bet it won’t hang around.

Kékfrankos Diόfas 2019, Sziegl Pince (Hajόs Baja, Hungary)

If you haven’t heard of the wine region of Hajós Baja it isn’t surprising. In Hungary’s south, on the Great Plain, the sandy soils here provide a lot of ordinary wine for the country’s urban workers. But, as Jancis et al admit in The World Atlas of Wine (8^th edn), there are some producers bucking the trend. One is Sziegl Pince, a relatively new addition to the Basket Press portfolio.

This estate was started a decade ago by a young couple, then in their twenties. Having been given an 80-year-old vineyard as a gift from a relative they put every penny they could scrape together into purchasing more plots of old vines, until today they farm close to 8.5 hectares. They farm organically and use minimal intervention in their winemaking.

As an interesting aside, but relevant to this estate, given their acquisition of so many old plots of vines, is that during the Soviet era the old vines here survived because the tractors used for large-scale mechanised agriculture were too heavy. Beneath the sandy soils were a vast network of cellars and they would have been at risk of collapse. As a result, the old vines were left, instead of being pulled-out for replanting.

This is a single vineyard wine from a favoured site that ripens the grapes without loss of acidity. Kékfrankos is, of course, the Hungarian name for the variety we may know better as Blaufränkisch. Fermentation (a mix of crushed fruit and whole clusters) takes place in large open vats, then ageing is 18 months in mostly large oak. It is then given another 18 months in bottle before release. It is so rare today for a producer to keep wine back until they feel it is ready for release, but it is not uncommon in Central Europe among the smaller artisan producers.

The oak is hence nicely integrated. It has some grip and structure, and I may be inclined to keep this a little longer. It’s a winter wine, but is still fresh and juicy. Delicious stuff, and a wine that would certainly cost more than the £25 you’ll pay for this were it from an Austrian artisan winemaker. That said, it would doubtless have a brighter label. Reminder once more not to judge a book by its cover.

It’s always a pleasure to taste Basket Press Wines’s portfolio and it was kind of Jiří to make time for me, with his trusty Coravin, before heading to a trade customer. It’s true, I’ve written a lot about their wines recently, especially the Czech wines, but I’ll say it for the hundredth time, these wines would surprise many who have thus far failed to get on the bandwagon.