November has seen me away from home quite a lot, so there are only ten wines we drank at home to tell you about, and nine out of those ten wines were European. At least this focuses the mind on the necessity of drinking more widely in a geographical sense next year, than merely a diversity of European wine regions and grape varieties.

Still, with wines from Rheinhessen, Alsace, Slovakia, Burgenland and Tuscany in Part One, we have four wines from producers you may be very familiar with, plus one sub-£20 bargain. All of them are very good.

Silvaner “Feuervogel” 2018, Weingut Keller (Rheinhessen, Germany)

Klaus Peter Keller is one of the most famous names in German wine, and he has done more than anyone to revitalise the name of Rheinhessen. The wines which made him famous, the likes of Grand Crus Morstein and Kirchspiel, just to name two, are now beyond most pockets (though not so four or five years ago), but there is great value to be had down the pecking order at this 16-hectare Wonnegau estate (including some very good Spätburgunder). The Riesling “Von der Fels” must be a contender for best value dry Riesling in the world.

Silvaner is also recommended, and Feuervogel (firebird/phoenix) adds lustre to the variety for its ability to age. It’s a dry Silvaner made from 70-year-old vines grown on limestone. It’s a wine which the authorities tried to ban as atypical, but in truth it’s a truly amazing wine, especially here with five years in bottle.

The mineral structure is immense, yet this is balanced beautifully with a richness not often found with this variety. The other major parts of the jigsaw are fresh lime and spice, and everything is now blended together in a seamless whole. Forget any preconceptions of the variety, this is a fine wine, and it will age further should you wish. It is already complex.

The pricing for this wine seems all over the place, not helped by the fact that I can’t see a UK retailer for the current 2021 vintage. This bottle came from Solent Cellar a few years ago. They no longer have it, needless to say. I did see a 2018 listed for £60 but I’m pretty sure I paid around half that.

“Murmure” 2021, Domaine Rietsch (Alsace, France)

Domaine Rietsch is my Alsace equivalent of L’Octavin and Tournelle in the Jura, Gut Oggau and Renner in Burgenland, or the late Julie Balagny in Bojo, one of the closest wine producers to my beating heart, and one whose wines set my pulse racing whenever I’m lucky enough to drink one. Jean-Pierre crafts his cuvées in the village of Mittelbergheim, which for Alsace is (or used to be, before Alsace natural wine really took off) natural wine central for this region.

Jean-Pierre described 2021 to his UK importer as one of extremes, very dry but also “the most humid in Mittelbergheim since 1900”. Whilst mildew was inevitable, he described the fruit that survived as “incredible”.

Murmure is a skin-contact Muscat Ottonel made from grapes hardly affected by the mildew that cut the crop of many other varieties. It was picked via two tries through the vineyard and then macerated for thirteen days. It then aged seven months on lees, and no sulphur was added, surely a testament to healthy fruit.

It shows a classic Muscat bouquet, delicate floral scents with a hint of the exotic. The palate has a chalky mineral dryness, and indeed it was harvested off chalky “marnes”. It is also delicate and savoury, with a very low 10% abv. One of the best Alsace Muscats in my opinion.

I think this might have come from Made from Grapes in Glasgow, but the UK importer is Wines Under the Bonnet. Somewhere around £24/£25.

Frankovka 2016, Magula (Slovakia)

The entry for Slovakia in The World Atlas of Wine (8th edn) seems very outdated now, although it does note that Frankovka grows well to the northeast of Bratislava along with a host of white varieties. The top artisan producers of the country have thankfully become even better known since that 2019 edition, and among them is unquestionably Vino Magula, a family winery with 10ha of vines in the Wolf and Rose Valleys near Sucha Nad Parnou.

This is a biodynamic farm, and the labels depict a vine delving deep for nutrients because they certainly won’t get any help from synthetic chemical sprays. Frankovka (sometimes Frankovka Modrá in Slovakia) is, of course, better known to most of us as Blaufränkisch. Harvested in mid-October from vines with extremely low yields, the fruit spent forty days on skins. Ageing was 24 months in a mix of new and old oak, plus a further 12 months in bottle before release. Such pre-sale ageing is rare, but we are lucky in this case because what we have is a gem.

There is very intense cherry fruit on both nose and palate, that’s intense with a capital “I”. The bouquet also has a nice, fragrant, floral note and develops a hint of smoke as it unfurls. The palate manages to combine a velvet smoothness with a focused line of acidity. The finish has a slightly earthy texture and peppery spice.

That’s a lot in a bottle of wine, but this is extremely good. This is a wine which saw decent ageing before release, and then more in the bottle chez-moi, and it is a wine now at or close to its peak. You’ll be pushed to find any left, I’m afraid, and only 1,700 bottles were produced, but it’s one to look out for. I shall definitely be setting an alert for the next available vintage.

No longer currently available, but importer Basket Press Wines usually has a few cuvées from Magula. I took some orange wine in a delivery a couple of weeks ago (you may have seen me review it in my previous article on tasting the importer’s new vintages in Edinburgh). The Frankovka cost around £30, a genuine bargain for an exceptional wine at this stage in its evolution.

Mischkultur 2021, Joiseph (Burgenland, Austria)

Like their UK importer, I was able to get into the wines made by Luka Zeichmann for this partnership quite early, and over a number of years I’ve drunk them often. I still get a thrill when I taste them, but at the same time Luka’s winemaking has matured, without question. Whilst I recently got to taste some of the wines he is now making under his own label, in Mittelburgenland, where his family had vines, the Joiseph wines are more widely available. They hail from around the village of Jois, to the north of the Neusiedlersee, in Burgenland proper.

Mischkultur is a field blend, effectively a gemischter satz, with six varieties harvested and fermented together. There is a little skin contact to add a touch of texture, but the essence of this cuvée is fresh and zippy fruit with fruit-juice acidity. It is also an aromatic wine, with a floral bouquet, but the palate is dry with a savoury element subservient to the fruit. Let’s not forget the dissolved CO2, a good substitute for sulphur, which gives just a faint prickle.

There is no doubt Luka is one of the most exciting young winemakers in the region, and his future lies before him. One wonders what he will dream up in years to come. Mischkultur is one of Luka’s Joiseph wines imported by Modal Wines, who also have four of his new “own-label” wines in tiny quantities. It retails for around £26.50.

Sangiovese 2020, Fattoria di Sammontana (Tuscany, Italy)

This is the entry level Sangiovese from this estate at Montelupo, a property which once belonged to the Medici Dukes. It was purchased by the Dzieduszycki family in the 1860s and is still in that family today. They farm 13 hectares of vines along with around 3,000 olive trees.

This Sangiovese could be made as a Chianti, but it has been declassified to IGT largely because of its production methods. As well as being biodynamic, and a natural wine, it has been aged in glazed cement tanks rather than the traditional wood which Chianti usually sees. There is also no added sulphur. That ageing is for just eight months, although the wine is held back in bottle for a further three months before release.

As intended, this is a pure-fruited wine with a floral bouquet, intended to be drunk young. It may be fruity but it does have a bit of grip, and this helps bring out an earthy note on the palate, which at least hints to me of ageing in cement. This grip is there initially, but it softens as the wine warms and opens. It’s drinking very well now, especially with food.

This is exceptional value for just under £20. I’d love to get some more for drinking with family over Christmas (it has a jolly label too), but Cork & Cask in Edinburgh, where I bought, it suggests they just have only four bottles left. It is another wine imported by Modal Wines.