March began with some stormy weather, then up here in Scotland we had some marvellous spring days bringing floral profusion to our little rain shadow just outside Edinburgh. As I type, at the end of the month, we have wetter and colder days. Freezing wind and rain this morning and bright sun this afternoon. Frankly, the weather is all over the place, and as usual, so is my wine drinking.

Well, almost. For the first part of my home drinking for March we have one wine from South Africa, but two from Germany (technically the same region but it would be hard to imagine two wines more different in style and philosophy). To complete the first half of the case, we have a Jura Savagnin, a South Australian Fiano, and a Portuguese red field blend.

Drinking quality seems really high right now. All of these were good, and I’d even suggest that there are four “wine of the month” contenders already. In some ways the wine I’d recommend you trying isn’t one of them. It’s the last wine, the Portuguese red. It’s wild and exciting, and it retails near me for under £20 (a few pounds more in London, it seems, but still cheap as chips used to be).

Smaug the Magnificent 2017, Blank Bottle Winery (Western Cape, South Africa)

Pieter Walser’s Blank Bottle Winery got a prominent mention in my article earlier this month on Butlers Wine Cellar (20/3 or 3/20 for my American readers). I drank this back on 5^th March and it is, like the dragon in the story, magnificent.

Pieter blends Roussanne, Grenache Blanc and Gris, and Verdelho, plus a splash of Chenin, sourced from around Voor Paardeberg, a small wine growing district within Paarl, Western Cape. It’s a really characterful Cape Blend style. Very complex, you could identify tangerine and lemon pith, greengage, garrigue-type herbs and a lemon-beeswax texture. In some ways this complex picture doesn’t begin to explain what is going on in this nicely aged bottle. My family found Laalmohn, which is the Nepali name for the Indian honeyed sweet, gulab jamun, but I’m guessing only a minority of readers might pick that up.

The label, by Pieter’s young son, is equally as magnificent as the wine. Imported by Swig, the currently available 2021 vintage will cost around £30 (probably the best price) from Butlers Wine Cellar. If they have sold out, try Lay & Wheeler, or of course Swig direct. Definitely worth granting it a little bottle age though.

Bombacher Sommerhalde Spätburgunder “R” GG 2011, Bernard Huber (Baden, Germany)

Huber must rank among the finest producers of Spätburgunder/Pinot Noir in Germany. Bernard split from the Malterdingen co-operative in 1987 and soon developed a reputation for quality, and became one of the pioneers who have led a genuine quality revolution in German red wine.

Julian Huber now works the winery. They grow their Pinot Noir on shell limestone in a part of Baden called Breisgau, close to, but distinct from, the volcanic Kaiserstuhl directly to the southwest. This cuvée is made from a “Grand Cru” site keeping yields extremely low. The wine is fermented on the skins and aged on its fine lees, matured of course in oak.

It’s a cuvée that needs time, which this bottle, a gift from a friend some years ago, has benefited from. Very smooth on the palate, both here and on the bouquet, we get cherry, plum, blackberry and raspberry. It’s not all fruit as there’s a tangible spice note as well. Complex, long, smoothly satisfying to both the intellect and the soul. It becomes very gourmandise, quite savoury in the glass (which should be a proper burgundy stem). The best “Pinot” I’ve drunk for a very long time, from anywhere.

Savagnin de Voile 2010, Domaine de Saint-Pierre (Jura, France)

I’ve been lucky to have followed Fabrice Dodane for many years. He took over this estate, of which he was manager, just outside of Arbois, more or less in the direction of Dôle, after the untimely death of its original owner, Philippe Moyne, in 2011. The six-or-so hectares he farms are split between the villages of Vadans, Saint-Pierre and Molamboz, but the winery is in nearby Mathenay.

After first converting the domaine to organics, Fabrice swiftly moved on to making natural wine, using only a small amount of sulphur just in his white wines, and only when deemed absolutely necessary. This wine is of course aged in barrels in Fabrice’s “dry room” (separate from the conventionally aged wines), where a layer of flor develops, similar to Vin Jaune. There it ages, oxidatively, for six years. So, you will see that we more or less have a mini-Vin Jaune.

How does it differ, other than in the ageing requirement? The bouquet is certainly similar, with hazelnut, lemon peel and curry spices. The palate is smooth now, very smooth. You get spiced apple more than anything. I’d say that whilst there is intensity here, it isn’t quite the powerful intensity you get in his VJ.

That is in no way putting this down, in fact just the opposite. It has moved from precision to generosity and is truly stunning. Such flor-aged Savagnin is perhaps a little more versatile at the table, and certainly costs less than Vin Jaune. Why it didn’t become one, I have no idea but if it were not deemed to meet Fabrice’s (quality?) requirements, this is still a remarkably fine wine. If you have any, you are very lucky indeed. My only bottle, but I do have some Saint-Pierre Vin Jaune stashed for even longer ageing.

I think Fabrice’s wines have become extremely expensive now, rather quickly too. Imported by Les Caves de Pyrene. It may cost you more than some estates’ VJs for the most recently released vintage of Fabrice’s “Sous Voile”, but in my opinion, worth it.

Trio Sauvage 2020, Max Sein Wein (Baden, Germany)

Max Baumann runs his own tiny vineyard at Dertingen. According to Max this is still technically Baden, but it’s a lot closer to Würzburg, which is in Franken, hence you will often see his location described as Franken. Trio Sauvage is, like all Max’s own wines (there are also family vineyards which he may come to take over) designated as simple Deutscher Wein (without appellation, by choice).

If all this looks like simple wine, don’t be fooled. Max has a growing reputation even outside Germany. His low intervention philosophy comes from the people he has worked with, not least his revelatory spell at Gut Oggau in Burgenland.

This cuvée is made from just under two-thirds direct-pressed Silvaner with equal parts Chardonnay and Pinot Gris, those two varieties being macerated on their skins for ten days. Like the Huber wine above, the terroir here is also shell limestone, which does impart a great minerality to this white, but it was also aged ten months on lees in oak, which sediment makes its own contribution. The nose is floral at first and then rounds out to a buttery note, perhaps the second variety in the list, skin contact Chardonnay, coming in a little later there? The palate has great salinity, with lemon-fresh acids and a good bit of texture, not obtrusive though.

The finish has a nicely piquant peppery spiciness, and this helped it go especially well with a Kashmir Pepper-spiced aduki bean and black lentil bake topped with thinly sliced potatoes, baked in the oven. Despite the heat of the dish, the wine still felt very much “alive”.

Imported by Basket Press Wines, £30. Max makes some very impressive red wines, often preferring Pinot Meunier to Pinot Noir. He makes some of the most impressive Meunier still wine I know. His white wines are no less worthy of our attention. The prices are creeping up as people realise Max is a guy to watch.

Jade & Jasper Fiano 2021, Unico Zelo (Riverland, South Australia)

Laura and Brendan Carter source their fruit for this Fiano from the Riverland in North Eastern South Australia. It’s right on the border with Victoria, from where it continues into the Murray-Darling region. When Aussie wine made an impact here in the UK, in the 1980s, much of the wine from the irrigated vineyards up here was labelled South Eastern Australia, and indeed these regions, along with Riverina (also in Victoria) were the source of much bulk wine, later shipped in tanker and bottled in Warrington etc.

Times have changed a little. Melbournites now compete for the dwindling water resource of the Murray River with the unhappy farmers to the northeast, but Riverland has, partly as a consequence, seen a new role for wines of quality, if also remarkably good value (because the vineyards are cheap). Among these new quality wines, we are seeing more and more so-called “alt-varieties”, wines made from grapes other than the international star varieties so well known under the Australian sun.

Quite a few of these varieties are more drought-resistant and need less, if any, irrigation. A good example is Brad Hickey’s ZBO (Zibibbo/Muscat) which I buy when I spot it. Fiano isn’t one of these “Mediterranean” varieties, it is a classy white one from Piemonte, but it does seem to thrive there. It is also a variety which has been receiving quite wide acclaim throughout South Australia, especially as a few famous names have some planted, not least Jeffrey Grosset in the Clare Valley.

This is turning into a long entry for what is a fairly simple wine, but one which is nevertheless really worth trying. It’s a good example of what will surely be one of Australia’s many “futures” (ie alternative varieties) for wine.

Moving on…Laura and Brendan make very good natural wines using sustainable farming methods off ancient sand and limestone in Ngawait Country, as they identify the First Nation owners of this land. The label says “sharing memories of spring time”, hence my choice of photo backdrop. The label also suggests that this wine is “aromatic, juicy and textural”. It’s all those things, plus waxy, floral, savoury, with hints of white peach and spring blossom. There’s citrus acidity but the wine doesn’t lack sunshine weight of fruit, and at 12.5% abv it is nicely balanced.

I’d call this very good value for £22 at Cork & Cask, Edinburgh. The importer is Berkmann.

Uivo Renegado Vinhas Velhas 2022, Folias de Baco (Alijó, Northern Portugal)

I’ve said recently that I’m looking more to Portugal for really good value natural wines, and it would be very hard to find one that fits that bill better than this one does. Tiego Sampaio took over his grandparents’ vines near Alijó in the upper reaches of the Douro in 2007. These are old vines, many over 80 years of age, at between 550 to 700 masl, growing on clay and slate/schist.  He has since grown his holding, acquiring scattered parcels from disinterested families with smallholdings, to around 10-ha.

Renegado is made from more than twenty autochthonous Portuguese varieties, approximately half red grapes and half white, co-planted as a field blend. Picked in September, by hand, the fruit was meticulously sorted in the vineyard. Fermenting all the grapes together in traditional granite Lagares, following a three-day maceration, the wine is then aged six months on lees in cement tank (95%) and 2-to-3-year-old chestnut cask (5%).

What we have here is a pale red which is delicious drunk chilled. You get vibrant red fruits to the fore with just a little texture. I always imagine that’s the cement, but of course the lees do their part. The bouquet is very much cranberry juice, the palate adding in redcurrant and strawberry, lots of strawberry in fact. Nice acidity too, the high-altitude vineyards allowing for cold night time temperatures even in what we imagine is the hot baking Douro summer. It’s a juicy, simple, natural wine, but boy is this good! And at 11.5% abv it goes down a treat even before the sun (goes down).

I paid £19 from Cork & Cask for this one. Imported by Modal Wines, I’ve seen this listed in London for £22-£23. Still a bargain in today’s market.