Some readers might have wondered why I’ve been silent since my last article on 24 April. After a decorating blitz on our new home we finally moved in (after exactly a year of building work). Then our son came to visit from a far away land, and we also went out west for a few days.

I plan to begin with the Real Wine Fair. Perhaps it has slipped from your memory after so long, but it was a fantastic event and arguably the most important in the calendar for lovers of natural wine. We are all very grateful to the team from Les Caves de Pyrene who pull this all together, and also for throwing it open to all the wonderful growers who work with other small importers as well. I think I shall split up the producers I found most interesting into three short parts so you can read them relatively quickly.

I have also been remiss in not reviewing Honey Spencer’s first book, Natural Wine No Drama. As I’m usually quick off the mark with book reviews it is especially frustrating that I haven’t managed to get this one online.

Then we still have my “Recent Wines” from both April and May, with plenty to look forward to there. Hopefully relative normality will return by the time I get to write about June’s wines. Let’s get going…

KELLEY FOX (Oregon, USA)

Kelley is a good person to begin tasting with. I see her only at Real Wine, but she’s easy going yet very much on top of her game, knowledgeable, astute, particular, yet very warm. She started her project in the Willamette Valley with her father in 2007, and this time she was in London with her daughter, Violet. Perhaps we shall look towards continuity, though Kelley has many more vintages before her.

Kelley with daughter, Violet, and Caleb (of La Garagista)

I began with the Mirabai Pinot Noir 2021 which is an elegant, lighter, rendition of the vintage. Kelley always works to express each individual year. From two sites, Weber plus 30% Maresh in the Dundee Hills, the scent is purest strawberry, the palate has a touch of mineral texture. Ageing is in used Burgundy barrels (228-litre).

The Carter Vineyard Pinot Noir 2022 was, I think, newly bottled. Ken and Karen Wright (Wright Cellars) own this historic site in the Eola-Amity Hills AVA. There is more strawberry fruit here and great restraint. A lightness pervades the wine, an almost ethereal quality, yet it is grounded too. With 30% whole clusters, it saw around ten months in tight grained used oak barrels from Burgundy.

Moving to white, the Durant Vineyard Chardonnay 2022 is exquisite. From a site in the Dundee Hills, the fruit was picked on October 13th. A bouquet of tropical fruit is underpinned by an attractive minerality on the tongue, and finishes with a long lemon line of perfect acidity. Kelley says it is less rich than the 2021. Just 225 cases were made, and I really wish I had some.

Nerthus 2021 is a mostly skin contact wine made from Pinot Gris (50%) and Muscat (30%) both fermented on skins, plus 20% old vine Riesling, all from the Willamette Valley. If you think Kelley is all about Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, you must try this (I also bought, as I always do, a bottle of her lovely Pinot Blanc from the shop at the Fair). A transparent mid-pink colour, it has a floral bouquet with peach and apricot fruit on the palate. It’s super-fresh, disguising its 13% abv. Kelley says “I think if it were a rock it would be rose quartz or pink amethyst”. I think if it were a wine it would be amazing, which it is. For me, Kelley’s wines are very special.

LA GARAGISTA (Vermont, USA)

If Vermont is something of an outlier within the American wine scene, what Deirdre Heekin and Caleb Barber have created on Mount Hunger in the Chateaugay Forest, and at Lake Champlain, is very important. They began to show what can be achieved with non-Vinifera and hybrid varieties as soon as they began working here, coincidentally in 2007, same year as Kelley Fox started out on her own.

There is nothing this couple make which I wouldn’t buy, and indeed drink with pleasure and interest. Fleurine for example. Cider and wine blends are not new but this is a 50:50 blend of Frontenac Gris with 45 apple varieties. The new cider innoculates the fermentation and the result is not disgorged. Fabulous.

Ci Confonde is their petnat. Here, 100% Frontenac Gris (a pink-berried mutation of the hybrid Frontenac created in Minnesota’s horticultural research center, first propogated in 2003). Its good disease resistance means it does well in Vermont’s damper climate. Its peachy colour belies its appley fruit in a gently sparkling wine that is cloudy (unfiltered). A La Garagista classic.

Next, two wines I hadn’t tried before. Native Love is from the Home Vineyard, and blends six varieties all co-planted on the one site (Frontenac Noir, Gris and Blanc, Le Crescent, Marguette and St Croix). It’s a pale cherry red (nose and palate) field blend. Found Love is 100% Le Crescent (a white vinifera variety created to withstand very cold temperatures from parents St Pepin and Elmer Swenson). This wine spent seven years under flor in glass demijohns (bottled 2020). The influence of the biological ageing is deep, but depth does not mean heaviness in this case. Nutty and mineral, both thought-provoking and tasty at the same time.

KOPPITSCH (Burgenland, Austria)

The Koppitsch family are long-time favourites, and I profiled them in July last year, so I won’t take up time introducing this Neusiedl-am-See producer, except to note that they are now no longer adding any sulphites at all to any of their wines. I tried some of the newer cuvées at Real Wine.

Maria Koppitsch

Abendrot is a blend of seven red and white grapes, all off limestone. It fittingly shimmers like a summer sunset. Most of the grapes undergo a direct press, with some of the white varieties seeing a little skin contact. A pale and lovely wine which is softly fruity. I do like this a lot.

When Life Gives You Lemons comes in both white and red versions. The white is from Sauvignon Blanc which has seen 5/6 days carbonic maceration, then was foot-trodden and spent 4/5 days on skins. Ageing was in used barrique. It’s both savoury yet fresh and zippy Not your average savvy blanc! The red “Lemons” is made from carbonic Pinot Noir, and is fruity and very approachable.

Aeon Weiss 2022 was totally unknown to me. This is a blend of Grüner Veltliner and Pinot Blanc off sandy soils closer to the lake. The philosophy with this wine is to allow it to do whatever it wants. It is aged in barrique without any topping-up. Bottling was just before the full moon. It has a savoury sourness, but I mean that in a good way.

Happy Anniversary is the new version of their cuvée formerly known as Perspective Rot, made to celebrate their 10th anniversary. You could say this is a more serious bottling, with several years ageing potential. The blend is Blaufränkisch and St Laurent.

I had to taste the latest Petnat of course, just to cleanse the palate. Blaufränkisch is, this time, blended with Syrah, to make a wine I don’t like to miss out on purchasing. The two varieties are co-fermented so there is no blending required before bottling. It’s packed with strawberry fruit, yet it is youthful. It’s a petnat that will happily age a bit, whatever the generalisations usually made about this style.

LUKA ZEICHMANN (Burgenland, Austria)

We all probably know Luka (who I almost didn’t recognise from behind, not having seen him for a few years) from his Joiseph wines. He now has a project making wines from vines located around an hour further south of Jois, inherited from his grandparents (he also buys in some local organic fruit). These wines are all labelled in Croatian, a nod to the Croatian minority in Austria from whom Luka is descended. I tasted some of these wines at importer Modal Wines’ Edinburgh Tasting in November last year, and here I got to try three more.

Ujca Hendrik Vino Za Legend is made from bought-in grapes which were a field blend of Blauburger and Zweigelt, the latter undergoing a whole berry fermentation. It’s a light red, fruity and tasty. I like the packaging. Retails for around £28.

Gora Bijela 2018 is a big step up. From Luka’s own fruit, it’s made from Pinot Blanc with a little Traminer. It’s very complex, indeed possibly one of the most potentially complex Pinot Blancs you will have tried. The soils are iron with quartz, very hard to work. Only one 300-litre barrel was made of this concentrated and structured white wine. A great wine, though it does retail for £45.

Gora Plava 2018/19 is effectively the matching red (also £45). Blaufränkisch dominates with 5% made up of Blauer Portugieser, Zweigelt and Cabernet Sauvignon, but all from a single site. The importer calls it “equally serious and fun”. In some ways this wine expresses the wilder side of Luka’s personality

It looks like Luka will be concentrating more and more on these wines of his own, hardly surprising given the stellar quality. But they are certainly more expensive than the Joiseph cuvées, which are still available.