Part One, perhaps unusually, was quite heavily weighted towards France, only one wine coming from elsewhere (in that case, Australia). I go some way to redressing that, and trying to get my credentials for drinking widely re-established here in Part Two, though France never goes away. We begin with a wine from Elgin in South Africa. Then we travel to Baden in Germany, Etna on Sicily, and Colombia (for what may be one of the strangest wines I might drink all year). We do end our second half-dozen with two French wines, though, a Jura gem and another (as in Part One) beautiful wine from Beaujolais.

Frank 2022, Nomad Wines (Elgin, South Africa)

Kosie Van Der Merwe is a young South African winemaker based in Germany’s Mosel region right now. As his label, Nomad Wines, makes all too clear, he travels back to South Africa in an itinerant fashion for the Southern Hemisphere harvest. This rather tasty wine is part of his negociant project there.

Cabernet Franc appears to be a bit of a hidden gem in many South African situations, and it has excelled here in Elgin, which is a fairly cool climate region southeast of Cape Town. The climate is affected by Atlantic winds which come up from the Antarctic, making the harvest here the latest in South Africa. Vineyards were only really established at Elgin in the 1980s, following on from the success Tim Hamilton-Russell had growing Pinot Noir in the nearby Walker Bay region’s Hemel-en-Aarde Valley (north of Hermanus).

“Frank” is a wine which straight off shows a beautiful floral (violet?) bouquet with underlying cherry. The palate has a nice lick of acidity wrapping around redcurrant and cranberry fruit. Somewhere deep down you get a nice savoury note, adding another dimension. I’m sure many of you will have tasted some very nice South African Cabernet Francs, but this one is both approachable and very good value. I think importer Modal Wines has once more found a little gem of a wine.

My bottle came from Cork & Cask in Edinburgh.

“Rouge” 2021, Max Sein Wein (Baden, Germany)

Max Baumann worked with Judith Beck and at Gut Oggau in Burgenland (you probably know this by now), before returning to farm a few plots of family vines in Baden’s northern wilderness. Dertingen is where, on a choice sunny slope, Max farms about 3.5 hectares on the River Main. The domaine name, Max Sein Wein, translates as just “Max’s Wine”, I guess.

Max makes natural wines outside of any appellation (Landwein), which does allow him, inter-alia, to make no sulphur additions. He also has a penchant for labelling his wines in French. Perhaps this is nowhere more appropriate than with his “Rouge”, which is a blend of equal parts Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier (which, like Max, I use rather than Spätburgunder and Schwarzriesling, as Meunier is known in Germany, though occasionally as Müllerrebe, echoing the “Meunier”/Miller derivation of the grape, which nods towards the dusty, flour-like, down on the underside of its leaves).

The grapes see an even split between direct press and carbonic maceration. Ageing is for between nine and ten months in used oak, and then six months in bottle before release. The colour is morello cherry, and there’s a lightness of delicious cherry fruit underpinned with hints of coffee and liquorice. Overall, it has real lift and is very refreshing, with savoury balance. These wines are great at around this age (three or four years) but with time the savoury side seems to get stronger.

Germany’s natural wine scene is thriving. It doesn’t always get the attention it deserves, rather like German Wine in general. Max Baumann is typical of the new wave of young German winemakers, not only because he is making low-intervention natural wines, with little or no added sulphur (somewhat the opposite of what used to be the case and what turned consumers off German wines from the 1970s).

The new wave is also making wines that are atypical for the country. Many more reds, not just made from Spätburgunder/Pinot Noir, but also wines using grape varieties, red and white, which were once considered inferior to Riesling and the occasional Grauburgunder. From Elbling to Lemburger, Schwarzriesling to Chardonnay, there is a lot to explore in the new German wine world. Get involved, as they say.

My bottle of Max’s “Rouge” came via importer Basket Press Wines. If you are reading this on mainland Europe, try Feral Art et Vin in Bordeaux (but be very swift).

Luna Gaia Nerello Mascalese 2022, Terre Siciliane IGT, Cantina Orsogna (Sicily/Abruzzo, Italy)

The wines made from the Nerello varieties from the slopes of Mount Etna have become rather famous over the past thirty years, and consequently somewhat expensive. That’s why I drink less Nerello than I did back in the day. This wine is a rare find, in that it is both tasty and cheap. It is also organic/biodynamic (Demeter Certified). It was a welcome Christmas present in 2023.

Grown on Etna’s volcanic soils, there’s definitely a mineral streak running through this, something I used to identify as iron filings when I first tasted such wines, but I have to admit it is an abstract interpretation. I’ve never tried licking a pile of them. You also get some richness and good acids, cherries with a herbal note, I’d suggest.

As to the producer, it turns out they are a co-operative in the Majella Hills of Abruzzo. I have been unable to discover why they are bottling a wine from Sicily, but it appears to be a partnership with a biodynamic grower there. Anyway, this is easy to drink yet with some depth, and everyone at the table enjoyed it (the label was much admired as well).

This wine is imported by Vintage Roots who now appear to be onto the 2022 vintage, but the price is the same, £15. Very good value for the money.

Vino Artisanal de Café (NV), Sol y Luna (Colombia)

Coffee is, of course, something of a big thing in Colombia. I well remember my first discovery of the pleasures of good, “real”, coffee was Colombian. It should be noted that this was in Barcelona, not Paris, where finding decent coffee is not impossible, but neither is it easy, even to this day. Café de Colombia was, at the time, the only sports team I know of named to promote a country’s most famous agricultural product, and I guess that as a big fan of professional cycling, the marketing worked. Last year some South American friends visited us, one from Bolivia and one from Colombia, and they brought this.

It may be one of the strangest wines I have tasted for a long time, that in itself being good qualification for inclusion here, but it reminded me a little to my reaction when I drink Barolo Chinato. That wine, aromatised with cinchona calisaya bark, rhubarb, gentian root and cardamom can be very pleasurable, but not all the time. The same applies here.

If coffee is a big thing in Colombia, then blending wine with coffee is certainly a thing. Apparently, you can potentially buy a “coffee wine” in the UK, made by that well-known, celebrity-powered, wine brand from…well, I’m not really sure? Are you? 19 Crimes is often associated with Californian celebs, but the company is registered in Melbourne. Anyway, they launched one, called The Deported, exclusively through Morrison’s supermarket chain in the UK in 2021.

It is still apparently available via Ocado for £10, though I did see someone was flogging it for £12.99 using a photo of a bag of Tate & Lyle sugar! The 19 Crimes is made from wine sourced in Australia’s catch-nearly-all “South-Eastern Australia” designation, though the coffee is from Colombia. This bottle doesn’t claim the wine to be Colombian as such, but it likely is. It states “elaborado en las montañas de Colombia”.

It smells strongly of sweet coffee and, to my nose, maple syrup. It doesn’t smell at all like wine, but you can clearly taste that it is wine. Wine with a mocha/chocolate smooth sweetness. It was oddly moreish and not hard to polish off a half-bottle. Oddly moreish, but it was hard to put one’s finger on why? I had drunk other wine first, with a meal, so I’m not claiming this was a sober interpretation. How to sum up my feelings for you, should you have an overwhelming desire to try it: I’d be happy to drink it again, but not too frequently, and a half bottle between four was enough. A brilliant gift, though.

By coincidence I know someone who is travelling in Colombia right now. I recommended they look out for some, but they said they don’t drink wine until the evening and don’t drink coffee after mid-morning as it keeps them awake. Fair enough, I have the same issue with caffeine these days too. But I am happy to make an exception if I ever get given some Colombian coffee wine again.

L’Etoile « QV d’Etoiles » 2019, Lulu Vigneron (Jura, France)

Woah! This is good. Since Covid, Brexit, and emigrating to Scotland put paid to my annual trips to the Jura region a whole raft of new producers has sprung up, and many of them have seen their wines achieve fame for them and fortune for those selling them on the secondary market. Some producers have firmly established their unicorn status, but a few others have come and gone in a flash.

Lulu is the nickname of Ludwig Bindernagel. I certainly didn’t know of Ludwig by name when I last visited the region, but I did know his domaine, because back then it was known as Les Chais du Vieux Bourg. Originally based at Arlay, the cellars are now in the town of Poligny. Back in the 2010s Ludwig was successful but not quite as famous as he quickly became once the “Lulu Vigneron” label replaced the old one of Les Chais.

Part of Ludwig’s holding is in the AOC of L’Etoile, which had been one of the region’s unsung terroirs until its potential was perhaps spotlighted by Domaine de Montbourgeau. The label “Lulu Vigneron” is new, and perhaps soon to disappear.

Like Montbourgeau, Ludwig makes natural wines with only a low dose of sulphur added. The blend in this cuvée is two-thirds Chardonnay and one-third Savagnin. It has a genuinely beautiful, rich, mouthfeel. Delicious fruit acids well up, smoky Savagnin fruit complementing ripe Chardonnay, all bound together with a little bit of chalky texture. There is also restrained power (alcohol is a nicely balanced 13%).

Ludwig is retiring this year, but his domaine is in safe hands. In 2024 he was joined by Roman Lawson and Ariane Stern. They have stages with Pierre Overnoy and Manu Houillon under their belts, and worked the last harvest with Ludwig. In fact, Ludwig, although he learned viticulture and winemaking at Beaune, worked with Julien Labet, from whom he says he learned far more of value than he did at wine school. [much of this information comes from Wink Lorch’s indispensable Jura Wines Ten Year On (Wine Travel Media, 2024)].

This is drinking superbly now. If you spot that label, grab it. My bottle was tracked down at Shrine to the Vine in London. No longer listed online, I don’t recall the price, but in any event a visit to The Shrine is highly recommended if you find yourself anywhere near the Holborn area in London. You are unlikely to leave empty-handed.

I’m so glad I got my bottle when I did. I’m also grateful to Wink Lorch for the information (same source, above) that Ludwig has retained about a third of a hectare of vines for his retirement. Perhaps, as 90% of his previous production was exported, we might see the odd bottle appear over here in the UK. Don’t hold your breath.

“Wild Soul” Beaujolais-Villages 2021, Julien Sunier (Beaujolais, France)

You’ll recall that in Part One I featured a wine from Lantignié in the Beaujolais, albeit one labelled as Vin de France. If I’m honest, I had been aware I wasn’t drinking a lot of Gamay, so we have another one here. I bought this quite recently, after having some very fond memories of the big Beaujolais Trade Tastings that Westbury Communications used to put on in London, and which did so much to raise the region’s quality profile in the UK. It was there that I first tasted the wines of the two Sunier brothers, Julien and (a separate domaine) Antoine.

Julien, and indeed his brother, got the wine bug from Christophe Roumier, a friend of his parents. But he also worked with Jasper Morris at Morris & Verdin. It was by total coincidence that I bumped into Jasper when I popped into Berry Bros to grab a bottle of this, prompted directly by seeing Jamie Goode taste a Sunier bottle on Instagram. Lots of circles joining together here.

Julien Sunier, though based in Avenas (pron: Avna) has been farming his own domaine since 2007, around 2 hectares in Fleurie, Regnié and Morgon. This cuvée is made from bought-in fruit from vines at Lantignié, which is becoming a bit of a Bojo hot-spot according to those in the know. The vines are farmed without any synthetic inputs and the wine is made to Julien’s usual high standards, as one would expect from a now-established star of the region.

If you need a one-word tasting note, I will give you “juice”. Fresh, lifted and lively red fruit juice. This is just one of those wines which won’t make claims to being fane wane, but are certainly life-affirming when you glug them. The bouquet has red fruits, but it’s all beautifully floral too. You’ll definitely notice sweet strawberry pretty quickly. The palate is fruity, combining a lightness with a velvet-smooth texture. Jamie would call it smashable and so I would too.

This isn’t a wine to upset or confound the “naturally-challenged”, with a low funk or feral rating. But its easy drinkability is why it’s such a winning wine. Bought from Berry Brothers & Rudd’s Pall Mall shop, this 2021 cost £24. My bottle was one of the last ‘21s and I think they are now onto 2022, same price.