I’ve said this before, but the Cork & Cask Wine Fairs (Summer in June, Winter in November) have become highlights of my Edinburgh wine year. The winter event tends to be strongly wine-focussed, I guess with Christmas around the corner, whilst the summer fair broadens out what’s on taste, especially with far more beer.

India Parry Williams (Manager, and also co-founder of the Wild Wine Fair), who organises these events with Jamie Dawson (Wine & Spirits Buyer, also a founder of the rather special artisan whisky bottler, Blind Summit), was my first contact on the Edinburgh wine scene when I moved up here in late summer 2022, so I won’t deny that I am very grateful to her, but these wine fairs are essential for me. It’s one of the few chances to get to meet up with a selection of mostly smaller importers of artisan wines all in the same place.

We shall split the wines etc tasted on Saturday into two parts. No long and dreary notes to take up thousands of words, just enough to try to convey the excitement of both the occasion and of the products I am highlighting here. That said, the things I do write about, well I liked them for different reasons, so I’ll try to get that across as well.

In this Part One, I shall cover Moreno Wines, with an additional feature on one of their producers, Poggiarello Winery, to follow. Then we shall see what Roland Wines had on offer. We finish here with perhaps the first pre-mixed cocktail I’ve ever got truly excited about, the Blood Orange Negroni from the Electric Spirit Company.

Part Two (to follow later this week, all being well) should cover Uncharted Wines (a bit of a Westwell focus for me), and Alliance Wine. I also finally got to meet Peter Crawford of the Naughton Cider Company. Peter makes fine cider using the traditional “bottle-fermentation” used in Champagne, but he also imports a different kind of fizz as the joint-founder of Sip Champagnes, so sparkling traditional method cider wasn’t the only thing on (or rather, under) the table.

I shall end Part Two with a few beer reflections, especially highlighting some beers for the current climate.

All Prices shown (usually to the nearest £) are retail, from Cork & Cask (136 Marchmont Road, Edinburgh). As usual, this close and friendly team from the shop put on a truly enjoyable, if busy, event in St Giles’s Church Hall, Marchmont.

India and Jamie with their hard-working team do this twice a year, and I for one am grateful they do

Moreno Wines

Moreno has been around for about fifty years, and it has always had a reputation for supplying interesting wines lower down the price spectrum. This might be one reason that even in all the years I regularly attended London Trade Tastings I don’t ever recall tasting their portfolio. However, they are not all aout the value end of the market by any means. They had some lovely wines on the table on Saturday, poured by the knowledgeable Antonia Macfarlane. As a matter of fact, two of the wines Moreno imports were among the bottles I grabbed from Cork & Cask after the tasting, along with that cocktail I mentioned, and a few beers.

Château Picoron “No Lemon No Melon” (Bordeaux, France)

Picoron is run by an Australian couple, Glenda and Frank Kalyk, who took over an estate making wine since 1570. The vines are all around the Saint-Emilion region but they are bottled as Vin de France. Glenda and Frank seem to have something of a thing for Merlot. They like palindromes too, it seems. Here, Merlot comes in every imaginable shape or form (red, pink, fizzy and, yes, white), all made from organically grown fruit, low intervention viticulture and winemaking, and with minimal sulphur added.

This cuvée is a white Merlot. Merlot gently pressed to make a white wine (think Pinot Noir in white Champagne cuvées) is something of a speciality in Switzerland’s Italian speaking Ticino region. I’ve had a few, and all but the most expensive have been disappointing for the money. None are remotely cheap.

This wine is very good. I love the fresh acidity and it is presumably the low sulphur that gives it a liveliness on the tongue with no fruit covered up. It’s a kind of mix of red fruits and some more exotic, peach and mango perhaps, going on. £22.

Château Picoron “Tattarrattat” Merlot (Bordeaux, France)

This is also very different. It has a “Merlot price tag” in terms of alcohol (13.5% is maybe even “restrained” for Merlot these days), but it is made by carbonic maceration. I think the white Merlot had a reasonable production run, but this cuvée was only 4,200 bottles. It’s wonderfully fruity, and despite that alcohol level, sipping it chilled from an ice bucket at the fair, worked really well. The alcohol was well disguised by the wine’s super fruit profile and more of that fresh acidity. Also £22.

Mosel Riesling 2023, Hermann Ludes (Mosel, Germany)

Julien Ludes calls this the quintessential breakfast wine. Just off-dry (10.5%) from the Thörnicher Schiesslay site, it is gently floral with a little r/s and some CO2 prickle. Easy drinking for a day like today, which I can tell you, here in East Lothian it feels significantly warmer than any day I remember last year. And just £16.

Carignan, Bosbrand (Wellington, South Africa)

This is a good example of a great value South African. It is a blend of 50% old vines plus young vine Caringnan grown around Wellington, just north of Paarl. The young vines doubtless give it a very fruity core, but there’s also a more mature-tasting savoury edge. Described as organic/biodynamic, and you might even detect a touch of oakiness from somewhere, but retailing at £15, this seems as remarkably good value as anything I’ve been drinking recently.

Meet the Maker – Jannet Iathallah from Poggiarello Winery (Gutturnio, Italy)

Poggiarello is in Gutturnio, one of those super famous DOCs of Northwest Italy, grouped with Oltrepò Pavese, Colli Tortonesi and Colli Piacentini, in the province of Piacenza, in the region of Emilia-Romagna. This is just the kind of region where you can find a lot of fairly commercial wine alongside some hidden gems.

Jannet

Of course, gems are what we have here. Cork & Cask sells a number of wines from Jannet’s (sic) range and I’m only highlighting three. The sparkling red was described by one person as “going to be your wine of the day”. I won’t nail my colours to any mast but I did buy a bottle and will hopefully drink it soon. These wines are also imported by Moreno.

La Malvagia is a white wine made from Malvasia di Candia grown biodynamically, but it is fermented with cultured yeasts. It’s clean and fruity with peach and orange on the nose, with citrus and balsamic notes on the palate. It is an entry level wine from a series called “I volti” (the faces). A nice intro to Poggiarello’s still wines. On sale for £24.

Ortrugo Frizzante is one of two sparkling wines, this being a bianco made from the Ortrugo grape variety, one usually having good acids coupled with higher alcohol than you may expect. These two sparklers (see also below) are made by the Charmat method, although I am learning that the old negatives about this method of production are very much outdated (though this is maybe not the time for a detailed look at how to improve the commercial method of tank-produced sparkling wine). This is a beguiling dry and grapey gentle sparkler (frizzante), very good in its own right, except that the red below is possibly even better. £20.

Gutturnio Frizzante Rosso is a blend of Barbera and Bonarda. Also Charmat Method (see above), but it is gorgeous (well, if you like wines like good red Lambrusco). It is dry, with super-concentrated dark and red fruits with a very attractive bitter, savoury edge to the finish. High quality cured meat platter coming up. £20. Decades ago, a bottle of “red sparkling burgundy” would often accompany us on a picnic. I guarantee this is better. Sappy and refreshing. In our house it would also go with Fish & Chips. Both wines are sealed spago-style, with a string-tied cork.

Roland Wines

Roland is one of a select group of wonderful small importers which came to prominence since I have been writing about predominantly natural wines. Founded by Hungarian-born Roland Szimeiszter, they initially specialised in artisan wines from Central and Eastern Europe. They now have a small list of twenty-one growers based in seven countries. These four wines are all very appealing, though you might already know the last one.

Crazy Lúd 2023, Oszkár Maurer (Subotica, Serbia)

Subotica is, along with Tisa, a wine region in Serbia’s far north. Vineyards are mostly planted on sandy soils. Here, we are right on Hungary’s southern border. This is a field blend of Welschriesling, Bakator, Piros Magyarka and Riesling, and is Maurer’s entry point in terms of price. Vines are bush trained and mechanisation just stretches to horse-power for soil preservation. 70% of the fruit was destemmed and direct-pressed but 30% was macerated on skins for two days. Ageing was around ten months in old oak and stainless steel. A tiny addition of sulphur was added at bottling. Despite a short maceration, it tastes like an “orange wine”, but yet with very refreshing, lifted, sour fruit. £25. If you want to try a Serbian wine, this is one to go for.

“Just Enjoy” 2023, Bott Frigyes (Garam Valley, Slovakia)

It’s nice to see a wider range of Slovakian wines now available in the UK. Bott Frigyes is one of the producers that has an increasing profile. They farm ten hectares of vines at 250 masl above the Garam River, on the slopes of the Muzsla Hills. The soils mix limestone and volcanic rock. Open vat fermentation of Tramini (sic) and Welschriesling takes around three weeks, before pressing off the skins into used oak for 8 months ageing on fine lees. Aromatic, with peach and pineapple plus something spicy. That is matched in a savoury edge to a creamy palate. Quite easy going now, though it may add complexity with age (not that it needs any). A natural wine. £30.

Kühlbar Zweigelt, Christina Netzl (Carnuntum, Austria)

This isn’t a DAC Carnuntum wine. It’s a natural wine labelled merely “Weinland Austria”. It is made at Göttesbrunn which is sort of southeast of Vienna, west of Bratislava and north of Burgenland’s Neusiedlersee. But you don’t really need to know all that if you are looking for a wine that fits the cliché of “summer in a glass”, because this is it. Red cherry fruit, violets on the nose, fresh and easy, 11% abv and just under £20. It even has a pretty label. Don’t let that put you more serious wine obsessives off taking this on a picnic. I mean, just look at the colour!

Fred XI, Strekov 1075 (Southern Slovakia)

Zsolt Sütö may be the best-known winemaker in Slovakia, at least among lovers of natural wine. He might also be Slovakia’s best-known drummer. Certainly, the most famous photo of him must be that in which he’s playing his drum kit out in the vines. He’s been making wine at Strekov since 2002. The varieties here in Version 11 of his iconic glugger are 30% Blauer Portugieser from 2020, 50% Alibernet from 2019, and 20% Dunaj 2020, all grown on clay-loam over limestone. I won’t enumerate on the complex and different fermentations and the mixed ageing regime.

This is grade-one glouglou stuff, unfiltered and zero added sulphur. It is easy to drink and refreshing, vibrant and electric, but it does have a negroni-like bitter twist and a touch of tannic texture on the finish. As Blauer Portugieser is a teinturier variety (red flesh), it has a deep and dark colour that belies its refreshing lightness of touch. Not a beginner’s wine, despite being easy going. Be open to it and it will reward you generously. £30.

Electric Spirit Company

In 2015, this company was responsible for opening the first distillery in Edinburgh’s “booze port”, Leith, in forty years. Leith no longer imports most of Scotland’s wine, but if you are thinking of spirit distillation (and bottling), then Edinburgh is buzzing. The company first and foremost makes a very highly regarded, and “awarded”, gin called Achroous (Sichuan pepper and fennel along with the juniper). Good flavours for a negroni.

This gin is one of the ingredients in their pre-blended Blood Orange Negroni, along with Valentian Vermouth (a super-premium Scottish-made vermouth) and Fusetti artisan bitters (made near Milan). These are blended with blood orange distillate made in-house from Sicilian fruit and a little “Scotch New Make”. The result is a very aromatic negroni, a good blend of citrus and bitterness. I’ve never found a pre-made negroni (my favourite cocktail) which has come close to the real thing. Sometimes negroni in a tin is acceptable – on the beach for example. But this bottled one is next level.

I have a bottle ready for some visitors next month. It just requires a day in the fridge, ice, and some slices of the best organic, unwaxed oranges I can find. £27 (Gospa Citrus oranges, by the way, if you can find them). If the temperature pushes above thirty degrees, then a small addition of tonic water can maybe spritz it up a little for a longer drink. At 22% it probably comes in a little lighter than the negroni’s I make, but then again, naval gin rations are dangerous when you’re in a heatwave.

James is justifiably proud of his creation