Part Two of my Recent Wines for July contains, once more, just five bottles. We start with a lucky leftover from Czech Moravia, followed by a cult cider from Switzerland. One might suppose neither should be aged, but this is evidently untrue. From a recent case purchased from The Wine Society we have what must be the most unusual wine in their Generation Series, a blend from Australia and the Northern Rhône. Then we return to some of my more usual natural wine fare with an Alsace blend from a domaine that followed Masanobu Fukuoka’s ideas long before most, and finally, that man I wrote about in mid-June, who is making crazy but excellent wines in Leicestershire.

Dark Horse 2022, Petr Koráb (Moravia, Czechia)

I bought three, or maybe even four, of these on release. Petr makes so many different cuvées in his cellars at Boleradice, and he is pretty much the king of petnat in his region, but I do have my own favourites. This is one of them. I had decided to save this last bottle for some nice summer weather, a red sparkling wine, nicely chilled, proving just the vibe for the glorious warm sunshine that has been almost ubiquitous this year up in East Lothian.

This is an Ancestral Method red sparkling wine blending Amber Traminer, Karmazin (one of the local synonyms for Blaufränkisch) and Hibernal, a local variety which makes some excellent still red wines in Southern Moravia. They are first aged in a mix of ceramic vessels and robinia wood barrels, robinia being “false acacia”, a local and highly popular medium here. The wine is then transferred to bottle to start a second fermentation, from which it is not disgorged, leaving the lees sediment in the bottle. Stand to settle or shake to make it cloudy, the choice is yours.

This ’22 is a bit less sparkling than the last bottle I drank in July 2024, but it is very nicely frothy. It’s still that attractive deep raspberry colour I remember, the bouquet and the palate having lifted red fruits. There’s raspberry here, and cranberry, the bouquet showing some strawberry as well. Although I’d drink any bottles you have left this summer, it’s still really nice.

I have been buying this direct from importer Basket Press Wines. I’m not sure whether you will find it at anywhere they sell it to, but if you spot it grab a bottle. It’s all gone from Basket Press, and of course you can’t expect Petr to make it again…but you never know (as happened with another glorious Czech natural wine cuvée from this man which I drank last week, a reprise of a wine he first made in 2022). £26.

“Transparente” 2018, Cidrerie du Vulcain (Fribourg, Switzerland)

Jacques Perritaz set up his cider mill in an old tile factory in Gruyère, in 2000. He had started a career as a government biologist and left that to work for a number of wine producers. Like many cider makers up here in nearby Fife, it was the old and abandoned apple trees he saw which got him thinking about cider. His apples tend to come from very old trees with low yields but high quality. Quality is what Jacques is after, making natural cider from fruit sourced in Gruyère and Thurgau.

Jacques’s interest is in ancient apple varieties which tend to be both too rare and too low-cropping for the commercial cider makers, but he also harvests pears and quince. Only indigenous yeasts are used to ferment the apples, and another aspect of “natural cider” is that no artificial carbonation takes place (which I hope should be obvious).

Apple varieties always have such beautiful names, and included in this cuvée are Transparente de Concels (originating around Troyes, France), Reinette de Champagne, and Pomme Raisin de Berne (noted for its wine-like flavour). This bottle comes from the 2018 vintage, and it is now mature, but pleasantly so. The bead of tiny bubbles is gentle and the apple flavours on the palate are soft. It is just about off-dry, with quite low acidity, but it retains a freshness you might not expect. Whereas a lot of cider attacks the palate with apple acidity, this is an altogether more gentle drink. Lest you think it might be a bit old for cider, Jacques obviously thinks not. The back label suggests consuming by the end of 2027.

This bottle came from Aeble Cider in Anstruther (Fife), £24. Newcomer Wines imports Vulcain into the UK. They list the 2020 vintage of Transparente as “Sold Out”, but they do have a couple of other cuvées online to purchase.

The Wine Society’s Generation Series Hemispheres White 2023 (Northern Rhône, France and Victoria, Australia)

Apparently, a wine blended from two different countries, let alone continents, could not, until quite recently, be sold as wine. I imagine the concept has only ever been considered at all for the cheapest of cheap wine, despite being a practice quite common with some agricultural products (olive oil is a good, or maybe “bad”, example). TWS has however created this blend as a quality-based experiment.

The producer for this is an obvious choice, and in fact it was Maxime Chapoutier who I am told had the original idea. Chapoutier obviously has a large operation in the Rhône Valley, and they are also stakeholders in Victoria, originally in Heathcote, after their friendship with Ron and Elva Laughton (Jasper Hill Vineyard) led to a collaboration between them in the early 2000s. Of course, Heathcote’s star grape variety is Shiraz.

This wine is not red, although there is a complementary red version which they produced at the same time and in the same TWS series. Here, we have instead Marsanne and Viognier blended together, both varieties from both sources as far as I can tell. The wines made in both France and Australia were imported into the UK and blended/bottled here, by Hatch Mansfield. The big question is could they pull it off?

The fruit on this is quite voluptuous. The alcohol sits nicely at 13% abv. The flavour profile mixes peachy stone fruit, and bitter quince on the finish. I have seen a few disparaging notes on this wine. Some show a reticence down to its whole concept, at least insofar as UK blending and bottling is concerned. Others have merely said that the wine is okay but nothing special. I don’t really agree. I found this enjoyable, not least because it was reduced from £16.50 to £12.95 at The Wine Society last month. I doubt I’d have been disappointed at the higher price, if I’m honest. As an experiment, it was well worth trying. Decent wine at a very good price. It’s another boundary duly prodded.

La Vigne est Notre Jardin 2022, Domaine Lissner (Alsace, France)

Bruno and Théo Schloegel make some remarkable wines from 10 hectares at Wolxheim. This domaine still flies under the radar a bit in the UK, yet they have been farming regeneratively for longer than most, and their vineyards, with vines almost left unpruned, are the kind of haven for flora and fauna that is now beginning to get wine press attention when introduced by the younger generation. They had certainly ingested the writing of Masanobu Fukuoka before I had read him.

The domaine name anomaly is because Clément Lissner, from whom Bruno took over, was his uncle. Pondering why these lovely wines are not as well known as they should be, perhaps it is because the wine establishment, which ignores Alsace most of the time anyway, hardly even recognises that there is viticulture up here north of Mutzig, and directly west of Strasbourg. It is also true that, with no disrespect to the young stars of Alsace natural wine, the Schloegel family have just been quietly doing their own thing here for years. That “thing” is permaculture, no-till farming, and agro-forestry (with trees used as part of the trellis system). When I said unpruned vines, nothing is pruned in summer, although you might see a bit of shoot repositioning in extremis.

I first came across Domaine Lissner at one of those all-time best tastings I have been to, one called “Alsace/Germany Celebrating Common Ground”. It took place in London in April 2019, a joint event organised by Newcomer Wines and Vine Trail, and Bruno was there to chat and pour. Since that tasting Lissner wines have been thin on the ground in the kind of wine shops I frequent, but this particular wine, which I’d never tasted before, turned up a while ago in Edinburgh.

It’s a Vin d’Alsace, a blend, which might once have been labelled as an Edelzwicker. Here is a blend comprising Pinot Blanc, Pinot Auxerrois, Muscat and Gewurztraminer. Simply made, it sees six months in stainless steel before bottling. Sulphur is not added, natural CO2 being the only protection they use. The result here is alive and fresh with zippy citrus and great salinity. Simple in a good way, direct and mouth-filling. Loved it. Maybe we can see more Lissner in the shops here?

It’s worth a note on the Lissner labels. They are lovely, and they remind me of the illuminated manuscript reproductions I once saw at the Hohenburg Abbey on Mont-Sainte-Odile, the Hortus Deliciarum (begun in 1167 by the nun Harrad of Landsberg). Sadly, these priceless manuscripts were destroyed by a fire started by the Prussian bombardment of Strasbourg in 1870, but as portions had been copied earlier that century, we know what parts of them looked like. Mont-Sainte-Odile is one of those places most tourists miss. You wouldn’t pass on Strasbourg or Colmar to see it, but on an extended visit (with a car), it’s an interesting place, if rather eerie in a mist.

Vine Trail imports. This bottle came from Communiqué Wines in Edinburgh, £22.

The Red 2022, Matt Gregory (Leicestershire, England)

I wrote an article about Matt’s heroic efforts, making cracking natural wines on the northeast side of Leicestershire on 13 June. If you didn’t see it, its worth a look. He’s based in the Leicestershire Wolds, where you’d think it might be a little bit cold, wet and windy, but he has managed to find a terroir that not only works for wine, but also for chemical-free farming. You can only give the man massive respect, especially when his wines are so good.

“The Red” is a wine I’d held over from last year. It has echoes of that super-cool Alsace natural wine staple, the Pinot Noir/Pinot Gris blend. Here, both varieties are blended 50:50, some of the fruit being destemmed and some Pinot Gris left as whole bunches. The fruit was very ripe. It was pressed out at four weeks and underwent its malolactic naturally, resting in stainless steel for 14 months. It was bottled in February 2024.

It is the essence of the “smashable” red, a glass of concentrated, mouth-filling, red berry fruit. This is pretty much the last bottle standing of the ’22, out of a run of just 715. At the time of drinking, I think Bat & Bottle had one left. It’s certainly still going strong. We should see a new red cuvée from the 2023 vintage released soon, or in the autumn. I’d jump on that if you see it because Matt told me there’s virtually nothing coming out from 2024 aside from a Rosé. I think things are looking much more positive for 2025.

My bottle cost £23 from Cork & Cask, Edinburgh. Matt Gregory is now distributed by Wines Under the Bonnet. His former agent, Uncharted Wines, might still have some stock.