Part Two of the wines we drank at home during a September in which we spent half the month away nevertheless contains some very interesting wines. We begin in Alto Adige and move on to Mallorca. Mid-month we drank a genuinely moving Mosel Kabinett I’d been ageing for a few years. Then, before our third trip away in as many weeks we opened a red wine made in Hampshire that has more in common with all those field blends I wrote about in Part One than it does with most English reds. We finished the month early with a Jura Chardonnay before heading off to the Swiss sunshine.

Cuvée Terlaner 2023, Cantina Terlano/Kellerei Terlan (Alto-Adige, Italy)

These days I can think of co-operative cellars all over Europe, from the Southern Rhône, to the Loire, to Geneva, who are turning out quality wines, but back when co-operative was invariably a dirty word for wine lovers, those who knew always pointed out the one place you’d find exceptions. This was Alto-Adige (aka Süd-Tirol). The co-operative cellars at Terlan, founded in 1893, were always an exemplar, for as long as I can remember.

They produce a fine range of wines, not all of them at what you might perceive as co-operative prices. I suppose that this one is hardly supermarket material, but it does provide an entry into the world of higher altitude viticulture in Northeast Italy. It also brings the delights of these wines to an audience who do not have ready access to some of the independent small producers in the region.

Cuvée Terlaner might not be the most expensive wine in the range, but it is intended to be a flagship for the region, and in this it succeeds. We have a blend of Pinot Blanc (60%), Chardonnay (30%) and Sauvignon Blanc (10%) from three sites at Vorberg, Kreuth and Winkl. This is a classic regional blend of varieties which do well up here. Pinot Blanc excels in this blend, Chardonnay adding a little weight and extra sophistication, Sauvignon Blanc in a more Alpine style adding freshness and acidity. Ripeness is not lacking as we get a balanced 13.5% abv.

The bouquet is lifted by freshness and tropical fruits (very definitely a hint of passionfruit in there), with some pear and almond. But the palate is saline with citrus acids and a nice length. This makes it feel lighter than most white wines with a similar alcohol level, yet it does have some weight. Just not heft. The fruit is smooth but the salinity balances it. I think it’s a lovely wine, and very good value for the quality.

This cost £27 from The Solent Cellar (Lymington), and the importer is Astrum Wines. I’ve also seen it at Butlers in Brighton and The Good Wine Shop (London branches).

Manto Negro 2022, Soca-Rel (Mallorca, Spain)

Mallorca has one winery which those deeply interested in Spanish wine would know, but the island’s wines do not appear very often, either at tastings, nor in UK wine shops. Soca-Rel was certainly a new producer for me when I saw it mentioned by Indigo Wine, who are certainly on top of all that is exciting in Spain and on its fringes.

This is a “micro-celler” (sic) in Binissalem, making wines from 4.5 hectares. Binissalem is a tiny DO in the centre of the island, a fraction of the size of Mallorca’s other appellation, Pla i Llevant. It’s a rugged region populated with old vines, which was close to extinction until fairly recently.

This cuvée is made principally from Manto Negro, an autochthonous variety which has a tendency to produce wines of a lightish hue. Winemaker and viticulturalist Pep Rodriquez seasons it with 5% Fogoneu, an extremely rare Balearic variety. Whole berries are fermented in plastic vats using indigenous yeasts. In fact, this is a natural wine. It is aged a short time in stainless steel before bottling early.

You get gentle red berries and rose petals forming a very attractive bouquet. The palate gives us more smooth red fruits, juicy and plump, with just a little bite and crunch on the finish. There is an ethereal quality to the end product, but in no way could you say it’s weak. It glides along like an attractive and restful sonata but the crunchy finish stops you drifting away with it. I find its paleness attractive too.

£34 purchased from The Sourcing Table, via importer partner Indigo Wines.

Kupp Kabinett Faß 8 2017, Weingut Peter Lauer (Saar, Germany)

Ayler Kupp was one of the first German vineyards to stick in my head (remembered as “I look up” in my very early twenties). As I drank some fairly horrible German wines as a student, it’s a wonder I ever got to see the light, but two guys who worked for Majestic Wine back in the 1990s liked the good stuff (Gordon Coates and Matt Wells). They taught me that if I was thrilled by acidity, the antidote to the sugary wines I’d previously known, I should head to the Mosel’s tributary, the Saar.

German wine today is in a different place to where it was around the late 1980s and early 1990s. Stellar quality is assured from the right producers, and Florian Lauer stands towards the summit of the younger names who have revived the wider Mosel Region, and inspired the next new wave.

The Lauer estate, named after Florian’s father, comprises around eight hectares on the blue-grey Devonian slate around the village of Ayl. The vines are on steep slopes, very steep in some cases. The Kupp is a large site, so Florian’s various bottlings from it are intended to reflect the variety of terroirs. Lauer wines of whatever level are always precise, and have a brittle backbone of thrilling acidity which secures or fastens the fine Riesling fruit to the mast.

The Saar is warmer than it was thirty-odd years ago. The grapes here are ripe, properly so, but not overripe. The fruit goes through very thorough sorting and only perfect grapes make the cut. Fermentation is spontaneous. This wine, at Kabinett level, is still so fresh, even though it is eight years old. It seems still youthful, although it does have a reputation of being long-lived. The intense yellow fruit rides above the mineral-citrus lemon and lime acidity. It will indeed live for years but, as Florian himself said, in its youth it is invigorating. Who doesn’t want to ne invigorated? It’s worth noting that it comes in at just 7.5% abv.

This bottle came from Solent Cellar (Hants). It cost around £20, but of course I’ve been cellaring it since release. Naturally it has all gone, but they do have some interesting Lauer wines, including a Kupp Faß 18 from the 2018 vintage (£40). For wider availability of more recent vintages, contact Ripley Wines. Shrine to the Vine had a 2015 quite recently, but today it says sold out. Lay & Wheeler could be worth a look for the Trocken Faß 16 (in bond).

Beaulieu Red 2023, Beaulieu 58 Wines (Hampshire, England)

Beaulieu Estate (pronounced Bewley) in Hampshire is famous for the National Motor Museum, but as well as the “palace” and the ruins of the original abbey which owned the land up until the dissolution of the monasteries, it is also a typical aristocratic farm of some size. Part of the lands owned by the Montague family encompass a vineyard.

Sandy Booth has a thriving New Forest fruit business on the Beaulieu Estate. He was offered the opportunity to take over the running of the vineyard in 2019, with the expectation that he could bring some new ideas from his fruit growing enterprise, and as a result the vineyard has become a centre of some interesting experimentation. It’s not all of a kind that would be of interest to any natural wine fundamentalist, but what Sandy is doing bears taking a good look.

Sandy Booth is committed to growing fruit (including enormous quantities of strawberries) with minimal intervention in a sustainable way. Of course, this is problematic in the climate of the New Forest. So, fruit is grown on coir to enhance water retention, and they say in tunnels (though I’ve seen photos of vines growing uncovered, in an open field).

The soft fruit is picked by robots, a technology that could work more sympathetically than current mechanical harvesters if applied to vineyards. On the other hand, they use natural predators rather than insecticides. All this, aside from the natural predators, would be totally unacceptable in any European appellation, but it does have the demonstrable overall effect of greatly reducing the need for chemical inputs.

Beaulieu Red is a blend put together by Swiss winemaker Guillaume Lagger. The grapes used in this cuvée are not specified, unlike the other wines in the range, but the list of what they have to work with is long. Viniferas like Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Gewurztraminer, Tempranillo, Grenache, Syrah, Merlot, Albariño and Bacchus with modern hybrids (aka PIWIs) like Cabernet Jura, Pinotin and Floreal. If you skim through that list, you will notice a good many varieties that are not usually grown successfully in the UK.

This is all very interesting but what of the wine? Beaulieu Red is the entry level red wine. It is fruity, quite smooth and fresh, tasting of blackberry with plum to me. It’s not complex, not a terroir wine, but I found it interesting. It reminds me of a cross between one or two English reds I drank made from varieties like Rondo some years ago and some of the PIWI reds I’ve tried in Switzerland more recently. Alcohol is a very precise 11.8% according to the label.

This is decent value at £20. I spotted it at Solent Cellar again, which you’d describe as pretty local. There’s also a B58 Red (£27.50), a Rosé (£15) and a Gewurztraminer (£22.50). I’ve been told the more expensive red wine is a good step up, but I thought I’d dip my toe in at entry level first. What they are doing at Beaulieu is definitely very interesting. All said and done though, Tim Phillips is making natural wine just down the road, albeit within the shelter of a brick-walled Clos, using more traditional methods of low intervention cultivation and natural winemaking.

Apparently, Guillaume Lagger has his own small project starting, a vineyard and orchard at nearby Sway, though I know nothing more about it. Doubtless I shall.

Côtes du Jura « La Poirière » 2022, Domaine Berthet-Bondet (Jura, France)

Berthet-Bondet is a venerable domaine based at Château-Chalon, which was originally formed from a three-hectare vineyard taken over by Jean and Chantal Berthet-Bondet in the mid-1980s. Now, fifteen hectares are overseen, since 2018 by Jean and Chantal’s daughter, Hélène. The estate might be best known as a producer of the oxidatively-aged Château-Chalon, but they make what I think are some exceptionally good ouillé (topped-up) wines now. Winemaking here is organic.

La Poirière is a new cuvée to me. It is 100% Chardonnay from thirty-year-old vines, which has spent one year in 228-litre oak, 5% of which was new. Lees-stirring enriches the wine whilst ageing in barrel, and the barrels are topped-up (no oxidative winemaking).

The colour is a nice, bright, green-gold. The bouquet shows lemon citrus, a touch of hazelnut, a whiff of something mineral and a little toasty vanilla oak (only a little). It’s clearly a fresh and youthful Chardonnay on the palate. The rear label says it will age a decade. I don’t doubt it, although drinking it last month I thought it was brilliant, noting the obvious potential.

It came from Solent Cellar once more (well, I did stock up when I was down south in July, after a good browse). It cost £30 at the time, but I’m told the price has since increased, and so it remains sadly out of stock. The agent in the UK is Alliance Wine.