I’m not sure when I first began visiting Winemakers Club under the Holborn Viaduct arches on London’s Farringdon Street, but I know it was very early on in its existence. It was very familiar to me because even longer ago it was one of Oddbins’ Fine Wine stores. Yes, hard to believe but back then Oddbins in its original incarnation was pretty much the place for enthusiasts of new flavours in wine, much as the old Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street was for lovers of vinyl.
The two are not as incongruously linked as it might seem. Vinyl was at the peak of its first time popularity, the Megastore a mecca for music lovers searching for new music in the late 1970s, and in the early 80s wine was becoming democratised, “Claret” and Burgundy being joined by Australia, South Africa, Chile and North America on the tables of a new, younger, generation.
I once worked just off Fleet Street, and then later over Holborn Underground Station. It was a time when the Press ruled Fleet Street, and places like El Vino’s and The Cheshire Cheese were full of the smog of cigarette smoke and the smell of whisky. Today, Fleet Street is half building site and half corporate. The newspapers have gone and so by-and-large have most of the big law firms who replaced them, many moved down to Docklands. Farringdon Street, which heads north from Fleet Street at its junction with Ludgate Hill, now has the enormous headquarters building of Goldman Sachs right opposite Winemakers Club. I don’t know what the mega-salaried occupants of that modern fortress of finance make of the natural wine heaven over the road?
When I get down to London, which is now only four or five times a year, more often than not I make a visit to Winemakers for a bite to eat and a glass or two. It helps that I’m usually staying very close by. It’s a perfect location to meet a friend or two. I was there on Monday evening, arriving at King’s Cross too late to make the afternoon tasting they had on, but I did manage to catch one or two people I know who had lingered after the tables were clear. I did manage to try one wine from Newcomer Wines, Peter Honneger being one of those lingerers.
Thomas Niedermayr farms at Hof Gandberg in the village of Eppan, just outside Bolzano in Alto-Adige (NE Italy). Vines have their place on a mixed farm where every possible course of action is aimed towards a sustainable ecology amid the peaks of the Dolomites. Paschwai is, I think, one of two wines which Newcomer has begun to ship from the Niedermayr family.
The grape variety is the rarely seen, disease-resistant hybrid, Souvignier Gris. As the notes on Newcomer’s web site say, it is “fresh and fruity, with notes of honey and melon”. Even though we were drinking from the last quarter of the bottle, the wine was immediately attractive and I’d love to try it at home. Newcomer Wines retails this for £36.
Winemakers Club is many things. They put on tastings for the trade, hold events for the public and are a wine bar offering a selection of tasty small plates such as cheese and salami, pâté, rillettes, and, since my last visit, a couple of vegan options. They are a wine shop, and they also import themselves, and it was a couple of those wines we drank on Monday.
Lise and Bertrand Jousset farm around eleven hectares at Montlouis on the Loire. The wine we drank was a Chenin Blanc from a single site of seven hectares, Clos aux Renards. The vines grow on interesting blue clay infused with silex (flint). It has been described by some as one of the greatest Chenin Blanc vineyards in France. I was recommended this by an acquaintance only a day before and it was a brilliant shout. We have old vines (c80yo) grown and vinified as a natural wine with just minimum added sulphur. Natural winemaking here includes no mechanisation either, just horse power and human hands.
This is a very complex wine and subtle too. The bouquet is soft, redolent of lemon, pear and that unmistakable Chenin Blanc giveaway, honey. If minerals dominate the palate, they are more “soft and chalky” than angular like the flint in the vineyard. Salinity and herbal notes come in as well. It’s a wine many would call “different”, and it is, but one to savour. I recommend it with cheese. A wine to drink in a relaxed state, not too cold, and certainly not in a rush. This is expensive, but we benefited as it was on “by-the-glass” (at £16). I think retail it may be around £60/bottle. Winemakers sells four other Jousset wines, ranging from £28 to £47.
Next, we grabbed a bottle from an old favourite. I first met the young couple, Julia and Adam, behind Hegyikalό around eight years ago, at a Winemakers Club tasting, of course. They produce wine at Eger in Hungary’s northeast (though still west of Tokaj), nestled at the eastern end of the Mátra Hills. Again, their vines are part of a small mixed farm. Julia has a doctorate and Adam, at least at the time I first met him, headed up the Viticultural Research Institute at Eger University.
Their gentle natural wines bear only a nod, on occasion, to the “Bulls Blood” that made this region famous in the 1960s and 70s. That nod comes through most in their full-bodied Kékfrankos, Hungary’s rendition of the Austrian Blaufränkisch, and only then in its 14% alcohol.
When I am drinking an Austrian Blaufränkisch I readily admit that I’m looking most often for that restrained minerality off mostly limestone that you get most particularly off the Leithaberg Hills which ring the northern edge of the Neusiedlersee, in Burgenland. Here we have a different rendition of the grape, but one that if you don’t mind the alcohol is very attractive.
That attraction, for me, lies in its fleshy fruit. This combines with a line of freshness of the type typical of red wines off volcanic soils. Yes, I think it does have a certain “bloodlike” intensity, and also something “ferrous”, the old iron filings note. The bouquet is easy to miss in a wine of such initial power, but sit back and look for the hints of tea, roses and green pepper. That subtlety is not something that a quick sniff and sip at a tasting table is likely to elicit.
We (three of us) ate a lot as well. The quality of the food at Winemakers Club has always been high, but the offering has broadened. It in no way has pretentions to be a restaurant, but there is ample tasty fare to lessen the effects of a bottle or two with friends. As I said on an Insta post, whilst I don’t pretend to be on top of every place in London’s natural wine scene (and certainly I would dearly love to visit Sune in Hackney), Winemakers Club is the London venue for natural wine and friendly conversation closest to my heart. John, and an always engaged, team will give you a warm welcome in the relaxing darkness of The Vaults, underneath Holborn Viaduct.
Winemakers Club is at 41a Farringdon Street, London EC4A 4AN (tel 020 7236 2936)
thewinemakersclub.co.uk @winemakersclub
They are closed on Sundays but open every other day from 11am to 11pm.
Their wines are all imported direct and they are a great place to find some top producers, from Olivier and Serge Horiot in Champagne to Tom Shobbrook in Australia, along with some genuinely fine and rare table and fortified wines. Check out the times when you can sit in and consume bottles at their retail prices (before 4pm), or equally, check out their always interesting changing selection of wines by the glass.
They also sell their wines for nationwide delivery online at thewinemakersclub.shop
The third and final part of August’s wines brings to the table five possibly less august bottles than we drank in Part 2, but then it’s all relative, isn’t it. In order to bring you these articles I have to drink as widely as I can. It’s just as well I’d do that anyway, whether I write about them or not. As a result, Part 3 reads, possibly more than ever, like some random bunch of wines. Oh, and cider. It nevertheless all tasted really good, I promise!
First up is a cider of special interest. Next a Chianti that I drank often in the 2000s but haven’t had for a long time. Then comes a Loire sparkler that I haven’t drunk for at least as long, a rather good Czech Pinot Noir from a name I’ve neglected since I first tasted his wines, and a superb new white Bordeaux made by a very talented outsider.
“Perfect Strangers” Artisan Cider 2018, Charlie Herring Wines (Hampshire, England)
Regular readers will have seen that I visited Tim Phillips in early August (hence my article of 23 August 2024). Whilst there I managed to leave with a small number of bottles, one of which was this vintage cider, made from the fruit of Tim’s orchard which sits just outside his walled vineyard, near Lymington. Note the vintage.
It is a widely held belief among the older school of drinks writer that cider, like petnat, Rosé and Fino Sherry, should be consumed as close to the date they were bottled as possible. Those of us who write about wine who are either physically or mentally under the age of fifty (the latter for me, of course) know this to be patently untrue, at least among the versions we all drink. Tim made this cider to prove a point, that vintage cider is well capable of ageing beautifully.
It is common with very old vintages of wine to recount what the world was like back when it was made. Things like “no internet, no smart phones”, or just “no colour television”. Here, I think it is enough to say this was made “pre-Covid”, equally a different world. It does seem like a long time ago.
Aged on lees after picking the fruit (a mix of eaters and cookers in this one, rather than pure cider varieties), this was only disgorged in May this year. The colour is an orange/pink on account of the addition of 3% of Tim’s South African Shiraz. Usually, Tim has added the wine at bottling but this time he added it into the barrel, and this has, I think, helped it integrate so that I don’t think you really know wine has been added, except for the colour. But in the “sum greater than its parts” sense, it undoubtedly adds to the whole.
The bubbles are extremely fine, Champagne-like. The bouquet is very pure apple zest, the palate is zippy and fresh, and very appley. But perhaps what the age brings is the spice you can taste, and real depth. Cider, when freshly made, can taste of springtime, lively and even skitty. This cuvée has the feel of early autumn. It works really well with food, in the same way that those more “gourmet” Champagnes do, the ones we serve with quail out of a Riedel Riesling glass, or a Zalto Universal, rather than a Zalto Champagne.
In many ways, this is a remarkable cider. Approachable, but something to interest those of us wine lovers who are open to new flavours and textures. Not quite as “unicorn” as Tim’s wines, but this is still so scarce I can’t see any around. But try asking Les Caves de Pyrene, or The Solent Cellar (in Lymington). If you can find any, it is remarkable value for around £18 (I think).
As I said in my introduction, I used to drink the wines of this property quite often back in the day. I think I first found it on a Tuscan trip in the late 1990s, and it began appearing in the UK as its reputation rose through the 2000s. The estate was built up by Giuseppe Castiglioni and then taken over by his son, Sebastiano Cossia Castiglioni in the early 2000s. Today the estate, in Greve in Chianti, is in the hands of Sebastiano’s sister, Mita, and has 40-hectares under vine producing somewhat more than 250,000 bottles a year, of which this Classico now accounts for around 180,000 bottles. This may sound a lot compared to the thousand or so units that individual artisans whose wines often grace these articles make, but a significant production doesn’t have to mean lesser quality. Take Dom Pérignon.
If Querciabella is most famous for its white blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc called “Batàr” (now what does that sound like?), then the wine most of us will find on a retail shelf is its Chianti Classico. This wine used to have some Cabernet Sauvignon added, but this was reduced over the years, so that today the Classico is 100% Sangiovese. It comes from three plots which are tended with care to allow for “natural winemaking with minimal intervention”.
Ageing is around 14 months in mostly fine-grained oak of 225-litres (some 500-litre tonneaux and even larger oak is also used) before a selection is made of the best barrels set aside for this wine. Chianti Classico is no mere “entry level” wine at Querciabella. It rests a few more months in bottle before release.
The packaging is smart. The Querciabella labels have always appealed to me. The bouquet here is dominated by elegant cherry fruit with a noticeable pepper spice note. The palate has more crunchy cherry, a bit darker now, with depth and hints of nascent complexity. It does come in at 14% abv, but don’t let that put you off. It is nicely balanced.
It is only at the start of its drinking window. One suggested (importer) drinking window gave 2023 to 2030 for this 2019 vintage. The producer suggests it will be “mature” five years from the vintage (ie 2024), and then continue to improve for a decade. I would say that the producer’s nuance matches my expectation after drinking this. I’d certainly leave it a few years but if you do open one now, you should be impressed. My pendulum has swung back to Piemonte of late but a Tuscan wine always comes along to remind me to allow it to swing back a little.
Imported by Lay & Wheeler, this can be had for between £25 if you are very lucky, and £30. Solent Cellar sold me their last bottle, I’m afraid.
Triple Zéro NV, Domaine La Taille aux Loups (Loire, France)
Jacky Blot worked out of two locations, Domaine de la Butte near Bourgueil for mostly red wines, and Domaine La Taille aux Loups at Husseau, just east of Montlouis, along the left bank of the Loire, where Chenin Blanc reigns. I’ve visited the domaine at Husseau, though a very long time ago, and that of fellow Montlouis producer, François Chidaine, also based in the same village. Both men in their own way put Montlouis on the map, an appellation forever in the shadow of Vouvray, over the river. Jacky passed away last year, and his son, Jean-Philippe is now in charge. By all accounts the domaines are in more than safe hands as J-P has been hands-on winemaker for the past decade.
Triple Zéro is a different take on sparkling Montlouis. The more often encountered AOP wine is effectively a Crémant, bottle-fermented like its sibling, Vouvray. This particular wine, being 100% Chenin Blanc like the Crémants, is made, like a petnat, by the Ancestral Method, but like a Crémant it is disgorged of its sediment before release. The name comes from having had zero chaptalisation, zero liqueur de tirage added and zero dosage, so no sugars added at any stage. The dry minerality we have here is also accentuated by the wine not going through its malolactic.
The result here is a bone-dry wine. Some may think it too dry whilst others will adore that aspect of its flavour profile. You get a clear wine in the glass, very bright, with crisp apple and pear aromas. The palate is similar. The importer uses the word “precise” and it is. It has a certain steeliness, and is certainly very dry, but there’s more than just that. There is a creaminess too, which plumps out the body. It is in no way a one-dimensional wine. In fact, the initial feeling of simplicity changes, giving a more complex array of flavours and scents as it opens. This makes it very versatile as a food match.
As with many sparkling wines, this will be better in a few years, but it is drinking nicely now if you want to appreciate it in its full “zero-zero(-zero)” magnificence. It is a little tight on opening, but it does unfurl. In some ways, assuming you like a very dry sparkler, I would recommend this over any other sparkling wine from Montlouis and Vouvray, much as there are a few other fantastic cuvées I could name.
Triple Zéro was a gift from a wine-loving neighbour when we moved house, but it is quite widely available, perhaps most easily, by coincidence, from Lay & Wheeler again. It is also stocked by Justerinis. Expect to pay between £25 and £30 retail.
Pinot Noir “Výběr Z Ročníku” 2020, Jaroslav Springer (Moravia, Czechia)
Many years ago, around 2015 onwards, myself and a friend used to organise lunches at Rochelle Canteen in London, where people brought along “oddities”, strange bottles from strange places. It was at this time that I got to taste the first of very many Czech wines. Whether it was a wine from Milan Nestarec, because I bought his “Forks and Knives” from Newcomer Wines when they were in Shoreditch Box Park, five minutes from the restaurant, or whether it was a Springer Pinot Noir, I’m not sure, but those two certainly started my fruitful Czech wine journey.
I think what happened is that I got to drink a few of Jaroslav’s wines (most then appearing under the Stapleton & Springer label), and so when I later discovered many more of the natural wines on offer from Moravia, I sort of left them by the wayside. It was actually at a more recent tasting in Edinburgh that my nose and palate pricked up at this lovely and impressive wine, so I added a bottle into my next order from the importer. What I can tell you is that I shall definitely avoid neglecting this producer again.
If you read about the Springer winery, you will see that they are generally considered one of the best producers of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in the Czech Republic, but that geographical restriction doesn’t really do them justice. Jaroslav’s son, Tomás, is now on-board with the winemaking, and this cuvée was made with Craig and Benjamin Stapleton, although they are not listed on the label.
This is a natural wine, as with all the wines I am buying from Czechia, but I would challenge anyone who didn’t know to spot that. There is a certain classical quality to it, but it is not restrained by viticultural or winemaking practices. What we have here is pretty much the equivalent in concept of the “village wine” you find in Burgundy. So, it doesn’t have “Cru” pretensions, but its quality at this level is the real test.
The bouquet is raspberry and strawberry fruit and the palate has red fruits underpinned with a little earthiness. The finish is good and quite long, with a lick of liquorice. By further explanation of the earthiness, the fruits are good and ripe, and also very smooth, but there is a savoury quality that remarkably doesn’t jar with the fruit. It has grip too, but is not especially “grippy”. In the same way as your senses prick up if you find a very good village Burgundy, that happened here.
At this price it’s not amongst the cheapest from the Czech Republic, yet I was nevertheless impressed and would spray this around as a gift if it were but a little cheaper. Especially as what remained in the bottle was even better on the second night, so it should age further. It’s still good value for what you get, around £30 via importer Basket Press Wines.
Blaye Côtes de Bordeaux Blanc 2020, Matthieu Cosse (Bordeaux, France)
White Bordeaux doesn’t pass my lips too often, no reflection on the wine, but more the fact that few wine retailers I frequent actually sell any. That may have changed since the most famous producer of natural wines in Cahors began making wines in the Bordeaux sub-regions of Blaye and Fronsac. It’s a joint project with a good friend of Matthieu’s, Jérôme Ossard, a Bordeaux veteran grape hunter of twenty-five years.
I tasted three of these wines last winter, and at the time I felt that the excellent reds still needed time, but that the white, which we have here, was the best of them all on the day. As a result, this was the first to translate to my cellar.
It is a blend of mostly Sauvignon Blanc with a little Muscadelle, selected from a two-hectare plot. As one would expect from Matthieu, only completely healthy fruit was chosen. The idea behind the project was to make exceptional wines at an affordable price, which at the hands of many winemakers would simply be marketing noise, but here I think it very much is not.
The glass shouts out very fresh Sauvignon Blanc at first, with fresh grapefruit on the nose. The palate comes in with greater depth, almost a surprise after the bouquet. There’s a creaminess and some beeswax. It’s that mix of freshness with a little weight which makes this more than an aperitif wine, but one allowing a degree of versatility with food. My own match would be white fish with a creamy but not heavy sauce, or maybe the garlic butter you get on haddock at a restaurant near me.
This bottle came from Cork & Cask (Edinburgh), who will ship UK-wide, and it cost £24. The importer is, as with Matthieu’s Cosse-Maisonneuve wines from Cahors, Dynamic Vines.
Part 2 brings us to mid-August. Although it sometimes seems an age ago, they were the heady days of our very short English summer this year. Our drinking definitely has a “holidays” feel to it here. This second batch of wines centres around three exceptional Juras, which I would imagine are no less infrequently opened by anyone reading this, as much as for us. We run the traditional gamut with a very rarely encountered Vin Jaune, an equally rare unicorn Savagnin and a remarkable Vin de Paille. In amongst them there is also one of Annamária Réka-Koncz’s more unusual wines, plus a stunning Loire red. As the Chemical Brothers said, here we go…
Arbois Vin Jaune 2015, Domaine de la Loue (Jura, France)
This small domaine is run by ex-film producer, Catherine Hannoun, who caught the wine bug when working on the seminal Mondovino. Catherine is rather out of the way up near Port Lesney, north of Arbois. Her wines are near mythical, rarely seen, but you can read a lovely profile of her in Camilla Gjerda’s We Don’t Want Any Crap in Our Wine (Camilla has a new book ready to drop very soon, for those like me who loved her first).
On the one hand Catherine has managed to expand her vineyard to a little over 3 hectares (double what she had when she started out), and subsequently she has moved to slightly larger premises. She also made quite a bit of wine in 2022. However, she has been hit by grape theft in 2023 (See Wink Lorch, Jura Wine Ten Years On, 2024, p64) and with other problems such as frost and fungal infection etc. Grape theft, in particular, is becoming a thing in the region. I was first told about it back in 2017 or ’18, by a producer near Montigny-les-Arsures, but back then it was rare. For some reason, as in Burgundy and elsewhere, it is becoming a wider problem.
I believe 2015 was Catherine’s first vintage of Vin Jaune. I would suggest it is incredibly successful, though not necessarily fitting the VJ norm, perhaps. To begin with, it has only 12% alcohol. It drinks very smoothly, and I think it’s the most elegant Vin Jaune I’ve drunk in a long time. I understand she has been working with Manu Houillon? It was aged in a big old foudre that came from Jacques Puffeney.
You get apple, roasted hazelnut and fresh citrus, but it bears repeating…that lovely softness. I guess I’d sum it up by stressing the real purity of each flavour. Fantastic. I wish I could drink this again, or perhaps the subsequent 2017 or 2019. Catherine Hannoun is both a creative and intuitive winemaker, and I sure hope she overcomes the trials of the past few vintages. Sending out good vibes to Port Lesney.
This is Annamária’s new red bottle-fermented sparkling wine. I drank my first bottle of this back in June, but it is worth me highlighting it again, in part because this was even better with an extra couple of months in bottle.
Liner Notes is a petnat blend of 77% Cabernet Sauvignon with 23% Kékfrankos (aka Blaufränkisch), the grapes sourced from a friend at Mátra in the Nagyréde district, two-and-a-half hours west of her base at Barabás, on the Ukraine border. The terroir is volcanic with a base of andesite (eroded lava flow) covered in a light layer of clay. Cabernet off volcanic soils is reasonably rare.
The grapes are all crushed gently and macerated five days. Fermentation begins in a closed tank before transfer to fibreglass, but ageing is in stainless steel. This has just a minimal sulphuring. The first thing to say is that this is a lightly sparkling wine, bottled at just 1.5 Bar of pressure. Not complex, you get concentrated dark fruits and a bit of spice, riding on a fine bead of tiny bubbles. Its length is assisted by the fruit concentration. Since my first bottle this has settled down, with the Cabernet having perhaps mellowed out, enabling the bright fruit to shine more. If I’m looking to give you a comparison, maybe a Schilcher Frizzante comes closest, though with very different grape varieties.
Imported by Basket Press Wines, where I sourced my bottles. Prost Wine still has some for £32.
Very much gone are the days when I could pick a bottle of Overnoy off the shelf at Wholefoods Market on Kensington High Street, and how the world of wine has changed since then, especially The Jura. Pierre Overnoy’s story has been told endless times, but not so much by me. In the past decade I’d say one of his wines every two years is about it, and the time for getting a job as Doug Wregg’s assistant is long past. I’ve just checked and my last was a Poulsard in August 2023, so maybe I’m not doing as badly as I thought.
This may be one of the finest domaines in France (let alone merely Pupillin, or the Jura), whether they make natural wine or not, but these wines are more enigmatic than most. As I drink them so rarely, I never remember which cuvée I am drinking, because the only clue is the colour of the wax covering the cork. This is a good thing. Keeps us all on our toes and the palate sharp. But here we have a yellow capsule and this means oxidatively-aged Savagnin. You also get White wax (Chardonnay), Red (Ploussard), allegedly Green (Chardonnay/Savagnin blend) plus 50cl bottles for topped-up, very long-aged, Savagnin. There are a couple of others (see, as ever, Wink Lorch, supra, p88) but if you can find them, let alone purchase one, you are a better person that I am.
Pierre has been retired effectively since the early 2000s and his adopted heir, Emmanuel Houillon, has been making the wine and running the estate, along with his wife, Anne. Pierre is there in the background, on hand for favoured journalists and dishing out his bread loaves, the making of which it seems he has become no less an expert in than he was at being the inspiration for the the Jura natural wine movement.
This bottle would stand out as sensational on a table full of sensational wines. But it is also unusual, so different from wines most of us habitually drink. It is rare that I’ve ever said that a wine exists almost in another realm, and as you know, I’ve tried an awful lot of wine.
Ripe, clean, fruit is a given. The key to creating fine wine, says both Pierre and Manu. No chemicals, including no sulphur (also a given here), just meticulous hygiene and long ageing in old (but in good condition) oak. Aged under flor, yet perhaps rare among such wines, there is no reduction. Classic nutty notes, zesty orange, curry spices, off-the-scale complexity in a wine which changes almost by the minute.
There is little hint that this wine is twelve years old. It seems timeless. It is always a privilege to drink a wine from this estate, and also a reminder that such wines are, for me, in a class of their own. But where to find one? Once I’d have listed a few shops. Latterly the odd restaurant kindly sold me a bottle, but I should add at a reasonable and not inflated price.
It is the fate that Pierre, Manu and Anne have to suffer that their wines are some of the most hyped wines we know, and are exploitatively resold at many times their original sale price. That makes me feel even more lucky to have drunk this bottle. To corrupt a cliché, I don’t know where my next Overnoy-Houillon is coming from? I say “my”. Just as the producers of this wine would have wished, this was drunk with, and courtesy of, very close friends who are as fanatical about Jura wines as I am. As it should be.
Back in the days when you could actually buy Pierre Overnoy’s wines in a wine shop, Domaine Guiberteau was just beginning its own journey to Loire fame, and perhaps fortune. Romain Guiberteau is described as a protégé of Clos Rougeard, whose wines are perhaps no less sought after than the wine I’ve just written about.
Clos Rougeard was one of the pioneers of biodynamic farming in the wider Loire, and specifically in Saumur. It is easy to forget that the movement which fuelled Loire natural wine in the late 20th and 21st Century was biodynamics, when the voices of people like Nicolas Joly, and the Foucault brothers (of Rougeard) were seen as the crazy ones. Plus ça change in some quarters.
Guiberteau effectively applied meticulous biodynamics to his Cabernet Franc and Chenin vines at his own domaine at Montreuil-Bellay (home to one of the Loire’s lesser-known châteaux, but one well worth a visit). Since the mid-1990s, Romain has seen his own wines reach a similar acclaim to those of his mentors. Except that the wines of Romain Guiberteau are not difficult to find, and some of them are pretty affordable, especially given the quality.
Les Motelles is a 1.4-ha parcel of Cabernet Franc planted in 1955 on complex soils of sandy clay and gravels over limestone. These very old vines see no systemic treatments at all. Grapes are selected for quality and ripeness and destemmed prior to fermentation in cement (using natural yeasts, of course). Ageing is in used oak for a year.
Very low yields contribute to this cuvée’s concentration, yet interestingly I’d not call this dense by any stretch, more elegant and refined. Perhaps that is partly through the ethereal nature of the wine in the glass. Much modern Cabernet Franc aims to be more fruit-forward as a way of showing that the region is now warm enough to put the vegetal reds of the 70s and 80s behind it. This is Cabernet Franc that gives a nod much more towards Pinot Noir than it does its Cabernet Sauvignon cousin, albeit with a different flavour profile. Elegant, refined and very long.
This single site cuvée comes in at £55 from The Solent Cellar, but they have the domaine’s entry red and white Saumur for under £30. In fact, this retailer is becoming an increasingly interesting source for Loire wines in general.
Vin de Paille 2011, François Mossu (Jura, France)
The public face of the Mossu domaine, at Voiteur near Château-Chalon, now tends to be Alexandra, François’s daughter, but the master is still working as he slowly retires in his daughter’s favour. Whilst the domaine will be in safe hands, it is unlikely (given the Catholic Church’s take on women priests) that she will ever be known, as her father is, by the epithet “The Pope of Vin de Paille”.
This remarkable Jura speciality (though if you ever tasted Gérard Chave’s historic version from Hermitage in the Northern Rhône…) may not be a wine we drink every year. In fact, very little is made, and I drink far more Vin Jaune than Vin de Paille, which is saying something. But it always astonishes me when I have a good Vin de Paille.
The name translates as “straw wine”, named after the method where very healthy bunches (selected during an early hand-harvest, no noble rot allowed to get though) were left to dry and raisin on straw, though today you might see them drying out and concentrating their juice in plastic boxes. Thanks to a half-bottle supplied by Jasper Morris at a Jura tasting many years ago, Mossu’s is the one I’ve sought out most.
As an aside, I learnt yet another interesting fact from Wink Lorch’s new book, Jura Wine Ten Years On (supra). I’ve drunk a good few bottles of Alexandra Mossu’s own red wine, “Sang de Gaillardon”. Apparently (I had no idea), Alex did an oenology degree at Changins in Switzerland. Whilst there, she got interested in the disease-resistant crossings we know best under their German acronym, PIWIs. “…in 2013 she and her father were among the first in the Jura to plant [them]” (Wink Lorch, JWTYO p108). This is the wine they go into.
This Vin de Paille (returning from that diversion) is not a natural wine, but applications are very limited when it comes to vineyard sprays, just once a year, if possible, for weeds and once for fungal disease. It is a blend of Chardonnay, Savagnin and Poulsard. The fruit is dried in a windy loft space in wooden crates. You will find a bit more residual sugar in a Mossu Vin de Paille than most, and the wine ferments extremely slowly in tank before being moved to old oak to age for between one and two years. That isn’t the end of the story. It then gets racked into extremely old 60-litre barrels (ie small) where it sits for another three-to-four years, only released when it is deemed ready.
Although undoubtedly sweet, it is also pretty spicy and herbal on the nose. Figs come to mind on the palate, with more spice, a mix of ginger, nutmeg and fainter mixed curry spices. There is acidity to balance the sweetness. I would say it is perfectly balanced. There’s a degree of complexity, though I wouldn’t overplay that part. It is more than elegant and refined though, and very long indeed.
I don’t know of any UK source for this wine, which a friend bought at the domaine.
The rules for making Vin de Paille are very restrictive, so some producers, especially the young ones making natural wines, make sweet wines not labelled as such. I can think of a few, but perhaps the man who began this trend (not that it is large enough to call a trend) was Stéphane Tissot. I’d definitely recommend checking out his “non-Vins de Paille”, which if only seen rarely in the UK can be found in that domaine’s shop on the Place de la Liberté in Arbois. Berry Bros lists Stéphane and Bénédicte’s “Pour Ma Geule” in halves, but you will have to stretch to £175 to secure one. If you ever spot the black label of a Mossu at one hundred metres, grab it.
August, that month of sunshine, holidays, outdoor dining, beach picnics…well only in part it seems, at least for most of us confined to the UK at this time. Hopefully I shall find some longer spell of warmth soon, but what I did find during August was a batch of excellent wines. Some, befitting the month, were very special too.
Sifting the wheat from the chaff, I’ve chosen fifteen wines and I will divide them into three short and sweet parts, rather than two parts which will take more of your precious time. So, in Part 1 we have a Scottish cider, a Moravian petnat, a fine English sparkling, a superb Mosel Riesling and a Sangiovese from one of my favourite Australians.
I’ve always enjoyed the odd bottle of cider, few things being more refreshing on a hot summer’s day. They haven’t appeared so much on Wideworldofwine, excepting Tim Phillips’ “Perfect Strangers”. I suspect I shall be posting a few more ciders this year, not least after two visits to Aeble Cider Bar, also over in Fife, the county just to the north of me, over the Firth of Forth (for which see my article of 20 August 2024).
Robbie Fleming set up this micro-cider and perry operation at Leuchars in 2022, although he had already completed half-a-dozen harvests prior to becoming a small-scale commercial producer. The fruit for this “Wild Blend” came, as the label suggests, mostly from trees growing wild in fields, at the roadside and in hedgerows, in close to fifty different locations. It includes thirteen varieties of wild seedlings and crab apples, which were blended with some of Robbie’s own orchard fruit. These include eaters and cooking apples as well as traditional cider varieties.
As with natural wine, natural ciders see no additives during the process of making the cider, just as the trees are not sprayed. In this case, fermentation is with wild, naturally occurring, yeasts. When this sparkling cider is “bottle conditioned” no “dosage” of sugar is added. The result is dry, but not what you’d call bone dry, with bags of crisp apple fruit on its bouquet and palate, and plenty of tension and freshness. This was bottled in July 2023.
The similarity of these ciders to a petnat is in their drinkability, fun, and ability to quench a thirst. One difference is the alcohol content. Naturally, ciders vary in alcohol, like wine, but this bottle comes in at just 6.5% abv. This is towards the lower end of the scale, but the lightness and freshness you get, and indeed the pale colour, create a drink that is unbeatably thirst-quenching.
Robbie Fleming is fast getting a very good reputation. Since I first tasted his ciders a couple of years ago, at a Cork & Cask Winter Fair, he has now managed to sell through his production quite quickly. My bottle came from Aeble Cider in Anstruther (£11.50) but they had sold out when I visited last Saturday. Cork & Cask seem to have a single bottle of his “Le Marriage” for £16. That is drier and possibly more complex than “Wild Blend”. Hopefully they will both restock soon.
Pétillant Naturel André Rosé 2022, Syfany Winery (Moravia, Czechia)
This is my third bottle from this new (to me) producer from Southern Moravia, and perhaps my favourite of the three (though I certainly enjoyed the previous two, a Welschriesling and a still red from the same grape variety we have here). André is a pretty successful Moravian crossing between Blaufränkisch and Saint-Laurent from the 1960s.
This petnat is pink and, like the red, it is very easy to glug down. Colour-wise, it is a darker colour than many Rosé wines, but its low, 11.5%, alcohol makes it refreshing, simple but satisfying. You get bags of red fruits, but with a pleasing slightly sour edge that gives off a slight rhubarb flavour to go along with the cranberry and raspberry of the wine’s main body.
It comes with a little bit of grip as well. The bead is fine, and you can taste the carbon dioxide prickle even when the bubbles all look dissolved. This naturally adds to the wine’s refreshing quality. I’d say it’s simple but super-tasty. Syfany Wines are all very good value, most of the still wines sneaking in under £20.
This came from importer Basket Press Wines. I forget what I paid. I see that Winekraft (Edinburgh) has it on the shelf for £29. Forest Wines (Walthamstow, London E17) appears to list it for only £20. Maybe one of those prices is an error? Definitely recommended to add to your petnat list. Czechia, judging by what Basket Press usually lists, is a brilliant source for petnats and I do urge everyone to try them, especially those made by Petr Koráb, and including this one from Syfany too.
I suppose I don’t need to say a lot about Peter Hall’s Breaky Bottom any more. It will be clear to regular readers that I revere these wines. They are pretty easily available, and the only reason they may not be more widely known is that this is a small artisan operation lacking (and I’m sure, not wanting) the large marketing budgets of some of the bigger players.
Part of the allure of Breaky Bottom lies in its location, nestled in a fold (Bottom) in the chalky South Downs, close to Rodmell. Most of the allure, however, lies in the wines. They somehow manage to blend technical brilliance with a soul and personality which totally dominate the winemaking. Peter makes sparkling wine (and only sparkling wine) from the “Champagne” varieties, but the other string to his bow that is Seyval Blanc has something quite unique to it.
As a hybrid, the variety was somewhat looked down upon once the trio of Chardonnay and the two Pinots began to be touted as the future of English sparkling wine. And yet this crossing made by Bertille Seyve and his son-in-law, between Seibel 5656 and Rayon d’Or (Seibel 4986), is gaining some wider recognition for its ability to combat diseases, especially mildews, in colder, wetter, climates.
So, we have Seyval Blanc (also sometimes called Seyve-Villard after its propagators) grown in New York State, Ohio, Virginia, and Oregon. Within the EU it is not allowed in AOP wines, but as I wrote in my last article, it has been planted (and “found”) in vineyards in the Jura, where those making wines labelled Vin de France can and willingly do use it, albeit currently in the vineyards of just a small number of growers. If Bacchus has become a go-to variety for still white wines for many English producers, Seyval Blanc (there is in fact also a Seyval Noir) is slowly becoming an English alternative for wine with bubbles.
Peter Hall has a head start on most others, as his vines are genuinely old. I think this makes a big difference with this variety. He first planted Seyval in the early 1970s, when he was making still wines. Tim Phillips may be curating an older vineyard, but he is just getting to grips with the neglected vines there, much work still to be done before he reaches near-perfection.
At eight years old, this 2016 cuvée from Breaky Bottom is just starting to show how magnificent this misunderstood variety can be. The high acids of youth are beginning to tone down considerably, but you never want that rapier-like thrust to disappear. What you do get is some underlying complexity, which if you try Peter’s still available 2010 Seyval, Cuvée Koizumi Yakumo, you will find amplified even further. Now, in this 2016, we have fresh lemon and apple, but that is perhaps confit Sicilian lemon, and apple with a biscuit crumble and a small spoon of clotted cream. Whatever you find yourself, this is undoubtedly remarkably fine for a hybrid grape variety.
Each Breaky Bottom release is named after a friend or family member. Of course, the Halls have some famous friends and family. This cuvée is named after Peter’s French godmother (“marraine” means godmother) who was a journalist, author and cookery correspondent, writing in The Tatler and The Evening Standard under the name Helen Burke. This cuvée also won a Gold Medal at the International Wine Challenge.
I always purchase Breaky Bottom from Butlers Wine Cellar in East Brighton. They are friends with Peter and his wife and almost always have a very wide selection. Currently they don’t list a full range, but as prices lag behind other sources right now, I suggest taking a swift peek at what they do have. Corney & Barrow is the UK agent. Waitrose sells Breaky Bottom in some local stores, and through their online wine department too. They tend to sell the latest releases, and list two at £36/bottle.
Over the past several years Hofgut Falkenstein has become one of the wider Mosel’s most sought-after estates. Even their regular bottlings sell out quickly, and are sometimes on allocation on the UK market. Erich Weber and his son Johannes are responsible for creating this fine estate at Konz Niedermennig, the Euchariusberg vineyard rising above the village of Konz not far from where the Saar joins the Mosel, on the road to Trier.
Erich started out in 1985. The family now farms around nine hectares organically on soils of predominantly grey slate with quartz and sandstone. Everything is, of course, hand harvested, with a gravity-fed winery using naturally occurring yeasts to start a spontaneous fermentation. Wines are all lees-aged, usually in large oak (here, 1,000-litre fuders).
This is the old vine version of the Euchariusberg Kabinett, made from vines aged between 75-to-80 years old in a part of the vineyard called “Gross Schock”. With 9% alcohol there is slightly less sugar than in some Kabinetts, and there is certainly plenty of steely acidity. After six years that acidity has toned down a little, and it is now super-refreshing. I would suggest that this wine is thrilling now, but it will probably mature in a classical sense with more time in bottle.
What I found was candied lime peel and ginger spice accompanying grapefruit on the bouquet. The palate has a lot going on. Definitely red fruits (in Riesling), a sort of damson-plum flavour. The fruit was ripe when picked, for sure. But minerality is what you really notice, softly grainy and rock-hard to a degree. So, this wine won’t be at its technical best for 5-10 years I suppose, yet for me it was brilliant enough right now.
This bottle came through Solent Cellar (Lymington). They list some excellent German wines right now, but they don’t seem to have any Falkenstein left. But do inquire. They may have bought some bottles at the Trier Auction? Feral Art & Vin in Bordeaux is always a good source for Falkenstein, with whom Russell has a good relationship.
Beechworth is in the far Northeast of the state of Victoria, just south of Rutherglen. Here we are up towards the border with New South Wales, and in fact it’s a fairly short hop from Castagna to the M31 Melbourne to Sydney motorway. This part of Australia avoided the ravages of phylloxera, and Rutherglen, a hot region, became famous for its wonderful fortified Muscats and “Tokays”.
Beechworth is somewhat cooler, and has begun to gain a reputation for mostly Chardonnay and Shiraz/Syrah. However, the region has a host of less-sung varieties, not least with Sorrenberg making very possibly Australia’s best Gamay, plus a number of other varieties being grown by Julian Castagna and his sons near Wangaratta (including a rather good Chenin which I tasted this year). Beechworth in general is a region to watch. In addition to the two producers already mentioned, and let’s not forget Giaconda too, among others, there are now several producers from outside the region eyeing the possibilities here.
If Castagna is perhaps best known for that Aussie classic from a cooler climate, Syrah seasoned with a little Viognier (their “Genesis” Syrah), this cuvée with its Italian name shows the family’s interest in the Tuscan variety, Sangiovese. La Chiave is 100% Sangiovese, which shows the vibrancy of cool-climate fruit and genuine expressive depth and ripeness. It is indeed a very happy marriage between Tuscany and Victoria. There is undoubtedly structure here, and clearly this will age for many years.
I suspect few will allow it the full expression that time will give it. Right now, it is freshly herbal, that unmistakable Italian herb mix despite the Australian terroir and climate. You also get sandalwood, lavender and even a hint of chilli. Of course, you can take for granted the cherry fruit, here, as I have said, as ripe as you’d expect.
I enjoyed tasting this at Real Wine 2024, but it is only when you sit down with a bottle that a wine like this truly shines, as it did here despite its undoubted youth. Mike Bennie, Australian wine judge, joint-owner of P+V Wines in Sydney and all-round Aussie vino supremo said of the 2019 vintage, “triumphant”. That is the vibe of La Chiave. Contact importer Les Caves de Pyrene for availability. Solent Cellar has this for £60, one of three Castagna lines, including the famous Genesis Syrah and Ingenue (Viognier).
I’m sure I’m not alone in having a “wine library”, in my case five shelves of about a metre in length, perhaps too many books on wine you may think, but whenever I get rid of some there’s usually something I regret parting with. Books go out of date, but a second or third edition is very rare in wine writing. If a new edition is forthcoming, then the dilemma is whether to pay a lot of money, in many cases, for mostly words I have on paper already with a small proportion of the text updated, and which in another three or four years will be less useful once more.
What Wink Lorch has done with Jura Wine Ten Years On is genius, and as far as I know, hasn’t been done before. If I’m right, it’s so obvious I don’t know why everyone doesn’t do it, except of course that Wink effectively self-publishes so she’s free to do as she pleases. So, Ten Years On is very much not a second edition of Jura Wine (2014). It is, as the author states in her introduction, a companion volume.
The intention is to read it as a stand alone if you want an update on the past decade in this greatly changed wine region. But for new and older Jura lovers, the bulk of the relevant background information, especially the history, the wines and much else, can be found in that original volume, and here’s the great thing about it, Wink has given page references there for further research, reading and exploration.
The great value of this new volume is that so much has changed in a decade that it genuinely warrants another look. The Jura is now no longer considered a wine backwater. Instead, it has become one of France’s most important wine regions. Not in volume terms, because it produces a tiny percentage of French wine, but in terms of influence, in terms of a place where young new growers are starting out, and in terms of awareness and desirability among wine lovers, especially those in search of natural wines, Jura is second to none.
The dramatic rise in popularity of Jura wines has now started to cause some very serious problems, the greatest being that of supply and demand. For many estates, they could sell their annual harvest many times over, although the ridiculous speculative end price of many bottles doesn’t see its way back to the farmer. The grey market means super-profits are made by people selling on their allocations, which includes restaurants and a few agents. Whereas in Burgundy, there’s often a smart “Sunday car” parked in the garage, behind the white vineyard van, Jura winemakers live much more modest lives.
Add to this the efforts of nature, through climate chaos, to deprive the region’s winemakers of a living, mostly through late frosts, but also via grape-shattering hail, and I know that many have been pushed towards the wall. I think that the relatively good and plentiful 2023 harvest was a life-saver for many in the region, but sadly we are looking at another poor harvest in 2024, it seems. The Jura’s weather has not been any kinder than that which we have experienced in the UK, and the vintage looks like being potentially even less productive than the disastrous 2021.
The past decade has sadly taken its toll in other ways. There have been rather too many instances of Jura winemakers who have passed away, and a number have taken their own lives since Wink published Jura Wine in 2014. I don’t want to dwell on this, but I learnt of one or two more on reading this new volume. Likewise, divorces and breaking partnerships. Again, some I knew about, but I had no idea that a couple I really liked, and last visited in 2018, have split. The consequence is that their domaine is no more, and the bottle of Vin Jaune, their first release, which sits in my cellar, and their labels papered to my cellar wall, are all I have left as a memory of Domaine des Bodines. Still, I’m glad it was Wink who broke the news, of which I might otherwise have remained embarrassingly ignorant.
This does lead me on to say one more thing in general about this work before I detail a few specifics. When Wink Lorch published Jura Wine in 2014 she quite rightly says that she was the only person writing regularly on the region. Ten years on she is not alone in that, yet her knowledge of The Jura (and indeed Savoie and Bugey) remains unrivalled. In detailing the changes that have taken place, both many, varied and turbulent, no one would know half the things she is able to tell us, her finger remaining on the pulse more than any other writer today. She’s still the boss.
Below, I shall tell you what’s in the new volume, but I guess I should set out who I think needs it. If you were interested enough to buy the original Jura Wine, then I guess you were lucky enough to be an early fan of the region. I doubt that you will think twice about grabbing a copy of this new work, if you have not already done so via Wink’s Kickstarter campaign.
Like me, you will want to be on top of changes which will affect your next visit, or the wines you are buying. Wink quite rightly gives a shout for the names who have not become the platinum superstars. If we can’t afford Ganevat and we can’t persuade a merchant to sell us a bottle of Miroirs, or Houillon-Overnoy, there are plenty of producers well worth exploring in depth, and guess what, Wink whets our palate for their wines.
If you have come to Jura later, and do not yet own the original Jura Wine, then seriously consider the offer package of both volumes bundled together. If you like the wines, both books are essential, and you will notice that the information in Wink Lorch’s two volumes cannot be easily brought together online without flitting between a multitude of sources. One’s research is not helped by the fact that many smaller producers don’t have the time, nor often the inclination, to keep web sites up-to-date or to post on social media.
After Wink’s Introduction, which helpfully (inter alia) explains how to get the most from the book, the first chapter gives an overview of “The Last Ten Years”, covering the chase for land, greater appreciation of the different terroirs, followed by a rundown of vintages from 2014 to 2023, with comments of a worrying nature on the one about to be picked. This chapter is interspersed, rather fittingly, with a feature on variétes d’intérêt à fin d’adaptaion (VIFA). These are varieties which the INAO will allow to be planted experimentally, and which may include vinifera varieties from other regions (eg Aligoté, Gamay, Chenin Blanc).
Hybrid varieties (older vinifera crossings with other, more resistant, grape families, Seyval Blanc proving quite popular with some producers) and the specially bred varieties which we have come to know as PIWIs, crossings which have been re-crossed many times and developed in order to eradicate as far as possible specific diseases (mildew being a main one) are also being planted, or in the case of the older hybrids, revived and looked after a bit more. Of course, these are not allowed in AOP wines, only in wines labelled Vin de France (without varietal labelling). That’s fine for those producers who don’t put any wines before the tasting committees any more, happy that they can sell their wines without AOP recognition.
Of course, as all over France (my opinion, not Wink’s I should stress), the grapes of a few old vine hybrids planted among the vinifera varieties undoubtedly creep into some wines, perhaps with an AOP. It’s not like the authorities are really on top of it. Those growers (a few) who trained in Switzerland have shown most interest in the PIWIs, and in that country, I think PIWIs have begun to really take off. This is a topic central to the future climate-proofing of Jura wine, a concern to everyone, whether they make AOP wines or Vin de France.
One other vein of interest is in the ancient Jura varieties which one sees rarely but which may have a future. These include Petit Béclan, and especially Enfariné. I published a whole article dedicated to Enfariné and Jura’s other old varieties in January 2019 because a Jura friend, Marcel, has a couple of rows of the variety. At the time it really piqued my interest. It seems that the same can be said for quite a few Jura producers now looking for a red grape with good acids and good disease resistance.
The chapter ends with a number of paragraphs on different aspects of vineyard management, taking us nicely on to the next chapter on “Evolving Winemaking and Wine Styles.” The evolving styles have a lot to do with climate, but they also stem from the popularity of natural wine. Although some of the real pushing of boundaries in natural wine may have moved on to other locations (perhaps nowhere is more radical than Alsace right now), Jura was, along with The Loire, probably in the vanguard of natural wine in Europe after the original work of the Gang of Four in Beaujolais in the 1970s/80s.
The last of the general chapters, before we hit the winemaker profiles, covers the market for Jura wine. Naturally this highlights the increased appreciation, or more like worship in my view, of Jura wines globally, and so it also deals with the speculation that has led to passionate Jura lovers being unable to source wines that were once there to be pulled off a wine shop shelf. Sic transit gloria mundi for many of us!
The sad thing is that this speculation doesn’t benefit the producers in any way. I know many would rather sell me a bottle, which I will treasure and share with appreciative friends, than to a speculator in London, St-Petersburg, New York or Beijing, but they are now way too busy to entertain the likes of me anymore, where once I could make an appointment and leave with a mixed case.
Ironically, if you asked me where are the best places to drink Jura natural wine nowadays I’d say in a Tokyo Jura-specialising wine bar, or at Les Claquets and other restaurants in Arbois and Poligny, bearing in mind the caveat for the latter “on a good day” (when the host/hostess is feeling generous). In Paris you can more or less forget it, unless you have under-the-counter access.
You can also usually find at least some great Jura wine (though rarely the top stars) in the wine shops of the region, of which thankfully there are more than there used to be. Certainly, they are a better bet, on the whole, than most UK retailers (though with notable exceptions). The UK retailers also have to charge more because of the insufferable costs now of importing the wines, and the equally greedy rents and business rates they have to pay. The phrase “fill your boots” literally fits perfectly here, if you are driving down to Arbois and beyond, even with the cost of petrol/recharging.
Pages 57 to 126 provide the main producer profiles. At sixty-nine pages this is only a little shy of half the book. These profiles cover changes since 2014 at producers featured in the original volume, where deemed worthy of mention (although there are many such changes, and as I have already mentioned in relation to Bodines, very often significant ones).
Whilst there are major producers included who didn’t feature first time round, either because they are new or for a host of other reasons, the author provides a page reference (as throughout the book) to a domaine’s original entry in Jura Wine 2014. These new profiles are not the in-depth ones of the original book, so you will wish to use these cross-references to reacquaint yourself with a lot of background information.
Pages 127 to 133 cover just over thirty “Négociants, Newcomers and Small Estates”. Like me, I will bet that most of these are new to you and very often you will be looking for the first time at a name whose wines we shall all come to seek out in the future…if not immediately. Many farm perhaps a hectare or so, but most are looking to expand a little and some have vines waiting to come onstream soon.
The final chapter, as in Wink’s original, is called “Visiting the Region”. The changes here are as great, if not greater, than those affecting the region’s wines. If old stalwarts like the Hirsinger bakery/chocolatier are still going strong (with, I discovered, a vending machine now to help when you fall victim to their rather unusual opening hours), then the region has not only lost my favourite restaurant (La Balance), but also its famous Michelin Two-Star (even the re-named Maison Jeunet has gone, the site I believe being currently closed). And that’s not the half of it.
However, on the other side of the coin Arbois, and the wider region, has many new places to stay, eat and buy wine, and Wink lists many, a list which you won’t find anywhere else. For the latter (buying wine), I would say that especially as it is now difficult to visit producers, even some of those with tasting rooms either closing them completely or limiting their opening hours, it is very good news that we have more wine shops. Even more so with the future of Les Jardins de St-Vincent, Arbois’ premier natural wine store, in some doubt for several years.
All of this does remind me I must add a note to my perennially popular article “Tourist Jura, a Brief Guide to Arbois and Beyond” (29 July 2020), because there is a lot in there which is dated or plain incorrect now, and it is very often the most read article on my site on any given day. What is not out of date, alongside much general tourist and walking information, is that on the wine shops owned by some producers. I always recommend the shop on Arbois’ Place de la Liberté owned by Stéphane and Bénédicte Tissot, and that of Domaine de la Pinte, a few minutes’ walk down the Rue de L’Hôtel de Ville.
The book ends with an epilogue, and I would like to repeat a few of Wink Lorch’s pleas to readers. I think they should be Commandments for any true Jura lover.
Celebrate the region’s wine diversity, both in styles and producers. As I have found with producers like Domaine Mouillard and others, when the philosophy changes, or when one of the younger generation takes over, the quality of the wines can change dramatically, or at least the market’s perception of them. Domaine de la Touraize, for example, was pretty much unknown seven or eight years ago when I first tasted their wines and now, in some forward-thinking markets, they are highly sought after. Trust the region and try other producers’ wines.
Please do not badger the producers. I wrote an article on this (“The Visitor”, 26 August 2021). I said pretty much what Wink says, if in a wider context. The small producers do almost everything themselves. If they are not working in the vines or cellar, they are well deserving of some time out. In any case, they are nowadays quite unlikely to have any wine to sell you. Make use of the increasing number of retail shops where the wines will be priced fairly, and especially those tasting rooms that are advertised as being open. Some winemakers do still welcome visitors by appointment, but far fewer than was the case before Covid.
What more can I say in summary? This is a wonderful addition to the wine library of anyone who loves Jura wines and the region in general. I’d say that it is essential for anyone who professes to be a fan. I will repeat that it is a genuine companion to Wink Lorch’s original 2014 volume, and so I would obviously recommend owning both. It might only run to 152pp, but those pages are almost exclusively packed with new information. There is none of the endless repetition of the “new editions”, where we pay £30 or more for a few added sentences and perhaps a new conclusion with a few vintage updates. Nothing could be further from what this book is.
The format is slightly smaller than the original volume, but the design, layout and typeface etc match the original, thus enhancing its feel as a companion volume. This is mirrored in the exemplary photography, much of it taken once more by Mick Rock (Cephas). The matching cover tone was chosen, of course, to match Jura’s iconic Vin Jaune, the wine that first drew me to the region, and which should not be forgotten (nor Vin de Paille, as Wink Lorch pleads) amid all the petnats and ouillé Chardonnay (remarkable as much of the latter is turning out to be).
On a personal note, I am aware of the hard work, blood, sweat and tears Wink has put into this new volume. I know that in the past few years the cost of Jura wine has spiralled, and so have the costs of publishing. That said, Jura wine is so popular that it is extremely important that books like this exist, and I hope that this essential little tome achieves all the success it deserves. One used to say “this costs no more than a bottle of wine”, but of course these days you’d be hard pushed to get a bottle of Jura Wine for fifteen quid, or anywhere near.
Jura Wine (2014) won the André Simon Drinks Book of the Year Prize (and was shortlisted for the Louis Roederer). This book is at least as important. More so for me. It contains much more information that I didn’t know than the last one.
Jura Wine Ten Years On by Wink Lorch is published by Wine Travel Media (soft cover, 2024). It can be purchased from the Académie du Vin Library for £15, shipping from 2 September, though Kickstarter backers will be getting their copies now. There is also the option to bundle it with Jura Wine (2014), and also for these two books plus Wink’s equally good Wines of the French Alps (2019). See academieduvinlibrary.com . For more on the author, Wink Lorch, see her own winetravelmedia.com . I understand that it will not yet be available on a major platform for a while, possibly (this is mere conjecture on my part) becausethey don’t give the author a decent cut and Wink has to cover costs. In any event, wine writing of this calibre needs supporting.
I’m sure I’ve talked more than once about Tim Phillips being one of the most thoughtful of all the English winemakers I know. Not all of the thoughtful ones are wholly willing to share their thoughts, but Tim is. A morning is never enough. One thing is for sure, a visit to see Tim is no longer merely about wine. In fact, sometimes wine might seem to come somewhere down the list.
On the morning which I spent with Tim this month we visited all three of his sites, the walled vineyard, the old vine plot and the winery. We were never far from vines and wine but the first thing we talked about, at length, were Tim’s new batch of chickens. These are rescue birds and he is spending several hours a day acclimatising them to their new and very pleasant surroundings within the Clos du Paradis.
Rescue birds need to learn everything anew, how to roost, where to feed, and they are requiring treatment for the wounds suffered in the free-for-all of the shed in their previous life (life seeming a rather inappropriate word for their existence). Chickens are very sociable, they love to be held, and reassured, and they are slowly beginning to have a happier time of it. I’m dwelling on the chickens because they reveal a certain intelligence in Tim that is not always present in others.
Someone visiting the vineyard suggested that a few hens are not worth it. The cost involved is way more than the value of the eggs. It doesn’t take a genius to see that for Tim it’s not about the eggs. Of course, it’s about fertiliser, which also breaks down cuttings more quickly, and it is about eating bugs on the vines. It is about creating a biodiverse eco-system that will ultimately profit the soil and the grapes. Tim estimates that all his hens, including those he already had roaming the vines, could produce 250 kilos of droppings per year. That’s reason alone to have them. They also make nice companions for someone who spends much of the day in the vineyard.
Traveling down the vine rows it is easy to see that this has been a difficult year. Signs of incipient downy mildew have to be nipped in the bud, and applying (non-systemic) sprays in a timely fashion is time consuming but necessary. The most easily affected is the Chardonnay. The leaves are demonstrably thinner than the Riesling and the Sauvignon Blanc, and so it is the most susceptible to fungal disease.
Tim is not deterred. He’s doing pretty magnificently with Riesling and Sauvignon Blanc. That he can make excellent bottles of Riesling in the UK is a near-miracle, but of course if you have a walled vineyard a quarter of the size of the Clos du Mesnil you have some serious heat retention in those brick walls. Sauvignon Blanc’s success here lies in Tim being able to make something very distinctive. I don’t mean “distinctively English” but distinctive to this site. A genuine terroir wine.
Chardonnay will succumb to Tim’s stimulation, eventually. It already works so well as a sparkling wine, but Tim wants to create a world class still wine from an English site. He’s not alone. Kit’s Coty, on Kent’s North Downs, has become perhaps the most celebrated site for Chardonnay in England, with Chapel Down making a cuvée many will have tasted. Lyme Bay Winery (Devon) make a couple of different cuvées from single sites in Essex, a part of the country which is racing to the fore for this variety, and indeed Pinot Noir, in and around the Crouch Valley. Many others are seeking the Holy Grail.
We discussed Tim’s plans for Chardonnay, which includes investing in another barrel, assuming that he has a Chardonnay crop that looks viable for a still wine. It will be a François Frères half-barrique (114 litres). For a small artisan grower like Tim, this is a massive investment which can only be made if he can get it to start paying for itself immediately, but thankfully they can knock one out for him in five or six weeks, so he can afford to wait just a little longer to see how the grapes are looking.
Since my last visit Tim has completed his new store shed and I climbed a stepladder to inspect his new sedum roof, which is looking healthy. As are the apple trees. I was keen to talk apples as I’ve just planted an espalier apple tree. Tim’s new trees are doing well and they will complement the old ladies you can see in the photos.
And then there’s the vegetables. The old Victorian glass house has now been turned over to helping feed his family and the tomatoes, cucumbers, and especially the wonderful array of peppers, are more than impressive.
The orchard is where Tim keeps his compost bins, and with the kind of space he has he can make a lot. He has a three-bin system, a bit like a compost solera, I suppose. He moves the compost along the line as it decomposes. It’s nice and warm in there, and this is where a grass snake had made its home, accidentally disturbed by Tim after we left, the photo of which he posted on Instagram. Of course, Tim was naturally gentle with the poor creature, though at least it wasn’t hibernating, neither was there a writhing mass of babies.
Next stop, the old vines, accessed by several twisting tracks in a field in the middle of nowhere. These are three-hundred Seyval Blanc vines, gnarly old ceps which are sixty years old. That is very old by English standards. They belong to Mark Hurley, but Tim has an arrangement to work the vines now as well as make the wine, and they split the bottles accordingly. As those who have tasted Tim’s Seyval already will know, it is very good indeed. It might not quite challenge Peter Hall’s Breaky Bottom Seyvals yet, but then Tim doesn’t have any 2010s on the market with which to compare.
Tim agrees with me that this variety is underrated. It was chosen early on as a variety which would suit the wet and humid English climate, but it probably fell out of favour because it is a hybrid vine, a cross between Seibel 5656 and Rayon d’Or (aka Seibel 4986). It is 50% vinifera, 37% vitis rupestris and 13% vitis licencumii. As I have eluded to, it can make exceptional sparkling wines when treated with respect. Interestingly, I have just read, thanks to Wink Lorch’s new book, that Seyval Blanc is one of the hybrids some growers are trialling in the Jura, part of the attempt there to tackle the climate shock, especially the late frosts and unseasonal rain/drought spikes.
Our final stop of the day was to the winery, and even that involved a long chat on arrival with the joiners who have sliced and diced a fallen tree into planks and beams which Tim will eventually use on a future project. Nothing, yet everything, changes and Tim’s active mind is always planning ahead and full of new ideas.
I was pretty honoured to be present when Tim opened the first bottle of his Riesling 2018. This is a zero-dosage sparkling wine which surprise, surprise, turned out to have a lovely fine bead and already some real depth on the nose, a floral element rising above the mousse. It tastes very dry with a nice mineral texture but it has richness too, with a bit of viscosity, and has pure varietal character. Fresh, steely and impressive, although of course it will age and is intended to do so. I’d love to be like Florian Lauer with his dad’s Sekt and find a half-case of these hidden in a corner in 2044.
Next a little gem Tim has created, though what its future may be. I don’t know. When Tim was learning to make wine in South Africa, way back, he had to make a fortified, and indeed I can’t be the only one for whom Tim has pulled out his Saffer Tawny on some previous occasion. Here, Tim has fashioned something from local honey, cider and eight litres of spirit from Capreolus Distillery in Cirencester. This is just beginning its journey. At one year old it is becoming integrated, the alcohol still evident but not dominating. We next tasted a batch made this June and it was dominated much more by the honey.
I was very lucky to be able to leave with a bottle, my second, of Tim’s new wine, Legion. It’s a solera Sparkling Chardonnay, and at £55 retail is the most expensive wine from Tim so far. But I guess we have to realise that this wine was a decade in the making, and it’s no more expensive than, say, Domaine Hugo’s Brut Nature. Over my budget now, really, but sometimes an exception has to be made.
I also grabbed a bottle of Tim’s latest cider, a cuvée that comes from the 2018 vintage. It rested on lees until it was disgorged in May this year (2024). It’s an attempt to prove that vintage cider can age, as one or two other small-scale producers are attempting to show.
Unsurprisingly I am looking forward to trying it, and as I plan to open it tonight (Weds 21st, as I write), you may have seen a pic on Instagram before you read this. Don’t worry, I have no plans to switch from wine to cider, but with my last article on Aeble Cider Shop and Bar I am definitely reflecting the increased popularity of artisan cider right now. [It was amazing, but you’ll have to wait for the last part of my Recent Wines for August to read more about it].
As always, a visit to Tim’s place ends up with me having a head full of questions, and realising I’ve learnt a whole lot more than I knew before, but I am pleased to be able to contribute my own knowledge. Tim is not just a philosopher and a very good teacher, but he’s a sponge too and soaks up any tiny scrap of information he can file away for potential use in the future. It always feels a privilege to learn from Tim. He’s already taught me how and when to propagate some vines from next spring’s prunings, because after my successful 2021 Frühburgunder Rosé I’m definitely thinking that with the right vine variety I can do something in Scotland. You may think I’m mad but if they can do it in Nova Scotia, you never know. If Tim has taught me anything, it’s to give it a go.
There were a lot of corny puns I might have been tempted to use in the title to this article, but I don’t want to make light of either cider as a drink, nor Scotland’s first, and as far as I know, only cider shop/bar. There’s no question that cider has increased in popularity manyfold in the past decade, and one major beneficiary has been artisan cider. As with wine, there is a mass of (semi-)industrial product, and a smaller market for well made, small production, cider and perry.
Cider of this sort, and indeed perry (made from pears), especially the sparkling versions, seem to appeal to the same people who are drinking natural wines, and the sparkling petnats (pétillant naturel). In fact, there are some wags who would say that petnat is just sparkling cider but at least twice as expensive. They can have their joke, but I won’t deny that sparkling cider is a similarly refreshing beverage which mostly (not always, as we shall see) costs much less than a natural wine made by the méthode ancestrale.
Aeble Cider Bar and Shop was started by Grant and Jaye Hutchison in May 2021. Grant is, like me, a drummer, and toured the world (he also, unlike me, had a #9 album and played Glasto) with the successful Scottish indie rock band Frightened Rabbit. He moved into running a cider distribution company, re:stalk, when based in Glasgow, whilst Jaye worked for homeless charity Social Bite as an events coordinator and social media manager.
Moving to the East Neuk of Fife in 2020, Anstruther offered a perfect location. A good mix of locals who know cider, because Fife has a number of thriving artisan cider producers, plus a good dose of tourist traffic. The East Neuk is really very pretty indeed, with several small harbours along the Firth of Forth and the famous Fife Coastal Path, and you have St Andrews not far up the road. You can even get there from North Berwick, by occasional boat, as I did in July when we ended a long walk with a trip to Aeble to quench our thirst.
A passion for cider was a good enough reason to open a cider shop, but Grant and Jaye had also noticed the bars they had visited on their Japanese honeymoon, in Tokyo’s Golden Gai (which I agree are inspirational). Here, a small space has a specialist focus for a few people to enjoy food and drink. This was what inspired them to add in the bar, which has proved a good move, and leads to crossover between those drinking in and those after a bottle to take home. It’s a perfect avenue of discovery for the adventurous drinker.
What makes artisan cider special? Lots of things but Grant highlights provenance as a major factor. It mirrors the increase, albeit slowly, in people wanting to know where their food comes from and then how it is produced. Artisan ciders are a good bit more expensive than supermarket fare, but most people can appreciate the difference, even if not everyone can afford to follow the better path. But it’s also easy to argue that the artisan products are better value too when some supermarket ciders are price-inflated by mega marketing budgets and multi-national mega-profits.
Anstruther does have a lot of tourists, many staying every year in static caravans and camp sites. These provide a good cohort of returning customers in the summer months. Also, as I have found, there is a strong will here, as throughout Scotland, to support local businesses in a population which in general is considerably more community-minded than in the South of England.
The key, Grant says, is to provide a welcoming space which doesn’t intimidate anyone. They have their “aficionados”, both visiting and online, but no one should be made to feel they don’t know enough about the subject. Jaye and Grant have the knowledge to help sell someone a product they will enjoy.
Post-Covid trade has been good, especially this year. Word does seem to be getting out, even UK-wide. I asked Grant what is selling well and what are his and Jaye’s favourites. He cited Artistraw from Herefordshire (for their holistic approach), and Wilding from Somerset. These are “natural ciders”, made like natural wine without chemicals. Often you will find varietals listed on the label just like wine. Single apple varieties like Dabinett, Yarlington Mill and even Bramley have noticeably different characteristics.
As I mentioned above, Fife has become a thriving hub for cider. I discovered this through Robbie Fleming who makes small batches, much from fruit foraged from wild apple trees, from a base at Leuchars, just outside St Andrews. It was tasting these ciders at a Cork & Cask Winter Wine Fair in Edinburgh a couple of years ago that drew my attention to Aeble.
Fleming’s Wild Blend includes fruit foraged in Fife as well as some of Robbie’s own apples. £11.50 from Aeble.
Naughton Cider comes from a farm very close to our friends’ place on the Tay. Peter Crawford has experience in Champagne distribution and so he fashions Traditional Method bottle-fermented ciders from the orchard on his parents’ farm. These are the ciders I mentioned that cost as much as a petnat (around £25). Aipple makes cider currently in Perthshire, but using Fife fruit, another producer that comes highly recommended.
Among the most popular sellers in the shop, we have Little Pomona (their Table Cider), a producer probably known to many readers of this blog. Pomme Pomme by Pilton Cider in Somerset is also very popular. Pilton make “keeved cider” where the juice doesn’t fully ferment so you get a sweetness, but they blend in some quince wine, which balances the sweetness with a hint of acidity. That Little Pomona is their entry level cuvée, and the easiest for first timers to get into.
Naturally Grant and Jaye know their international ciders, a few of which they sell in the shop. It wasn’t hard to get a long list of favourites out of Grant. They stock Bordelet, Kerisac and Fournier from France, and they recommend (if you come across them) Baumans, Seattle Cider Co and Original Sin from the USA. According to Grant, Original Sin makes some of the best canned apple cider in the world.
I suspect a lot more bottles would hit the shelves if space were less of a constraint, including some Spanish ciders from Asturias (they do have Trabanco), Galicia and the Basque Country (where cider and Txacoli, the local white wine, bear many resemblances). I’ve also noticed the famous Swiss Cidrerie du Vulcain (their “Transparente” for £22.50) on the shelf.
Needless to say, I have already mentioned to Grant some of my own favourites, like La Garagista’s cider and wine blend, Fleurine (Vermont), Utopia (Czechia’s Bohemian Highlands) whose “Patience” Ice Cider must rank easily in my top-five ciders ever tasted, and Charlie Herring Wines’ various masterpieces of inspiration (Hampshire).
I had to ask about perry, the pear equivalent of apple cider and something I am only starting to discover. Apparently, it is only getting better known slowly, but Grant says “it can be just as, if not more, elegant a drink [as cider] and also more appealing to a sweeter palate”. Ask Grant for a recommendation, as I shall on my next visit.
What else does Aeble stock? They do keep a small selection of wines, but the natural wines they like are often too expensive for their usual market. Their sweet price point is closer to £15 than £25-£30 as is required for most natural wine. They do stock Ciello from Sicily, and Funkstille from Austria, as well as Little Pomona’s own skin contact Orange Wine. These go hand-in-hand with a very good range of snacks (Superbon seaweed flavour crisps sell well in this location). Cloudy apple juice and a small beer selection can also be picked up, including Futtle, whose brewery is just down the road from Anstruther, in St Monans.
To this, you can add, among other products, Pommeau (cider brandy blended with apple juice), ice cider and eau de vie. I have seen the odd product from Julian Temperley’s Somerset Cider Brandy Company too. I remember meeting Julian, via a friend who knew him, in the 1990s, and we used to get plastic containers filled from the vat when we visited. Now his products are found all over the world, and he’s almost as well-known as his famous daughters.
Finally, a bit of fun…extremely popular in the summer are the cider slushies you can see rotating in glass behind the bar. Winter, of course, sees these replaced with mulled cider. Cider is always available on draft, including their own house cider (which also comes in bottle).
As with any self-respecting and hard-working wine shop, Aeble has a full range of events on offer. The next is a bar snacks evening with Edinburgh bakery Hobz on 30 August. A full list of events can be found on Aeble’s web site at www.aeble.co.uk
As can their opening hours. These vary seasonally, but right now they are open Wednesday to Sunday (closed Monday and Tuesday) from 12.00 until 6pm (8pm Friday and Saturday), but I recommend double-checking before making a journey. Of course, they ship throughout the UK, and also offer a cider club option (six bottles with notes every two months, for currently £80 if you like surprises).
Needless to say, I’m only writing about Aeble because, like the few wine shops I’ve highlighted this year (hopefully one more to come soon), I think this is a brilliant place to get to know cider, whether in person or online. If I imparted all the information Grant relayed to me on his way down to London to help judge the International Cider Challenge it would probably be almost enough for a book. They have a very exciting range in the shop, and cider is a drink many of us are keen to drink a lot more of (and perry too, in my case). There are certainly recent books on artisan cider, and even one dedicated to perry due soon, but I think Grant is the perfect person to give anyone wanting a basic grounding in the subject just that.
Anstruther may be a bit off the beaten track, but UK-wide shipping makes it easy to discover what they have on offer. And, of course, Grant (I’ve yet to meet his wife, Jaye) seems an amazingly nice bloke. As many of you will know, that counts an awful lot in my worldview.
Aeble Cider is at 17 Rodger Street, Anstruther, KY10 3DU. It’s just up the hill on the western side of the harbour, where the main car park is located (there’s one disabled space near the shop).
July Part Two kicks off with two wines from Spain, one from the south and one from the north, totally different but both special wines. Then we head east to Austria’s Burgenland, from where it’s just a short drive to Moravia in Southern Czechia. The penultimate wine here is a North American gem, then we finish our six-pack back on the Baden border in Germany.
David Léclapart is, of course, one of the star “growers” in Champagne. This is a collaboration with Alejandro Muchada. David brings his expertise in biodynamics and Alejandro brings grapes from 2.5 hectares of the great Pago Miraflores at Sanlúcar, a source of fruit for so many wonderful wines I seem to feature here. They are making unfortified natural wines, with no flor interaction, from Palomino vines over sixty years old.
After fermentation this “Lumière” cuvée is aged 15 months in 400-litre French oak. There were 3,760 bottles made. The bouquet is sophisticated, with stone fruits and lemon zest to the fore, but other subtle notes, mineral and nutty, beneath. Hints of hazelnut, and less so, almond. The palate has some pear fruit softness and an intense salinity. It doesn’t have the directness of a biologically-aged Sherry, yet it seems a perfectly balanced table wine, as balanced as the finest Chardonnay.
Frankly, this is sensational. It’s a terroir wine, but there’s such purity. The long finish is magical. This retails for £58 from The Solent Cellar, although there’s a cheaper cuvée, “Univers”, at £38. Both appear to be in stock. These wines have a reasonably wide UK distribution.
“Quite” VV 2020, Veronica Ortega (Bierzo, Spain)
Veronica’s sensibilities must have been influenced by the places she worked at before breaking out on her own, because her winemaking is both sensitive to terroir and refined. Those estates were Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and Comte Armand, both either side of Beaune on Burgundy’s Côte d’Or. The main criticism levelled at Bierzo when it became fashionable, at least the more commercial bottlings, was that the Mencia grape was not meant to produce big, even bruising, wines. Veronica’s are not like that.
She is based at Valtuille, near the town of Ponferrada. Bierzo is technically in Castilla y Léon, yet it undoubtedly shows a similar Atlantic influence to the wines of Galicia, to the west. There is also the River Sil’s influence too, which lies just north of Valtuille. Bierzo is well known for her old vines, the region having only started to achieve real commercial success in the 2000s, but Veronica’s Mencia is over 80 years of age, grown on iron-rich sandy soils.
After a two-week maceration, “Quite” is aged 50% in used oak, 50% in 800-litre amphora. The fruit is amazing, and indeed everything that Mencia should be about. Smelling the glass after an initial swirl, mulberry fruit leapt out. The first time I’ve smelt very distinct mulberry on a wine in a long time, but unmistakable. Let’s not forget the spice and herbs too, but they play a secondary role. The palate has smooth bramble fruit with a bit of texture (more than tannin).
I tasted this at the Cork & Cask Winter Fair last November. It was excellent, and of course I already rate Veronica’s wines highly, so I bought a bottle. Drinking the bottle in July it was even better. It cost £24, although they are currently out of stock. Vine Trail imports. Cork & Cask (Edinburgh) do have a good value Mencia from Castro Ventosa for £16, although it’s not Veronica Ortega, and it may not be a natural wine (though it is “vegan”).
Piroska 2021, Joiseph (Burgenland, Austria)
After a few forays down to Luka Zeichmann’s own small operation in the south of Burgenland, we head back up north here to the more familiar territory of his Joiseph partnership, around Jois, a village which sits almost exactly at the northern end of the Neusiedlersee, just west of the town of Neusiedl am See.
Piroska is a light red, and as such is a beautiful colour. The grape blend is 40% Blaufränkisch, 50% Zweigelt and 10% Pinot Noir. It makes a light and fruity combination with a little spice adding extra interest.
Luka’s wines are thoughtfully made and they are impossible not to like in summer, and Piroska should definitely be served cool or slightly chilled. The red and black fruits are zippy and lively, and this is a wine to refresh the palate, not to linger over with a dictionary of tasting terms. I bought mine from Cork & Cask for £24 (still available, I think). Prost Wines has some for a little more, and importer Modal Wines, although sold out of the 2021, seems to have a price of £29 on their web site.
I’d call this a brilliant wine for £25 but once it hops over £30 it may be a tough ask. I say that whilst continuing to believe that Luka Zeichmann is one of the young stars of Burgenland, with plenty of vintages in front of him with which to stun us.
Dark Horse Brut 2022, Petr Koráb (Moravia, Czechia)
Petr Koráb farms at Boleradice, where he is building his new cellars, hopefully just to complement his historic underground cellar which I was lucky enough to visit in 2022. I was already a fan of this magician, who fashions more wines each vintage than many an Alsace producer, which is saying something. Like that vintage’s tasty “Raspberries on Ice”, much enjoyed but not seen again, Dark Horse may be a one-vintage creation never to be repeated. If you can find a bottle, grab one.
The label has a strap line “Like a horse to run with the smell of dust and herbs toward the sunset”. It’s a poetic image, mirrored by a label which features a horse full of vigour. The wine reflects all of this.
Petr blends Amber Traminer with Karmazin (aka Blaufränkisch) and the local variety, Hibernal. It’s a red petnat, made by the Ancestral Method, fermented for the second time in bottle after undergoing a first fermentation and ageing in a mix of ceramic vessel and robinia wood barrels.
This has very good strawberry and raspberry fruit but it also has a real edge to it, created by texture and the very fine and vigorous bead of bubbles. Add bite and a little grip and you get a rather interesting, bright, red sparkler that coats the palate with ripe but slightly tart fruit. Concentrated, even intense, perhaps. Definitely a petnat with attitude. I think last time I mentioned this wine I said it was the best petnat I’d tried all year, and nothing has come along yet to better it, good petnats as I have consumed.
The problem is that there isn’t much around (hopefully you saw me mention Dark Horse back in March and bought some). A search on importer Basket Press Wines’s web site (my direct source for several bottles) shows no Dark Horse (though frankly any Koráb is worth trying), though that doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have any. A search on the web will show one or two sources, of which Prost Wines may be your best bet (£26).
Freedom Hill Vineyard Pinot Blanc 2022, Kelley Fox Wines (Oregon, USA)
Kelley Fox makes some truly wonderful wines, not least those which rank among the finest Pinot Noir of a state renowned for scintillating examples of that variety. Perhaps a little hidden within her range, however, is this gem. Freedom Hill vineyard is located in the large Willamette Valley. More specifically, this site, established in 1981 by the Dusschee family between Dallas (not that one) and Monmouth, to the west of Salem, borders the Eola Hills AVA.
The vines here are on marine sediment, and the soils seem to have quite a profound influence on the wine, perhaps thanks to Kelley’s hands-off winemaking. The Pinot Blanc grapes were pressed gently as whole clusters, saw two days for the juice to settle, then were racked and fermented in stainless steel. Ageing was in the same medium, and the wine went through malolactic.
The colour is a pale lemon yellow. The bouquet is wonderful, citrus combining with sensual tropical fruits. The palate has a real mineral tension. It starts very refreshing, but builds complexity and a little gras in the glass. The abv sits at 13% but the balance is spot on. Subjectively, this ranks as my favourite Pinot Blanc, no question, and I like Pinot Blanc. I know I’m not alone in my opinion. I’ve been lucky to meet Kelley a couple of times, and I’m sure her thoughtful personality and kindness come through in her craft. Very human.
Not sure of the price, but I’m positive it’s affordable, at least compared to her top Pinot Noir cuvées. The importer is Les Caves de Pyrene, from whom I purchased it at the Real Wine Fair this year.
“Pur Jus” 2021, Max Sein Wein (Baden, Germany)
I’m sure by now you are pretty well-versed in the origins of Max Baumann’s wines, from Wertheim-Dertingen on the Baden/Franconian border. He continues to weave his magic, establishing himself among the best of young German winemakers. And you know what? Unlike some other countries, wines made by the German newcomers are generally still affordable, and certainly remain good value. For now.
This 2021 “Pur Jus” is a blend of 50% Kerner, 40% Gewurztraminer and 10% Müller-Thurgau. As with Pinot Blanc, I think Kerner is a wrongly neglected variety. It makes a few excellent wines on its own, and here it really adds to the blend. What I like particularly about this wine in general, even more than the specifics of its floral bouquet (the Gewurz certainly evident here), and its mineral palate, so full of tension yet not in any way dominating the very generous fruit and acid balance, is its overall feel. I’d call it its soul.
Max worked for a time at Gut Oggau (as well as in New Zealand, and with Judith Beck in Burgenland as well), and fanciful as it may seem, in this wine I somehow felt he was channelling something of the soul of that domaine. I know, it’s just a feeling, but it did strike me in that way. After all, most of us who drink their wines, and visit their cellars, are somehow changed so it must have a real and lasting effect on people who work there.
Max makes some excellent red wines, from Pinot Meunier as well as Noir, but his white wines seem to have evolved, and matured. This 2021 was as excellent as any of his reds, and although only coming in at 12% abv, it has become even more rounded with age. It remains well priced too. I paid £26 from Basket Press Wines. They may possibly have sold out, though they do show some other cuvées. Perhaps the 2022 is on the way?
July marks the start of the second half of the year, and also, finally, the arrival of nice weather in our sunny corner of Scotland. It’s strange, though, how my drinking doesn’t substantially change between summer and winter. I drank a powerful red with 14.5% alcohol here, but it was perfect with a steak barbecued by an American (ie properly) on the same evening as the most beautiful sunset of the year so far. It was one of three reds and three whites which make up Part One, the same colour split to follow in Part Two. But here we have wines from Aosta, Penedès, Sussex, Bergerac, Jura and Alsace.
Aosta is a tiny region, and like another tiny region whose wines I love (thinking of Bugey here), although their wines are hard to find, they’re not as hard to find as they were five years ago. Elio Ottin’s wines have been around in the UK for quite a while though, and bottles appear on random shelves a couple of times a year.
There is a unique beauty about Aosta, crammed into one river valley, the Dora Baltea, and a few decidedly Alpine side valleys, filling a tiny, mostly French speaking, bit of Italy between the Mont Blanc Tunnel and the Grand Saint-Bernard Pass in the west, and Piemonte’s northern reaches to the southeast.
Elio Ottin started working his estate in 1989, which was not all that long before I first visited Aosta, falling in love with its wines through the tutelage of the now retired owner of the tiny Hotel Perret at Bonne, just above Valgrisenche. It was an amazing auberge back in the day, where there was no menu, second helpings were always offered, and frequently guests arrived with crampons and backpacks as often as by car.
First visit I think I ordered Brunello (Bruno was an experienced sommelier in his younger days) but over the years this kind man tutored me well in Aostan wines, and latterly I’d carry home some of the region’s amazing dessert wines (Malvasia Flétri and Moscato Passito), well-aged in his cellar, along with an axle-crunching selection of other local wines foraged among the villages and from Aosta itself. I do so miss that place.
Ottin was only twenty-three when he began farming grapes, converting to organic viticulture. He was intent on reviving the steep vineyards (at 650 to 700 masl) at Saint-Christophe. He forged out, bottling his own wine, in 2007. The red Torrette grapes here are cooled to receive a short maceration before fermenting (spontaneously with ambient yeasts). This wine is aged 12 months in old Austrian oak.
This is an eight-year-old wine made from a variety one would hardly call “noble” by any stretch of the imagination of those writers and critics who made their fame in the 1980s by preaching the gospel of uniformity. But this is very much hitting its stride and full of interest. Quite dark in colour, yet bright, you get both dark and red fruits making up a bouquet which also gives hints of pine needles. The palate has a little tannin, not a lot but enough to add texture.
I wouldn’t call it complex, but it has 13.5% abv and is a good food wine. I think the altitude helps retain freshness and acidity, so there’s a brightness to it. It went very well with a roast vegetable (butternut squash, cauliflower and padron peppers) risotto. £26.75 from St Andrews Wine Company, but I think it could have been one of those last bottle situations. That said, they always have something on the shelf that grabs my wallet’s attention.
Sotaterra Oníric 2021, Celler Entre Vinyes (Penedès, Spain)
I think I recounted before how two people recommended this producer independently but on the same morning back in March this year. One was fellow blogger and Coutelou alumni Alan March, and the other was a wine buyer who I asked to recommend just one estate from her list. It took me a while to track down some bottles, and I managed to grab a couple of different cuvées a couple of months ago.
Entre Vinyes was started by a very young couple who took over some old and neglected parcels of vines in the Penedès appellation in Catalonia in 2012. At the same time, they converted a derelict chicken coop and pigsty into a winery. As you will imagine, they were determined to follow a path of natural wine and a regeneration of their land, and by all accounts they have succeeded wonderfully. I get the impression that a lot of people with their fingers on the pulse are either raving about these wines or trying to keep them secret.
This is an amber/orange wine. Macabeo, planted in 1935, saw fourteen days on skins and nine months in total in amphora that are buried in the ground. The result is certainly a skin contact wine, but lightly textured, boasting only 11% abv and real freshness. Yes, there is texture, but it is soft texture, not harsh or rasping. It has peachy fruit that runs deep, with an overlay of orange peel, but that freshness I mentioned is the freshness of a lighter white wine. Maybe I can describe it as nimble. It’s really lovely, and elegant too. My other bottle is a white wine without skin contact. I doubt it will see out August, so watch this space.
I found this at Smith & Gertrude (Edinbugh – Stockbridge and Portobello) for £23.50. Modal Wines is the UK importer, from whom you can buy direct if you are not lucky enough to have a S&G close by.
I was glad to catch up with Ben for the first time in ages at the Real Wine Fair in London this spring. Now that Ben is working out of his own winery in the beautiful town of Rye on the Sussex coast, he is searching for top fruit. Here, I think, he has struck gold, wherever this Meunier was sourced (though I believe he brought his own wine with him from Tillingham).
This bottling is mostly Meunier, but with a dash of Pinot Noir, Ben told me. It saw whole bunches macerated for three weeks in concrete before transfer to stainless steel and oak. The fruit on this is enormous. The back label mentions cherries and pomegranate, and that’s certainly what you get, but the language is too pedestrian for such an explosion of fruit on both nose, and especially, on the palate. It paired magnificently with a fricassée of mushrooms in a cream sauce with a dash of wine to finish.
Ben sure knows how to make wine, and I do hope his new venture allows him the freedom to make the wines he wants. I know that competition for fruit sources is far greater now than when he had his vision for Tillingham, and the fact that there are now a lot more small operations looking for grapes is in good part down to him and a few other artisans who pushed the boundaries back and gained a reputation for their wines. Ben’s wines shown at Real Wine were going down well, his Rosé especially, but this “Pinot Meunier” is, in my humble opinion, even better.
Agent in the UK: Les Caves de Pyrene.
No 1 Saint-Cernin 2019, Maison Wessman (Bergerac, France)
Usually, I pay for what I drink, but I should declare here (as I always will) that everyone who attended the Maison Wessman tasting and lunch at the beginning of July this year went home with a goodie bag containing a couple of bottles. I’m hoping you will forgive me a very rare perk and trust that I’m being honest about the wine. I should mention though, as I did in my article about the tasting (published on 4 July 2024), that Bergerac was randomly the first wine region I ever visited, so I will not deny the dose of warm nostalgia that the event brought with it.
Maison Wessman is the umbrella name for several estates in Bergerac and Limoux. These include the vineyards of Château de Saint-Cernin, the French home of Robert Wessman, situated on some fine and fairly unique limestone terroir near Issigeac, south of Bergerac and the Dordogne, for which there are moves to get a specific appellation. The vines are farmed with “a commitment to eco-responsible and sustainable viticulture”. Although I always find it hard to interpret that kind of language, what I am certain of is that Wessman have a serious commitment to quality.
Here we have a blend of 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s a prestige selection, and comes in a far too heavy bottle, and packs 14.5% alcohol. But it has a smooth elegance, concentration and power. Those things don’t always come at the same time, as some Napa drinkers will know. We get cherries, blackcurrant, truffles, tobacco leaf and spice. Theres a little texture rather than harder tannins in a wine that has almost five years post-harvest age, and a bit of evolving complexity.
Now aside from the heavy bottle, this is both impressive and enjoyable. I found myself a little nostalgic for the Cabernet/Merlot blend, so perhaps the pendulum of taste is swinging back. What helped was that it was drunk as the evening began to cool alongside a barbecued steak, done just right by an American friend on the banks of the Tay. A great food match always elevates a wine, as the wine elevates the food.
I looked around for the price and availability of this wine. As such, Maison Wessman is looking for a UK importer, though Hedonism Wines did appear to show the 2018 (previous vintage) for £50. But French prices are more like 26€ for this 2019. Interested in importing these wines? Contact Westbury Communications.
L’Etoile is one of the least-seen appellations in the Jura Region, the village of the same name being close to Lons-le-Saunier and southwest of Château-Chalon. It is a marl-based terroir, but the name may derive from the star-shaped fossils found in the appellation’s limestone, which is mixed in with the marls in the best parts of the vignoble.
There are fewer “names” here. Château de L’Etoile used to appear from time to time, especially in Parisian wine shops. The best known today (a natural wine and a bit of a bargain) would be Domaine de Montbourgeau, in L’Etoile itself.
Jean-Luc Mouillard is based way to the north, in a village called Mantry, in the AOP Côtes du Jura, but the majority of his vines are in and around L’Etoile. This producer appeared on the list at the retailer named below after they paid a visit earlier this year. I asked Simon Smith which was the best from the selection they have, and he suggested this one, for which I am grateful.
The assemblage for this “Selection” is Chardonnay and Savagnin, the wine being aged two years sous voile. It’s another fairly big wine, boasting 14.5% alcohol, but the balance is very good, with the flor elements to the fore, coupled with good acids. The nascent complexity is illustrated by lemon citrus, hazelnut, lime, mango, paprika and ginger. It’s almost as if all that alcohol can carry all that flavour. The more it opened up, the better it got. The flor element is pretty evident, but it doesn’t dominate.
This producer isn’t all that well known, and Wink Lorch (Jura Wine, 2014) suggested that at least back one decade ago Jean-Luc was mostly selling to the passing public and a few restaurants. Perhaps he’s a little better known now? I’d certainly enjoy drinking this again, and his straight Chardonnay from vines at Mantry might be lighter and also sounds interesting. Wink says the reds are much improved too.
This was £30 on recommendation from Solent Cellar, via importer Dudley-Jones Fine Wine.
Riesling Sur Schists Cuvée Nature « Rabari » 2021, André, Anna and Yann Durrmann (Alsace, France)
My soft spot for the wines now made by Yann Durrmann at Andlau stems from my discovery of the domaine, almost by accident, on the first evening when staying in the town back in 2017, before these wines had a UK importer. I try to buy three or four bottles every vintage. André grew the domaine in the 1980s and established its credentials for “natural wine”, sustainable viticulture, biodiversity and so much more. Son, Yann, has taken the domaine one step further, eliminating the last additive from the wines, sulphur, via the Cuvées Natures.
This is definitely a terroir-driven cuvée. The Riesling is taken from a single, very steep, parcel on schist. The grapes are gently pressed over ten-to-twelve hours and fermentation and ageing take place in stainless steel.
A salty, citrus, bouquet leads to a palate that hits you with its minerality. A faceful of schist! It also has electrically charged acidity. But I mean this as a positive, a call to acid hounds. Nothing of the battery acidity you’d find in this estate’s all-electric vehicles. The lack of sulphur is ameliorated by the addition of CO2, and so you get tiny bubbles (though it is emphatically not fizzy) which carry the minerality. It has almost the lightness of a Mosel (or more specifically Ruwer) Kabinett, but it is very dry. Maybe a bit like a Kabinett Trocken, but very sprightly.
It’s a wine that is genuinely thirst-quenching on a hot day, with 12% abv just right for the fruit. It was the right bottle to open on what, back then (mid-month) was the warmest day of July so far. I’m pleased that the Durrmann wines are getting a bit of recognition, thanks in large part to Yann’s efforts, and I’m pleased to see it up here in Scotland. I got this from Cork & Cask (Edinburgh) for around £28. Domaine Durrmann is imported by Wines Under the Bonnet.
The bumper June edition of my Recent Wines of 2024 runs to a third part this year. The final half-dozen wines here start with a Bugey (yawn, but you’ll thank me one day). Then we stay off-piste with Lagrein Rosé, a Moravian rendition of the well-known André grape, a rare sighting (too rare in this case) of both region and variety with a Luxembourg Moselle Elbling, a slightly more mainstream wine in a not so mainstream version (Amontillado), and finally something slightly more normal…a Jura Chardonnay. I can tell you, I loved every one of them (that’s why they’re here).
Bugey-Cerdon NV, Philippe Balivet (Bugey, France)
I swear to you, we are seeing a noticeable increase in the availability of Bugey wines in the UK. Well, I’m doing my bit. I’ve seen pink and red Mondeuse, and a couple of Chardonnays this year, and even a Poulsard, but Cerdon seems to be awakening a few wine geeks to its charms. Actually, this very old méthode ancestrale sparkling wine from the region on paper should have a lot of appeal, but of course production is too limited for it to become commercial.
Philippe Balivet’s children, Cécile and Vincent, now run this domaine at Mérignat, in the appellation’s northern sector. Up here, off the old main road to Geneva, long since relegated to almost a country lane by the Lyon-to-Geneva Autoroute, the wines make a nod towards Jura, whereas in the southern sector the wines most often resemble Savoie.
This cuvée is 100% Gamay, although you will find a few farmers who still grow and include some Poulsard in their Cerdon. Not here. The beauty of Bugey-Cerdon is that it is a grapey, fresh, Rosé with only around 7% alcohol, which can be drunk at any time of day or night. It’s like drinking strawberry-scented fruit juice. Lightly sparkling and frothy, the residual sugar is balanced by acidity. It doesn’t taste acidic but it does taste clean and pure alongside the sweetness, which the acids diminish on the palate.
I have now seen three different Cerdons in the UK in the past year, and all are good, although it should be noted that Philippe Balivet did more than almost anyone to promote Cerdon in France. I’ve bought this from Cork & Cask and Smith & Gertrude since I’ve been living in Scotland. Guess what, I still have more in my cellar (so let’s hope summer arrives soon, or at all). It costs around £24. The UK importer is Vine Trail.
As I know a number of readers travel to the Jura periodically, look out for this and other Balivet wines at Épicurea/Fromagerie Vagne in Poligny (and maybe in their Arbois store just off the Place de la Liberté). This is where I bought them regularly before they appeared in the UK.
If you’ve tried Lagrein without having been born in its region of production, then you are already in a small minority of grape hunters. If you have tried it, chances are it was in its most usual form, an autochthonous red grape variety of Italy’s mountainous Northeast, making a red wine of some density and a little weight. In the past, certainly when I first ventured there, it was only just beginning to be taken seriously, and as a red wine from a good producer it is well worth the proverbial detour to seek out. But here, we have a pink version.
The Cantina Terlano (Terlan in the local Austrian dialect) is the oldest co-operative wine cellar in Alto-Adige/Südtirol. They farm, among their members, a massive 150-hectares of vines. They are based right in the north of Alto-Adige, just before the Adige itself reaches the town of Bolzano, a little to the south, above which is the Brenner Pass and Austria, a little over an hour away by car.
In the past there were two versions of Lagrein Rosé made here, Lagrein Kretzer and Lagrein Dunkel. The latter was darker and maybe less fruity, but both could age, even if they were looked down upon by the old school wine writers. This excellent version is made with whole clusters undergoing a slow fermentation in stainless steel, followed by ageing on lees for seven months. As far as I can see, it is labelled as neither Kretzer nor Dunkel, just “Tradition”.
It certainly is a fruity wine. Red fruit sweetness on the bouquet (it’s a dry wine, but I’m sure you know what I mean), with soft red fruits on the palate. There’s freshness and a velvet texture, so that it refreshes the palate with fruitiness rather than acidity as such. It may not be a natural wine but with all its strawberry/raspberry/cherry concentration I’d defy anyone not to like it. Okay, it’s a Rosé for summer, yet it has the weight to go with quite flavoursome dishes and, as the weather has proved this year, sunshine is not essential to accompany it. For me, it just hit the spot that evening.
From Solent Cellar (£24), imported by Astrum Wines.
André 2017, Syfany Winery (Moravia, Czechia)
I have shown an interest in the André grape variety in these pages before, but most often I have encountered it in blends, not just in Moravia but also, notably, in Northern Burgenland as well. It is a late-ripening crossing between Blaufränkisch and Saint Laurent from the 1990s, developed in Moravia. People have said that it bears a closer resemblance to Zweigelt than either of its parents, and trying it as a single varietal wine, I can kind of see that.
Syfany is run by Jakub Zborovsky and his wife, Káya, who make natural wines together in Southeast Moravia, close to Vrbice. Not only do they make natural wines but they also try to source their wood locally, so this André is aged in Acacia. Acacia has become a popular alternative to oak in many parts of Moravia. It grows in the region and so it is very much part of tradition here.
This is a very easy-to-drink wine. The top note is cranberry on the nose, the palate starting with cherries but cranberry comes in on a slightly more bitter finish, along with a good lick of acidity. It has a lovely garnet colour and just a little tannic structure to hold it together. Just a little sulphur is added, but nothing else.
Two things worth noting. First, it tastes light and fresh yet it does pack a hidden 13% abv. This makes it more versatile than you might think. Secondly, you might have noticed the vintage, 2017. It may seem “easy-drinking” right now, but it has aged well.
Syfany were new last year (I think) to the Basket Press Wines range, and they make a number of quite exciting wines, especially as they are also one of the best value producers Basket Press imports from the region. This was just £20. I enjoyed their Ryzlink Vlašký last year (see Recent Wines September 2023 (Part 1) published 2 October 2023). I have a petnat to try as well, perhaps if the sunshine returns.
This is a new natural wine producer based on the Moselle in Luxembourg. Kaja Kohv is originally from Estonia, but her winemaking journey began in Beechworth, Australia, working at one of the greats of Victorian wine, Giaconda. Her Luxembourg experience began with Abi Duhr, who has long been at the forefront of quality Luxembourg wine from his base at Gravenmacher.
It is at Gravenmacher that Kaja farms a small holding of vines which are over forty years old, directly over the river from her friend, Jonas Dostert. In fact, I was going to buy some of Jonas’s Elbling but I was nudged to try Kaja’s and I’m glad I did.
Elbling has long been a variety hated by the wine writers on the basis that it was an over-cropped grape which, apparently before the 1970s was Germany’s most widely planted variety. It is still planted widely in Luxembourg with around 123 hectares. I just read that it is now so unloved it has slipped to Number 23 in the German Grape Charts. Still, I doubt I have seen a grape variety with quite so many synonyms!
The key to Roche Liquide is low cropping of old vines, the trick that miraculously manages to turn any once-derided ugly duckling grape variety into a tasty swan. To extract flavour this gets a whole bunch press then eight months on lees, half in acacia and half in stainless steel. But the key is in the vineyard, where these mature vines sit on clay over limestone (remember, Dostert unusually has vines on limestone just over the river), and undergo serious regenerative farming.
No one would argue this is a complex wine by any means, but it has a lovely soft, appley, bouquet and a nice apple freshness on the palate, matched with a flavour that reminded me of pineapple chunks. Just 990 bottles were produced.
So, I’m just putting in a word for the Elbling revival on this stretch of the Mosel/Moselle. 24€ from Feral Art et Vins in Bordeaux old town. No known UK importer, currently.
Amontillado “I Think”, Equipo Navazos (Montilla-Moriles, Spain)
The Sierra de Montilla and Montilla Altos both possess white chalky soils, but unlike the Jerez region, 200km to the southwest, here, way north of Malaga, in the Province of Cordoba, the grape of choice is Pedro-Ximenez (PX).
This is a rare wine, around 1,000 half-bottles only. The idea behind “I Think” came from Equipo Navazos’s UK importer, Alliance Wine. I’ve only seen the Manzanilla “I Think” before, but this Amontillado is a saca of June 2023, taken from a single cask at the bodega of Pérez Barquero in Montilla. The average age of the wines in the cask would be fifteen years. Although you will note the abv on the bottle to be 16.5%, the wine is unfortified and the alcohol is natural. Well, it is sunny here.
We start with very intense aromatics in a dark-coloured wine. Walnut and fresh lemon citrus combine with a very noticeable spice element. There’s also a hint of the broth you get from adding water to dried mushrooms, it’s uncannily the same. But it’s just a hint, not overpowering. It’s a unique wine in many ways, and dry, whereas PX is better known for its sweet wines. Very distinctive, very “gourmand”.
It retails for £22 at Solent Cellar, but despite its rarity it is available in a few other independent wine stores as well. £20 or more might not be cheap for a half-bottle but this is fantastic, and a very good way to sample the Equipo Navazos magic for less money than the “Botas” will cost you. As I mentioned above, Alliance Wine is the importer.
Chardonnay “Le Glanon” 2020, Fruitière Vinicole de Pupillin (Jura, France)
I’m all in favour of checking out the wines they sell in cheese shops, whether in France or the UK. You never know what you might find. This was a bit of a find on several levels. I won’t deny that what drew my eye to it on the shelf was its label. It turns out that this Chardonnay is from the Pupillin co-operative, Juravinum, thirty members farming 60 hectares of vines around the village. This is also a zero-intervention wine with no added sulphur. At least one co-op in the region has woken up and smelt the coffee.
The 25-year-old Chardonnay vines are grown at 250 masl on iridescent marls. The fruit is harvested by hand, destemmed and pressed after a few hours on skins into wooden vats. It ages for twelve months in foudres. There’s a fragrant bouquet of lifted white flowers and the palate has creamy pear with apple acidity. The acids on the finish show lemon and lime citrus.
It’s not a complex wine, not in the sense of some of the Chardonnays now coming out of the region. Yet this bottle was pure, satisfying, very tasty and for sure I would drink it again with pleasure. It’s nice to see a hundred-and-fifteen-year-old wine co-op doing something a bit innovative and different, taking note of what the wider region is making a success of, and indeed sticking a nice, eye-catching label on it (especially as I have a wild swimmer in the family).
I found this in IJ MellisCheesemongers (St Andrews Branch, also in Edinburgh and Glasgow) and it cost around £27. It is available at a few indies, and you can also try Sip Wines online.
David Crossley's Wide World of Wine 