David Crossley's Wide World of Wine

Czech Wines – Another Unashamed Plug

Posted on 26/10/2023 by dccrossley

If you ask any deeply interested wine lover where is hot right now you may get a variety of answers, but I would argue that the place with the buzz is Czechia (or the Czech Republic if you prefer). It may not be the deafening buzz of a swarm of bees coming over the garden fence, or the buzz you get in your ears the day after seeing Napalm Death at the Electric Ballroom, but it’s a buzz for sure. Southern Moravia, close to the borders of both Austria and Slovakia, can make some fairly forgettable wines, but if you delve down to the level of the small artisans there has long been a solid cohort of a couple of dozen producers who are beginning to make waves in overseas markets.

Most readers will have drunk, or at least heard of Milan Nestarec, who has been exporting to Europe and the USA for some years. Some will have also come across the wines of Krásná Hora from Dolni Poddvorov, who have been supplying the well-known chain of Ottolenghi restaurants in the UK with some of their house wines. Stapleton-Springer are also making fine Pinot Noir but as they are the only Moravian winery mentioned by Jancis et al in the World Atlas of Wine (8th edn) we can presume they don’t need my help.

I’m sure those who subscribe to Wideworldofwine will know that I am an evangelist for Moravian wine, and will have read many tasting notes and descriptions of them because hardly a month goes by without me drinking something Czech. As it is more than a year since I wrote more generally on Moravia, that being when I visited the region in August 2022, I thought perhaps I could safely bombard you to try some Czech wine if you haven’t already done so.

It isn’t easy to select which Czech artisans to profile in a short article, but if truth be known, the following three winemakers sort of chose themselves. They offer a blend of tradition and innovation, with perhaps a hint of mysticism thrown in for good measure. The wines are exciting, stimulating, interesting and much more, but the three individuals also happen to be great human beings. Thoughtful, kind and committed to a more sustainable way of farming.

They are also part of a great tradition which goes back centuries, one only interrupted by the very different priorities of the communist era. When we speak of the Austro-Hungarian Empire we omit one major part, and influence. If that is most often considered to be Prague, and the culture of Bohemia, let us not forget Moravia as the kingdom’s agricultural heartland.

Yes, when we say “sustainable” these three gentlemen are making what we would call natural wines. This is something of a surprise in a region which has previously been known somewhat for covering wine faults with any chemical going, a practice which goes back to the former communist era and one which you will see today at many of the larger producers in the region, one which boasts more than 16,500 hectares of vines.

It might be a shock to some to discover that a more restrained way of making wine always survived in Moravia, certainly among pockets of home winemaking where agro-chemicals were neither available to a small farmer, nor affordable. So, there are pockets of untreated vines with healthy soils and ecosystems ready to be exploited, though “exploited” of course is completely the wrong word to use here.

If there is a father of Moravian natural winemaking it is Jaroslav Osička. Jaroslav works three hectares of vines around Velké Bílovice, but he taught for thirty years at the local wine college. Here, he was forced to teach conventional viticulture but he was always the maverick and drew around him a group of students who are now following his personal philosophy, creating a balance between man and nature. Some have called him the Czech Pierre Overnoy, which is ironic because he will tell you that it is the wines of The Jura which have most inspired him. He himself has inspired a generation of young Czech natural winemakers, which is where any similarities to Overnoy lie.

Biological sprays, low yields, the guy even puts out salt licks for the deer population, which most local wine growers would rather shoot. He believes the grapes are to share. In the winery fermentations are spontaneous and additions to the wine are limited to a little sulphur, but only if required, at bottling. Some whites macerate in barrel with the addition of whole berries and lees ageing is frequently used, and wines often spend a long time on lees. Tradition and innovation combine here.

Wines to try:

Milerka – A blend of Müller-Thurgau and Neuburger, full of exotic fruit with a freshness which is a genuine characteristic of Osička’s wines.
Modry Portugal – This is in fact a varietal Blauer Portugieser, taken way more seriously than most instances. Dark, sappy, berry fruit gives richness and concentration, but despite an air of seriousness it is still eminently gluggable.
Moravian Rhapsody – The new name for Akacia, Moravia being the southern Czech counterpoint to Bohemia of course. Mostly Rhine Riesling with around 20% Pinot Gris and 5% Neuburger in 2021. As Jaroslav described it, “no chemistry, just artistry”. I would say just purity. Not only for Queen fans.

In some ways Richard Stávek bears some similarities to Jaroslav Osička. They both appear to be very much “old school”, though looks are deceptive. I’ve certainly called them both mavericks, but Richard is also very much a magician-philosopher. The magic comes from thinking deeply about his wines, and every part of their creation and presentation. He seems to understand his vineyards and wines on both a practical, and perhaps a metaphysical, level. He seems a shy man, one not to make a fuss, but a tasting with him is absorbing and inspirational, and you will come away with a far deeper appreciation of what he is doing.

Richard farms fifteen hectares around Němčičky. Nearly five hectares are under vine, the rest are for goats (for cheese), apricots, cherries, vegetables, and honey. He uses the beeswax to seal his bottles too. Grapes are foot-trodden as whole bunches, gravity moves everything, fermentation is in wooden vats…this is a holistic approach to creating wine, one which often seems like alchemy. Even his cellars are magical, down a hobbit-like tunnel buried into the hillside which I believe is part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Water at the house comes from its own well. You get the picture. That said, Richard does have a less tolerant attitude to the local deer population, hardly surprising as I am told they ate most of his Welschriesling this year.

Wines to try:

Ryzlink Vlašský – The local synonym for Welschriesling, a variety which has always lived in the dark shadow of its Rhine counterpart, but you will do well to find a more serious version. Some texture, some funk to be sure, but a soulful wine which evolves great presence in the glass.
Veselý – A multi-varietal field blend comprised of seven varieties. A slow press gives a wine with some colour and quite extraordinary aromatics, a moving picture of floral and savoury scents. It has been listed at Noma!
Odměry – Richard tends to favour co-planted and co-fermented field blends, but this is a varietal Pinot Blanc, planted on a hill which has been a vineyard since medieval times. A ten-day maceration and twelve months in old oak produces just 11.7% alcohol and is a remarkable savoury version of a much under-appreciated variety.

Richard also makes some of the finest brandy I know, but that’s another story.

Hobbiton in Moravia, where Richard makes his wine

If we want to look for a contrast with our first two artisans of Moravia, we couldn’t find a greater one than Petr Koráb. Petr works out of a beautiful cellar above the village of Boleradice. He farms vineyards covering four hectares, some owned, some rented, but all old vines of Moravian clones with low yields. Viticulture is biodynamic, and in the winery there is no pumping of the must, and only partial racking. This all requires absolutely healthy fruit, about which Petr is meticulous.

If this young winemaker has one frustrating trait for some, it is that he rarely makes the same wines every harvest. You discover a favourite and never see it again. This is because he’s a restless innovator, but it does lead to a level of excitement you won’t find in many other cellars. You just need to trust in him to be thrilled, and occasionally challenged of course. Buy hey, we are explorers, are we not?

So, wines to try? I would suggest keeping an eye on my blog, wideworldofwine.co for some ideas, but of the bottles I’ve drunk in the past year I’d recommend snapping up any of his petnats (you will either love or hate the labels depending on how conservative you are about these things). Lemonade (from Welschriesling) is a super-refreshing example and Quasi-Crémant is another sparkler that seems to be available at the moment. Solar Red was a new addition this year, a light “summer red” for all seasons made from a blend of Pinot Noir, Karmazin (a local name for Frankovka/Blaufränkisch) and Zweigelt, the latter variety of which Petr is a master. He also made one of the most refreshing wines I drank last year, Raspberry on Ice (Pinot Noir and St Laurent). It was pure alcoholic fruit juice.

Petr’s cellars at Boleradice

Moravian wines are starting to appear on shelves and on restaurant lists, where they currently represent amazing value. Few wines are truly expensive but they are becoming better known. They are definitely worth serious exploration. I cannot fathom why more shops don’t try them. They often have a similarity, like cousins, with the popular wines of Burgenland in Austria, and they are without doubt priced better than Swiss wines, which a few very good wine shops stock whilst ignoring Czechia (come on guys!)

If you are anywhere near Moravia in August, then the local moveable feast that is Autentikfest, the festival of the Autentiste natural wine movement and charter, would be well worth attending. A good selection of Moravian artisan producers will be there, plus guests and a few interlopers from Bohemia (Dorli Muhr from Austria’s Carnuntum was there in 2022). But hopefully these wines will be popping up all over Europe, the USA, and Japan in the near future.

Southern Moravia is a short drive from the region’s main city, Brno. Alternatively, you can fly to Vienna and drive up from there. As wine regions go, the rolling hills are attractive, even more so some of the old wine cellars which often tunnel underground, seeming from another age. Hospitality, of course, goes without saying.

UK readers can obtain Moravian wines from their main UK importer, Basket Press Wines. Occasionally, you may find a wine is sold out (they are wines from small artisan producers), but check out Prost Wines too. In the USA you will find a good selection of Czech wines at Jenny & François Selections.

Of course, Milan Nestarec, who I only didn’t mention because he has become easily the best known of the producers from Czechia and perhaps the producer you are most likely to have drunk, is brought into the UK by Newcomer Wines. Such is Milan’s fame now that you will find his wines in almost every country in Europe, along with North, Central and South America (including Canada, Mexico and Brazil), and further afield (including China, Japan and Russia, and more). An impressive achievement! It doesn’t seem too long ago (although in truth it is, time just passes swiftly as you get older) that Peter at Newcomer introduced me to my first taste of Czech wine, a couple of years before I’d met Jiri and Zainab from Basket Press.

I’ve mentioned three producers here, and I’d try any of their wines if you get a chance, not just my random selections. Equally, try any other Moravian wines. At one time or another I’ve sampled the majority in the Basket Press Wines portfolio and I can’t think of any that weren’t worth buying.

The New Viticulture by Dr Jamie Goode (Book Review)

Posted on 19/10/2023 by dccrossley

Back in June last year I reviewed a small book called Regenerative Viticulture by Dr Jamie Goode. It’s a fascinating work which, for those aware of one of winemaking’s buzz phrases, is pretty much self-explanatory in its title. In its introductory chapter the author plugs his future work, The New Viticulture. He says it will be “written in a style that’s accessible, but it will be a detailed, and quite lengthy book”. The former was the introduction, so to speak, to the current work which I think will prove to be profoundly important for any professionals working in wine, whether they make it or sell it, and to all serious students of the subject. It will also be of interest for all those like myself who are deeply emersed in a passion for not only wine, but the vineyards and cultures which create it.

This is a big work in several senses (160,000 words, I believe), and I can see why the author’s original stated aim, publication in late 2022, was a little ambitious. It finally saw publication in September this year (2023). I make no apology for only reviewing it now. In its four-hundred-plus pages there is a great deal of information, and a great deal of that information is science more easily understood by someone with greater knowledge of plant biology than I have (although Jamie has a PhD in plant biology, he told the truth about the “accessible style”, so don’t be put off by the science).

A detailed chapter-by-chapter analysis would be a very long exercise. What I plan to do is to identify some of the themes herein, some of which will be of great interest to the lay reader. I’ll also try to draw some of my own conclusions.

If you want to hear or read Jamie’s own words on what’s in the book you can easily see what he says on his web site, wineanorak.com . I hope I can add another perspective, especially as I am neither a scientist, nor someone involved in growing grapes, nor the making or selling of wine. I will also tell you why the majority of people who read Wideworldofwine fairly regularly will find The New Viticulture extremely worthwhile.

Viticulture has gone through some tough times since Neolithic cultures domesticated the vine, none more difficult than during the second half of the nineteenth century, when phylloxera and other vine pests and diseases almost wiped out the world’s vinifera vines. Today it is arguable that we are in an equally precarious period, caused primarily by Climate Chaos, but also the presence of a number of re-emergent vine pests and diseases, and by issues surrounding the use of synthetic treatments in the vineyard. These issues come on top of the economic woes facing vine growers and winemakers in general in a poor world economic climate.

The problems encountered in the latter half of the last century, which have only grown in their effect in the current one, have led to a new outlook from many wine producers, and an all-encompassing term of sustainability, or sustainable viticulture, is being used to point a way forward. This is not merely a term for people who want to save the planet. It is also a term equally as valid for those who wish to save their livelihoods. Self-preservation on a micro, as well as macro, level. It is perhaps within this context that we embark upon The New Viticulture.

Jamie gives us twenty-two chapters (apparently two further chapters had to be omitted “for space reasons”), beginning with his Introduction and finishing on page 439 with his Concluding Remarks. We begin by learning about this woodland tree climbing plant which was domesticated for its fruit and, quite possibly, fairly quickly after that, for its ability to make an alcoholic beverage both palatable and intoxicating.

After introducing the importance of climate to viticulture Jamie begins to go into detail about the nature of the vine and its interaction with the terroir in which it grows. One of the most topical parts of a vine’s environment is what the author describes as “the hidden half of nature”. As he states at the start of Chapter 4, “What is the biggest change in viticulture in the last decade? For me [and for me too, Jamie], the answer is clear. It’s the realization that soils matter”.

As he later quotes James Milton, not for the first time, “We’re not standing on dirt, but the rooftop of another kingdom”. The kingdom known as the rhizosphere must now be familiar to many for whom it meant little a couple of years ago, as we have come to understand more about what happens below ground and why this is of paramount importance to our ability to go on growing stuff.

The next few chapters cover rootstocks and grafting, ripening, yields, training and pruning and vine immunity. There’s a lot of science packed in here, and you’ll really develop a better understanding of things that you won’t even learn taking a degree in viticulture. But it’s not all pure science. For example, pruning and training is a fascinating subject within the context of climate chaos, something I’ve touched on myself in one of my most popular articles (Pergola Taught, 16/02/21).

Another super-topical chapter (11) is that on breeding new varieties (and rescuing old ones). If you want a re-evaluation of the once-derided hybrid varieties, this is a discussion encompassing all you need to know in summary, but the author goes on to discuss in greater detail still the new varieties most commonly known to us as PIWIs (easier on the English-speaking tongue, at least until we get used to it, than the long form Pilzwilderstandsfähige). These are the new grape varieties bred for fungal resistance promoted by PIWI International (there are other organisations carrying out similar work such as ResDur in France).

Much of this work has been carried out by Valentin Blattner in Switzerland, which is where I first came across PIWIs, but you can already find a few on the shelves, such as Nu.vo.té from the Languedoc, made from Araban, and Metissage (both red and white), made by the Ducourt family in Bordeaux.

So, as well as seeing more hybrid varieties re-emerging in the wines we drink (especially in England with grapes like Regent, Rondo, Solaris and Seyval Blanc, and in Northeastern USA with Catawba and Concord, to name two), along with a few of Japan’s interesting Koshu wines being imported by adventurous wine merchants, new resistant PIWI grapes like Cabernet Blanc, Sauvignac and the Frontenacs are appearing too.

But I mustn’t get bogged down in this particular little obsession of mine when there are other exciting areas to explore. Not least epigenics, which, raising my hands, I knew nothing of before last week. It is an area of molecular biology which studies how plants can change how they grow in response to a changing environment. It’s a short chapter, but enlightening nevertheless.

One further key threat to vineyards the world over is trunk disease, especially but not exclusively Esca, though that has perhaps become the most topical. One of the most interesting parts of the whole book concerns the role of pruning in escalating trunk diseases, and we get to read (p291) the incredible story of the work of Marco Simonit (Jamie’s sub-title for this section is “making pruning sexy” and he’s not far wrong).

It’s a lovely self-contained tale of how someone with an ordinary (sic) background developed a passion which enabled him to see the wood from the trees and develop a whole new understanding of the vine’s structure and topography. Simonit is now one of wine’s most highly respected and consulted experts on pruning and vine health.

There’s also a section in this chapter on trunk surgery which is equally interesting, and I noticed an article on Wineanorak.com called ”Curetage: vine surgery for Esca in action, with François Dal”, which Jamie published a few days ago. Definitely worth a look for my most ardent readers.

Even more pertinent, perhaps, if you want to read a properly balanced discussion of the herbicide Glyphosate (aka Roundup), you will find one at p305 in the chapter on weed control and regenerative viticulture, where we move from the chemical products habitually used in greater and greater quantity over the past century in viticulture to other approaches from organics, biodynamics right up to permaculture. Jamie mentions the work of Masanobu Fukuoka, whose The One Straw Revolution (on “do nothing” agriculture) I reviewed myself (18/08/21). It’s a book which is both soulful and illuminating, and definitely Fukuoka was an inspiring, intuitive, individual.

If you think regenerative farming is something for the hippies, think again. I was aware, even though the time I would have been able to afford to drink their wines has long passed, that Château Lafite is seriously exploring regenerative farming, and there’s another interesting snippet in the book, Jamie talking to Manuela Brando who leads research at Lafite and the rest of the Baron de Rothschild properties. Even if Lafite is now well off my personal radar (I’m more of a “Le Puy” kinda guy these days), I cannot help but be very interested in what one of the wine world’s great icons is thinking about their future, and in Bordeaux no less, last bastion of chemical application in a damp climate..

A selection of the photos and diagrams which illustrate the text of the full edition

I’ll begin to wind up now, but I have really only scratched the surface of this quite remarkable book. Not least have I failed to mention the thirty-plus pages of case studies which prop up the end of The New Viticulture. In some ways it’s like a textbook, but in others it’s like a travelogue through viticulture over time, a story of trials and tribulations, then successes, but with fear for the future very much present. Within its pages you will meet some of viticulture’s potential saviours, scientists who have devoted a life to the vine and for whose work we should be extremely thankful. However, you will be equally aware of the risks of complacency.

Aside from the very real threats to wine as we know it from the corporate greed of “big wine”, which would very much like to transform wine as we know it over the next decade, and not in a good way, artisan producers of fine wine, interesting wine, and diverse wine, face very real threats from climate, pests and disease.

This book both attempts and succeeds, to analyse those threats and, through explaining the science of viticulture, points to a way forward. This is ultimately why “wine lovers” in the real sense will be impassioned by this book as well as gaining a great deal of scientific knowledge. I will not pretend that I have absorbed it on a single read, but that is as expected. I will go back and read individual chapters, trying to take on board their contents more fully. I hope, as a result, that even though I feel I know quite a lot about wine, my knowledge will be greatly deepened.

Any criticisms? Well, one-and-a-half. The half is typos. The New Viticulture is not littered with them, and almost all are simple omissions, a final square bracket here, a failure to use a plural form there, or a misspelling of a name which is elsewhere spelt correctly. There are just a few more typos than you’d get in a book published by a traditional publisher, because this work is printed and published by Amazon, presumably (forgive me if I’m wrong) in a “print on demand” basis. However, any typos are easily identifiable and don’t obscure the meaning of any sentence.

Another result of the publication choice is that the cover, both front and back, curls up. Either the card is a little too thin or it’s an issue with the binding. Again, it’s no big deal. For me both of those issues are acceptable if it means that the author actually makes some money from the book by having kept production costs down and hopefully getting a better return than with a book deal (I’ve no idea how the Amazon thing works). Think of the hours Goode must have put into creating this. I can see why he thinks it’s his best work. I do believe it stands as an essential contribution to our contemporary understanding of modern viticulture.

The New Viticulture is available from Amazon in all regions. It comes in two print options. The full edition, which includes photos, charts and diagrams, costs £34. A “student” edition is available for £18. The latter has the same text, albeit reformatted, without the graphics and photos. Personally, I’m pleased to have the illustrated version. The photos, or at least those which are not of relevant individuals, are very helpful in illustrating the text, whether that be of vine diseases, viruses, vine training, soil structures and so on. The drawn diagrams are no less instructive. However, I can see why some would want to save money, and this book will indeed be very helpful to students from Sommeliers to WSET to MW, where I would hope it might be essential reading. So that’s a “Buy”! Definitely.

Dr Goode, somewhere nice as usual

Posted in biodynamic wine, Fine Wine, Grape Varieties, Natural Wine, Vine Training, Viticulture, Wine, Wine and Health, Wine Books, Wine Science, Wine Writing | Tagged Accessible Wine Science, Biodynamic Viticulture, Book on Modern Viticulture, Dr Jamie Goode, Epigenics, Esca Trunk Disease, François Dal and Vine Surgery, Glyphosate and other Vine Treatments, Hybrid Vines, Jamie Goode Regenerative Viticulture, Manuela Brando, Marco Simonit and Pruning, Modern Viticulture, Organic Viticulture, PIWIs and ResDur, Research at Château Lafite, Soil and Viticulture, Sustainable Viticulture, The New Viticulture by Jamie Goode (Review), Threats to Viticulture, Valentin Blattner, Vine Health, Vine Pests and Diseases, Vine Surgery and Curetage, Vine Treatments, Vine Trunk Disease, Vineyard Rhizosphere, Vineyards, Wine Books, Wine Science Book, Wine writing | 7 Comments

Recent Wines September 2023 (Part 2) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 11/10/2023 by dccrossley

To conclude September’s home consumption, we have five more delicious wines, all from Europe once more, I’m afraid, but I think they will still interest even those who read this blog regularly. They come from Bugey, Beaujolais, Sussex, Lanzarote, and Alsace.

Bugey Rosé Cépage Mondeuse 2021, Domaine D’Ici Là (Bugey, France)

When Wink Lorch published her Wines of the French Alps in 2019 Florie Brunet and Adrien Bariol had been in Bugey less than twelve months. Wink tells how this young couple managed to impress Patrick Charlin, a vigneron it must be said of some renown, to lease them his vines when he retired. To Patrick’s 1.3 hectares they have grown their holding to around 5ha, much at Groslée-St-Benoît, near Montagnieu in the region’s southern sector.

Whereas we see some “Jura” influence creeping into the style of wines from the north of Bugey (although Poulsard seems sadly to be heading towards extinction there), the very distinct southern sector is more influenced by Savoie, hence Mondeuse in the mix. Groslée is right on the border between the French Department of Ain (in which Bugey resides) and Isère, but it is also close to Savoie. The border between all three is formed largely by the Rhône as it undertakes an impressive change in direction (not for the first time in its course), from its southerly flow out of Lac Léman to a more northeasterly direction, towards its intersection with the Saône, at Lyon.

Adrien and Florie grow their Mondeuse on a steep slope near Groslée, the soils being chalky even in this Alpine setting. They are working organically and moving as quickly as they can towards a fully “natural wine” regime. They mostly vinify their Mondeuse as red wine, but I think this Rosé is a great addition to their portfolio.

The bouquet and palate are both dominated by red fruits, and cranberry comes through strongest. There’s a bit of texture too. After a few moments a softer element appears, raspberry. It’s a pale wine and lovely light scents rise from the glass giving a delicate bouquet. The palate has more presence than you might expect, although this cuvée has just 10% abv.

I purchased this from the bottle shop at Spry Wines in Edinburgh (a strong recommendation for lunch or dinner in Central Edinburgh) for just under £30. The importer is Modal Wines.

Beaujolais-Villages « Nature » 2021, Du Grappin (Beaujolais, France)

Andrew and Emma Nielsen may be more famous for their Côte de Beaune wines under their “Le Grappin” label, but they began making exemplary Beaujolais soon after they started out in Burgundy and they’ve not looked back. Always a success, whatever the vintage, their “Villages” should never be left on the shelf if you like the classic, fruity, expression of Gamay, perhaps here with a twist.

This cuvée comes from a vineyard called “Les Raisses” at Lancié. It’s a shallow slope of decomposed granite and schist right on the border with Fleurie. The vines happen to be fifty years old, trained as you’d expect in the traditional gobelet (bush vine) style.

There were no synthetic treatments used on the grapes and nothing added during vinification. They use carbon dioxide as a preservative to replace sulphur here and you will find some dissolved in the wine on opening. Andrew recommends a shake to dissipate it, but I don’t mind a faint CO2 prickle for the initial sips. Fermentation is as whole bunches in concrete, and ageing was for just six months in a large oak vat.

The result is, for me, as close to perfection as you can get for a rendition of “Villages”. The cherry-rich Gamay fruit is smooth, velvety, and seductive. The wine has a certain concentration but it is still light on its feet. There’s more than mere freshness, there’s real vivacity. Not complex, not serious, definitely glouglou, yet not very funky. It is lighter than some of those modern “villages” wines which try too much to emulate the crus.

Purchased at Smith & Gertrude, Portobello (£19), but reasonably widely available, and perhaps most easily purchased from legrappin.com (the web shop is currently closed during harvest but will reopen late October/early November).

Cuvée Sir Andrew Davis 2016, Breaky Bottom (Sussex, England)

Peter Hall was in at the start of the 1970s wave of British viticulture, but he saw the potential for English Sparkling Wine early on, and switched from still wine to bubbles. He’s never looked back. To be fair, Peter has experienced more than his fair share of trials and tribulations along the way, but we are lucky he has been able to keep going. English wine has no one more deserving of a Knighthood, except I can imagine what he might say to me for suggesting it.

Every year Peter makes two sparkling cuvées, so far always white wines and always named after a family friend. One will contain Seyval Blanc, either tout-court or in a blend. The second, of which this is an example, will be based on some combination of Chardonnay and the Pinots (Noir and Meunier). All these varieties seem to do well on the chalk soils in this exceptionally beautiful fold in the South Downs not far from Lewes.

The key to the success of this cuvée, as always at Breaky Bottom, is long lees ageing. There’s fresh apple and citrus here but the acidity, albeit bright, is mellowed just enough by time on lees. This 2016 has only been released a year or so. Although it’s a much-overused description, this truly is thrilling, and it is drinking magnificently well. 3,031 bottles were made. I shall cherish the memory of this bottle all the more because we drank it to toast my father’s 91^st Birthday.

Sir Andrew Davis was, of course, Music Director at Glyndebourne Opera between 1988 and 2000. They became neighbours first and then close friends, Sir Andrew cultivating a love of the Breaky Bottom wines to match Peter Hall’s love of music.

You can find Breaky Bottom from the 2010 vintage if you care to splash out more, but the beauty of this wine is that I doubt you will find anything that comes close, in terms of both quality and sheer excitement, to this 2016 for the £35.50 I paid at Butlers Wine Cellar (still in stock). Corney & Barrow also sell Breaky Bottom. Without disrespect to some very fine English and Welsh winemakers, I personally think only Dermot Sugrue matches Peter Hall (although some others come close). Dermot’s wines are somewhat more expensive than Peter’s.

Titerok-Akaet Valle de Malpaso 2020, Juan Daniel Ramierez (Lanzarote, Canary Is, Spain)

I’ve been seeking out Lanzarote wine for well over a year and despite my knowing some of the producers from other islands in the Canaries quite well, this is my first taste of one from there. Titerok-Akaet means the red fiery mountain, and it is the grey volcanic ash soils from this volcano at the south of the island that line the Malpaso Valley.

Juan Daniel and his partner, Marta Labanda, have created a small estate out of two plots of vines rented from their family in the north of the island, where the vines grow within hollows of this volcanic ash, protected from harsh Atlantic winds by low dry-stone walls.

This is a blend of Malvasía, Listàn Blanco and Diego. The bouquet is of lifted white flowers, delicate jasmine I’d say. The wine has more weight than you might expect, unless you’d spotted the 13.5% abv. It has a lovely plump mouthfeel, but overall, it is dominated my quite intense minerality/salinity, for which the plumpness is a nice foil. It’s effectively a classic “volcanic wine”, but in this case it is also exceptional. It’s as good as the best from Tenerife, and loving the wines from that island’s star producers as I do, that is saying something.

This wasn’t cheap, £43 from Shrine to the Vine (the importer is Keeling Andrew & Co). However, there were just 641 bottles made so good luck. The Shrine did have this plus a varietal Listàn Blanco on the shelf and if you are lucky, they may have remained overlooked. Worth a detour, as they say.

Rouge de Pinot Noir Cuvée Nature 2021, Anna, André and Yann Durrmann (Alsace, France)

I have a fondness for the Durrmann wines going back to my almost accidental first visit to this previously unknown (in the UK, at least) Andlau domaine in autumn 2017, and the time André put into showing us around the vineyards and giving us a thorough tasting. In the intervening six years André and Anna’s son, Yann has fully taken over, and is building on the work André has done, especially in ecology, and has driven production even more swiftly towards natural wine. The Durrmanns can now also boast a UK importer, and one who supplies one of my two favourite Edinburgh wine shop. So that’s a win.

This Pinot comes off a mix of schist and sandstone. It doesn’t try to ape Burgundy, but instead you get a fruit-dominated wine which is pretty much summer in a glass. It spent four weeks on skins in stainless steel and was bottled unfined, unfiltered and with no added sulphur. The “Nature” wines are Yann’s purest expressions of natural winemaking.

It’s another glouglou glass of ripe fruit coming in at a gluggable 11.5% abv. It’s light and joyful, although the cherry, blackberry and plum finish is pushed into something a bit more interesting by a lick of black pepper spiciness. Whilst some Durrmann wines will age happily, this is built to thrill with its packed fruit, or at least that’s my interpretation. I happened to pick up some more Durrmanns, including the 2022 vintage of this wine just last week, and as they are just in the shops it’s worth having a look for them.

From Cork & Cask Edinburgh, imported by Wines Under the Bonnet.

Posted in Artisan Wines, Natural Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies | Tagged Adrien Bariol Vigneron, Alsace Natural Wine, Alsace Pinot Noir, Alsace Wine, Andlau Wine, Andrew and Emma Nielsen, Breaky Bottom Cuvée Sir Andrew Davis 2016, Bugey, Bugey Mondeuse Rosé, Canary Islands, Canary Islands Wine, Domaine D'Ici La, Du Grappin Beaujolais-Villages Nature, Durrmann Rouge de Pinot Noir Nature 2021, English Sparkling Wine, Florie Brunet Vigneronne, Lanzarote Wine, Les Raisses Vineyard Lancié, Listan Blanco blend, Patrick Charlin, Peter Hall Breaky Bottom, Southern Bugey, Titerok-Akaet Lanzarote, Val de Malpaso Lanzarote | Leave a comment

The Hearach

Posted on 08/10/2023 by dccrossley

Hearach: noun. A native of Harris, [Scottish Gaelic].

The Hearach is the long-awaited single malt whisky from the Isle of Harris Distillery. It’s not the only new distillery to be releasing its first whisky around now. We seem to be in the midst of a boom once more for Scotch Whisky, at least for the single malts. But Harris has a particular story to tell, which it does very well. So well indeed that this first batch of the distillery’s debut release has become highly sought after and not easy to get hold of. As one lover of Harris called it, “the Miroirs of Scotch Whisky”, referring to that famous Jura unicorn domaine run by Kenjiro and Mayumi Kagami.

Harris is an island in the Outer Hebrides off Scotland’s West Coast. Although Harris and Lewis are spoken of as two separate islands, they are in fact joined by a strip of land, and it is here, where the smaller Harris is linked to the much larger Lewis to its north, that one finds the town of Tarbert and the Isle of Harris Distillery. It’s also the place where you will arrive if you take the ferry from Uig, on the Isle of Skye (for those who prefer not to take the flight to Stornaway, the largest town on Lewis).

Harris had never had a whisky distillery until production here began in 2015, at least not a legal one (Pabbay, the small island to the southwest of Harris, could supposedly once boast several hidden stills). You might already have tasted the fruits of distilling here because, as indeed many new distilleries do nowadays, the first product released was gin. And this gin has become one of the most highly regarded artisan gins in the UK, possibly to the surprise and delight of the folks here who made it. With a focus on local botanicals, in particular the sugar kelp found off the coast here, it has a singular flavour. I know at least two gin lovers way down in England who have told me it’s their favourite gin.

The whisky is, first of all, a product of the land and special circumstances show this to be a spirit of terroir (perhaps in both senses of spirit). The ground here is Lewisian gneiss from between 2.4 and 2.6 billion years ago. This is a blend of igneous and sedimentary deposits made hard by heat and pressure. They tell us these are the oldest rocks on earth. They certainly give the water source for The Hearach, the Abhainn Cnoc a’Charrain (“Red River”, perhaps because of the peaty topsoil), extremely low mineral content, making this (it is claimed) the softest water of any Scottish distillery. Malt comes from Scottish Barley (not always a given even with single malts) and is peated to 15ppm phenols with local hand-cut peat from the south of the island.

Harris may be familiar to you from the holiday snaps on social media of Les Caves’s Doug Wregg. Well, the beaches up here really are miles of white sand, giving them an air of the Caribbean. The Gulf Stream makes these seas almost equatorial, but you also get the rain associated with Scotland’s West Coast. As a result, summer and winter temperatures vary only slightly. Summers don’t reach the heights, but winter is far milder than you might suppose. This is actually very positive for whisky making and maturation, which here takes place in the coastal village of Ardhasaig. The salty sea spray is said to exert an influence something akin to that at Sanlúcar near Jerez.

Maturation is, of course, carried out in casks. Here, for the first release, they have used a mix of first-fill ex-Bourbon casks and oak barrels selected from Jerez, that contained Oloroso and Fino. I believe the suppliers are Buffalo Trace, Heaven Hill and Woodford Reserve in Kentucky, and Bodega José y Miguel Martin in Spain. Maturation is currently five years plus and this release has been put out at 46% abv.

What does it taste like? Well, I picked this up yesterday and had a very small sip last night (as I was driving). So, today (Wednesday) I’m sitting here in the middle of the afternoon with a glass in front of me, for research purposes, of course.

It’s a pale spirit, reminding me of a Chablis with its pale yellow-gold and green accents in the light. The nose has a smokiness to it, and a little peat, but not too much. The bouquet is lifted with a floral freshness and delicacy, although this is in part a product of youth. The palate has apple, which is starting to come through on the nose too. For a fleeting moment it reminds me of Calvados, but then the peat works its smoky way back into my nasal passages and the thought is gone. There’s certainly spice in there, ginger. The alcohol makes its youthful presence felt. It doesn’t have the smoothness of an older whisky, but there is a touch of sweet honey, for sure. I saw someone describe the finish as “bright”, and I’m getting a combo of freshness and spirit.

I’d categorise this as a characterful whisky. I think it’s one for people like me who cherish soul and individual personality over the easy drinking whiskies. There are those who don’t like their coffee too acidic, their wine too tannic or their food too spicy. This may not be a whisky for them. It’s a whisky I find complex and thought-provoking, and for a young first release that can’t be bad.

Now that I have been able to drink a couple of glasses in more relaxed circumstances (four days after my first draft of this article), I am beginning to get to know it better. It’s a complex spirit and really very impressive. I’ve talked to a few more people who have tried it, both where I live, and randomly in Melrose, in the Borders, yesterday. It feels like being part of a little club of mutual excitement, and that takes me back to the Jura wine domaine I mentioned earlier, when admiring whispers were circulating among friends.

I must say a few things about the distillery itself and the whole “marketing” angle of The Hearach. The Isle of Harris Distillery has styled itself as a “social distillery”, meaning that there is a strong focus on the island and its people. Some have been a little negative about that angle on the basis that it has received many millions of pounds in grants, close to £2 million coming directly from the Scottish Government. The argument goes that this is a lot of money to employ twenty people. The distillery itself, and the visitor centre, are smartly designed, as is the whole package. You could never escape the pleasure people got from the very well-designed gin bottles, which no one ever throws in the recycling. The whisky bottle is no less attractive. Its box, if indeed you can call it a box, more a cardboard frame, is frankly dangerous (be extremely careful), but you get a nice booklet and even a cardboard coaster.

What those who have been critical haven’t taken into account is that the distillery is already attracting 68,000 visitors a year to the visitor centre and that’s a lot of people spending money generally on the two connected islands, where employment opportunities have been among the worst in Scotland, despite the fame of “Harris” Tweed. Many of those who stay on the island rent some very smart accommodation, and their holiday rent doesn’t always stay on Harris and Lewis, but the money they spend whilst there certainly does.

The distillery does not want for marketing expertise. You will see plenty of that repeated in this article, but to be fair they do have a good story. That story can’t fail to add lustre to the already growing lure of the two islands, which have long sat in the tourism shadow of bigger draws, like Skye, Mull and perhaps Islay, the latter certainly for whisky afficionados. I see no reason to be negative about a well-funded operation which is both attractive to visit and good at getting its message out there if what it makes is good.

I can now say that with both the gin and the whisky, the product certainly is good. In fact, exemplary. As time goes by, and the distillery is able to widen its portfolio, via a more heavily peated version (I understand), and doubtless an offering of different finishes and greater age, in the way that (for example) the Isle of Arran has, I’m pretty sure the future, and fame, of the Isle of Harris Distillery is assured.

The Hearach is relatively widely available, at least up here in Scotland. The only problem is that it is spread quite thinly and most retailers are limiting purchases to one per household. Mine came from Cork & Cask in Edinburgh, who having supported the Harris Gin from the start got a reasonable allocation. It cost £65. Harris Gin is £45.

Posted in Craft Spirits, Premium Spirits, Spirits, Whisky | Tagged Isle of Harris Distillery, Isle of Harris Gin, Isle of Harris Whisky, New Scotch Whisky Release, Scotch Whisky, Single Malt Whisky, The Hearach, Whisky | Leave a comment

Recent Wines September 2023 (Part 1) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 02/10/2023 by dccrossley

After the big batch of wines we drank here during August, September’s selection is somewhat smaller, but I hope the ten wines I have chosen are as interesting as ever. Part One is made up of five wines, the first two of which are from Czechia (or the Czech Republic, if you prefer). We then travel to Switzerland’s Chablais, Alsace and, finally, Baden.

Solar Red 2022, Petr Koráb (Moravia, Czechia)

Petr is someone who makes a regular appearance here, and those of you who have tried to buy this wonderful young Boleradice producer’s wines will have come up against one slight problem. He often creates cuvées as one-offs, so like some of the wines I’ve praised before, the likelihood of this wine being repeated next year is slim. However, in this case, at the time of writing his UK importer does actually have some stock left. If, like me, this wine appeals to you, don’t be put off buying it because winter is coming. For me, it’s one I’m glad I didn’t miss.

Petr wanted to make a pale red wine for summer and he’s succeeded many times over. The blend is three varieties, Pinot Noir, Karmazin (a local synonym for Frankovka/Blaufränkisch) and Zweigelt, whole bunches, a spontaneous natural fermentation, and no additives (including no sulphur). This is a bright and clean wine with a little sediment but no cloudiness.

It smells of ripe summer fruits, but more like an ice cream than just the pure fruit, and it tastes like a strawberry and cherry-flavoured white wine because of its summery acids and just a hint of mineral grip. The finish has an equally tiny hint of earthiness, but its basically fruit all the way. This was delicious on a hot day, chilled of course, but it might easily brighten up the dark evenings when the clocks go back (or the promised October heat wave arrives). It will also provide a perfect accompaniment to spring, when it arrives, if you tuck it away. Especially at 11% abv.

£23 from Basket Press Wines.

Ryzlink Vlašský 2018, Syfany Winery (Moravia, Czechia)

This is my first wine from Syfany, newly arrived in the UK, and what a great introduction it was. Syfany is based in the Moravian village of Vrbice, with vines also at nearby Velké Bílovice. Winemaking in the family goes back five hundred years. The current incumbents are Jakub Zborovský and his wife, Kája, who both make the wine.

Viticulture is organic, moving towards more “natural wine” practices. As the largest producer on Basket Press Wines’ portfolio (there are 36-ha of vines on a larger agricultural farm of around 400-hectares), they may not be quite as boutique as some, but they are able to make reasonable quantities of wines which, at least for now, are remarkably good value. They also age many of their wines in acacia barrels made from local forests.

The variety here is none other than Welschriesling, its Czech name not too dissimilar to the Laski Riesling once imported from the former Yugoslavia and still to be found in at least one major UK supermarket today. That wine is often off-dry and not necessarily a wine to suit the palate of anyone reading this article. This Czech version shows what a bit of bottle age can achieve in a carefully made (and dry) wine. It shows the class you can find in some Austrian examples.

Waxed lemon, salinity, mineral and floral sum it up. There’s a nice bitter, herbal, touch which is a counterpoint to the wine’s creamy mouthfeel. Above this rides citrus acidity. Altogether the balance is very good. The bonus is that it’s £18 (from Basket Press Wines). There’s a whole range from Syfany to choose from, some being sold out, but I wish I’d also bought “Just Red” after a few comments made to me, and both that and this Welschriesling are still available.

Aigle Les Murailles 2021, Henri Badoux (Chablais, Switzerland)

We are out of the territory of natural wine here, and looking at a wine of which I’m told around a million bottles are made each vintage. I don’t know if that is really true, but it is also asserted that the “green lizard” is the most recognised wine label within Switzerland. There’s a red version (and apparently a Rosé and a sparkling) these days, but for a long time, Badoux’s best-selling “Les Murailles” has been a pretty good benchmark Chasselas.

First, the name. Badoux have somehow managed to keep Aigle on the label. Aigle is a beautiful village with a famous castle which probably doesn’t make a million bottles of wine, but it does have a vineyard called “Les Murailles”, these being the stones which support its terraces, trapping and radiating the sun’s warmth and creating an environment warm enough for lizards to bask on. So it’s more a brand.

The appellation for this wine is Chablais, within which you will find the village of Aigle, but Chablais (nothing to do with Chablis) basically occupies that part of the Vaud Canton which follows the right bank of the Rhône as it flows northwest, from Martigny (in the Valais) up towards Lac Léman and the terraces of Lavaux.

It is equally true that the Badoux family no longer owns Henri Badoux SA, although I’m told they are still involved to some degree. The owner today is called Schenk, a large Swiss wine company.

All this perhaps seems framed a little negatively, except you all know by now that I don’t bother to write about wines I don’t like. You see, it’s a classic Vaud Chasselas in the best sense. I mean Dom Pérignon has a similarly large production and no one says that’s crap! Dry, herbal, and slightly floral on its bouquet, it shows stone fruits and a touch of minerality, with a carbon dioxide prickle just evident on the tongue.

It has weight too. The 13% abv here makes it seem very different to some of the thinner Chasselas you get sometimes from the gentle slopes of the Western Vaud, towards Geneva. A 2021 vintage, it is still quite youthful, but I think the freshness is a good thing, but do note that this wine is capable of ageing well. Alpine Wines may have, certainly did, some back vintages.

It’s just a shame that Swiss wine has to cost an arm and a leg, and this was £35 from The Solent Cellar. Their web site says they have the 2020, but I’m pretty sure my bottle was ’21. Alpine Wines is the importer, selling the 2021 for a little bit more. It’s still not too much to pay to try a benchmark Vaud Chasselas (those from the so-called crus of Lavaux can cost a lot more). At more than £43 the red version is a big ask which even I have only bought once, in the cause of research.

La Petite Lanterne [2020], Du Vin Aux Liens (Alsace, France)

This disgorged pétnat is another wine made under the Du Vin Aux Liens label, a collaboration between Vanessa Letort (ex-Binner/Les Pirouettes) and Domaine Albert Hertz in Eguisheim. The Hertz domaine covers 9.5-hectares of vines which are on a journey, under Albert’s son Frédéric, from a sympathetic form of biodynamic viticulture and winemaking towards natural wine. Since he effectively took over in 2013 the estate has gained Biodyvin Classification, having already achieved “AB” and Demeter under Albert. Frédéric is bringing his experience of biodynamics in New Zealand to this family domaine in one of Alsace’s prettiest villages.

La Petite Lanterne is a blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, Riesling and Muscat, co-fermented with one year on lees in stainless steel before a second fermentation in bottle. Unlike many pétnats, this was disgorged to remove almost all the sediment (there are a few yeast cells, partly down to the post-disgorgement ageing, maybe?). I believe that this is a “nothing added” wine, presumably meaning zero added sulphur.

The bouquet is distinctly floral but the palate shows fruit like peach and plum with a little spice. The sparkle is on the gentle side, and I believe this has always been so, not just because it has seen a bit of bottle age, which I must say has not done it any harm. Although I often find pétnats in the racks that I haven’t drunk from the previous vintage, nine times out of ten with no detrimental effect, I did buy this bottle this year. I think Made from Grapes in Glasgow still has some, £24.50.

Rouge 2019, Max Sein Wein (Baden, Germany)

I liked Max Baumann’s wines from the first bottle, but I’m getting to appreciate them even more as I get the opportunity to try them with a bit more bottle age. Max has around 3.5-ha in a decidedly unfashionable part (for some) of Baden, at Dertingen (off the A8 between Karlsruhe and Stuttgart. If Max has two things going for him, they are very well sited vineyards (mostly shell limestone with yellow/red sandstone) and the time he spent at Gut Oggau. The Gut Oggau philosophy is so “lived” there in Burgenland that it rubs off on everyone who works with them, in whatever capacity.

Max has far more Pinot Meunier planted than Pinot Noir, and he makes excellent wine from this supposedly second-string variety. This red is mostly Meunier with a little Pinot Noir. I last drank this vintage a little over a years ago, after release. It was fresh and smooth, very fruity on bouquet and palate. With an extra year it has evolved into something more autumnal, more ethereal. It’s delicate without being weak or thin. It has changed in the way Pinot Noir might, yet I think you might guess this is Meunier if you stop to think. Whatever it has done, it has done it perhaps sooner than a Pinot Noir might.

Of course, we know this is a natural wine and it does have a certain stripped bare quality, and what I guess people call “purity” (nothing covering up any part of it). Its subtlety suits the mood when the season changes. Basket Press Wines import into the UK but don’t currently seem to list the Rouge. I think the next vintage may be in soon. It was £29. Anyone in France, Feral Art et Vins in Bordeaux lists the 2020 for 24€.

Posted in Artisan Wines, Czech Wine, Natural Wine, Swiss Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies | Tagged Alsace Wine, Baden Wine, Chablais Wine, Chasselas, Czech Wine, Dertingen Wine, Domaine Albert Hertz Eguisheim, Du Vin Aux Liens La Petite Lanterne, Frédéric Hertz Winemaker, German Wine, Henri Badoux Aigle Les Murailles 2021, La Petite Lanterne Petnat Alsace, Max Baumann Winemaker, Max Sein Wein Rouge 2019, Moravian Wine, Petr Korab Solar Red 2022, Ryzlink Vlassky 2018 Syfany Winery, Swiss Wine, Vanessa Letort, Vaud Wine | 2 Comments

Recent Wines August 2023 (Part 3) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 18/09/2023 by dccrossley

August’s “Recent Wines” has been a long haul. A trip to Australia in springtime meant that whilst you were all away enjoying August holidays I was commuting between England and Scotland. Despite the thousands of miles I put on the clock, I still seemed to drink a lot of wine (perhaps the two are connected), and this is the third and final look at what got opened last month.

As in the first two parts, we have seven wines, all from diverse places, except there are two from Alsace here, and they all come from Europe this time. In addition to those two, we have appearances from Tenerife, Northern Greece, the English Midlands, Slovakia and Friuli. They are all unquestionably summer wines, and in fact it was only yesterday up here in Scotland that autumn seemed finally to have arrived. I appear to be worryingly low on less expensive reds.

Benje 2021, Envinate (Tenerife, Canary Is, Spain)

The Tenerife estate of Envinate makes such wonderful wines, but familiarity breeds familiarity and I hadn’t had one since before Covid. I spotted this on the shelf and picked it up a couple of months ago, one of the reasons I prefer browsing in a wine (or substitute record or book) shop rather than always buying online.

The Envinate story is now well known, four young wine graduates meeting whilst studying in Alicante forming a consultancy which now makes wine across Spain. One of them, Roberto Santana, was winemaker at the seminal Suertes del Marqués between 2008 and 2016, and arguably he did at least as much as anyone did to put Tenerife on the wine map. It is Roberto, and Suertes’ Jonatan García, from whom the success of Tenerife’s wines have flowed, joined thus far by streams from La Palma (Victoria Torres Pecis) and increasingly, Lanzarote, putting Spain’s Islas Canarias firmly on today’s viticultural map.

Benje comes from a part of Tenerife called Santiago de Teide, although the DO is designated Ycoden-Daute-Isora. It is a zone of high-altitude viticulture at 1,000 masl. Benje is the original name of Tenerife’s second highest peak, now called Pico Viejo, and the grapes are all Listán Blanco, or Palomino to almost anyone on mainland Spain. The most important thing to say is that the terroir here is volcanic and this gives a very different wine to what one might find from Jerez’s chalky albariza soils.

There’s a citrus mineral bouquet with the palate echoing it, but the nose also has a smoky thing going on. The palate is saline and textured (25% of the grapes see skin contact of between three-to-six weeks, and ageing in concrete adds to the texture). It is not the most complex of Envinate’s Tenerife wines, but it is supremely drinkable and remarkable value. It’s also a totally natural wine, both from the point of view of viticulture (the soils are also worked by hand up here) and winemaking (zero added sulphur).

Around £30, in my case from Cork & Cask, Edinburgh. Also try The Sourcing Table in London. The importer is Indigo Wine.

Skyphos Xinomavro 2019, IGP Macedonia, Artisan Vignerons of Naoussa (Macedonia, Greece)

There’s no question, I would drink far more Greek wine if it were more readily available to me. For this reason, it was great to find this in a wine bar/shop specialising in natural wine fairly close to where my daughter lives, and from a producer I didn’t know. Like the Benje above, this was the product of browsing. I’d actually gone in there for some Joiseph Burgenland and Du Grappin Beaujolais.

IGP is supposedly a lower rung of the ladder than the local appellation, so this wine isn’t labelled as “Naoussa”. I’m not sure why, but it is an easy-drinking wine that doesn’t need cellaring quite like the senior wine often does. It’s also made from what this forward-thinking collective calls “young vines”, which are between five-to-twenty years of age. Xinomavro is, of course, the signature variety in this part of Northern Greece.

The soils are made up of broken-down schist and granite sub-strata over a limestone base, with vineyards ranging between 200-600 masl. Farmed organically, the fruit was fermented in stainless steel (18 days on skins) before spending just four months in larger, 500-litre, oak. The result is a nice, fresh, red wine. It is meaty, and even earthy, and packs 13% abv, but this is all balanced by zippy fruit with fresh acids to balance. You get a touch of garrigue (or whatever they call it in Greece) herbs on the finish, and a mineral grip that doesn’t dominate the fruit. There’s a little tannin remaining but not a lot.

I enjoyed this very much. It’s a tasty wine, which also claims to be vegan, and has the advantage of costing just under £20. Mine came from Smith & Gertrude (Edinburgh), but the importer, once more, is Indigo Wine.

“The Ancestral Pink” 2021, Matt Gregory Wines (Leicestershire/Rutland. England)

This bottle is sadly the last of a selection of Matt’s wines I bought last year and they have all been rather good. Not bad considering they come from what experience suggests is one of the wettest and, even worse, sometimes most humid, parts of the country.

I was drawn to Matt’s wines not only because I’m perverse and like wine from out-of-the-way places, but also because Matt worked with Theo Coles of Hermit Ram, my favourite wine producer in New Zealand (and I now realise I only have one of Theo’s wines left as well). Matt faces the viticultural challenge of growing grapes in the Midlands stoically.

Matt, you see, is very much opposed to using synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. He is lucky that his vineyard is south facing and he has some disease-resistant hybrids in his arsenal along with the pure viniferas. For some reason he’s had success with Pinot Noir on the ancient Jurassic limestone of the Leicestershire Wolds, that sits beneath his vines, soils made more complex by the presence of flint and quartz.

The Ancestral Pink blends Pinot Noir with Pinot Gris and Bacchus with which Matt has created a tasty petnat. It’s made as whole bunches by carbonic maceration before gentle crushing in a basket press. Then he adds the pied de cuve to get the whole thing going again. He doesn’t need to add any yeast cultures, as the natural strains manage fine. Some reserve juice is added in but no sulphur.

What you get is pure strawberry juice with some bright cherry overtones. Fragrant, with gentle bubbles, it seems to hint at the English countryside I knew as a boy. That’s three delicious bottles of Matt’s I’ve drunk this year and all worth every penny.

£24.50 from Uncharted Wines.

SEN 2020, Magula-Gabay-Bernheim (Slovakia)

This extremely impressive wine is from a collaboration between Vino Magula, based at Suchá nad Parnou in Western Slovakia (just northeast of Bratislava), Elizabeth Gabay MW (“the” British expert on Rosé wines) and her son, Ben Bernheim. It’s naturally a pink wine, although some may think it looks closer to the lighter red/darker Rosé of a Tavel than the more insipid pink of the ubiquitous Provençal.

The grapes chosen for the blend are Cabernet Sauvignon (84%) and Frankovka (aka Blaufränkisch) (16%) off volcanic and loess soils, farming being a mix of organic with some biodynamic practices. Under 24 hours on skins was enough to get the lovely ruby colour. Fermentation was spontaneous, in used French oak, ageing in 225-litre barrique. This was bottle 1812 out of 1850, historically significant.

Harvested in September 2021, it was bottled a year later. It’s a good, old fashioned, rosé with a bouquet of wafting dark cherry, the palate introducing hints of raspberry and redcurrant. This is exactly the kind of “rosé” you would drink year-round, and with food, which I believe is exactly what was intended. It should be served cellar cool but not chilled down.

This was originally priced high at around £40 if my memory serves me well. I thought that steep, even though the market now has plenty of £40 pinks. It was later adjusted to £30, which is very good value for a wine of this quality. There is still some available via Basket Press Wines.

Gewurztraminer 2020, Dirler-Cadé (Alsace, France)

In Part 2, I extolled the virtues of Dirler-Cadé’s “Pinot Réserve”, a great value blend of Pinot Blanc and Auxerrois. This Gewurztraminer is grown off pink sandstone close to their Bergholtz base in the south of the region. All the wines here follow biodynamic farming practices, but if I were to describe Dirler-Cadé I’d say they were one of a handful of producers who have been around a while, and who straddle that gap between the younger natural wine fraternity and the more classical producers. The wines are made with close to natural wine methods but they have a more classical profile than the glouglou wines of the new generation.

One thing that is certainly “classical” about this wine is its alcohol content, 14.5% abv. This seems the norm for much Gewurztraminer nowadays. These wines can seem to struggle for balance between ripeness, alcohol and not much acidity. This one does not fall into that trap. It has a medium body for a wine of 14.5% and doesn’t lack finesse. There is, on the other hand, nice concentration and it is dry. This means that insofar as Gewurztraminer accompanies food (and it does, you just need to choose the right dishes), this does so very well.

What I especially like is that along with the dryness there’s a good mineral edge, something you find all too rarely with this grape now. Overall, it shows way more restraint than you’d expect if you didn’t know the producer.

This, like the Pinot Réserve, came from The Solent Cellar (Lymington). They are out of stock, I think, but they do have the 2019 lieu-dit “Bux” Gewurz, one year older and one step up, for £22. A couple of wines from the D-C range (Pinot Noir and Riesling Saering) are both reduced by £5 and £6 respectively, and of course Crémant d’Alsace (£22) is a great alternative as a traditional method sparkling wine.

A friend also reminded me the other day that their range of dry Muscat wines are among the very best in the region, though for those you’ll need to try either Vine Trail, The Wine Society, Hedonism in Mayfair, or the wine department in Selfridges.

Pinot Grigio “Ramato” 2021, Specogna (Colli Orientali del Friuli, Italy)

This is another “rosé” wine of sorts, but right at the other end of the colour spectrum to SEN mentioned above. It’s a wine I’ve not drunk for many years but I used to buy it from Winecellars, then Liberty Wines, when I lived in London. I was glad I grabbed a bottle when I saw it locally.

Ramato refers to the colour of the wine, in this case a kind of coppery pink. In France the same style is sometimes called oeil de perdrix (partridge eye…in fact this Italian ramato does have a partridge on the label), as in the rare “Malvoisie” of the Loire (actually, like this wine, also Pinot Gris), and more fashionably now, in Switzerland’s Neuchâtel, which has successfully gained a Swiss monopoly over the term, but where it is most likely to be made from Pinot Noir.

Pinot Gris skins are, of course, pink. To make a white wine from Pinot Gris you need to press it early. Macerate the skins and you get colour. The wine may be tinged with colour but it shows many characteristics of a white wine. The bouquet is apple up-front, albeit ripe red apple. There is red fruit on the nose, but to me it’s like fading cranberry with perhaps the merest hint of raspberry.

The palate has fresh apple with, quite unusual, pineapple. At least it’s something a bit exotic and tropical. A savoury note keeps the finish dry and interesting. Kind of holding back the fruit from spilling out of the cage. I’m hoping there’s some more left, £20 at Lockett Brothers, and £20.49 at Valvona & Crolla in Central Edinburgh. The latter, of course, has an extensive range of Italian wines and shares its location at the top of Lieth Walk with Spry Wines (my recommendation for dining, with a cafe below and a great natural wine bottle shop) and Edinburgh’s best venue for second hand vinyl (Vinyl Villains). Sorted!

Complétement Red 2021, Lambert Spielmann (Alsace, France)

Yesterday was quite a sad day as I had an email from Lambert’s importer detailing three new-vintage 2022 cuvées (including this one and the sensational “Red Z’Epfig”). They were all three listed at £38. Tutto are right at the forefront of bringing into the UK truly exciting and innovative wines, especially from rising stars like Lambert. They truly have their finger on the pulse. However, I am sick at how wine has shot up in price in just a couple of years. To be fair to Tutto, you’d probably pay 45€ in France for the same wines, though somewhat less if you made the effort to go to visit him. Rant over.

This is Pinot Noir, pale but not remotely like the watery, green, Alsace Pinot Noir of old. In fact, it’s one of the most fruit-packed ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb reds I’ve had all summer. From a 2.5-hectare sandstone climat at Nothalten, it’s made via whole bunch fermentation followed by short ageing in demi-muids. Tutto says of this 2021 that it looks like a Ploussard, and colour-wise it does. However, the fruit is unmistakably Pinot Noir. It’s a biodynamic, natural, wine made purely for pleasure.

I love this and Lambert Spielmann, over the past few years, has become one of my favourite producers in Alsace. Just a shame that, like the wines of another Tutto star, the late Julie Balagny, they didn’t take very many vintages to become that step closer to unaffordable.

Lambert has this little quirk that on the back label he lists a track he thinks goes with the wine. In this case, despite my cherry bomb elusion, he didn’t select the debut single by The Runaways, but “Forever” (2010) by Perkele. They are a Swedish Band which plays music deriving from the “Oi!” sound invented by British skinhead groups in the later 1970s (though it should be stressed that Perkele state that they are firmly anti-racist, anti-nationalist and anti-homophobic, as were most of the bands from that genre back in the 70s).

This particular bottle came from Noble Fine Liquor, which is unfortunately no longer with us, a tragic loss to the London wine scene. Tutto Wines has an online shop, Tutto a Casa. The selection from their portfolio available in the shop changes all the time, but as of Friday last week, there were four Spielmann wines for purchase.

Posted in Alsace, Artisan Wines, Natural Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies | Tagged #theglouthatbindsus, Alsace Red Wine, Alsace Wine, Artisan Vignerons of Naoussa, Benje Blanco 2021 Envinate, Canary Islands Wine, Dirler-Cadé Bergholtz, Dirler-Cadé Gewurztraminer 2020, English Petnat Wine, Envinate Tenerife, Greek Wine, Italian Wine, Lambert Spielmann Alsace, Lambert Spielmann Complétement Red 2021, Magula Gabay Bernheim SEN 2020, Magula SEN Rosé, Matt Gregory The Ancestral Pink 2021, Northern Greece Xinomavro, Ramato Wine, Recent Wines August 23 (Pt3), Rosé Wine from Slovakia, Skyphos Xinomavro IGP Macedonia, Specogna Colli Orientali del Friuli, Specogna Pinot Grigio Ramato 2021, Tenerife Wine, Wine from Leicestershire | Leave a comment

Recent Wines August 2023 (Part 2) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 11/09/2023 by dccrossley

After the London interlude we are back to “Recent Wines”, this being Part 2 out of three for the month of August. We kick off with a remarkable wine from England’s South Downs, followed by wines from Corbières, Oregon, Jerez (two), Alsace and Swartland.

Rosé Ex-Machina 2016, Sugrue South Downs (Hampshire/Sussex, England)

Dermot Sugrue has finally left Wiston to concentrate on his, and his wife’s, own venture, Sugrue South Downs, based near Lewes in Sussex. That shouldn’t surprise anyone who has followed his wines since that first release of “The Trouble with Dreams” under the Sugrue-Pierre label, well over a decade ago now.

This is the first Rosé released under the Sugrue label. It blends the three classic sparkling varieties, Pinot Noir (50%), Pinot Meunier (20%) and Chardonnay (30%). Grapes were in very short supply in 2016 but Jenkyn Place, in Hampshire, good clients of Dermot’s winemaking, came to the rescue. The grapes all came from a single plot on greensand, both fermentation and ageing taking place in stainless steel. Dosage was 9g/l after four years on lees.

The bouquet is remarkable now this has had time to evolve in bottle. Apple, ginger, sweet pastry (buttery) and orange peel all come through. The palate has crisp apple and red fruits, with a touch of glacé cherry. The dosage is great as it fills out the fruit beside the acidity. It’s definitely a gastronomic rosé and I’d go as far as to place it alongside other favourite pink sparkling wines from Champagne (Prévost, Bérêche and Cédric Bouchard come to mind in terms of quality). Perhaps my enthusiasm got the better of me, but I still think it’s that good several weeks after drinking it. I think it will undoubtedly get even better too.

This is still, I think, available direct from Dermot’s web site for £65, although he made just 4,500 bottles (+ 200 magnums). My bottle came from Butlers Wine Cellar in Brighton, good friends of Dermot. They are a good first point of call for the finer artisan sparklers, from Sussex in particular.

“Apache” Vin de France 2021, Vin des Potes (Corbières, France)

This wine is at the other end of the spectrum, a simple glass that is relatively cheap, at a third of the price of Dermot’s Rosé. It’s a blend of Carignan, Grenache and Mourvèdre released as a Vin de France from one of the generally more interesting sub-regional appellations of the Languedoc. It’s a collaboration between Yohann Moreno and Vin des Potes, which is itself a project by a couple of wine lovers who have been working with a range of young natural winemaking talent around France, and indeed now across Europe. The project is backed by Dynamic Vines in London.

The fruit all comes from old vines, over forty years of age, each variety being vinified separately. They all underwent carbonic maceration in small vats with just a tiny addition of sulphur, then early bottling. This gives us a fresh and fruity wine which, at 12.5% abv and with the whole berry fermentation, gives a wine much lighter than the Corbières norm. Glouglou is the intent.

The fruit is dark but the wine is light on the palate, the bouquet lifted and fresh. We certainly have simplicity, but that need not be a negative comment. It’s a wine that’s easy to drink and good value at £22. Although Dynamic Vines is the importer, my bottle came retail from Cork & Cask in Edinburgh.

Rosé “Spring Ephemeral” 2018, Smockshop Band (Oregon, USA)

There are many labels people would add to a list of fine but expensive pink wines. Simone, Tondonia, Clos Cibonne, Musar, the Clos Canarelli I drank recently, etc. I bet few have been able to compare those to this beauty, but they should.

It comes from the Columbia Valley, a vast viticultural region which mostly falls inside Washington State, but a small part of it, the Columbia Gorge, falls within Oregon. Within this is the Hood River, where the super-cult winery, Hiyu Farm, grows vines. Smockshop Band is a label of Hiyu Farm.

Hiyu Farm is a regional leader not only in biodynamics and natural winemaking, but also in regenerative farming and permaculture. Needless to say, I’ve not visited, but people who have tell me it’s a very special place. This cuvée is made, believe it or not from Zinfandel. One might ask when has this variety yielded a wine of such delicacy, especially without toning down the alcohol too much (if Cali Zinf no longer shocks at 15%, this 13% abv wine tastes less alcoholic than you might think).

The grapes come off steep basalt from a vineyard which goes under the name of “scorched earth”, for goodness’ sake. The fruit spent five days on skins, no filtration, no added sulphur, of course, and you know what? It’s just remarkable. It’s almost like drinking a red Riesling, not Zinfandel. It tastes very mineral and has precision, the basalt I imagine. The fruit is more pomegranate than Zinfandel’s usual cherry jam, though it does evolve more raspberry tones in the glass. There’s definitely a sprinkling of white pepper (for the May Queen) on the finish. Like all great Rosé, age has only enhanced it. Beautiful, ethereal, I’d love another bottle, but I think it has become a unicorn…perhaps.

£40 from Littlewine.

La Bota de Florpower 99 MMXIX [2019] « Antes de la Flor », Equipo Navazos (Jerez, Spain)

Florpower has been a mainstay of my cellar since its first vintage, but this 2019 is the last bottle I have from the last vintage I bought direct from Equipo Navazos. Post-Brexit it has become unaffordable to ship these from Spain, so I really need to find a UK retail supplier. I fear that I will no longer be buying multiple bottles though, purely down to price, if the EN Sherry prices here in the UK are anything to go by. Thankfully I still have plenty of that in the cellar.

Just 2,400 bottles were made of this Palomino Fino table wine, hailing from the famous Miraflores La Baja site at Sanlúcar on the coast. Protected from flor in stainless steel, there is no yeast influence, so you get a very pure expression of the vastly underrated Palomino grape variety. Some might argue it is therefore a greater expression of terroir, although others would point out that flor is as much a part of the terroir as the chalky albariza soils.

This still has the crisp, salty, tang of a Manzanilla, and age has given it a little nuttiness, yet it does taste bare and stripped naked of alcohol (it comes in at 11.5% abv). As such, it is very refreshing and drinkable, but it also has a great deal of both class and potential. Like a fine Riesling, this will definitely age, if given the opportunity. I wish I had more.

Purchased direct from Equipo Navazos. The UK importer is Alliance Wine.

La Bota de Manzanilla Pasada 80, « Bota Punta », Equipo Navazos (Jerez, Spain)

We stay with Equipo Navazos and the same location, Sanlúcar, for this bottle. Its source is the bodega of Hijos de Rainera Pérez Marín. Bota Punta means it was sourced from a single cask at the very end of the lowest row of the solera. What makes this special? At the end of a row the air will flow more freely. This can mean greater humidity and often, as in this case, more active flor activity in the barrel. It is therefore a bottling of special and unique character, but being a single cask bottling, there were only 1,000 x 500ml bottles for us to experience it.

A shame because even by the standards of EN, this is a frankly incredible wine. The cask was filled to the “tocadedos” level, which means well above the usual 5/6ths mark, so the yeast layer is thin. However, regular refreshing of the cask allows free-rein to the oxidative activity, encouraged by the conditions at the end of the solera. This, and the wine’s crisp and chalky texture, gives real palate complexity. Fortification takes the wine up to 16.5% abv.

We served this in Zalto Universals to give it plenty of chance to fill out its bouquet but to keep the palate’s precision intact. Another recommendation is not to serve it too chilled. This is a gastronomic wine, not an aperitif-style. It accompanied paella, and I had to restrain the cook from adding too much to the pan.

Also purchased direct, but the UK importer for Equipo Navazos is Alliance Wine.

Pinot Reserve 2020, Dirler-Cadé (Alsace, France)

I was only reading a thread yesterday, on social media, about Pinot Blanc’s improvement in quality. I have enjoyed the variety for so long now that I had almost forgotten how very few wines of real quality were made from Pinot Blanc back in the day. Of course, excellent Pinot Blanc doesn’t just come out of Alsace, but for me this is where the biggest improvements have come. Perhaps as certain other grape varieties, most of all Pinot Gris, have become affected by higher temperatures and rising levels of alcohol, Pinot Blanc has been lower down the curve and now it gets a bit more weight and riper fruit coming through.

Dirler-Cadé doesn’t have the cachet of fashionability which you find with some newer natural wine producers, but this biodynamic Bergholtz domaine has been appreciated by Alsace fans for many years now. Their farming methods have merely added another reason why Pinot Blanc can produce excellent wines in the region’s south. This “Pinot Réserve” is a 50:50 blend of Pinot Blanc and Auxerrois. Now, when I was learning about wine, Auxerrois was seen as the same grape as Pinot Blanc, merely another clone. It seems modern thinking now has them as distinct varieties, if similar. For my palate, it is not easy to tell them apart.

I also used to suggest Pinot Blanc as a wine for lunch, but this example has 13.5% alcohol, which might make it suitable only for a lunch where you can manage a little snooze afterwards and don’t need to drive.

The site is the Bollenberg vineyard, a hill just north of Bergholtz and close to the Vorbourg Grand Cru. The Réserve is made from old vines planted in 1965. Pure, dry, saline, quite concentrated, this has weight and texture, and more freshness than you might expect, given the alcohol, but this is most definitely a food wine, not like the old PB you might have drunk as an aperitif with a bowl of nuts. If the wine has come on a long way, the price seems remarkably good value for the quality. It came from The Solent Cellar and cost £16.50. I hope I will buy more at that price.

Syrah 2008, Mullineux Wines (Swartland, South Africa)

I’m sure I’ve mentioned before how, because I’ve been buying way less wine this year, I’m being forced to open bottles which have been laying in my various cellars for a long time, but I did find a suitable occasion to open this, for some overseas visitors. This was the first release, from the first vintage, for Chris and Andrea Mullineux’s own venture at Riebeek Kasteel, following Chris moving on from winemaking for the highly successful TMV (Tulbagh Mountain Vineyards). I got to meet Chris and Andrea a few times, including at a memorable lunch in their honour at The Ledbury in London, so I had quite a lot of hope invested in how this would taste at fifteen years of age. Had I kept it too long?

The Syrah vines for this cuvée were on Swartland granite and the wine was fermented using indigenous yeasts and with minimal added sulphur. Ageing was in a mix of 225-litre barriques and 500-litre demi-muids.

This was only opened at the table (just in case it faded) and it was a little closed at first. Within fifteen minutes it was blossoming, and I just couldn’t believe how it just kept getting better and better until we’d drained the bottle. It registered 14.5% abv on the label, but it wasn’t at all flabby. In fact, I’d call it restrained, with a beautiful bouquet of dark plum with violet notes, and a palate which was both plummy and had great mineral intensity. Later we got fig and a smokiness. Very complex.

There is no hurry to drink this up, and I wish I’d kept a couple more bottles. I had hoped this would be good, but I didn’t realise it would be quite as good as this, easily on a par with top Côte-Rôtie, I would say. Chris and Andrea have gone on to make some fantastic wines, some off specific terroirs (the Granite, Iron and Schist cuvées), some more accessible, from the Kloof Street Range, not forgetting their incredible Straw Wine, and now wine from Franschhoek as well as Swartland, but in this first vintage they made something rather special.

I doubt it would be easy to find the 2008 now, but you can still buy the entry level (now) Mullineux Syrah from the 2017 and 2019 vintages (both seem available online) for around £30. My bottles probably came, on release, from Berry Bros, who sell the 2019 for £36.50.

Posted in Artisan Wines, Natural Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine and Food | Tagged #theglouthatbindsus, Alsace Wine, Apache Vin des Potes, Chris and Andrea Mullineux, Corbières Wine, Dermot Sugrue, Dirler-Cadé Bergholtz, Dirler-Cadé Pinot Réserve 2020, English Sparkling Wine, Equipo Navazos, Hiyu Farm, Hood River Wine, Jerez Wine, La Bota de Florpower 99, La Bota de Manzanilla Pasada Bota Punta 80, Mullineux Wines Syrah 2008 Swartland, Oregon Wine, Pinot Blanc and Auxerrois, Recent Wines August 2023 (Pt 2), Sanlúcar Wine, Smockshop Band Spring Ephemeral Rosé, South African Wine, Sugrue South Downs Rosé Ex Machina 2016, Swartland Wine, Yohann Moreno | 4 Comments

The Shrine, The Club and the10 Cases

Posted on 08/09/2023 by dccrossley

I’ve been down in London for a few days, the main event being to have lunch at The 10 Cases in Covent Garden with Zainab and Jiri of Basket Press Wines, including a tasting of a few of the wines they import, but I may as well tell you what else I got up to.

First stop was Shrine to the Vine on Lamb’s Conduit Street, my first visit. This wine shop is almost opposite the original Noble Rot and is part of Messrs Keeling and Andrew’s growing empire. If you think the Noble Rot concept is good, this is quite a special wine shop too, though you probably need a special salary to shop there regularly (not a problem for the Mid-Town workers in the neighbourhood).

There’s a lot of very expensive kit in here, and you have to take a peek at their great Jura selection. With limited space in my luggage, I was focused, to say the least (they do deliver UK-wide), going for a couple of very hard to find regions: Aosta and Lanzarote, by way of Lo Triolet Fumin (a producer and a local variety which I know quite well from visits many years ago) and a wine from Juan Daniel Ramírez and Marta Labanda and their Valle del Malpaso project. More on those when I open them.

Staying just off Fleet Street it was obvious that I would hop down to Winemakers Club for a bite to eat. My choice to drink was Tom Shobbrook’s Cabernet Franc. This is a Barossa Red which I know pretty well. I have not been into winemakers for over a year, since before we emigrated, and I didn’t know anyone in there. The young lady who served this old gent did warn me that “it has more acidity than you normally get with Cabernet Franc”. Insert several laughing emoji.

Needless to say, in the cool of Holborn Viaduct’s arches it was perfect on such a hot day. John messaged me afterwards to say that he was in Australia and had just been tasting with Tom. A great winemaker. I read that Tom has had to move from Seppeltsfield and is now establishing himself in the Adelaide Hills. It does mean a bit less Shobbrook wine may reach the UK for the next year or two, but Winemakers Club is the place to grab a bottle if you are in the area.

Up nice and early next day, London was perfect at 7.00 am, but by lunchtime temperatures were pressing Thirty Degrees. Thankfully The 10 Cases bistro on Endell Street in Covent Garden has aircon, and their “by the glass” selection is kept in wine fridges.

We started off with a couple from that list, the first being Davenport Vineyards Pet Nat. This is always good. The 2022 is Auxerrois (53%) with 10% Bacchus, 27% Pinot Noir and 10% Faber (aka Faberrebe, a Pinot Blanc and Müller-Thurgau crossing created by Georg Scheu in 1929. You can guess which grape was named after Georg). A zero added sulphur wine, a little cloudy and almost the colour of Robinson’s Lemon Barley, if you order this your only regret will be that you went glass rather than bottle. At 10% abv, this is a perfect restorative in a heat wave.

Then we had to try the wine made by 10 Cases wine buyer, Alex, as a collaboration with Heidi Schröck in Rust. The single variety is Harslevelu, from three long rows of vines on the Vogelsang vineyard. The terroir is schist, and the wine was fermented in stainless steel after two days on skins. It goes under the label Endell Weiss and is exclusively available at the wine bar/bistro. The terroir and the tiny amount of skin contact are enough to ground the wine with a bit of texture, but it expands nicely on the palate. The boy done real good, as they say. It’s an excellent wine. Half has been bottled and the other half will, with a touch of age, show off another side.

The food was excellent in a busy service, especially for a Tuesday lunch time. I definitely recommend the two starters of cod cheeks, a generous portion, battered, and turbot. Not a large piece of turbot for the starter but on the day, it was cooked to perfection.

We tasted five wines from the Basket Press Wines portfolio, all served with a coravin. The notes here will be brief but they were all well chosen to show off the range from this excellent small importer (I should add that I paid for my own lunch so no freebee nosh in exchange for a good review). They were all Czech wines from Moravia, with the exception of Vino Magula, which is based at Suchá nad Parnou in Slovakia.

Carbonic for All 2021, Petr Koráb is a blend of the autochthonous Hibernal with Welschriesling, fermented under carbonic maceration, of course. I drank a bottle of this back in July, and it’s very good. My praise isn’t muted. It’s not a fine wine that you can define with points, but it’s an exciting wine which gets the pulse racing, that is, if you are prepared to have a wide-open mind about what wine can and should be. That said, you do want to grab some if your tastes in any way seem to accord with mine. It’s a perfect example of why I consider Petr to be one of Europe’s most creative and inventive winemakers. £25.

Jungberg Devín 2021, Vino Magula is a wine that engendered an interesting discussion.

Me: “I’ve never been told about this wine”

Basket Press: “No, I’m sure you have”

Me: “nope, and I’ve never seen it on your web site”

Basket Press: “Well, true, it’s not on the web site”

You might wonder why that convo ensued? Because this wine is lovely, and it also tastes quite unique. And it’s still not on the web site! It’s an unusual blend of Gewurztraminer and Frühroter Veltliner from the Jungberg vineyard. Scented and floral, and divine of course. Please, if you are reading this Basket Press Wines, you have to save me a bottle! No idea what it costs.

Solar Red 2022, Petr Koráb is a wine that not only do I have, but it is in my fridge, so by the time you read this, I will have drunk it. Three varieties here: Pinot Noir, Karmazín (a local synonym for Frankovka/Blaufränkisch) and Zweigelt. It’s a pale red, super fresh, very easy drinking but there’s a nice mineral texture to go with the beautiful strawberry scent and palate. Yes. I did say “in the fridge”. Chill it. Only £23. Only regret is that despite 20 Degree Celsius we have a Haar (which is a Scottish sea fog), not the bright sunshine this wine, and its label, deserve.

*Update – today we are, rest assured, back to our usual glorious Scottish summer sunshine and a very pleasant 19 Degrees. I see you have 27 in London!

Now you know I love music as much as wine. I posed the question on Insta which album forms the background to this wine’s photo? No answers. Come on, it’s a classic.

Špigle Bočky 2020, Richard Stavek. Richard is like a Zen Master, making wines which I readily admit I didn’t fully comprehend until a comprehensive tasting with him after a visit to his vines and cellar just over a year ago. Špigle Bočky is one of the first Stavek wines I tasted, the 2015 back in February 2018, but there’s an orange Špigle Bočky and a red version. That was the orange and this 2020 is the red. It blends Zweigelt, Frankovka and possibly St-Laurent, and how good is this! Like many of the Czech wines Basket Press imports, they are most definitely on a par with those way more fashionable Burgenland wines, from after all just over the border really.

Just Red 2017, Syfany is from a new winery on the Basket Press list. I’ve got a couple of their wines lined up to try, but not this one, a blend of Pinot Noir and Zweigelt with a dash of Frankovka (aka Blaufränkisch). It’s simple, but it’s super-juicy, packed with juicy dark cherry fruit and brambly acids, and at £19 it’s a bargain. It tastes like a fresh, young wine, but look above, it’s a 2017. It’s even seen wood ageing, from local oak and cooper. Inexpensive, yet showing a definite sense of place. This will also be on a future order.

I think that the Stavek is around £35 but the price of these wines is sometimes so low that people used to paying £30+ for decent natural wine often ask why they are so cheap. Well, I have enough experience to know that they won’t be this cheap forever. It could be time to try a mixed case, or half-a-dozen, if you are not already on board.

Posted in Artisan Wines, Czech Wine, Dining, Natural Wine, Slovakian Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Bars, Wine Merchants, Wine Shops, Wine Tastings | Tagged Basket Press Wines, Czech Wine, Davenport Pet Nat, Endell Weiss with Heidi Schröck, Moravian Wine, Petr Korab Carbonic for All, Petr Korab Solar Red, Richard Stavek Spigle Bocky, Sfany Winery Just Red 2017, Shrine to the Vine, Slovakian Wine, The 10 Cases, Vino Magula Divin, Winemakers Club | 4 Comments

Recent Wines August 2023 (Part 1) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 29/08/2023 by dccrossley

August has been a great month for wine, this time both in terms of quality and quantity. Even though we were on the road a bit, we’ve done much more entertaining than usual so the bottle count is up. Discarding a few ordinary bottles there turned out to be over twenty wines worth writing about, so for August I’m going to split them into three parts.

For the first part there are seven wines from Eastern Hungary, Corsica, Arbois, Southern Burgundy (a new to me but remarkable Aligoté), Champagne, Pupillin and Tuscany. It has to be said that even though I try to bring you only the best and the most interesting, there are some veritable gems here. To be honest, the excitement carries through the whole month.

Robin 2021, Annamária Réka-Koncz (Barabás, Eastern Hungary)

Although I wrote about this cuvée from Annamária earlier this year, that was the 2020 vintage, and this is her 2021. It’s worth repeating what I’ve said about this lady’s wines before, they seem to get better and better as the years progress.

It’s a blend of Királyleányka (60%) and Furmint (30%), with 10% Rhine Riesling. The Furmint is from a friend’s vines at Mád (in Tokaj), the rest coming from Annamária’s vines at Barabás. The overwhelming essence of this wine is its minerality, which seems to be accentuated by the bubbles. The Furmint is very old vine stock so maybe that’s not really surprising. However, Eastern Hungary’s rare, autochthonous Királyleányka (I’m told it is now strongly disputed that it is the same variety as Romania’s Feteasca Regala) does add fruit and a savoury quality.

The 2021 tastes perhaps slightly drier and more “direct” than I remember the 2020 did, but that may be on account of its greater youth. I think I prefer the 2021, though I did like the previous vintage. It doesn’t taste like a 13% pétnat sparkling wine, as the label suggests. We opened the 2020 for friends not used to natural wines and they thought it funky. The friend we opened this 2021 for thought it was amazing (maximum points to Anna there).

Imported by Basket Press Wines, who I believe have sold out. Prost Wines may have some left (£27).

Clos Canarelli 2020, Corse Figari Rosé (Corsica, France)

This represents one of an increasing number of exceptional yet expensive Rosé wines that tempt us each summer. It comes from Corsica’s south. The grapes, 50% Sciaccarellu with 30% Niellucciu and 20% Grenache, all planted in the late 1990s, were 90% direct-pressed, lightly, at Tarabucetta, to make a pale pink wine.

The vines grow on a granite plateau, a stony terroir with altitude. This, and the prevailing wind, ameliorates the temperatures usually associated with Corsica, and you can tell. The vine age also adds to the mix so that we have a wine that is delicate and floral on the nose, but on the palate, it has a certain mineral streak and a stoniness. I’m sure that the texture also comes from the ageing it undergoes in cement tanks. There are red fruits, and hints of darker fruit too. The palate even has a little peachy stone fruit which adds a hint of gras. Just a hint.

Although I did seem to complain that it’s expensive, well, actually I think £36 is still less than some of the fashionable fine wine Rosés we see, and I guarantee it’s a step up from the £15-£20 crowd if you want to add some complexity to your summer drinking. Or indeed, in this case, into autumn. I couldn’t find mention of it in Elizabeth Gabay’s book (Rosé, Infinite Ideas, 2018), but I can vouch for its quality.

From The Solent Cellar (£36). They also have Canarelli’s Blanc for £45, which I haven’t tasted.

Arbois Trousseau “Cuvée Bérangères” 2016, Jacques Puffeney (Jura, France)

Since the so-called Pope of Arbois (no idea, is he a religious man?) sold his vines and retired every bottle of his wine we drink is one of a finite number, which somehow makes it more of a treat to drink one than before. That said, I have always found his wines gave me as much pleasure as any of the other big names of the Jura region.

After selling/leasing his vines to Domaine de la Pélican in 2014 he continued to make a little Trousseau, until 2017 I think (and kept all his remaining stocks of red, white and yellow wine for his pension). Bérangères is a single vineyard, old vines (around 35-y-o) on a south-facing slope of gravel soils, and boy can you taste the gravel. Ageing is in large old oak, usually en foudre.

Sniff this and the fruit wells up from the depths. Red fruit, darker fruit, and then spice, like pepper and nutmeg. The palate is mineral, but like a light crispness more than a heavy texture. There’s great smoothness here too, very plummy and with more than a hint of classic mulberry. At seven years old it’s sensational in every way. Complex and long, it’s a fine testament to this master winemaker. I’d love to open a bottle for Parisian friends who seem to delight in sneering at Jura wines, but I noticed that Cork & Cask in Edinburgh have a single bottle left…£95. Above my budget but someone will be very lucky. Another wine merchant in England listed it for £120. Vine Trail imported it.

Bouzeron Clos de la Fortune Vieilles Vignes 2021, Maison Chanzy (Burgundy, France)

I had never come across this domaine before, even though I’ve written about Aligoté (one of my perennially popular articles), and come to think of it, “maison” sounds like a negoce wine, doesn’t it. Well, it isn’t. Chanzy make this Aligoté from the Clos de la Fortune, a well-known climat with a southeast exposure near Bouzeron, in part enclosed by the walls of an old fortification.

A mere 902 bottles of this VV version were made and that accounts for its price (you may see the higher production version for sale at half the price, which I haven’t tried). The vines are very old, genuinely VV, planted in 1960. Harvested slightly late, in September, ageing was sixteen months in oak.

This is certainly 100% Aligoté, but I could swear it tastes as if there’s a good 50% Chardonnay in here. It has acidity, but not “Aligoté levels” of acidity. The oak has smoothed it out, and there’s a definite vanilla element here, but if the oak was at all new you can’t tell. I’m not really sure how this tastes like a wine that saw new oak that is all well integrated at two years old. It feels like there’s an alchemy going on because the bottle we drank was truly exceptional. It has a lot more going on than in most of Southern Burgundian Aligoté, despite how far this variety has come on in the past twenty years.

I said it was expensive and this is £40 at The Solent Cellar in Lymington. But as an Aligoté lover, I did like it a lot. I think Alliance Wine is the importer. You can purchase their white Mercurey from the same source for £35.

Champagne Val Frison “Lalore” Blanc de Blancs Brut Nature [2019] (Champagne, France)

Válerie Frison made the wine at this Ville-sur-Arce domain (Côte des Bar) with her then husband, Thierry de Marne, and subsequently on her own after 2013 until 2019, and established this Grower label as one of the emerging stars of the region. Her son, Thomas de Marne, returned to the domaine in 2018, and he took over winemaking in 2020. So, unless I’m mistaken this wine comes from Válerie’s last vintage.

“Lalore” is a zero-dosage cuvée made from 100% Chardonnay, aged in old Chablis barrels. It comes off a single parcel on Portlandian soil, unusual for this part of the Côte where Kimmeridgean clays are more common. Of the six hectares planted at the domaine, only around one-and-a-quarter hectares is Chardonnay, so this cuvée has sometimes been harder to get hold of.

Disgorged in April 2022, this had over two years on lees and a little over a year in bottle, post-disgorging. It has a creamy, nutty feel from the Chardonnay, but where it differs from a lot of Chardonnay from the Aube is in its intense minerality. Although the soils are different, you do think a little of Chablis, which after all isn’t too far away. However, the minerality isn’t too upfront or raw.

The wine is very drinkable, smooth, a little candied fruit on the top and that mineral streak down below. Very high quality, so long as you appreciate zero dosage (which I don’t worry about in the warmer wines of the south. After all, I’m now used to English Sparkling wines which can have more acidity even with dosage).

If you can find a bottle it should cost you around £65. Try The Good Wine Shop (various London locations). They might alternatively have “Goustan”, the Blanc de Noirs cuvée. These Champagnes are actually good value for the quality.

Arbois-Pupillin 2015, Maison Pierre Overnoy/Houillon-Overnoy (Jura, France)

Pupillin is the small village just outside of Arbois which claims to be the world capital of Ploussard. This is true, although as everyone else spells it Poulsard, they don’t really have any rivals in this respect. It’s an attractive village with some rather nice vineyard walks and a very good restaurant, and there are nice off-piste options to walk to and from it, from Arbois, if you do a little research.

Not too far into the village, past the church, on the right-hand side of the road, you’ll see one of the most famous metal signs in viticultural France, advertising Pierre Overnoy and the domaine now known as Houillon-Overnoy (the domaine being taken over by Manu Houillon, Pierre’s long time assistant, after his retirement). The wines here are as enigmatic as their labels, but they are unquestionably among the finest natural wines in France. They are now, sadly, as seems the way, impossible to find at a price most lovers of natural wines can afford.

I say, in this case with a hint of bitterness as well as sadness, that wines I used to buy in London at quite strange places (Wholefoods, the US chain’s shop in South Kensington, for example) are now largely drunk by rich men or wine merchants who buy their allocation themselves at trade price.

All this leads to me saying that drinking Overnoy is a big occasion for me. I’m drinking wine I never expected to taste again. What do we have here? An off-white wax capsule which does not state overtly its contents. Whilst some said “surely it’s Savagnin”, it tasted like Chardonnay to me. Although I wasn’t so confident as to disagree too vehemently, research shows (I think) that it was indeed Chardonnay, but possibly (?) blended with some Savagnin. It doesn’t matter one bit.

Lemony, waxy, with orange and apricot and a mineral core are a few descriptors to start with but to be quite frank that list should go on and on. One word suffices, sensational. I feel very lucky to have drunk this and I’d have this accompany my last meal any day.

The friend who very kindly opened this bought it at Plateau in Brighton, back when they’d sell you an Overnoy to take away. I got a red at the same time but it is long gone. Cost? Priceless.

Pian del Ciampolo 2016, Montevertine (Tuscany, Italy)

Some readers will remember that I used to go to Tuscan themed lunches pre-Covid, latterly at Kew’s sadly missed Glasshouse (my final visit there was in June last year where, ironically, I had a meal every bit as good as in any of Nigel Platts-Martin’s remaining restaurants). My confession is that I’m very low on all Italian wines in the cellar, not just Tuscan bottles. I do keep trying to put that right. This was another bottle a friend opened, and I don’t think he knew I’m such a fan of this estate.

Montevertine is at Radda in Chianti, and its name stands proud as its founder, the late Sergio Manetti, was a vocal supporter of the region, and created one of its liquid icons, Le Pergole Torte. This is an estate which continues to this day to shout out for the artisans against coporate Chianti.

Pian del Ciampolo is the entry level wine, but don’t let that fool you. It costs around £56. Next step up is Montevertine itself, which I reckon I bought for £30-£40 a few years ago. Well, now you pay £120, and Pergole Torte? £225! No wonder my bank manager thinks I should give up this wine thing.

Anyway, Pian del Ciampolo is a blend of Sangiovese (specifically the Sangioveto clone) along with Canaiolo and Colorino, an ideal Merlot-free Chianti Classico blend, except vehemently IGT. As all good Chianti should be, it is extremely food-friendly, specifically game-friendly with some bottle age.

It’s fermented in cement tank and aged a year in oak. It is red-fruited yet savoury with a hint of Bovril. Very complex already and long on the palate. It’s a wonderful wine and when you drink it you do remember just how good this estate’s so-called better wines taste. They are but a distant memory. Sic Transit Gloria Mundi…but thank the gods for friends who open wines like this.

All these three estate wines are available from The Solent Cellar (Lymington) at the prices quoted, but will of course be available at other fane wane merchants.

Posted in Aligoté, Arbois, Artisan Wines, Champagne, Fine Wine, Hungarian Wine, Italian Wine, Jura, Rosé Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies | Tagged #theglouthatbindsus, Aligoté, Arbois-Pupillin, Champagne, Champagne Val Frison Lalore BdeB, Classic Sangiovese Blend, Clos Canarelli Rosé, Corse Figari, Corsican Rosé, Corsican Wine, Emmanuel Houillon, Great Value Grower Champagne, Hungarian Wine, Jacques Puffeney Arbois, Jura Wine, Királyleányka Grape Variety, Maison Chanzy Bouzeron, Maison Chanzy Clos de la Fortune Vieilles Vignes, Montevertine Pian del Ciampolo 2016, Montevertine Radda in Chianti, Overnoy-Houillon, Pierre Overnoy Arbois-Pupillin 2015 Blanc, Puffeney Trousseau Bérangères 2016, Réka-Koncz Barabás Hungary, Recent Wines August 2023 (Pt 1), Robin Petnat Annamária Réka-Koncz, Tuscan Wine | 1 Comment

Vines in a Cold Climate by Henry Jeffreys (Book Review)

Posted on 25/08/2023 by dccrossley

I had been looking forward to this book for a while. I had my spies…in fact it was Peter Hall at Breaky Bottom who, in March last year, had tipped me off that Henry Jeffreys was writing a book on English Wine. Having read his words on wine before, I knew him to be someone whose narrative style I enjoyed, although how he would approach the subject, I had no idea. I don’t believe we’ve ever met.

There’s an author photo of Henry Jeffreys (so claimed) inside the back cover of Vines in a Cold Climate. The photo is of a dapper man wearing jacket, pullover and tie. As a black and white image, it almost looks 1920s. You can imagine Henry with a glass of Taylors, or Talbot, although don’t think I’m suggesting he’s old or anything. He certainly looks a lot younger in his Instagram profile, very much 2020s. It does say beneath it that he lives in Faversham with his wife and two children. He just happens to have written a rather fascinating book on English Wine. It may be the latest of what is fast becoming almost a glut of books on the subject, but nevertheless there are a number of compelling reasons why you should buy it.

When we look at what is available to read on English wine most of the books follow a fairly standard format of history, viticulture and winemaking, and then producer profiles. To be frank, once you’ve read the debate about whether the Romans made wine here, and lapped up the tales of the English Wine Revival by the Colonels and Majors (aka the amateurs), you don’t really need to read the same stories again and again. As far as producer profiles go, the more current the book the better they will (generally) be, although not all authors dwell on the smaller artisans at the edges of English Wine, many of whom make drinking it that much more interesting.

The last book on the subject I reviewed was Abbie Moulton’s New British Wine, and that was refreshingly different. However, its focus was as much on those selling English and Welsh wines, through shops and restaurants etc, as it was about producers.

Henry Jeffreys’s book is different again. Rather than focus purely on any of the above, his book is thematic, with each chapter seamlessly merging into the next. The book kind of has a narrative thread, which actually makes it read like a novel in some ways. English Wine (the author subtitles the book “The People Behind the English Wine Revolution”) does, after all, have quite a story to tell.

If you look at the Contents page you will pick up on many of the themes. Weather and Money figure strongly, as do grape varieties. The grape stuff is very much past, present, and future, which can be broadly summarised as Germanics, Champagne varieties and the still wine grail of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but of course I’m massively over-simplifying things. There is still very much a place for so-called “heritage” varieties, not least if you like a nice, lowish alcohol, petnat in the garden throughout summer. The fizz speaks for itself really, a genre that seems to be even more hyped since Brexit, at least in certain parts of our national press.

Of course, there’s good reason for the hype. There’s money to be lost without it. English wine seems to me to be peopled by two types. On the one hand we have the innovators and artisans, men we know and love, called Ham, Phillips, Davenport and Walgate etc. Then there are men who made a packet in finance or The City and who, for an abundant variety of reasons, decided to invest their millions in English wine production and are hoping for a payout…one day. Henry covers them all.

What he also does is highlight just how many thousands of hectares there are in the ground but awaiting maturity, grapes which are not yet on-stream. The big worry is whether, in a period of high inflation and a cost-of-living crisis there will be a market for these wines when they hit the bottle, especially sparkling wine where the money spent on a costly production process is tied up for several years before release. The export ideal, which many producers factored into their business and marketing planning, is now looking a little bit more problematic, at least for those who I think quite reasonably hoped for seamless exports to Europe and (perhaps with very good reason) Scandinavia. This is why the goal of cheaper-to-produce still wines appeals so much to many producers.

All of this is covered with material drawn from visits all over the country (there’s a map showing where all the producers visited are located), bringing in different views, not least from some who secretly expect to benefit from what ultimately will be a climate disaster as temperatures rise. I think a few English winemakers are ready to rise to the challenge of English Syrah one day, although I’d be happy to see some wonderful “lighter style” reds first.

It is these visits, and these chats with such a variety of different producer types, which drive the narrative. As I said, you don’t get producer profiles, yet estate owners and winemakers weave in and out of the text throughout the book, some making very important contributions.

For now, Pinot Noir appears to be the great red hope, although I think Henry does well to identify Zweigelt as a variety which could make distinctive red wines in Great Britain (those lighter reds, you see), at least in the coming years. Pinot Noir, synonymous with Burgundy, is indeed just starting to make waves here. Again, Henry identifies something I’ve been saying for a few years, that Essex is the unsung hero for red wine grapes.

I was always amazed at how Pinot Noir grapes from the Crouch Valley and the Blackwater, which I now know from this book to be more accurately called the Dengie Peninsula (which for now has nothing to do with the mosquitos we would dread to see in England, that fever is spelt Dengue) were ending up hundreds of miles west, in some lauded wines under much-awarded labels.

Kent, Sussex and Hampshire have been singled out as the English counties where people assume the best wines come from, and true, these counties’ chalk and greensand terroirs do tend to produce the best sparkling wines. Essex is the country’s warmest, sunniest and driest county and is almost certainly where the fruit for our first truly fine red wines will originate from (whether they are indeed made in Essex, or somewhere like Devon). Chapter 13, Eastern Promise, is a very important contribution to an understanding of contemporary grape growing in the UK.

Other subjects covered include (inter alia) interest in planting from abroad (especially the Champagne Houses), organic and natural winemaking, urban wineries, and the all-important wine tourism (which not all producers wish to be involved with). So, there are plenty of topics covered and I can only think of one Henry has missed, at least in terms of a whole chapter…(rather tongue in cheek) the attitudes, good and bad, of English wine writers, wine journalists and the wine press.

Towards the end of the book Jeffreys begins to focus on the future. Chapters 17 (Storm Clouds Ahead), 18 (Warming Up) and 19 (Good for England) address many of the issues which are vexing both producers and, equally, commentators like myself who want English Wine to succeed. That success is not just based on producing wine of great quality but, just as important, doing it within an economic model that works.

I read today that in the past couple of years more than one hundred producers of craft beer have gone broke. There are many reasons, of course, but the two most cited were Brexit (loss of export markets due to the added cost of being outside Europe’s Single Market) and the rising cost of production. The English wine industry is perhaps even more prone to both these pressures, but possibly even more difficult for it has been obtaining the equipment needed to make wine. This is especially problematic for those whose survival means increasing production. Almost all winemaking equipment comes from EU manufacturers, thereby needing to go through an ever more complicated import procedure.

The final chapter addresses an issue which few authors have so far given any real space to, and that is whether English Wine is actually any good? Jeffreys is quite brave here because most of the time you will only get the hype. That hype is overwhelming in some quarters, but there are undoubtedly foreign voices who are asking questions our native commentators are most often avoiding. The question is handled very well, and of course the author’s opinions are nuanced. Nevertheless, he doesn’t shy away from asking, especially, whether all English sparkling wines are up there with the best. It’s an important question to ask when a good bottle of ESW will most often cost you more than forty, if not fifty, quid nowadays.

I read Vines in a Cold Climate quickly, over a few days. I found it rather like a novel you can’t put down. That means that it’s very well written, not something that can be said of all wine books, no matter how valuable the facts within them. The Fortnum & Mason Drink Writer Award Henry Jeffreys garnered in 2022 seems well deserved. I shall definitely read it again at some point. That means something.

Although this book sweeps intelligently over the English wine “industry” as a whole, it is after all a book about people. What Jeffreys understands is that a host of individuals, from enthusiastic amateurs, fired-up artisans, and indeed men with money (and occasionally egos to match), have all contributed enormously to the “English Wine Revolution”. The thing about revolutions…you never know whether they will succeed until the dust has settled. In the case of English Wine that may be a decade ahead, at least. In ten years time we will almost certainly be looking at an industry quite different to the one we see today.

Vines in a Cold Climate was published by Allen & Unwin in hardback this year (£16.99). You can save over £3 on you know where, but if you have to pay postage then you’ll end up paying more, and Henry will probably receive a pittance compared to any royalty he might get if you order it from a decent indie book shop like I did. Just saying. Lord knows it’s hard enough to pay the bills writing about wine! If only you gave me 50p per read I’d be able to eat, if not buy more wine.

Below, a few English wines to whet your appetite…