David Crossley's Wide World of Wine

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.

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…

Posted in Artisan Wines, English Wine, Sparkling Wine, Viticulture, Wine, Wine Books, Wine Writing | Tagged Drinks Writing, English Wine, English Wine Revolution, Henry Jeffreys Author, New Drinks Book 2023, New Wine Books 2023, Vines in a Cold Climate (Book) | 4 Comments

Recent Wines July 2023 (Part 2) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 10/08/2023 by dccrossley

July has been a month for hoovering up a few wines I’ve written about before, so again there are only five wines to tell you about in Part 2. I should explain that I don’t see myself as a wine “critic”, so you won’t find wines here that I don’t like. Even the cheap ones, like the second bottle here, have merit and interest.

We begin with another wine from Moravia’s great experimenter, then head down from Czechia to Corsica for another example from Waitrose’s Loved & Found series. Then a poignant moment of reflection for one of my very favourite winemakers who died tragically on the first day of last month. Austria’s Burgenland is one place in Europe where you will find a host of excellent pétnats, so we have one of those (it being summer), then we finish with a winter wine for one of the cold days we’ve been having occasionally this year, an amber or orange wine from Kakheti in Georgia.

“Carbonic for All”, Petr Koráb (Moravia, Czechia)

I make no apology for drinking a lot of Koráb’s wines and plugging them relentlessly. Whilst I believe we all should be buying more Czech wines in general, and they are becoming easier to find, at least in metropolitan restaurants (Ottolenghi’s now has Czech house wines), Petr is a restless spirit whose relentless experiments provide something new in every bottle. Sometimes I get frustrated that I can’t buy a wine I loved in a subsequent vintage (“Raspberry on Ice” remains fondly remembered), but that’s part of the deal.

This Cuvée blends 60% Welschriesling with a hybrid developed at Geisenheim in the 1940s, Hibernal. This is a Seibel x Riesling cross. It’s a variety which is proving interesting in Southern Moravia and a good number of producers have it planted (I must drink Petr Kočařič’s varietal version soon).

The thinking behind the carbonic maceration here is to add texture and freshness to the wine by using what most would see as a red wine process (cf Gamay at the cheaper end of Beaujolais as the classic example). The Welschriesling is perhaps the most identifiable variety, as you’d hope given that there’s more of it. It gives a steely, crisp, element. But the wine also has a quite fruity element, something slightly jolly. I’m guessing this is from the Hibernal. Overall, the wine is light, mineral, and with a savoury touch on the end of the palate. Delicious, of course.

Mine came from Basket Press Wines (£25). Also available from Prost Wines. If you want to try wines that genuinely have a point of difference from much of what is available, even within natural wine (Petr’s wines are resolutely natural), then take a look at his ever-changing portfolio.

Sciaccarellu 2022, Île de Beauté IGP (Corsica, France)

The keen-eyed will notice I’ve not listed a producer. It seems of secondary importance to UK supermarket, Waitrose, although there is of course an unintelligible winemaker’s signature on the label. The back label shows it to be the co-operative cellar called Les Vignerons d’Aghione. It doesn’t matter. This wine is here because if you want something to glug, or sip, on the beach or at a picnic and your audience doesn’t need Château Simone or some other over-£40 Rosé, nor an overpriced celebrity label, this is well worth a punt, if you can still find some.

The front label describes the flavours in the bottle thus: “Pale cherry pink in colour and beautifully poised, this succulent and dry rosé bursts with summery flavours of ripe berries”. Setting aside the hyperbole, which to be honest isn’t too OTT here, I don’t disagree (though I’m always unsure what “poise” means in a wine at this kind of price).

The grape variety is a resolutely Italian (also sometimes spelled Sciaccarello) by name, and may be named after Sciacca, a small port in Southwest Sicily, but it travelled to Corsica probably before that island became irrefutably French, and it is here that it has become best known. The pink wines it makes have a delicacy and perfume you’d perhaps not expect from a warm climate, usually down to vines in the hills, on rocky but wind-swept terrain.

I’d never call this concentrated yet the red fruit swims in nicely in a wine that’s clean, pure, and thirst-quenching. There’s a certain dilution which will be apparent to most readers, but there’s also a little texture to balance that. Dry and light sums it up, and the alcohol at 12.5% abv is maybe a degree lower than much Corsican Rosé.

From Waitrose, of course, this wine’s major draw is that you get something relatively interesting for £8.99. So maybe not one for a dinner party but, as I said, perfect for the beach.

Fleurie “En Remont” 2019, Julie Balagny (Beaujolais, France)

I am not going to shy away from telling you that I was genuinely shocked and saddened by the untimely and tragic passing of Julie Balagny in circumstances I won’t repeat here, but were reported in the French press. She became my favourite Beaujolais producer simply because she made wines that were often on the edge, yet were as thrilling (that’s the key word) as anything I have drunk. They were wines which might not please the purists, but she crafted wines whose small imperfections not only created their soul and personality, but helped to highlight their inner beauty (we know the Japanese word for it, don’t we).

En Remont is a steep hillside vineyard of typical granite, and the vines are 100 years old. It’s a wine of complex layers, silky, and soulful. A wine you can almost stroke. Of course, it has tannins and is too young in an ideal world, but this is not an ideal world. It was the only bottle of Julie’s that I had in the cellar and I had to drink it in her honour, to thank her for all the pleasure she gave me. I might never drink her wine again. It’s sure to be snapped up, what’s left. But this was a beautiful wine, irrespective of its youth, and a fitting wine to honour her memory. She made some of the purest alcoholic fruit juice on the planet. Thank you, Julie.

Julie Balagny was imported by Tutto Wines. They may have some left, although they are unfortunately unable to ship to me in Scotland (I think it’s cheaper to ship Equipo Navazos direct from Spain, expensive as that is, than to ship from bond to East Lothian).

Pretty [n^ts] 2021, Alex & Maria Koppitsch (Burgenland, Austria)

I tend to call this “Pretty Nuts”, as do others, though that probably refers more to the name on the label than the wine inside the bottle. It’s Alex and Maria’s petnat from the north shores of the Neusiedlersee at Neusiedl-am-See. The blend is a simple 50:50 of Blaufränkisch and Syrah taken off the Neuberg, a hillside vineyard rising to 260 masl, situated north of the lake. I think (don’t quote me) it’s over towards Gols, which is just a few kilometres to the east of Neusiedl.

Whole bunches were placed in the old family screw press. The ancestral method means a second bottle fermentation and these were disgorged by hand after cooling outside in January. 2021 saw 3,000 bottles made of ultra-frothy gently sparkling wine which smells and tastes of ripe strawberry with other red fruits in a supporting role.

There’s a softness to the fruit but underneath you get a nice mineral bite in a wine that’s basically dry, but note that in 2021 they left 8.4 g/l residual sugar, nicely balanced by salinity and acidity. In the subsequent 2022 vintage, where a little more was made (3,200 bottles), there was only 4.6 g/l. But forget the tech data, this is simply a beautiful pink petnat. Koppitsch wines are now beginning to be spoken of in some circles in the same breath as the region’s other star natural winemakers. Their rise is well deserved.

The UK importer for Koppitsch is Roland Wines, so a wider distribution is now likely.

“Ma Fille” 2019, Nika Winery (Kakheti, Georgia)

Nika winery was founded in 2006 in Anaga, by Nika Bakhia and his partner. Nika is also an artist and sculptor so he has an artistic vision for his wines. Part of this is an adherence to tradition, so they are made in qvevri and are natural wines, subject to no synthetic inputs.

We have a blend of Mtsvane and Rkatsiteli varieties from a vineyard called Tsagaphi. This was purchased in the same year that the couple’s daughter was born, to whom it is dedicated. The terroir is notably hard and stony. The grapes spend around nine months on their skins in qvevri, giving a wine that is indisputably orange in colour, structured, with tannins quite obvious. This might put some off if they are not used to the full-on orange style. However, there is a gentle, floating, nuanced bouquet of orange peel and winter spice. The palate has a slightly soft, chalky texture underlying the stone fruit.

I wouldn’t say you’d include this in a beginner’s lineup of skin contact wines, and perhaps it needs a little more time. That said, we had around a third of the bottle on the second day and it had improved. We simply stoppered it and put it in the fridge, remembering to bring it close to room temperature before finishing. These wines don’t really need chilling. It just accentuates their hardness and structure.

We have here a wine some might find challenging, but for anyone comfortable with, and used to, a bit of serious skin contact, you will find this artisan Georgian very interesting.

This was imported by Basket Press Wines. They are out of this vintage, and only have Nika’s red left in stock right now. More lines presumably due to come in the autumn?

Posted in Artisan Wines, Beaujolais, Czech Wine, Georgian Wine, Natural Wine, Neusiedlersee, Wine, Wine Agencies | Tagged #theglouthatbindsus, Alex and Maria Koppitsch, Austrian Wine, Balagny Fleurie En Remont 2019, Beaujolais, Burgenland, Corsican Rosé, Czech Wine, Fleurie, Georgian Wine, Julie Balagny, Kakheti Orange Wine, Koppitsch Neusiedl am See, Koppitsch Petnat Pretty Nuts 2021, Korab Carbonic for All, Natural Wine, Nika Winery Ma Fille 2019, Petr Korab Moravia, Qvevri Wine, Recent Wines July 2023 Pt2, Rkatsitelli and Mtsvane blend, Sciaccarellu Corsica, Waitrose Loved & Found Wines | 3 Comments

Recent Wines July 2023 (Part 1) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 29/07/2023 by dccrossley

We begin the first selection from the wines we drank at home in July with a new (to me) wine from a favourite producer in Hungary. Next up, a classic Bugey-Cerdon, then a classic Saar wine but from the region’s undoubted new star, then a Rosé from Alsace, before we end up, as seems the case quite often at the moment, on the shores of Austria’s Neusiedlersee with a light red from another rising star of his region.

Disorder #4 2021, Annamária Réka-Koncz (Eastern Hungary)

I believe this is the first vintage of Disorder Annamária’s UK importer has brought in, and this is my first taste of it, although labelled as #4 it has presumably been around a while? Although Annamária is based at Barabás, up by Hungary’s eastern border with Ukraine, the grapes for this cuvée come from two terraced vineyards called Hintós and Dancka, at Mád, in the Tokaj region to the west. The wine was made in collaboration with a good friend of Annamária’s, Stefan Jensen, who owns Terroiristen Vinbar in Copenhagen, and who is also one of the most respected and largest importers of natural wine into Denmark.

This is a single varietal wine, made from Furmint, of course. The key to the quality here is old vines. The grapes see skin contact giving a light orange colour. It isn’t especially tannic, not at all, but there is a nice ferrous texture, almost certainly from the volcanic soils at Mád.

We begin with a bouquet of orchard fruits, apple freshness and pear depth. You get pear on the palate, and quite intense minerality, as you do with the best Furmint from the region. Furmint is a variety which really doesn’t get the recognition it is due, but here we see another string to its bow. This is a modern, natural wine and it has real personality. It has edge.

Imported by Basket Press Wines in the UK, this will be sold out because Annamária’s wines barely last a couple of weeks. That said, you might find some retailers have the odd bottle if their customers haven’t yet discovered what they are missing. Prost Wines state that it’s in stock online, £26.

Bugey Cerdon “La Cueille” NV, Catherine & Patrick Bottex (Bugey, France)

I’ve been highlighting the wines of Bugey on my blog for some years, and whilst this small region between Jura and Savoie isn’t exactly going the way of Jura, or even Savoie, it is certainly getting a little more UK coverage than it was. Quite recently I’ve managed to get hold of two wines new to the UK, this being one of them. Cerdon is possibly the best-known wine of Bugey here, although the unique wine it produces is a demi-sec fizz that although being ideal drinking for summer, often shocks people on first taste.

Bugey as a wine region is split in two. Its northern part is closer to Jura, and lies just east of Bourg-en-Bresse, whilst the southern half of the region is based around a myriad of vine clusters over towards Savoie, broadly within a big loop of the River Rhône. Both sectors lie in the Ain Department. Cerdon is in the northern part.

Cerdon, the village, lies on the old road from Lyon to Geneva, on the River Veyron (after which Bugatti didn’t name their famous car, that was racing driver Pierre Veyron, but never mind). It has since been bypassed by the feat of mountain engineering that is the A40 Autoroute, the advantage to vinous explorers being that you now have the roads of Northern Bugey largely to yourself. Not that I think they were exactly crowded before. Bugey is one of those fast-disappearing French “paradis”, a bucolic landscape of rocky slopes, rich woodland, sleepy woodsmoke-filled villages, and islands of vines, many on scree-strewn slopes, amid resolutely mixed agriculture, though the vineyards here once extended to over a hundred hectares in the early 20^th century. Ideal territory for young yet impoverished winemakers to start out, and many here wish to follow an organic or natural wine path.

Patrick and Catherine Bottex are not so young. Luckily their son, Carl, is now on-board and preparing to take over. The “La Cueille” on the wine’s label is a hamlet near the small town of Poncin (west of Cerdon itself), where they farm close to 7-hectares of vines. Patrick bought vines here when they were reclassified as Cerdon VDQS, planting more vines themselves, in 1991. Most are Gamay and Pinot Noir, though they still have a little Poulsard left. This Jura variety is traditional in this part of Bugey, but getting quite rare these days. I myself lament its passing.

Patrick still adds 10% Poulsard to his Méthode Ancestrale Cerdon, though Wink Lorch says he’s not replanting it (Wines of the French Alps, 2019). The rest is Gamay. Fermentation begins in tank and then when around 60g/l of sugar is left the juice is cooled to stop fermentation. It is then bottled, where its second fermentation begins spontaneously. The wine is then disgorged with perhaps 40g/l of sugar remaining. However, there’s plenty of acidity too.

This acidity takes away some of our perception of sweetness, so whilst the result certainly doesn’t taste dry, it does taste more fresh and fruity than overtly sweet, very much like a gently fizzy fruit juice. It almost is, coming in at just 8% abv. You get a magenta-coloured Rosé with a lovely crispness, the perfect garden wine.

Kermit Lynch has been onto the Bottex wines for around three decades, and he manages to snaffle a little short of half Patrick and Catherine’s production for the USA. We are therefore lucky to see any here, but those clever boys (Dan Keeling & Mark Andrew) at Shrine to the Vine in London nabbed some. A little made it up here, to the excellent Portobello wine bar, Smith & Gertrude via GB Wine Shippers. They also happen to have an on-site bottle shop. Their penultimate bottle cost me £19. Ridiculous value. But frankly all the Bugey-Cerdon which comes to the UK tends to be the good stuff. I’ve written about Renardat-Fâche a few times before and the still wines, at least, of Philippe Balivet have appeared in London.

Niedermenniger Herrenberg Riesling Spätlese Feinherb “Onkel Peter” 2020, Hofgut Falkenstein (Saar, Germany)

So, that must be the longest wine name for a while. It’s worth persevering with, though, because Hofgut Falkenstein has arrived as one of the new but radiant stars of the whole Mosel-Saar-Ruwer. The estate’s owners, Erich and Maria Weber, with their son, Johannes, see themselves on a mission to make wines in the way they believe they were made in the past, well before the 1970s when German Wine regulations turned us off the styles made with residual sugar through opaque labelling and the commercial suicide of sugar water Müller-Thurgau.

What is this fabled old-time methodology? Easy, pick early before the grapes are too ripe, and then do as little as possible and add as little as possible. The wines ferment, go into cask, and then are bottled directly from the wood, usually large “fuder”. At this stage a little sulphur is added. They also bottle not only each specific vineyard separately, but there may also be a number of different bottlings from a single vineyard, hence the “Onkel Peter” designation here.

The winery is at Konz, close to the Saar’s most famous sites. The vineyards are on steep slate and are ungrafted (on original rootstocks). Onkel Peter is from the south-facing Zuckerberg sector of the vineyard. In true feinherb style it is off-dry, with a bouquet of creamy almond essence, herbs and white flowers and a hint of sechuan pepper. It has that Saar precision, emerging complexity and wow, magnificence.

I know nothing about wine. I was a fool to open it. It was brilliant, but Mosel Fine Wines say drink from 2026 to 2042. Well, lucky you if you will see 2042, but I think I would have got even more out of it in five-to-ten years. I only had one, though I won’t be so swift to open my other cuvées from this estate.

Howard Ripley is the UK agent for Hofgut Falkenstein, so contact them for distribution. I managed to get most of my bottles from The Solent Cellar.

Rosé Cuvée Nature 2021, Anna, André and Yann Durrmann (Alsace, France)

The Durrmann family has its winery and tasting room close to the centre of Andlau, which itself was close to the heart of the natural wine revolution in the region. Now that André and Anna’s son, Yann, has taken over the estate this past year, he is keen to make sure we are all aware of this natural wine pioneer of green energy and ecologically forward-looking vineyard practices (the Durrmanns had sheep, and bird-friendly trees, in their vineyards before most had even heard of such crazy ideas), and its place in the Alsace natural wine story. I’ve seen a lot of photos of Durrmann wines in articles and online in the UK this past year or so.

In 2021 Yann lost quite a lot of his Pinot Noir to mildew, made worse by his desire not to napalm the fungus with chemicals (being more polite, his refusal to use systematic synthetic applications to curb the disease). So, for this vintage we have a Rosé cuvée made from 50% Pinot Noir and 50% Pinot Gris. This is actually a blend which has become very successful among the north of the region’s natural winemakers.

The Pinot Noir was direct pressed with a six-hour maceration, whilst the Pinot Gris was macerated for one week following destemming. The wine was aged on lees for six months in tank and bottled, as the Durrmann “cuvée nature” designation suggests, with no added sulphur. Pale pink with a bit of attractive funk, the PG specifically seems to lift the soft cherry PN with something a bit twisted (maybe it’s a touch of grapefruit). Acids are good, giving enough precision under the rounder fruit, and there’s just a hint of texture. 12% abv.

Imported by Wines Under the Bonnet in London, purchased from Cork & Cask in Edinburgh (£24).

Piroska 2021, Joiseph (Burgenland, Austria)

Joiseph is the domaine created by three guys, including winemaker Luka Zeichmann, one of the rising stars among an already bright firmament of natural wine makers who surround Austria’s famous shallow lake, the Neusiedlersee. Joiseph is a name I’ve never quite got to the bottom of, except that Jois is a small town close to the lake’s northern shore, where you will find their vines situated.

Piroska is a great example of the brilliant summer red wines coming out of this region. It’s a typical pale red, a style that more conservative writers would have called anaemic a few years ago. What makes such a claim silly is that the pale colour robes a wine packed with fruit. That once reviled gem of a variety (for light reds and pinks), Zweigelt, makes up 47% of the cuvée, along with 38% Pinot Noir (very precise, I know). The remaining 15% (check my maths) is a mix of a dash of Blaufränkisch and white varieties.

Harvested early, the intense red summer fruits are cut with a streak of refreshing acidity and mineral intensity. If you want light but intense this is your wine. For drinking now (well, it’s sunny up here, have you seen Doug Wregg’s photos?), drink cool to stay cool!

Imported by Modal Wines. Nic usually has a decent selection of Joiseph cuvées. This is another bottle which I found at Smith & Gertrude in Portobello (Edinburgh’s beachside). Cork & Cask in Edinburgh had some, though they might have currently sold out, but they may have other Joiseph wines. Around £24 once it passes the tax man.

Posted in Artisan Wines, Natural Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Merchants | Tagged #theglouthatbindsus, Alsace Wine, André Durrmann Andlau, Annamária Réka-Koncz Hungary, Austrian Wine, Bugey Wine, Bugey-Cerdon, Burgenland Wine, Catherine & Patrick Bottex Bugey, Durrmann Rosé Nature 2021, German Wine, Hofgut Falkenstein Saar, Hungarian Wine, Joiseph Piroska 2021, Luka Zeichmann Joiseph, Niedermenniger Herrenberg "Onkel Peter" 2020, Recent Wines July 2023 (Pt 1), Reka-Koncz Disorder #4 2021, Saar Wine, Yann Durrmann Andlau | Leave a comment

Koppitsch (Producer Profile)

Posted on 24/07/2023 by dccrossley

Looking back, it was at Raw Wine in 2017 when I first met Alex and Maria Koppitsch. Their wines were lovely, and equally as important, to me at least, so were its makers. I found it inconceivable that they didn’t have a UK importer. Maria was back again the following year, along with her sister. They had suffered from the very low yields afflicting Burgenland in 2016 but the wines were now even better. They had a couple of companies importing their wines, but distribution was rather restricted by their size and scope.

By the time I met up with Alex and Maria in Vienna in January 2019 things were looking up. They had given their labels a refresh and their wines were beginning to get noticed around the world. That the UK was being left behind a bit infuriated me. Jascots, who were then representing them in London, only seemed to list four of their wines. Fresh Wines in Scotland also imported a little, but their main sales seemed to be via farmer’s markets up in Perth & Kinross, although I was able to order a little online.

Alex & Maria in Vienna, 2019

Thankfully they have now found a home with Roland Wines, whose excellent list enables Koppitsch exposure to the London natural wine scene and beyond. In fact, I can source these wines in Edinburgh via Roland’s distribution up here, and that means all my favourite Burgenland producers can be purchased via a short ride into the city, in this case to Cork & Cask in Marchmont.

But perhaps we should head back to Austria. Burgenland’s shallow Neusiedlersee is without question one of my very favourite places in Europe. It’s far from just being about the wine, but the lake is almost ringed with vineyards and wine culture here has been strong since at least the 1400s. The Koppitsch family farms vineyards located at the top (north) of the lake, and are based in the town of Neusiedl am See. I’ve mentioned before how this is one of two very convenient places to start a wine tour around here, being a fairly short train ride from Vienna, and boasting a cycle hire shed right next to the railway station.

The lake itself is unusual, to say the least. It is the largest endorheic lake in Central Europe, meaning that it is a drainage basin with no outflow. It covers 315 square kilometres, most being within Austria, but around 75 square kilometres at its southern end are in Hungary. It measures approximately 36km in length and at its widest point, about 6km wide. Its maximum depth is estimated to be just under six feet (or 1.8 metres). The whole area is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The surface area of water is surrounded by reed beds which cover at least twice the area of the lake. This is one reason that Neusiedlersee has become a major bird sanctuary, especially for storks, which can be viewed nesting in the lakeside villages. Most of them appear to prefer picture-postcard Rust on its western shore, making this village the most visited destination for tourists. The lake also has around twice the concentration of salt as most inland lakes. This, and the wind which whips over it from the Pannonian Plain, and which helps to keep the vines pest free, also gives the lake an air of the sea about it. It can get quite stormy on the water despite its shallowness.

Reed bed inlet looking out onto a bleak Neusiedlersee last August

Weingut Koppitsch is a small operation. They have around six hectares of vines which have been in the family for half a century. The terroir, sloping down to the lake, is largely a mix of clay, loam, sand, and gravel, but they also have vines on limestone and schist at higher elevations. Alex learned winemaking from his father, who had already embraced what we now call natural winemaking. Alex introduced biodynamics but the lake itself, with relatively low rainfall (though too low in 2022 with the water being at its lowest level I’ve ever seen it), makes chemical-free grape growing easier than in some places.

Alex takes care of winemaking, but his father still lends a hand, especially in the vines. Maria has their three boys to look after, but is in charge of comms, and is definitely a big part of the team, and the winery’s identity. That identity, which I think was not fully understood a few years ago, is (as Alex says) to “…make natural wine. Hence we reject all forms of artificial additives”. Natural yeasts are always used, no temperature control, and usually zero added sulphur. It should perhaps be stressed that Alex claims these vineyards have never been sprayed with conventional vineyard treatments.

The new 2022 vintage recently arrived at Roland Wines, so what do they currently have on their list?

Homok is a white blend of 40% each of Grüner Veltliner and Welschriesling with 20% Sauvignon Blanc from 30-y-o vines on sand. Whole bunches are pressed into a mix of fibreglass, acacia and stainless steel, with around six months together on lees. £24.

Perspektive Weiss is an equal blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc (Weissburgunder) grown on a rocky limestone hill called Neuberg (at 260 masl). Most of the juice was direct pressed into old barriques, but 25% was fermented on the skins for eight days. Ageing is on gross lees for ten months. £28.

Touch 2021 is half Welschriesling and half gemischter satz (a co-fermented field blend of, in this case, both Grüner and Brauner Veltliner, Welschriesling, Weissburgunder, Neuburger, Sauvignon Blanc, Muskat and Traminer, plus a few they can’t identify). It’s an amber/orange wine, but is easy to drink and not at all tannic. £26.

Rosza is described as “fresh summer lemonade with sour cherry, strawberry, litchi and a hint of orange peel”. It’s a darker “Rosé”, whole bunches of Zweigelt and Pinot Noir (40% of each), with St Laurent and Syrah direct pressed in a vertical basket press, then transferred to a mix of fibreglass and stainless steel. Alex is quite a fan of fibreglass and I think some of these tanks are outside, which brings to mind the wines made by the late Sean Thackrey of Marin County. The varieties were co-fermented and saw six months on lees. £24.

Pretty N^ts (sic) is Alex and Maria’s glorious petnat, made from equal parts Blaufränkisch and Syrah. Off limestone and schist, they make just 3,000 bottles and it’s worth snapping up. It has been aptly described as a “berry punch” but I’d also draw attention to its mineral salinity. As I await the 2022, I am about to pop, as I write, my last bottle of 2021 tonight. Yes, it is sunny here. £27.50.

Rét is comprised 80% Zweigelt with 20% St Laurent off gravel, and is described as “dark cherry pecan pie”. It’s usually concentrated but easy to drink, seeing eight days skin contact before six months ageing (a mix of acacia barrels and fibreglass). £22.50. Rét is Hungarian dialect for Red, and evokes the Hungarian heritage around the lake, despite its proximity to Vienna.

Abendrot 2021 is a cuvée I’ve not yet had the pleasure of trying. The grapes, Welschriesling, Rosenmuskateller, Chardonnay, Weissburgunder, Blaufränkisch and St Laurent, come once more from the elevated Neuberg. Various ageing and fermentation methods were used for each individual variety, but ageing was on lees for eleven months. This 2021 was bottled in August 2022. Although the wine is comprised of both red and white varieties, I’m told it has good structure, and a note suggesting raspberry, lime, rhubarb, and grapefruit sounds very appealing. £28.50.

Perspektive Rot 2021 (70% Blaufränkisch, 30% St Laurent) is off limestone, the favourite soils for Blaufränkisch in this region, usually hillside vineyards on the Leithaberg. Ageing of 22 months on lees in barrique suggests (correctly) that this is perhaps more structured than many of the more glouglou wines Alex makes, and will benefit from a little time in bottle. To that end he added 5mg of sulphur at bottling. £27.50.

A Quite Soft Light 2019 is a special cuvée. Whereas most of the Koppitsch wines retail in the range of £20-to-£30 in the UK, this one goes out at £48. It’s a special selection of two barrels of Blaufränkisch, one from limestone soils and one coming off schist. Ageing was for 30 months on gross lees and in this case, Alex didn’t add any sulphur. Just 600 bottles were made.

All wines are biodynamic natural wines with zero sulphur added and from the 2022 vintage, unless stated. These arrived with Roland a few weeks ago and I know that they are currently going out for retail distribution.

If you want to try these wines, Roland have put together a six-pack containing Homok, Rosza, Rét, Perspektive Weiss, Abendrot and Touch, which comes with a Koppitsch tote bag and branded waiter’s friend corkscrew, for £155.

**This week sees a rise in duty on wine, with new complicated rules. Whilst Champagne and sparkling wine duty will actually go down by 0.19 pence, the rest is all upwards. So bear in mind the prices quoted may be more by the time you next visit a wine shop or web site.

I know this sounds a bit like an advertisement for Roland Wines, but I have no commercial relationship with them, and will receive no free wine etc. I shall be buying my 2022 Koppitsch locally, retail. I do, however, love these wines and very much like the people who make them. That’s why, along with the likes of Renner und Rennersistas and Gut Oggau, they continue to get plugged by me.

Posted in Artisan Wines, Austrian Wine, biodynamic wine, Natural Wine, Neusiedlersee, Wine, Wine Agencies | Tagged A Quite Soft Light 2019 Koppitsch, Abendrot 2021, Alex and Maria Koppitsch, Alex Koppitsch Winemaker, Austrian Natural Wine, Austrian Petnat, Austrian Wine, Homok, Koppitsch Burgenland, Koppitsch Rét, Koppitsch Rosza, Neusiedl am See, Neusiedlersee, Perspective Wines, Roland Wines, Touch 2021 | 3 Comments

Aberfeldy (Warning: Whisky Content!)

Posted on 17/07/2023 by dccrossley

Aberfeldy. It has a nice ring to it, and it certainly is a nice place. Great food, drink, walks and more in an attractive market town on the southern edge of the Scottish Highlands, surrounded by mountains which are majestic green and grey in the sunshine, somewhat forbidding in the rain. One of the town’s finest walks, through woodland up to the impressive Moness Falls (round trip close to two hours with stops) was immortalised by Scotland’s national poet, Robert Burns, in his song “The Birks of Aberfeldy” (1787). With its proximity to Loch Tay and Glen Lyon, Scotland’s longest enclosed glen, it is a great place for a visit, and only two hours north of Edinburgh by road. Yet there’s another reason to visit which I’ve not yet mentioned. Whisky!

Now, some of you may begin to question the slow, creeping, appearance of whisky in a wine blog. I admit that after a flirtation with Scotch Whisky in my twenties I became more interested in other spirits. First it was gin and brandy, later rum, with a burgeoning interest in sake coming in the 1990s, following several visits to Japan. And there’s that worrying taste for the Negroni (only last week identified in one section of the press as the aperitivo of choice for the liberal woke elites). Wine has always been the overriding passion though. Then we moved to Scotland and I guess you just can’t ignore the local liquor. Up here, most people it seems will engage in a discussion about the spirit at some point of an evening. Apart from getting back my taste for whisky, I have come around to viewing the similarities between whisky and wine.

I’m not speaking of “taste similarities”, although you can definitely find some winey elements in the glass, more on the nose than palate. I mean that each distillery is distinct in terms of its product’s flavours and its unique history. Even the larger producing distilleries can claim to be “artisanal”. These are perhaps what you might call cultural similarities. Equally, whisky has its “wine region” equivalents (Speyside, Island etc) and even its “crus” (Campbeltown, Islay and so on).

The other wine connection is the casks used to finish a whisky’s ageing. Not all such casks were used for wine previously. Bourbon casks are the most common because, due to the particular regime for bourbon ageing, they are plentiful, but wine casks are becoming more prevalent.

Sherry casks, perhaps most often Oloroso casks, are frequently encountered but I am drawn to more limited examples. The Isle of Arran Distillery on Scotland’s most southerly whisky-producing island has finished whisky in Sauternes and Valpolicella casks and the former, in particular, has drawn perhaps too many appreciative noises in our current abode.

But I’m digressing from Aberfeldy. The distillery which has taken the name of the town, and is situated just beyond its eastern edge, was opened in 1898 by the Dewar brothers, Tommy and John junior. Their father, also John and the company’s founder, had been born on a croft only a couple of miles from the town, then a mere village which found itself on General Wade’s route to quell the clans (Wade’s military bridge is architecturally famous and as impressive as the enormous statue which sits close by, a memorial to the locally recruited Black Watch Regiment, involved in Wade’s somewhat dubious expedition).

The name Dewar should be familiar to many readers, being one of the great whisky dynasties of Scotland. Dewar’s is the biggest selling whisky brand in the USA, which helps the on-site visitor experience, Dewar’s World of Whisky, to welcome more than 35,000 visitors a year, many coming from over the Atlantic to discover their Scottish heritage, and indeed to show off their impressive connoisseurship.

Of course, like almost all the Scottish distilleries, Aberfeldy/Dewars felt the effects of industry consolidation through the 20^th Century. They became part of United Distillers in 1925 (which became UDV on its merger with Grand Metropolitan in 1998), eventually finding its place as one of the Diageo brands. Diageo was forced to sell off some interests because by then the European Union, under its consumer protection competition law, wasn’t too keen on monopolistic tendencies. The Dewar brand, along with Aberfeldy, were purchased by Bacardi Corp.

And there they reside. Bacardi has invested heavily (at least £3 million) in Dewar’s World of Whisky. If Aberfeldy would be hard pushed to claim to be one of the handful of most highly regarded single malts by whisky aficionados, it can rightly claim to be one of the best three or four whisky visitor experiences in Scotland. This is why my son-in-law and I decided to take a tour.

You start out with an enjoyable short film, especially some nice black and white footage, before moving into the museum. This is nicely set out, one half being a replica Dewar’s office with pull-out drawers of artifacts etc, the other half containing various cabinets full of all sorts of relevant objects, which hopefully the photos will give some idea of.

Then you get collected by a guide and taken on a tour of the distillery. It’s all very well reading about the process of creating a single malt whisky, but seeing it does make such a difference, especially if, like me, it is your first such tour. Sadly, unlike in any winery I’ve visited, they won’t let you take any photos inside the production areas, a shame because the four enormous copper stills, the big brass spirit safes, and the giant wooden mash tuns are all highly photogenic. We also didn’t get to see inside the cask rooms, I presume because these must be bonded facilities with limited access. We did see a few barrels but they contained samples “from the barrel” for the visitors taking a superior tour.

So, what’s available? We booked (booking is essential, I would suggest) the least expensive option, the tour plus a two-glass tasting (a Dewar’s 12-y-o blend which contains both malt and grain whisky and a 12-y-o Aberfeldy Single Malt). This seemed good value at £15/head. A driver’s ticket allows you to take your samples away at no extra cost. The Connoisseur Experience gives you five older whisky samples to taste for £35, or you can blend your own whisky (10cl) for £45. Drams of Your Dreams (£80) is a bespoke tasting, based on what you have tasted previously and what you are curious to discover (usually including 32-y-o and 40-y-o samples).

Of course, there’s a whisky bar there, and the inevitable but most welcome gift shop. This was a temptation I couldn’t resist, partly because they had Royal Brackla available (in 12-y-o, 15-y-o and 21-y-o form). I like this Bacardi-owned single malt as a good expression of an Oloroso cask whisky, and it is only usually found on export markets and duty free now. There were some extremely expensive bottles for those able to afford them, but at the other end of the scale plenty of miniatures. I couldn’t resist Dewar’s Japanese Smooth, an 8-y-o blend finished in Japanese Mizunara oak. You can probably tell by now that whisky appeals to my geeky side.

I will finish with my last attempt to persuade you that whisky is worth exploring for wine lovers. It’s a tasting note. Okay, you and I know that there’s an awful lot of pretentious rubbish written in a wine tasting note, but I would suggest that this one, by Charles MacLean in his Whiskypedia (5^th edn, 2022, Berlinn Ltd) really does sound so similar to what I might write after a few drams. The glass in question is Aberfeldy. “Smooth and creamy; honeycomb; pears, melon and bruised apples, light maltiness. Taste is fresh, fruity and waxy…Medium body”. The book, by the way, is my malt whisky distillery bible.

Aberfeldy is just off the A9, close to Pitlochry and Blair Athol. We rented a cottage, though hotel accommodation also exists, and the tourist is well catered for. There’s a good Italian restaurant, plenty of cafes and pubs, and a very good butcher. The Watermill Bookshop and Café is also highly recommended. However, we were told that the place pretty much shuts down after the summer season, and getting there otherwise than by car isn’t easy. But as you can see, I found it well worth the effort and I can imagine we’ll be back.

For those missing the wine, normal service will be resumed next week!

General Wade’s military bridge on the River Tay (1733)

The “Birks of Aberfeldy” and Moness Falls

Glen Lyon from Glen Lyon Post Office (great café)

Posted in Craft Spirits, Spirits, Whisky | Tagged Aberfeldy, Aberfeldy Whisky, Dewar's World of Whisky, Distillery visit, Scottish Whisky Travel, Whisky Visitor Experience | Leave a comment

Brad’s not Brash – Brash Higgins Producer Profile

Posted on 12/07/2023 by dccrossley

Brad Hickey is a Chicago lad who, I assume, never thought he’d end up making wine in South Australia. He did a bit of corporate stuff, as so many of us do, but then like so many talented and creative individuals he gravitated to wine. First it was as a sommelier and writer in Paris, Portland, and NYC (working for Michelin 2* David Bouley), but he decided doing a harvest in Australia might be fun. That fortuitous decision led him to meet grape grower Nicole Thorpe, and also to gain his nickname, Brash Higgins.

The origin of that nickname which went on to become the couple’s brand (Brad and Nicole are no longer a couple, so to speak, but remain friends and business partners), lies with the Aussie pruners Brad worked with. If you know Aussie pruners, they don’t suffer fools (neither gladly nor any other way). However, if they like you, and Brad is a very affable bloke, you will get a nickname. It’s a rite of passage. Let’s just say he’s probably glad he didn’t draw the short straws because one of them was known as Knackers, another one, Bedsores. Brash because Brad is a yank, and we know all yanks are brash, right? Higgins, more obscurely, after Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady for his generally erudite manner. Always checking the rainfall and sunshine hours etc.

Nicole had a vineyard called Omensetter. You may have heard of it by now. I’m sure this is not the prime reason Brad wanted to get to know her. Omensetter was planted to Cabernet and Shiraz in 1997, on really great terroir of mineral rich clay and limestone, in McLaren Vale, but close enough to benefit from the ocean breezes off the Gulf of Saint Vincent, just 5km away. That helped them weather that late-nineties drought, along with Brad’s attention to the stats. The drought got them interested in alternative varieties, something we are now all of a sudden hearing plenty about in an Australian context. Back then they were new, but a convo with Steve Pannell, a leader in planting drought-resistant Italian vines in Australia, led them to plant Nero d’Avola, that Sicilian hot climate variety.

That one small step has in many ways been a catalyst for every other innovation the couple have made. From Amphora (made by artisans in Australia) wines, Zibibbo, Cinsault and Carignan, and to Bloom (of which more later).

Among my favourite wines from Brad, aside from Bloom, are a Cabernet Franc and a Chenin from cooler sites, a brilliant amphora-made Nero d’Avola (NDA), and an equally exciting Zibibbo (Muscat of Alexandria, also found in Sicily). The Zibibbo (ZBO) is sourced up in Riverland, but from seriously well-tended fruit, actually 70-year-old bush vines from Ricca Terra Farms. It is transformed into something special in (once more) amphora where it sees an extended maceration, 150 (sic) days on skins. It may be pale copper in colour, a little cloudy (once an horrific sin in Australia) and smell or taste like waxy confit lemon with honey and eucalyptus, but it isn’t tannic.

The pièce de resistance from Brash Higgins is Bloom. This is an oxidatively aged homage to Jura’s Vin Jaune. It’s not a replica though. The variety is Chardonnay, not Savagnin. The current vintage is 2015, which is only Bloom’s third incarnation. Bloom uses fruit from the sandy Blewitt Springs sub-region, just south of Adelaide. The wine is matured in usually just four barrels previously used for White Burgundy for a period of six-and-a-half years, similar to the ageing period for Vin Jaune. Flor grows naturally on the surface of the wine, but unlike in the Jura, Brad adds a little fresh wine periodically, which feeds the flor, but not towards the end of ageing, where the barrels get a quarter turn to keep the bungs air tight.

The result is amber in colour with very complex aromas of caramelised butter, whisky, apples, lemons, orange, Indian spices (cumin and coriander plus more), and a top note of just decipherable coconut. The palate has less acidity than most young Vin Jaune, but it’s all lemon and hazelnut with great salinity. The 2015 was bottled in August 2022 at 15% abv, and kept in their McLaren Vale cellars before release.

The current vintage has therefore only just come to the market but with a mere seventy-five cases for the world, this is something of a unicorn. I got one of the last bottles in Sydney in mid-April and Brad has around thirty bottles remaining at the winery. I am unsure whether any more bottles made it to England (other than perhaps in Brad’s luggage for his recent trip here). The previous two vintages (2008 and 2012) only came in tiny quantities via suitcases. The 2015 is around $175 in Australia, that’s around £90 and a relative bargain for such a rarity.

However, Brash Higgins isn’t all about Bloom. I’ve already mentioned some of my other favourites. New releases this year include a prestige 2010 Omensetter vineyard blend (85% Shizza and 15% Cab, made to age), Ripple 2021 (Nero/Cab blend via carbonic maceration), and a 2020 Shiraz which Brad says is spicy, iron-rich, sweet-fruited and salty. Wines I am yet to try but desperately want to include “Nymph” (a Carignan/Cinsault blend Rosé) and “Moon-Yay” (who wouldn’t want to get stuck into a zero-sulphur Pinot Meunier?).

There’s also “TWNY”, a solera project going for more than 20 years using Macallan Whisky casks which had previously been used for Oloroso Sherry and started by a couple of whisky connoisseurs. The grapes are a blend of Grenache and PX. There are 100 x 50cl etched bottles in memory of one of the project’s now sadly departed initiators ($150). Aussie “ports” are one of wine’s hidden treats. But I think this one might have to wait until my next trip to Australia.

In the UK, Berkmann Wine Cellars is now Brad’s importer/agent. They started working together before Covid, but Brad has just left London following a trip to Europe which has, among other visits, given him a chance to spend time with the Berkmann team. Berkmann currently imports Brad’s Chenin, Zibibbo, Cabernet Franc, MCC (a Mataro, Cinsault, Carignan field blend), GR/M (Grenache and Mataro co-ferment) and Cabernet Sauvignon. Hopefully, following Brad’s UK trip, we might see a few more. Check with Berkmann for retailers.

For US readers, Brad works with Hudson Wine Brokers.

In a recent email Brad was explaining how he often sees some wines get more flavour recognition in certain markets. He gave two examples. Ripple, the carbonic Nero/Cab blend mentioned above, has gone down really well in Japan, where Brad is now, with importer GRN. The wine’s sweet and sour profile reminded tasters of Japanese plums. I’m sure the wine is less of an acquired taste than the plums, which I don’t find very palatable, and Brad’s tasting note does add flavours of “summer berries and candied strawberries” as well as the pickled plums, but it’s all about flavour recognition deep in the olfactory senses.

Another example of a great pairing was discovered when Brad, as part of the time spent with Danish agent Jules Engros, made a trip to the Faroe Islands (lucky man, Koks restaurant is on my wish list). Here, under the midnight sun, ZBO (Zibibbo) made an impression with fermented fish. The thing is, in the UK we are lucky to have such a variety of culinary influences, and if you love food you will assimilate references deep in the taste part of the brain which will always be there when tasting wine, ready to seep out. But I think Australians experimenting with a myriad of alternative varieties, and novel blends, will always find new taste sensations to bring to our table.

I genuinely believe that these wines, most being not too expensive, are excellent value. They fill that gap which does seem to have grown on export markets, especially in the UK, for excellent wines which are made with great artisan care, yet are not awfully expensive. Hic! Wine lists the Cabernet Franc for £21, R&H Fine Wines has MCC for £24.99, and Cork & Cask (Edinburgh) has the Zibibbo (ZBO) at £29.95. The Chenin is around £25. For me, any wine of this level of quality under £30 is good value in my book, but good value is not enough. There’s excitement aplenty as well. I’m kinda saying go try some, aren’t I. Brad is no newbie, yet his wines are only really starting to be discovered on the UK market. Now is a good time to have a look.

Posted in Artisan Wines, Australian Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies | Tagged Australia Alternative Varieties, Australian Amphora Wine, Australian Flor-aged Chardonnay, Australian Wine Producer Profile, Berkmann Wine Brash Higgins, Blewitt Springs Chardonnay, Brad Hickey, Brash Higgins, Brash Higgins Bloom, McLaren Vale Wine, Nicole Thorpe Winemaker, South Australian Wine, Zibibbo in Australia | Leave a comment

Recent Wines June 2023 (Part 2) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 04/07/2023 by dccrossley

For the second part of my Recent Wines for June we have a small, but very eclectic, selection. We begin with two Mosel producers. One is a young woman making boundary-pushing wines in tiny quantities, the other is a young man doing much the same, but here giving us a cider. Our third bottle is also from Germany, but from Franken. A classic of the region, but a wine dressed in very different clothes. There’s my first bottle of Waitrose supermarket’s “Loved and Found” series, this one from Spain, and then something of a rarity, a proper English red wine.

Sóley [2020], Katla Wines (Mosel, Germany)

Jas Swan has now moved on from the Stafelter Hof cellars of Jan Matthias Klein at Kröv, where she made wines for a couple of vintages, and I’m told she now resides, viticulturally speaking, at Wöllstein (Rheinhessen). Jas farmed Riesling near Kröv when in the Mosel (and may well still do) but the essence of her label has always been that of a micro-negociant, purchasing grapes not only from Germany but occasionally France too.

Sóley, which means “solo” or “not involving anything or anyone else” in Icelandic, is made from Kerner. It’s a variety I quite like, but most of the Kerner I drink (albeit infrequently) comes from NE Italy. In this case I think the fruit is from the Nahe Region. In Germany the establishment rather turn their noses up at the variety. Of course, as with all Jas’s wines, the grapes are organic and the wines are made naturally, additive free.

Fourteen days on skins hasn’t really added colour to the wine, which remains relatively pale. There’s a touch of bottle stink on opening but this blows away in a minute or two. What replaces it are aromas of crisp apple and mango. The palate is bone dry, the acidity good-to-pronounced. It’s a wine that is there purely to refresh, and it does that magnificently well, but if we are getting more philosophical, it is also a wine that poses questions about what we expect from alcoholic (12.5% abv in this case) grape juice. In other words, it may be a simple wine on one level, but on another it is massively interesting.

This bottle came from Made from Grapes in Glasgow. I seem so often to spot what turns out to be the last bottle (I’m a pro when it comes to nosing out such gems). Jas’s wines do require some sleuthing in the UK.

Birnen-und-Äpfelwein, Jan-Philipp Bleeke (Mosel, Germany)

JPB is another member of the team of people who have made wine with Jan Matthias Klein, and knows Jas Swan well. This pear and apple cider was bottled by Jan-Philipp, but the project involved Jan Matthias and Kosie van der Merwe, along with several of their friends. It’s a wholly “natural” cider, by which I mean that the bottle contains just the juice of apples and pears, using hand-harvested, Mosel-grown, fruit from between Kröv and Wolf. It sports a great label by Janika Streblow worthy of gracing any petnat on the planet.

The first thing I noticed on pulling this from the fridge was a use by date, 1/10/22. Ouch, I only bought it this year, in March. The retailer can rest assured that this bottle was beautifully fresh. Pear dominates the bouquet and palate but the apples add acids which haven’t significantly diminished. I’m no cider expert, but I do love to have a few in the racks and when the time is right little beats a bottle. This was lovely.

I got this from Made from Grapes again. They, through their importing arm, Sevslo, have a good relationship with Jan-Phlipp Bleeke, and I’m looking forward to trying more of his wines in the future. In the meantime, check out his “Red Aquarius”, reviewed by me three months ago (Recent Wines March 2023 (Part 1), 31/03/2023).

Sylvaner 2020, Stefan Vetter (Franken, Germany)

Stefan has become more than a respected name in Franken viticulture, definitely one of the emerging stars of the region, but he makes natural wines which are modern and look, smell and taste quite different to the albeit often very fine wines made by the region’s elites. They are also somewhat different in spirit.

Stefan worked at Nittnaus in Austria’s Burgenland before managing to purchase a little vineyard back in his native region. He now has three vineyards, mostly of Sylvaner (note his “French” spelling of the variety) plus a little Pinot Noir for both red and Rosé, and makes individual cuvées of Sylvaner from each. He also makes cider from his orchards in what looks to be an idyllic location, surrounded by nature. This cuvée is not a single vineyard wine, but it doesn’t lack terroir expression all the same.

I think the key to enjoying this wine, and appreciating its nuances and depth, is not to over chill it. Lemon and lime, peach, mango, ginger and herbs, they all come through as the wine warms in the glass. When I said depth, I really meant it in this case. Some of those aromas smell as if they are coming from deep in the glass (a Zalto Universal, of course). There’s also mineral texture and great length.

A perfect pairing would have been asparagus, although it went very well with a chick pea flour omelette with black olives, mushrooms, spinach, peppers and Kashmiri chilli powder. A lovely wine, my last Vetter in the cellar. For now.

This came from Winemakers Club on Farringdon Street (London).

Waitrose “Loved & Found” Treixadura 2021, Viña Costeira (Ribeiro, Spain)

For those readers outside of the UK Waitrose is known as “the posh supermarket”. If its food has been considered upmarket, its wine offering, once clearly the best supermarket range in the UK, went a little off the boil over the past decade. Good wines, but largely playing safe. However, this relatively new range of wines are innovative and well-priced, intended to present customers with grape varieties they have probably never heard of. I bought a red, a Rosé and a white wine to check them out. All were retailing for £8.99.

Treixadura is certainly a lesser-known grape variety even in its homeland of Spain’s northerly Galicia region. I’d say that even the better-known varieties from here are pretty much unknown to many, except perhaps Albariño? Treixadura is quite common in the Ribeiro region though, especially in its heartland around Ribadavia. Viña Costeira is the bottler, based in Valdepereira.

We have a light and fairly simple bottle here, with a floral bouquet and a squeeze of lemon on the palate. It’s not earth-shattering of itself, but the combination of interesting flavours from a grape we don’t often see, certainly not at a major retailer, makes this worth a look. I’d say its definitely good value and we shouldn’t expect complexity at this price. Although unlikely to be a natural wine as such, it does state that it is vegan.

Times are getting harder for most of us and this range from Waitrose is most welcome. I also bought a Sciaccarellu from Corsica and an Albarossa from Piemonte. The range includes Sparkling Passerina, Zibibbo, Trincadeira, Loin de L’Oeil and Sauvignon Gris. I hope the wines sell well enough to expand the idea and range.

Field Blend “Drums > Space” 2021, Blackbook Urban Winery (London/Essex, UK)

Surely the holy grail for English and Welsh winemakers now is proper, ageable, English red wine? Red grapes really need warmth and sunshine to ripen and if you don’t get those then there really is nowhere to hide. But here we may be onto something.

Blackbook Winery can be found in a railway arch on an industrial site in London’s Battersea, just south of The Thames. It was founded in 2017 by Connecticut native Sergio Verillo and his wife Lynsey. The urban winery idea, born in California, has taken off in London where there are now several. Blackbook is probably the one exploring the most innovative ideas. Their original intention was to try to make wine in the image of their beloved Burgundy, and there’s no doubt that their core range expresses this. That said, they like to experiment constantly, and “Field Blend” is one result.

There is one place that crops up a lot when discussing English Red Wine. It’s somewhere that a lot of wineries in other parts of Britain use to source red grapes, not that many tell you on the label (one or two can be quite cagey). This is the Crouch Valley in Essex. Other wine regions may have greater sex appeal but Essex has more sunshine.

The specific vineyard listed on the label is “South Bank Vineyard”. I’m not totally sure, given the location of the winery, whether this is a little joke (Blackbook is situated on London’s South Bank). What we do know is that there are four varieties in the bottle, presumably co-planted and co-fermented given the wine’s name. I cannot find a single source that tells me what they are, although I know there are both red and white grapes in here.

I am going to guess that there is Cabernet Noir and Bacchus among them? Cabernet Noir (aka Cabaret Noir) is a crossing of Cabernet Sauvignon and an unspecified variety, developed by Valentin Blattner in Switzerland in 1991. It was developed for the disease resistance of the secret partner and I know it grows reasonably well as far north as Lincolnshire. Of course, I could be totally wrong, because I know they source Pinot Noir from Clayhill in Essex and that fruit can have a darker profile. Anyway, it’s unusual not to find the varieties listed, even on the Blackbook web site, but doubtless Sergio has his reasons.

The wine is well structured with tannins that just don’t fit the profile of Pinot Noir or Frühburgunder (PN Précose), for example. In fact, Sergio suggests on the Blackbook web site that we should drink this between 2024 and 2032. I wouldn’t say his optimism is misplaced, but right now I think it already tastes really very good. Fermented in small open-top vats and aged in ex-Burgundy barrels, you get cherry, raspberry, and a touch of darker fruit, plus a lick of spice. Only a little sulphur was added. Just 120 cases were made. I think it’s a real pointer for the future of red wine in England, something outside of the light red category and a wine that will age.

£30, Cork & Cask, Edinburgh.

Posted in Artisan Wines, Cider, Mosel, Natural Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies | Tagged #theglouthatbindsus, Birnen-und-Apfelwein, Blackbook Urban Winery London, Blackbook Winery Field Blend 2021, Crouch Valley Grapes, English Red Wine, English Wines, Essex Vineyards, Field Blend Drums > Space 2021, Galician Wine, German Pear & Apple Cider, German Wine, Jan Matthias Klein collaborations, Jan-Philipp Bleeke Cider, Jas Swan Winemaker, Kerner, Loved & Found Treixadura, natural wines, Recent Wines June 2023 Pt 2, Ribeiro Ribadavia Treixadura, Sóley 2020 Katla Wines, Sergio Verillo Winemaker, Spanish Wine, Staffelter Hof Staffers, Stefan Vetter Franken Sylvaner, Supermarket Wines of Interest, Waitrose Loved & Found Wines | Leave a comment

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