David Crossley's Wide World of Wine

The Petnat Phenomenon – A Gateway to a Different Path

Posted on 07/04/2021 by dccrossley

Back in January I wrote about Grower Champagne and what a phenomenon that seems to have become, and I’ve been looking for an opportunity to write about what I see as a complimentary sparkling wine style ever since. There is no doubt at all that the pétnat phenomenon has grown dramatically over the past ten-to-twenty years, providing vinous adventurers with wines which perhaps may not fit within the standard hierarchy of classic quality perceptions, but which nevertheless provide real excitement, especially it seems for part of a younger wine drinking demographic.

With an increasing emphasis on stimulating labels and what is perceived as good value when compared to more traditional (method) bottle-fermented sparkling wines, pétnats have carved a niche, especially in wine bars and for outdoor drinking (picnics, barbecues). They have especially struck a chord with fans of natural wine because in order to enjoy them to the full, perhaps one needs to have a slightly different take on outmoded ideas about “wine quality”, and indeed what wine is and can be.

It would be useful to try to define what a “petnat” wine (or pétillant naturel, to give the genre its original French name) is, and we can begin by saying what it is not. Two or three decades ago there were perhaps two main ways of making quality (sic) sparkling wine, with some variations. We have the method used in Champagne, whereby (very broadly speaking) the fermented wine goes into bottle to undergo a second fermentation, started by a liqueur sugar solution, whilst resting on its lees sediment. This sediment is removed (disgorgement) usually after an extended period of ageing, before the bottle is sold. This, with the autolysis created by longer ageing on lees, was always seen as the way to produce fine sparkling wine, with the complexities of that interaction between wine and yeast cells over a number of years in a cool chalk cellar.

The cheaper method was to undertake the process in a tank, most commonly stainless steel. Fermentation is usually much faster here and it is ideally suited to base wines which perhaps have less capacity to age or where complexity is not sought. In France this is called the charmat or cuvé close method. But perhaps the most famous wine mostly made in this way is Prosecco.

Those two methods of making quality sparkling wine (ie other than by merely injecting carbon dioxide into a still wine) are kind of at the two extremes. I’d add …of perceived quality, but of course there are many very good Proseccos made by the Charmat method. They have their own style. Our modern day petnat occupies a kind of middle ground. Most of the pétillant naturel wines we enjoy today are made by a method known as the méthode ancestrale (sometimes called méthode rurale).

With the ancestral method, the second fermentation takes place in bottle, just like Champagne and the wines described in France as Crémant (d’Alsace, du Jura, de Bourgogne etc). The major difference is that with the Ancestral method the wine is not usually disgorged of its sediment, which remains in bottle when sold. Many consumers may be frightened of the sediment and stand the bottle up when chilling so that it remains safely in the bottom of the punt. However, most producers suggest we embrace the sediment, which adds texture and flavour in the glass. The dead yeast cells are totally harmless. Another major difference is that petnats are usually sold in the year following the vintage, so do not undergo long ageing on their lees. There are exceptions.

Thirty years ago, wines made by this method were relatively rare, and those found by the average consumer would mostly be French. The most commonly seen wine (even in some supermarkets) was Blanquette de Limoux, from Southwest France. Adventurous drinkers might have come across wines of a similar style from Bugey, on the edge of the Alpine regions of France. Both were generally off-dry or sweet, with the second fermentation creating bubbles but not converting all the sugar to alcohol. Bugey, by way of its Bugey-Cerdon sparklers, can be extremely good these days, and is very much under the radar. Some wine lovers would have tasted an Italian wine made by a similar method, what writers often called “real Lambrusco” (as opposed to the sweet, industrial, version popular in the 1970s and 80s), sold by a very small selection of specialists here in the UK.

The Ancestral Method can be tricky to get right, and I know of a few producers in the early days, shall we say in the 1990s, who got it wrong, either bottling too early and failing to get bubbles, or doing so late and getting too much CO2, leading to bottles exploding in some cases. The key difference today is that most of the petnats you find are intended to be more or less dry, an added complication to the process requiring more skill and judgement on the part of the winemaker. Equally, some winemakers lightly filter their petnats to reduce sediment, usually at bottling (a few disgorge).

The result is a wine which will most often be a little less sparkling than Champagne, but yet should have a fine bead of bubbles and a good mousse. It will almost always have spent less time on lees than Champagne and other Méthode Traditionelle sparkling wines, and so will lack the complexity brought about by long ageing on the yeast cells, yet it should offer vibrant fruit when young, and aged bottles can be increasingly interesting in their own right.

One big difference to Champagne we might cite is consistency. Petnats will not taste the same from year to year, and are rarely intended to. Some in fact do not contain the same grapes (one of the wines recommended below is a different colour in the current vintage). One major difference may lie in the pressure/bubbles. This is in part due to the imprecise nature of the Ancestral process, but I’m also aware of how the application of the usual closure, a crown cap for petnats, by hand, can lead to loss of pressure. That said, if the wine lacks some of its fizz, that doesn’t usually spoil the experience too much.

The style has been taken to heart by the natural wine world. It fits in so well with the whole ethos, not just of winemaking, but the philosophy of fun which the whole movement promotes.

The first producers to really market the petnat style were in the Loire, one of the early hotbeds of natural wine more generally. It was certainly these wines which I came across first. An early favourite, still brought in by Les Caves de Pyrene is Domaine Mosse’s “Moussamousettes”, a blend of Grolleau Gris, Gamay and sometimes a little Cabernet Franc, so pink in colour, cloudy (if you shake it) and very frothy. For a white petnat, Catherine and Pierre Breton were always a good bet.

Another region where petnats began to crop up in abundance was the Jura, also a hotbed of natural wine experimentation. Alice Bouvot’s Domaine L‘Octavin began making “Foutre d’Escampette” from Chardonnay, although L’Octavin’s most commonly found petnats now are probably the ”Betty Bulles” cuvées. Along with Alice Bouvot’s bubbles, I also got to enjoy a few good bottles from Patrice Béguet, the Ploussard-based “Plouss Mousse”.

Austria was another early adopter of the style, again riding on the back of the natural wine movement and the industry’s transformation by a raft of “new generation” winemakers taking over from their parents. Some of the most exciting petnat wines are coming out of Austria, and nearby countries, Czech Moravia being a case in point. Germany is now also getting in on the act.

Further afield the world is your oyster, but I would recommend being as adventurous as possible. One place where experimentation combines Ancient Method sparkling wine with hybrid grape varieties is in the North American State of Vermont. I will list one below, because it’s a wine I can source here in the UK, but it looks like there’s a lot going on more generally around Lake Champlain.

So, as promised, here’s a selection of petnat wines to try. In limiting the list I’m missing out an awful lot of truly stimulating wines, and I had to cull 50% of my original selection just to keep things sensible. I do drink quite a lot of this style of bubbles, and my revised plan to include just a dozen examples here has stretched slightly. Never let it be said I sell you short. I have tried to offer a spread of regions, but Burgenland and Jura still get two entries each, both cut down from four.

The key to the style is that the wines are fun, and hopefully relatively good value (cheaper than Champagne, though obviously expensive when put alongside cheaper supermarket fizz made by less labour-intensive, less artisan, methods). It just depends how discerning and adventurous you want to be, and of course, how much money you have to spend.

JURA

Domaine L’Octavin, Betty Bulles (Arbois)

Alice Bouvot’s gnome labels can be spotted before you even enter the shop, so distinctive are they. The grape blend is unusual. Being one of Alice’s négoce wines, Gamay is sourced in the Ardèche and Muscat near Perpignan, in Roussillon. Light, fresh and very frothy. Alice effectively manages the vineyard, and like all the wines here, there are no additives (except minimal sulphur in some cases, but not here). There is also a white version.

Domaine des Bodines, Red Bulles (Arbois)

Alexis and Emilie Porteret’s provocatively, but accurately, titled wine is made from Poulsard grapes from their vines around Arbois. I described its bouquet as a “riot of raspberry, pomegranate and cranberry”, which it is. Very fruity with an attractive edge. This is a small, very hard-working, family domaine whose wines, over the whole range, are very accomplished, and which is only now beginning to garner the attention it deserves.

AUVERGNE

Jean Maupertuis, Pink Bulles (Saint-Georges-sur-Allier)

Jean’s “Pink Bulles” is made from old vine Gamay d’Auvergne. Blended with a little Pinot Noir, it has a pale orange tinge. Cherry fruit is joined by strawberries, especially on the bouquet. Its refreshment value is enhanced by a spine of firm acidity and a little texture. I look out for this wine every summer. It’s always popular when opened on a hot summer’s day.

BUGEY

Domaine Philippe Balivet, Bugey-Cerdon (Mérignat)

The Balivet family makes Bugey-Cerdon in both colours and I like both equally, but for summer fun let us go with the pink (though I have white for this summer). Gamay with a smidge of Poulsard, this wine has a good degree of sweetness and low alcohol. It’s a traditional style of méthode ancestrale where not all of the sugar is converted. It is also sealed with a mushroom cork, less common for petnats these days but of course traditional in Bugey.

AUSTRIA

Rennersistas, In a Hell Mood (Gols, Burgenland)

This is one of my favourites, but I’d also say that some might consider it potentially the most edgy, or feral. You can’t be sure every vintage will be the same blend, but my last bottle was 75% Chardonnay and 25% Pinot Noir. The overriding quality is freshness, but it can also have a texture some have described as earthiness. I’d say it’s a wine with guts, rather like its makers.

Alexander & Maria Koppitsch, Pretty Nats (Neusiedl-am-See, Burgenland)

It may be quite difficult to source this wine, made by a truly lovely family based just a few kilometres west of the Rennersistas, on the north shore of the Neusiedlersee. It usually appears in small quantities and then disappears almost immediately, due to its very small distribution in the UK. Half Pinot Noir and half St Laurent, fermented in fibreglass, bottled in spring. Simple, but one of the most fun wines in this selection.

GERMANY

Jan Matthias Klein/Staffelter Hof, Papa Panda’s Rising (Kröv, Mosel)

Jan has a range of wines made as a collaboration with other growers which he calls “Pandamonium” (sic). A local grower from Poland grew the Riesling for Papa Panda’s 2019 cuvée on Kröv’s steep slate. Fermented initially in two Füder (Jan and the grower made one each) and then bottled together with no added SO2. If you don’t like fine Riesling Sekt then this would clearly be a couple of steps too far. For those of us who do, this is a fun diversion down wine’s learning curve.

CZECHIA

Petr Koráb, The Milkman [2019] (Boleradice, Moravia)

Koráb is perhaps establishing himself as the best producer of the petnat style in Moravia, and frankly any of his petnats are recommended (I’ve drunk a few). My favourite so far has been this one, which featured only last week in my Recent Wines from March 2021. The blend is Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc from old vines picked early. Maturation is in robinia (false acacia) barrels and the colour is an enticing pale orange. You get red fruits, citrus peel, and even a hint of curry powder. Although it is dry and crisp, there’s also a creaminess, from where it gets its name. But note that the 2020 version is apparently made from Pinot Blanc and Neuburské (Neuburger).

HUNGARY

Annamária Réka Koncz, Pretty Cold (Barabás, Eastern Hungary)

This wine probably has the most unusual grape blend as it’s based on the autochthonous Királyléanyka variety. It is rammed with fine bubbles and has quite an ethereal nose hinting of red and citrus fruits. The palate contrasts with texture and minerality, with a firm backbone. Production is quite low and it is presently sold out, but I presume we shall see some here via Basket Press Wines when their next shipment arrives from Hungary, perhaps in a few months.

ENGLAND & WALES

Tillingham Wines, PN** (Rye, East Sussex)

As the vines at Tillingham became established Ben Walgate bought in organic fruit and started to experiment like mad. He was not the first to make petnat on our islands, but he has been prolific, and I could easily have selected other cuvées here, especially “Col”. But I’ve gone for “PN” because it was the first one I tried. It’s slightly different every vintage but the first, PN17, was just so exciting. Pinot Noir was the main grape variety and it was packed with red fruits, pretty simple but delicious, which is just what you are looking for. PN20 blends seven different varieties for a gently sparkling strawberry and peach fruit bomb.

Ancre Hill Estate, Triomphe (Monmouth, Wales)

This highly regarded biodynamic estate on the Welsh Borders made its name through traditional bottle-fermented wines, but this is something different. One reason is that it is unmistakably a red wine. Secondly, it is made from the hybrid variety, Triomphe (aka Triomph D’Alsace). It is a non-vintage wine in that new juice is blended with the previous year’s wine and fermented to a low pressure of 2-to-3 bar (gently fizzy). It’s frothy, dark-fruited and just 10% abv. Very different, great fun.

NORTH AMERICA

La Garagista, Grace & Favour (Lake Champain, Vermont)

The grape variety is the hybrid (La) Crescent, descended it is claimed from the Great Vine (Muscat d’Ambourg) at Hampton Court, outside London. I like this for its savoury depth, a little weight and, dare I say it (for a hybrid), a little complexity. I just think it’s one of the most interesting sparkling wines you’ll find. I’m almost tempted to call it “profound”, but then you’d think I’m silly.

AUSTRALIA

Tim Wildman Wines, Heavy Petting (Riverland, South Australia)

There are plenty of petnats in Australia now, and equally some very interesting wines being made in the same way as Col Fondo Prosecco, using the same Glera grape variety (check them out). But I have decided to select one of a series of wines made by English MW Tim Wildman, mainly because they are completely crazy…in a good way. Heavy Petting blends Nero d’Avola and Zibibbo from the vast Riverland Region. Zero dosage, zero added sulphur, ruby red and full of sediment. I think Tim changes his source but Tim’s label will always guarantee excitement and adventure.

NEW ZEALAND

The Hermit Ram, Ancestral Müller Thurgau (North Canterbury, South Island)

Theo Coles is always experimenting, but few people in NZ still use what was the country’s first mainstay variety before the savalanche occurred. Whole clusters go into open top fermenters and then settle in tank. On bottling, some frozen unfermented juice is added to promote the second fermentation, but then nothing more is added, nor taken out. The wine generally has a kind of raw edge to it, like most of Theo’s wines. Millions will disagree, but I think he’s making the best wines in New Zealand right now. Plenty, however, will agree that they are the most interesting. What a coincidence, another bottle of this arrived today. Party Time!

Recent Wines March 2021 (Part 2) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 02/04/2021 by dccrossley

For Part 2 of March’s most interesting wines (I used to say “drunk at home”, but let’s face it, where else am I going to be drinking wine at the moment?) we start off with a little-known (in the UK, but soon to change, I think) Australian estate which I’m particularly fond of, then a rather lovely Bourgogne Aligoté, a petnat from very possibly Czechia’s finest proponent of the style and a very interesting Jura red blend from one of my first loves in Arbois. The final bottles from this roundup feature an Alsace blend from Bennwihr, a stunning new “Florpower” from Equipo Navazos, another natural wine discovery from Bordeaux and, to finish, a brilliant South African Cabernet Franc which amazingly tastes great now but will definitely age very well indeed.

“FRNC” CLOS ANTONIO LAMENTO CABERNET FRANC 2018, BRASH HIGGINS (McLaren Vale, South Australia)

Brash Higgins is the label of Chicago native Brad Hickey, based in McLaren Vale. This Cabernet Franc comes from vines planted in 2001 at Malpas Road in the Vale. Brad makes all his wines with minimal intervention and many are made in innovative ways (for Australia). Some readers will have read my previous reviews of his amphora wines, and his Chardonnay nod to Vin Jaune, Bloom. Here, we have a more conventional approach, but a very Australian take on a classic French grape variety.

We get an extended period of skin contact, around five weeks in open-topped vats, the fruit plunged once a day. Fermentation is, of course, using wild yeasts. Next, the wine goes into French oak hogsheads for eight months, and thereafter is bottled under a Stelvin closure. The result is a deep ruby red colour smelling of both red and dark fruits, hints of violet and a faint smoky note rising above the bouquet as if in whisps. As it opens up it becomes even more nicely aromatic. The palate has a lot going on too, ranging from plump mulberry fruit, with raspberry acidity and a little black pepper adding spice.

The silky-smooth fruit has a medium body and it tastes less weighty than the 13.9% abv on the label suggests, although there’s a little more beef than many Loire versions of the variety. There’s a nice bit of grip on the finish and it would age if you wish to…but the fruit is so good now. Well balanced, delicious, definitely one of my favourite half-dozen wines from Brad (although my list of favourites grows each vintage). There was no FRNC in 2019 so the current vintage is 2020.

The new importer for Brash Higgins is Berkmann Wine Cellars. The wines have a reasonable distribution now, and this bottle came via The Solent Cellar.

BOURGOGNE ALIGOTÉ “L’ALIGATOR” 2018, DOMAINE DES ROUGES QUEUES (Burgundy, France)

This wine is another perfect example where subtlety could so easily get lost on the tasting bench, but where if you have time to sip and savour, then a totally different experience awaits. Isabelle and Jean-Yves Vantey have put together a small domaine at Sampigny-lès-Maranges. We are right at the foot of the Côte de Beaune here, so remote in feel from the famous vineyards fifteen minutes away to the north. I’ve only been down here once. It’s the kind of place you visit if you have more than the standard few days in Burgundy, but this is an attractive corner making increasingly interesting wines, especially from the old and once neglected vines down here.

The Vanteys make this old vine Aligoté from a tiny 0.15 hectare plot planted in 1972 (though the domaine was founded in 1998). It manages to produce on average just 1,300 bottles. Aged on lees in tank, it’s a marvellous wine. It starts out deceptively simple (simple is not a negative here). In the glass you can sense it evolving. Sometimes you think you are drinking a softer version of the Aligoté of old, but next sip you are drinking a relatively fat-free Jura Chardonnay off marnes bleues. When we talk about a soulful wine, I know some people will just switch off. But sometimes a wine affects more than the palate. It makes you both think and feel. A wine definitely best drunk whilst relaxing, not rushing. Mineral flavours, wholly “natural” (free of chemical inputs) except for a little sulphur if necessary. It’s the epitome of an honest wine.

This came from Littlewine. Christina Rasmussen chose it as the wine which most made her sit up during 2020 in an article published here before Christmas. £29, and I can’t believe they still appear to have a little left. I have also discovered that Isabelle Vantey takes beautiful photographs, which she posts to Instagram as @isabellevantey. Worth checking out as well as the wine.

THE MILKMAN PETNAT [2019], PETR KORÁB (Moravia, Czechia)

Petr Koráb has a mixed farm at Boleradice in the heart of Moravia’s vineyards in the Velkopavlovická sub-region. He specialises in autochthonous varieties and Moravian clones, keeping alive the region’s old vines. Like many of the region’s finest producers, he follows the charter of the Authentiste group of winemakers, of which he is a member. But take a look at his portfolio and you will see that he’s far from old fashioned. In fact, Koráb is becoming something of a petnat specialist, and whilst his whole range is top-notch, his ancestral method sparkling wines are very exciting.

The Milkman is a blend of Pinot Noir and Pinot Blanc from 30-year-old vines, picked in early September 2019. Initial maturation is in robinia (aka false acacia) barrels, before transfer to bottle. The 2019 version is a pale orange colour smelling of delicate red fruits, a twist of citrus and curry powder. But the palate has a creaminess which, having been consistently picked up by tasters, led to the name. The result is both dry and crisp, but with an underlying creamy softness to balance the mineral texture. There’s a certain tension between the two, but they don’t pull apart, if that makes sense. It gives the wine a multi-dimensional feel to it.

Note that the current 2020 vintage is a white petnat made from a blend of Pinot Blanc and Neuburger (Neuburské in local dialect). It’s a different wine. Doubtless as good, but I’ve yet to try it. Petr Koráb is, of course, brought to us by specialist importer Basket Press Wines.

“CUL DE BREY” 2015, DOMAINE DE LA TOURNELLE (Jura, France)

Domaine de la Tournelle is run by Pascal and Evelyne Clairet, with a tasting room and now famous little bistrot beside the River Cuissance in the centre of Arbois (5 Petite Place), though the winery is elsewhere. Pascal started out making wine in 1991, and it became a full-time occupation in 1995. He soon became fully biodynamic and has always followed a low intervention, low (and occasionally zero) sulphur, winemaking methodology. Pascal and Evelyne work together, both having wine science qualifications and experience, Pascal for the regional wine body and Evelyne as a vineyard technician in the Rhône Valley. They own and farm around ten hectares of vines now, both in the vineyards around Arbois itself and out in the villages close to the town.

They have created a pretty unique cuvée in “Cul de Brey”, blending equal parts of Trousseau, the rare autochthonous Petit Béclan and Syrah. The grapes see a light press and a long maceration (up to thirty days) with foot treading twice a day. Then the wine goes into used oak barrels to age, being bottled with no added sulphur. I think I bought this in 2019.

The aromas of red fruits are almost profound, a truly lovely scent as you first approach the glass. Cherry is dominant on the palate, fresh and clean acids melding with the soft, ripe, fruit, and beneath there’s just a little texture in a wine which I’d say is still fruity but drinking beautifully now.

Domaine de la Tournelle is imported by Dynamic Vines, and their wines are also available in the upstairs shop at Antidote Wine Bar in Central London (12A Newburgh Street). Of course, I would strongly recommend a visit to the Bistrot de la Tournelle in Arbois, when it is open during the summer months, and a visit to the tasting room next door, afterwards.

“UN INSTANT SUR TERRE” 2017, VIGNOBLE DU RÊVEUR (Alsace, France)

Mathieu Deiss and Emmanuelle Milan farm seven hectares biodynamically at Bennwihr, vines left to Mathieu by his maternal grandfather and uncle. They do so separately to Mathieu’s family operation, for whom he also works alongside his father, Domaine Marcel Deiss. Vignoble du Rêveur is purely an opportunity for this very talented winemaker to do his own thing, presumably before the full responsibility of one of the region’s famous name estates begins to take most of his time.

Doing his own thing in the case of this particular cuvée means exploring skin contact. It’s a method of winemaking which has become increasingly fashionable, I suppose, in Alsace, but for which a number of varieties, especially Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer, are particularly well suited. “Un Instant…” blends both those varieties with 10% Riesling.

Skin maceration lasts for eight months in amphorae of various types before final ageing of three months in clay amphorae. The Riesling and Gewurztraminer is all fermented as whole clusters, the Pinot Gris being partially destemmed. It’s made fully naturally, including with zero sulphur addition.

The colour of this 2017 looks deep amber, but on pouring into the glass it reveals a hint of pink from the skins. First the bouquet gives out scents of both peach and grapefruit, and then candied orange (for those who know, I’m talking of the wonderful candied orange you can buy in Fortnum & Mason at great expense rather than those confected, sweet, boxes of candied fruit made by Rowntrees in the 1970s, standard issue in my childhood home at Christmas).

The palate is certainly complex. The fruit is quite rich, enhanced by 14.5% alcohol, no doubt. It doesn’t taste boozy though. In fact, the complexity comes through a degree of salinity and skin contact textures which allow the tongue to grip onto the ample fruit. There’s a certain weight to it but the wine avoids being ponderous, perhaps through excellent judgements made in the wine making. Because it does seem well-judged for a fairly big wine. I drink this cuvée usually once every year and it always impresses.

The importer is Swig Wines and I purchased this through my regular, if occasional, source for Mathieu Deiss wines, Butlers Wine Cellar (Brighton).

LA BOTA DE FLORPOWER 99 « ANTES DE LA FLOR », EQUIPO NAVAZOS (Jerez, Spain)

We are getting close to the landmark 100^th edition of the Equipo Navazos series. In fact, I own a few of La Bota de Manznilla Pasada 100, but sufficiently few that they will be saved for special occasions. However, the latest in the Florpower series is, I can tell you, a real cracker.

Bottled without fortification and without having been aged under flor, this is a pure Palomino Fino table wine, and I mean pure in both senses. The grapes came off old vines in the La Baja section of the Pago Miraflores at Sanlúcar. 2019 was an exceptional vintage here. The wine was aged only in stainless steel, for twelve months, before bottling under a Stelvin closure, and the result is clean and fresh juice with just a little texture on a filigree spine. It will evolve in bottle, for sure, and I won’t argue with the suggestion that it will improve. Yet right now, it’s just SO good that I don’t regret opening a bottle in the slightest.

It’s hard to better what the Equipo Navazos folks say about this lovely wine: “The exceptional 2019 vintage provides a magnificent opportunity to show wine lovers the raw essence of “florpower”, a pure expression of a vineyard, a grape and a climate. Of a terroir, to express it in one word”.

Imported into the UK by Alliance Wine with reasonably wide availability, whilst it lasts.

CLOSERIE DES MOUSSIS 2016, HAUT-MÉDOC (Bordeaux, France)

Laurence Alias and Pascale Choime are pretty much the epitome of the true garage winemakers. They were the lucky successors to a lease on an exceptional small plot of vines on the Sénéjac gravels, passed on by Michel ands Stéphanie Theron because, apparently, they wanted the vines to be farmed with a similar hands-off philosophy.

The ladies do all the work themselves, having managed to grow their holdings just a little to around two hectares, with help from their Breton draft horse, Jumpa. The wines are made along natural wine lines, just using a little added sulphur as the only manipulation.

The Haut-Médoc here is a blend of 70% Cabernet Sauvignon with Cabernet Franc and Merlot. It’s a beautiful wine from vine to glass. Extraction is gentle and the wine undergoes just occasional pigéage before ageing in 400-to-600-litre casks (90% are old casks and 10% new oak). This is truly gluggable Bordeaux, very fruity, packed with blackcurrant flavours. In one respect it seems quite classical, but at the same time you don’t often experience such brightness and vivacity in Red Bordeaux.

I first tasted this domaine at the seminal “Bordeaux – The Risk Takers” Tasting hosted by Vine Trail in 2019, where I also tasted their Merlot-dominated special cuvée, “Baragane”, made from 150-y-o pre-phylloxera vines (pretty stunning but doubtless more expensive). Vine Trail naturally imports them, but Littlewine lists this Haut-Médoc cuvée (£30), and that’s where this bottle came from.

“BRETON” 2018, LUKAS VAN LOGGERENBERG (Stellenbosch, South Africa)

Lukas has been making wine since 2015, but has worked for a few of South Africa’s famous names, which has stood him in good stead when breaking out on his own. He’s definitely been singled out as one of the rising stars of South African wine. A graduate of Elsenburg College, his stints working for others have even included one in North America’s Finger Lakes. He’s now working out of the Devon Valley in Swartland (at least he was when I bought this), but “Breton”, a Loire synonym for Cabernet Franc, comes off the Polkadraai Hills in Stellenbosch.

Although I’d say the style here is more Loire than Bordeaux, there is a very South African angle, through the really concentrated and bright fruit. Breton sees ten months in used French oak and although that fruit fills the mouth, it is at the same time restrained and elegant. It’s a focussed wine and it will certainly age superbly. In this respect, I probably opened it too soon, but it had no hardness to it. Just black fruits joined by a little touch of herbs on the palate, and a little texture and grip. It’s got a nice long finish.

Sometimes you find even with great expectations, a wine still over delivers and Breton is a case in point. The importer is Dreyfus Ashby and the good news is that this vintage still has a pretty good distribution. You should still find the 2018 at Butlers Wine Cellar Brighton and The Sampler in London. The Solent Cellar (source of my bottle) and Handford Wines, among others, have moved on to the 2019 vintage. Last April I drank Lukas’s “Break a Leg” Rosé, made from Cinsaut (sic). That is also highly recommended. If you can, grab a couple of bottles of the Breton and age one. I’m pretty sure it will be worth it. Around £35.

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Recent Wines March 2021 (Part 1) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 30/03/2021 by dccrossley

I’m writing this as Easter approaches for us in our part of the world, and a quarter of the year has almost gone…and where? Of all the deprivations of this Lockdown situation, being unable to travel to see family, both at home and overseas, is certainly hardest, though I’m not going to lie, having spent so much of my life travelling, I can’t help feeling something is really lacking more generally. It’s going to be a long old slog until May (when I hope we can see my parents), and longer still for our offspring overseas. But compensations are there. Walks in nature are more frequent, less driving, my son opening my eyes to new music, and books. I’ve read more books this last year than at any time since I was a teenager/student.

But I guess above all there’s wine. There is undoubtedly more time to focus on what’s in the glass every evening, and more time to “feel” the wine and what it has to say. Enjoying natural wine definitely changes the way you approach what’s in the glass, and I think that these lockdowns have been an aid to better appreciating every single bottle. The hastily grabbed glass is not just a rarity, but non-existent right now. That has to be a blessing, albeit one tinged with a realisation that very few people have a cellar containing several hundred bottles from which to choose. But the power of wine to lift the spirits seems obvious to me. I’ve been sending half-cases every month to my parents and brother, and I don’t think anything has cheered them up as much as that little luxury.

So, here’s to drinking delicious wines. For Part 1 of March, we have a rare diversion into Deutschschweiz, another marvel from Eastern Hungary, a Welsh sparkler, a truly magical Viennese blend, an equally wonderful Mencia from Bierzo, a classic Côte-Rôtie from the depths of the cellar, another biodynamic classic from a unique Alsace Grand Cru, and finally, a Crémant du Jura which should not remain under the radar any longer.

FEDERWEISS 2018, BECHTEL WEINE (Eglisau, Switzerland)

It’s extremely difficult for Brits to get hold of wines from the German-speaking Cantons of Switzerland. Although the whole of this part of the country is usually lumped together as “Deutschschweiz”, there is real a diversity of terroirs in the nineteen cantons which produce a little less than 20% of all Swiss wine (from two-thirds of Switzerland by area). Of these, Eglisau is one of the smallest. It has just 15 hectares of vines to the north of Zürich and the Rhine. It already has one well known producer, Urs Pircher (soon planning to retire), but although Mathias Bechtel, mentored by Pircher in his early days, is thus far almost unknown outside of Switzerland, within his homeland he’s already acknowledged as one of the country’s rising stars.

Mathias swept to fame as a member of the influential Junge Schweiz-Neue Winzer movement, before he started to take home the big prizes. His small estate occupies land rising to 470 masl, on mostly marine deposits covered with river sand and gravels, rising above the river and sheltered by forest. Like many young winzer without family vines to inherit, he started out with a rented plot in 2014 and didn’t have a proper winery until the 2019 vintage. Nevertheless, he still managed a “Grand Gold Medal” for his 2015 Pinot Noir in the “Mondial des Pinots 2017”. Much of his wine is currently made from bought-in grapes whilst he is reorganising his small vine holdings, according to Dennis Lapuyade (artisanswiss.com in an excellent article about Räuschling, highly recommended).

Whilst Eglisau is definitely Pinot country, Mathias is not wedded to one style. He’s reinvigorating the once-maligned Räuschling, making a fine though atypical version and here, he’s showcasing a traditional wine style usually considered a peasant wine in the past. Federweiss is also most often found as a blanc de noirs, a white wine made from red grapes. Here, Bechtel creates a light rosé from his Pinot Noir, orange-tinged, almost salmon pink. It isn’t complex but it certainly isn’t frivolous. Mineral and fruity, it’s a refreshing juice but you can’t escape its personality and soul…if you give it time and focus. Definitely a good lockdown wine.

Mathias Bechtel has been brought into Britain through what I can only call the altruism of Joelle Nebbe-Mornod at Alpine Wines. She’s not going to sell a lot of Eglisau, but then there’s almost nothing to go around. I feel a mix of privilege to have been able to get some but also some degree of regret I didn’t buy more. They are naturally not cheap (this was £36). Explorers can’t take cheap flights.

“A CHANGE OF HEART” 2019, ANNAMÁRIA RÉKA-KONCZ (Barabás, Hungary)

Some readers may be a little bit bored with my frequent inclusion of Annamária’s wines, but you will only read about either wines I’ve not previously written about, or new vintages. Don’t worry though, I’m now down to my last bottle and will have to wait until later in 2021 to re-stock. I certainly will.

At least the frequency of this producer’s wines appearing here mitigates the need for me to fill in the background. If you don’t already know of these wines, then you can look her up in my Review of 2020, where she was highlighted as one of my discoveries of the year (alongside Veronica Ortega, one of whose wines appears later in this article).

A Change of Heart is her red wine, made from Kékfrankos (aka Blaufränkisch), of which only 1,633 bottles were made in 2019. We take a deep sniff and out of the glass flows the scent of violets. Quite calming, actually. The juice is full of concentrated red fruits with that zippy fruit acidity which makes this lady’s wines taste so alive. There’s a certain tension here that I love, and it manifests itself as a light tingling on the tongue. This 2019 is, for me, even better than the previous vintage (despite 2019 yielding a little more than double the number of bottles made in 2018, the vintage which I reviewed last October).

Suffice to say I’m still in love with these wines, and I’m also convinced Annamária’s wines are getting even better. Imported by Basket Press Wines.

SPARKLING ROSÉ BRUT 2013, ANCRE HILL (Monmouthshire, Wales)

Ancre Hill is now well established as one of the premier biodynamic producers in the British Isles. How…in Wales, people ask? Everyone imagines Wales is wet, but tucked into the southwest of the country outside Monmouth, fairly close to the English border and the Wye Valley, this is a little microclimate well suited to viticulture.

Ancre Hill’s twelve hectares were planted in 2006. Their portfolio is quite eclectic. They make a skin contact amber wine from albariño, called “Orange”, with one of the most inspired labels in English and Welsh wine. They also make a deliciously glouglou red sparkler from Triomphe d’Alsace. But they made their reputation with traditional bottle-fermented sparkling wines.

This Rosé is made from 100% Pinot Noir fermented in a mix of stainless steel and concrete eggs. It was disgorged in July 2019 after several years on lees. The colour is a pale salmon pink with a bouquet of creamy strawberry fruit, with the focus of crisp acidity grounding it on the palate. Place this alongside the natural wines made by the Growers in Champagne and I think you’ll agree this is a worthy companion. Very attractive. Let it warm and give it air to best appreciate it.

Ancre Hill’s agency is with Les Caves de Pyrene. This wine came as part of a selection of Ancre Hill bottles from Butlers Wine Cellar in Brighton.

“GLOCKENTURM”, MUKENTHAL GRINZINGER GEMISCHTER SATZ 2016, JUTTA AMBROSITSCH (Vienna, Austria)

This particular field blend comprises ten different varieties from eight rows of 45-year-old vines on well-drained gravels, from the Mukenthal vineyard at Grinzing (at the foot of the Nussberg on the edge of Vienna). It’s an eastern slope which is relatively cool, but which soaks up late afternoon sun.

Farmed and fermented according to strong natural wine principles, the thread which runs through all Jutta’s wines, in my opinion, is that they have real soul. Superficially, they are fun, lively, refreshing. But sip on this 2016 and there’s a lot more. But it’s subtle. That becomes apparent if you let your nose linger over a bouquet which, for a white wine, shows red forest fruits with white peach. And is that a hint of very fine Riesling which penetrates after a few seconds? Don’t be afraid of the age and vintage.

The palate is textured, a little mineral, but even more waxy. The mouthfeel is unique, and at the same time really holds your attention as the fruit of the bouquet at first battles the more savoury palate, before the two become integrated as a whole and the wine resolves. It doesn’t take long, but if you pay attention you can feel that journey from two parts into one taking place in your mouth. It says auf wiedersehen with that dry waxy texture underneath honey and quince.

Often available from both Newcomer Wines and Littlewine, still currently listed at the latter as I was looking today.

“QUITE” 2018, MENCIA VALTUILLE, VERONICA ORTEGA (Bierzo, Spain)

Veronica Ortega is based in Bierzo, with a number of her ever-increasing portfolio of wines coming from Valtuille de Abajo in the municipality of the town of Villafranca del Bierzo (Léon Province). I stayed in the rather modern Parador here in 1988, before the wines of Bierzo were really well known (in fact the wines I drank back then were labelled “El Bierzo”, as those of Priorat were called “Priorato”). This is only significant because Veronica started her wine journey working for Alvaro Palacios in Priorat. She then travelled via Clos Erasmus, to Burn Cottage in New Zealand, Niepoort in the Douro, spells in Burgundy (Comte Armand and DRC) and Crozes-Hermitage (Dom Combier), but came “home” so to speak to work with the great Raúl Perez.

From 2012 Veronica cobbled together a few vineyards which now total around 5 hectares. They are all tiny plots of very old vines, many abandoned from active viticulture. She also buys in grapes from selected growers whom she works with, which has enabled her to grow her range. This is mostly comprised of reds made from Mencia, although I reviewed her stunning white wine, “Cal”, in November last year.

The Mencia grapes Veronica farms come off complex terroir, a mix of slate, clay, limestone, granite and sand. 80% of this cuvée comes off sand and clay and it sees an equal mix of old wood and amphora for ageing. The result has beautiful shimmering dark cherry fruit, leavened with spicy notes of nutmeg and cinnamon. It’s very concentrated but not weighty, coming in at a balanced 13% abv. It finished with just a little grip and texture. I think this is a brilliant introduction to Veronica Ortega’s wines, and as I said earlier in this article, one of my big discoveries of 2020. Thank goodness we all got to Viñateros London before the first Lockdown!

Imported by Vine Trail, some of Veronica’s wines have also recently been listed by Littlewine.

CÔTE-RÔTIE 2004, RÉSERVE DU DOMAINE, STÉPHANE OGIER (Rhône, France)

When I could no longer afford the wines of the Chave family at Mauves (Hermitage) I transferred my Rhône allegiance to Stéphane Ogier, who back in the early and mid-2000s was slowly taking over this Ampuis estate from his father, whom he was working alongside. In doing so, he was projecting the domaine towards the top rank. So much so that my vertical of the Ogier Côte-Rôtie wines, which I was putting together throughout this decade, tailed off once the wines topped £50 a bottle. That said, Stéphane continues to make a pair of great value IGT wines (I’m very partial to the La Rosine Viognier for its unusual freshness), and is a pioneer in the potential future appellation (currently IGT) of Seyssuel, on the opposite side of the river below Vienne.

The 2004 vintage does not rank among the best of the decade for Côte-Rôtie, but I will say that the Ogier bottling is a very creditable effort indeed, at least to my palate. These days the estate produces various single site wines, but back in the day there was just this blend, from vines on both Côtes (Brune and Blonde), along with a special cuvée called Belle Hélène, named after Stéphane’s mother.

We have definite “bricking” of the colour, a classic orange rim of age. The bouquet is gamey in the classic style too, but with a strong accent of rich and ripe plum. The palate lets it down a little if I’m being hyper-critical, largely on account of it drying out ever so slightly. Personally, I don’t mind the slightly pronounced acidity. What I like is that it’s still a wine of genuine personality. When looking for the perfection of one hundred points, we neglect the pleasure, as well as the experience gained, from drinking a wine which is gingerly descending from its plateau of excellence, from middle age to a more stately existence (a bit like me). I have more Ogiers which will taste younger, and probably better, but all too few, and so I took what this offered me with pleasure.

The wines of Stéphane Ogier are imported by Berry Brothers & Rudd, although back in the day they could be found in the Waitrose stores with the largest wine departments. I’m not sure from which this bottle came.

RIESLING MUENCHBERG ALSACE GRAND CRU 2008, DOMAINE OSTERTAG (Alsace, France)

I used to be quite an avid purchaser of André Ostertag’s wines. Based in Epfig, this was the very next village to where I stayed in Alsace for the very first time (Itterswiller). The Muenchberg is one of the most interesting of the region’s fifty-one Grand Crus. In the once less fashionable north of the region (the Bas Rhin), it has always produced very distinctive wines from its mix of puddingstone, conglomerate and volcanic debris (ash and lava). Especially distinctive for Riesling.

André Ostertag’s father started the family domaine in 1966 but André has been at the helm a little over forty years now. More recently his son, Arthur, has returned from stints overseas to secure the domaine’s future.

So, what of the Muenchberg Riesling, in this case at over a dozen years old? Muenchberg not only has an interesting geology, but an interesting geography too. It’s a croissant-shaped hill bounded on two sides by southerly-exposed valleys, and it is well protected by the Vosges, which do not usually rise to the height of the Ungersberg outlier this far north (901 masl). This creates a single unique microclimate for all of its 17.7 hectares. The name “Muenchberg” (Monk’s hill) comes from the nearby Cistercian abbey of Baumgarten, which farmed vines here.

We begin with the bouquet, which here hints strongly at the complexities to come on the palate. Lemon, lime, dry honey, “Biscoff” and spiced apple cake are wrapped in a textured parcel held together by a taut mineral thread forming the spine (this wine sees twelve months ageing on lees). This is a very fine Riesling indeed, and perhaps not sufficiently rated in the past by some commentators. This may be why I used to find this cuvée, and others made by this great wine philosopher, in the bin ends at Berry Bros factory outlet store (sic) outside Basingstoke. A genuine terroir wine, it really is very, very, good with a bit of age to it.

As I said, Berry Brothers is the UK importer. I also very much enjoy some of the cheaper Ostertag wines (especially his old vine Sylvaner, and Pinot Blanc as well at one time) along with other single vineyard cuvées, of which I know the various wines from Fronholz best. However, Muenchberg is top of the pile, for me, at Domaine Ostertag.

CRÉMANT DU JURA BRUT NATURE NV [2018], DOMAINE PIGNIER (Jura, France)

I’ve known the wines of the Pignier family for many years but I don’t recall drinking their Crémant before now. The estate is run today by three siblings, Marie-Florence, Jean-Étienne and Antoine. The domaine consists of around 15 ha at Montaigu, just south of Lons. Their winery consists of a couple of old monastic buildings around the Place Rouget de Lisle, a man of course famous in these parts because this Lons-le-Saunier native composed the French National Anthem at Strasbourg in 1792 whilst serving in Napoleon I’s Army of the Rhine.

The Pigniers farm a range of Jura grape varieties, including a little Enfariné Noir (interesting to me because a friend and small grower near Arbois has purchased a few rows of this rare autochthonous grape), along with Argan, Petit Béclan and some Gamay. The family were one of the first to turn to biodynamics in this part of the region, gaining Demeter certification eventually in 2006. Some cuvées are also made with no added sulphur.

The Crémant is made almost 100% from Chardonnay with a little Pinot Noir, depending on vintage and, made with low sulphur additions (Wink Lorch suggests there may also be a zero-sulphur bottling, but I’ve never seen it). It’s bottled with zero dosage though, after eighteen months on lees. It starts out with a little youthful austerity here, and a crazy torrent of fast-moving tiny bubbles. At this stage citrus notes predominate. Leave it to warm in the glass and it softens considerably, but is still fresh. It has a nice mineral spine (the grapes are grown on limestone and clay), but there’s a chalky texture in the mouth and the edges show softer brioche. Vigorous and somehow healthy, this is a very good biodynamic Crémant du Jura.

Pignier is imported by Raeburn Fine Wines, and this bottle was purchased from The Solent Cellar (Lymington) via mail order. I think they still have a little left.

Posted in Alsace, Artisan Wines, Austrian Wine, Hungarian Wine, Jura, Natural Wine, Rhone, Swiss Wine, Wiener Gemischter Satz, Wine | Tagged Alsace Riesling, Ancre Hill Monmouth Wales, Ancre Hill Sparkling Rosé, André Ostertag, Annamária Réka-Koncz Hungary, Arthur Ostertag, Bechtel Weine Eglisau, Côte-Rôtie 2004 Stéphane Ogier, Crémant du Jura Pignier, Deutschschweiz, Domaine Ostertag Epfig, Domaine Pignier Montaigu Jura, Domaine Stéphane Ogier Ampuis, Federweiss, Jutta Ambrositsch Glockenturm 2016, Jutta Ambrositsch Vienna, Mathias Bechtel, Muenchberg Grand Cru, Mukenthal Grinzinger Gemischter Satz, Quite 2018 Veronica Ortega, Réka-Koncz A Change of Heart Red Wine, Recent Wines March 2021 (Pt1), Veronica Ortega Mencia Bierzo, Veronica Ortega Valtuille de Abajo, Welsh Sparkling Wine, Welsh Wine, Wines of Eastern Hungary | 1 Comment

Feral Art et Vin – Going Wild in Bordeaux

Posted on 23/03/2021 by dccrossley

It’s an inescapable fact that the wine trade is, despite occasional deviations, one of the friendliest professions you could imagine working in. For some reason people in wine just seem on the whole to be extremely friendly, supportive, co-operative, and fun to be around, so it is inevitable that from time to time you come to write about people you know, and some of those must count as friends. I think that there’s nothing wrong with this so long as the writer fulfils two criteria.

First, of course, is that the subject stands scrutiny as being of interest to your readers. The second is that you are completely open about any relationship you have with the subject. Whenever I go to visit any city in Europe, I’m always looking for a new place to buy natural wine, and plenty of these have been reviewed on wideworldofwine, so I don’t feel in the slightest bit guilty about plugging this one.

I’ve known Russell Faulkner and his wife, Sema, for approaching a couple of decades. We met via the Online Forum on Tom Cannavan’s winepages.com, and in person at their offline wine lunches and dinners. I think at that time the interest we shared was for Champagne, especially Pierre Péters if I recall. Then, around a decade ago, Russell and his family left the UK to work overseas, but we kind of kept in touch, more so after we realised that we were both moving towards the appreciation of natural wines. In fact, we both share the same journey, from a passion for exploring fine wine, towards a different philosophy of wine appreciation and what wine means to us.

We also share something else, and that is both having been able to turn our hobby (for me, an obsession) into some approximation of work. I became a wine writer (of sorts) and Russell and Sema have just opened a wine shop. In fact, Feral – Art et Vin is unusual, not because it sells predominantly natural wine (with a little organic/biodynamic) alongside Art, but because it’s a natural wine shop selling a good proportion of foreign wines in the heart of Bordeaux.

Feral is situated in the heart of the medieval city, on the Rue Buhan, close to the famous Grosse Cloche, the large 18^th century bell tower, one of the city’s major landmarks. In fact, we are in the Quartier Saint-Paul here, part of the old city on the left bank which is often described as a centre of religion and education. It contains some of Bordeaux’s largest churches and a number of colleges. Montaigne studied and lived here as a student before he moved out to his famous tower, northeast of the city close to Castillon-la-Bataille. The neighbourhood is one of attractive small businesses and cafés, a couple of theatres and the odd museum, which reminds me a little of the area just north of the Marais in Paris, as you walk up towards the Marché des Enfants Rouges.

I think Russell and Sema were looking for a while to find a good location with a reasonable footfall. You might think Bordeaux is the last place in France to have a following for natural wine, though I’m fairly sure that most people reading this will be aware of the standout producers making wine there in a different way to the herd, whether that be the biodynamics of Château Pontet-Canet, the longstanding natural wine estate, Château Le Puy, or the micro-producer currently riding a wave to stardom, Osamu Uchida.

Most of these natural and natural-leaning wines, and more, are represented, on account of their quality, in the many more traditional wine shops in the city, as well as the surprising number of wine bars and bistros which focus on natural wine. What Bordeaux has perhaps lacked until now is a retail outlet which introduces a far wider spread of natural wines, both from elsewhere in France and, perhaps bravely considering the attitude of many locals to wine from abroad, some gems from the rest of Europe and the world.

I asked Russell why Bordeaux? “As every Bordelais knows, or may think they know, Bordeaux is the centre of the wine universe. So, after eight years spent overseas, moving to Bordeaux as a lifestyle choice seemed very attractive. A beautiful, vibrant city, close to the mountains, the beaches, perfect for a good family life.”

The natural wine itch can be scratched in Bordeaux, but as I’ve already said, mostly in bars and restaurants. So, for a couple impassioned about natural wine, the idea of starting a wine shop with a natural wine focus once Covid Lockdown home schooling had finished seemed the, er, natural course to take.

You’ll see from the photos that the space they have found, after it must be said some major tidying up, looks pretty smart. I asked Russell about the design of the space and what they wanted to achieve.

“When thinking about how to present the wines, we wanted to keep things exceptionally clean and simple, just a single bottle on display of each of the sixty-to-eighty references, and to keep it fresh by ordering in small quantities and changing stock frequently”.

This, of course, not only gives regular customers a reason to keep coming back, it also allows Feral to stock some pretty rare wines, available in tiny quantities. Bordeaux has all of a sudden become remarkably lucky because Russell has already lined up a few wines you’d probably be pushed to find in London right now. When prospective producers ask what else they stock it isn’t difficult to entice them in.

The clean lines are created by storing most of the stock in wine fridges, out of sight, so that they don’t spoil the aesthetic. It’s something they have seen working well in Germany, but it’s less common in France. This also allows for a large part of the wall space to be set aside for art exhibitions. The first exhibition, to coincide with the shop opening just over a week ago, is by a Romanian female artist (living in France but currently in Canada), Lali Torma. Sema has lined up three female artists to exhibit in the space. The plan for the art, which is of course for sale, is to change every couple of months. They are also selling a few selected periodicals (Pipette, for example), wine books, and high-class chocolate from Friis Holm (Denmark).

I wanted to know what were the main challenges in setting up in France. Remarkably, decisions as to any change to the shop frontage have to go to national level. Then there’s the small issue of architects (I think they had to change theirs) and builders. Setting up in an historic quarter means they can’t do just whatever they want with the premises. But from the photographs I think they’ve done a very smart job.

“Assembling a small range of wines is in many ways more challenging than a big one. It means you can’t really go deep into any single producer. You have to constantly think about the shape of the whole portfolio, the balance between red, white, orange, pink and fizz. We also want an equal representation for women winemakers. But we primarily want to offer wines we love, with commercial appeal important, but secondary to that. But it does mean having to exclude certain producers which we really want on the shelves merely because we are not able to offer them at a reasonable price. The distribution network is not always efficient, and the paperwork required to import from certain countries creates its own problems.”

Russell did say he was grateful to all his friends who have helped with a flood of suggestions. Having weighed in myself, I imagine they have been fairly swamped with ideas, but I know very well that Russell has both the knowledge and the passion to select his stock without too much outside badgering. Some of their first sales were wines from Meinklang (Austria), Partida Creus (Spain) and Lucy Margaux/Anton Von Klopper (Australia), which not only illustrates Russell and Sema’s fine taste in wine, but also suggests there is indeed a market for more adventurous wines in Bordeaux. Of course there is!

I thought I’d better give you a small selection of producers from their list, both to whet the appetite for anyone able to visit, and I suppose to justify taking your time to draw attention to the shop. From France they have the likes of Fanny Sabre, Kumpf & Meyer, Ormiale, Uchida, Domaine Dandelion, Charles Dufour, Timothée Stroebel and a host of producers I’ve never come across. From further afield the very wide choice covers Gut Oggau, Preisinger, Radikon, Envinate, Nestarec, Trossen, and Costador, from Europe, Lucy Margaux, Testalonga and Ruth Lewandowski (Evan Lewandowski) from further afield. L’Octavin should arrive this week. They stock a healthy side line in magnums, which is always encouraging.

Plans for the future? Russell says that “we are very pleased with progress so far, with customers praising not just the wine selection, but also the whole aesthetic (and the music on the turntable). Longer-term we will consider sales by the glass, events, etc, but for now we are just a little gallery and wine shop selling the things we love.

If you are in Bordeaux, I suggest checking them out. Feral Art et Vin is at 22 rue Buhan, Bordeaux. See www.feralartetvin.com and on Instagram at @feralartetvin . Feral also appears on the Raisin App for natural wine makers and vendors.

Below, a few photos to give a feel for the Quartier Saint-Paul immediately around the shop…books, coffee, tea, a “Bistrot Bordelais”, a Japanese store and natural wine…what more could you want?

Posted in Artisan Wines, Bordeaux Wine, Natural Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Shops, Wine Travel | Tagged Feral Art et Vin Bordeaux, Natural Wine Shop in Bordeaux, Russell and Sema Faulkner, Wine Shopping Bordeaux | 2 Comments

Wines of the Rhône by Matt Walls – Book Review

Posted on 16/03/2021 by dccrossley

Even most readers who know me reasonably well might be unaware that The Rhône was my first real passion in wine. I didn’t get to visit the north for a few years, but by the time I hit Ampuis in 1988 I’d already explored most of the South, from a base at Pernes-les-Fontaines for a couple of weeks, some years previous.

I’m not sure where my interest in the Northern Rhône sprang from. The South is clear. Around the time I was tasting my first oaked Australian Chardonnays I’d purchased a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Le Vieux Télégraphe. I’ve no idea what vintage, and I’m very much aware that I was drinking it too young, but it made a big impression, as you’d imagine.

The Northern Rhône came via Yapp Brothers, whose attractive base at Mere in Wiltshire was a pleasant day trip when staying with my parents-in-law. A picnic taken by the fountain in the Yapp Brothers “Old Brewery” courtyard (a reproduction of the one in the Square at Châteaneuf-du-Pape) or at nearby Stourhead Gardens, a pint in “The George” pub up the road, a climb up Mere’s old castle mound and a haul of wine. One great day out.

I recently mentioned to someone that I had been able to get into buying Chave Hermitage at £12.75 a bottle. Hard to believe. We are probably talking 1984 here. I tried to find evidence but all I could find was Yapp’s 1987 Price List, where the cheapest Chave vintage had risen to the dizzy price of £14. I’m sure Yapps won’t mind me reproducing some pages showing a few of the Rhône old-timers going for what seems like next to nothing. Of course, those wines were bargains, but £14 went a long way back then and they didn’t seem exactly cheap either. Yapp Brothers, via the exploits of Robin Yapp, generally got it right back in the day.

Some of Yapp’s Northern Rhônes from 1987. Click on individual photos to enlarge.

One of my truly happiest memories in wine occurred the next year, 1988. We were on a trip which was eventually to lead us to Umbria, but at Lyon we detoured south for a night in Vienne and then a day in the vineyards. We ate our baguette and cheese on top of the Hermitage Hill, drove up to Château Grillet, and after a further night in an aubèrge on the plateau we rocked up at Georges Vernay in Condrieu. Already being an avid purchaser of his wine for a couple of years this was an essential stop for me. It must be remembered at that time that Condrieu consisted of maybe a couple of dozen hectares at most, and as far as I’m aware, Viognier wasn’t planted anywhere else besides the environs of Ampuis/Condrieu. Vernay had almost single-handedly saved the Condrieu appellation, and the Viognier variety, just a few years before by working the steep slopes whilst everyone else seemingly preferred the greater ease of a factory in Valence.

We spent the morning with the great man himself, much of it going through very old photographs in the vines and winery, from a different age. His hospitality moved us. We couldn’t take a lot of wine on the road. We bought a couple of bottles, and knowing of our journey’s direction, Georges gave a us a couple of halves as a gift. I don’t recall what we used to drink it out of, but I do remember chilling one in a stream on the way east to Grenoble. Sometimes circumstances make a wine taste even more heavenly than you dream is possible.

Over the years I sort of left the Rhône behind a little. Southern Rhône and Châteauneuf trickled away some time back in the 2000s, largely because of high alcohol content. With Northern Rhône it was always price. The lovely 1991 vintage was the last year of my once-prized Chave red vertical, 1998 for the white. I have none left. I continued to buy Côte-Rôtie and a little Cornas, but my eventual Chave replacement, Stéphane Ogier, topped £50/bottle in the later 2000s and that saw me opt out as well.

There is one Rhône producer I do regularly look out for and that is Eric Pfifferling’s Domaine L’Anglore, based at Tavel. But otherwise, I do notice I’m not really buying much Rhône wine. I still have a dwindling supply of the old school producers (sadly no Chave, let alone from Gérard’s days), but the flame has not died. This is why I was keen to get my hands on Matt Walls’s Wines of the Rhône.

I’ve met Matt a few times on the circuit and at the occasional wine dinner/lunch, and he has always seemed to me one of the nicest guys in wine, as well as possessing a very good, and unusually ecumenical, palate. When I heard that he was taking his family off to France for a couple of years in order to write a new book on the whole region, I began to follow with interest his social media reports of his travels. The resulting book, another one in the Infinite Ideas Classic Wine Library, was published at the start of this year.

Wines of the Rhône is one of the fatter books in the series, running to around 375 pages, but thankfully (in my view) they chose to produce it in soft cover/paperback. Nevertheless, it still costs £30 full price. What I will say immediately, because I hate suspense, is that it is wholly and one hundred per cent worth investing in.

My extensive home wine library contains several books on the Rhône by a number of well-known authors, but they are bookended by one author’s books, a name that on its own means “Rhône”. Naturally I speak of John Livingstone-Learmonth. My Rhône section began with the 1983 reprint of his 1978 “The Wines of the Rhône” (Faber & Faber), written jointly with Melvyn Master. It ended (before Walls) with Learmonth’s 700-page epic, “The Wines of the Northern Rhône”. Published in 2005 by the University of California Press, even back then this formidable hardback set me back £42.50.

Of the other “Rhône” books I own, the most interesting would be Remington Norman’s “Rhône Renaissance” (Mitchell Beazley, 1995), but after 2005 I can find no other book on the region which has excited me enough to purchase. Nevertheless, Matt has big boots to fill, so it was encouraging to know that he was diving in deep.

Not only did the author go and live in the region in order to research his book, but early on, apparently, he made a significant decision. We know that the whole of the Rhône, north and south, is very complicated. Not only are there numerous layers of appellations, there are also an impossible number of wine villages and sub-sub-regions. Many of them attained named status long after I left the room, and many a long time after the last comprehensive work was published. In making the decision to visit every one of them the author struck gold. As he said in a social media conversation with me before I had read the book, it was so often in these small and almost unheard-of villages where some of the most interesting wines would turn up.

There are several reasons for this. The Côte du Rhône’s mountain fringes, or the terraces of the Massif d’Uchaux (to take two examples) are marginal to the story of the region, yet they offer relatively cheap vineyard land to committed and experimental newcomers. They often offer an opportunity to showcase less planted grape varieties (and especially allowing growers to focus a little on the potential for white wines). They also offer hope in the face of climate change which is pushing alcohol levels towards hard to sustain heights on the plain. Villages like Saint-Andéol. Only promoted to named village in 2017, Walls describes it as, in his view, one of the front-runners for conversion to full Cru status. It’s just one example of the great potential Matt identifies, all good for the future of the region.

There are other traits picked up upon too, and I think these include some of the reasons why this book will undoubtedly act as a catalyst for my re-exploration of both the Northern and Southern Rhône. First, he identifies a pendulum effect on alcohol levels. With the increase in temperatures and the change in rainfall patterns (as opposed to rainfall quantity) in the region, growers have seen that even if they felt the market was still quite as keen on high alcohol (which in the post-Parker era it clearly is less so), sustaining wines forever pushing well over 15% abv is unlikely to enable them to retain balance and quality. So, producers are finding different ways, whether by vineyard composition, viticultural practices, or winemaking, to dial back the alcohol (and often accompanying new oak) levels.

At the same time, there is a clear movement to either reduce or eliminate synthetic agrichemical inputs. There are many reasons for this, ranging from health (human as well as vines and, critically, soils) to costs (if the Mistral wind keeps the vines relatively disease free, why spend the money?). Many producers are going much further, and the younger generation is far more interested in biodynamics, and “natural wine” than most of their parents’ generation were. The increase in numbers of producers following these practices had, in the main, passed me by.

The format of the book is easy to follow. After the background issues and history set out in Part 1, the author begins his journey in the Southern Rhône. Starting around Avignon, which grants the opportunity to begin with the big guns of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, we then travel more or less in an anti-clockwise direction, via Ventoux and Luberon (the latter not always included in books on the Rhône) up to the mountains of the northeast. Then he crosses the river, into the Ardèche, to cover the west bank villages down to Lirac and Tavel, then as far south as Costières de Nîmes and Clairette de Bellegarde. The final chapter in Part 2 gives us an invaluable eight pages on the tiny, almost sub-Alpine, enclave of The Diois.

Part 3 takes us on a north-south journey through the Northern Rhône. We may only get two chapters, “Around Ampuis” and “Around Tain…”, but they are equally thorough. For example, this is the first time for a long while that I have read anything significant in print about Seyssuel, whose IGP wines are a very clear candidate for full appellation status (though the speed at which things move in Paris don’t expect any changes in the near future). Equally, in the south of this northern section, full coverage is given to the wines of Brézème and Saint-Julien-en-Saint-Alban (I know the former rather well, yet had never heard of the latter…Walls calls some of the wines and producers here “highly promising”).

Each chapter follows a format which explains the appellation in terms of history, viticultural politics, personalities, geology and climate, and then profiles the producers the author considers the most important/best/interesting. He calls them “Key Producers”. But you always get a good paragraph or three on “other good examples” as well. These may include promising new producers who only lack a track record, people doing interesting things in the vines or winery, or maybe someone with just one standout wine among a less interesting output.

Walls is incredibly good at spotting, and singling out, this kind of thing, and as a well-regarded judge of wine competitions (he’s Regional Chair for the Rhône at the Decanter Awards, and is also a Contributing Editor of the magazine) his palate is experienced but clearly open to the new. I especially like his open-minded approach to natural wine methods. Of Eric Pfifferling of Domaine L’Anglore, he says “Who are the greatest winemakers in the Southern Rhône? Perhaps it’s a matter of opinion, but I’d be surprised if Eric Pfifferling wasn’t in the Top 10”. That might surprise a few older traditionalists, but it’s a sentiment with which I wholly agree.

As with all the books in this series, there’s always the highlighted text box, which are scattered about each chapter. They cover all sorts of topics. I especially like the one on p295, called “Past masters”. It talks about the old guys, many of whom are no longer with us but whose wines live on, albeit usually at eye-watering prices and in tiny quantity. People like Auguste Clape, Robert Michel, Noël Verset and others. I could add more, but then I’m a bit older than Matt and I actually remember some of these folks. If you want to read more about the romantic era of Northern Rhône winemaking (generally pre-Parker), I can recommend the books of Robin Yapp. Vineyards and Vignerons (with wife Judith, 1977) and to a lesser extent Drilling for Wine (1988) contain vignettes of his early buying trips when pretty much no other British wine merchants were hitting the Rhône.

North American writers like Kermit Lynch and Englishman Simon Loftus have similar stories to tell. I think that as many older wine books become out of date as guides to specific wines and producers, those with more of a travel narrative nevertheless act as social history, for which there is an appetite among younger wine obsessives. The last chapter of Robin Yapp’s Drilling for Wine, titled just “Chez Chave”, is much more than a mere portrait of a then not quite so famous winemaker.

We end Matt’s book with two appendices. The first is a very good vintage guide, or sensibly two: separate ones for north and south. Initially I didn’t realise this but thankfully soon twigged. Appendix II is an abridgement of Simon Loftus’s quite famous visit to Rayas in 1979 (rewritten in 2019), when Monsieur Reynaud, well known for disliking visitors, hid in a ditch to avoid Loftus at the time of his appointment (Loftus was at that time running Suffolk brewer Adnams’ wine department).

If one thing stood out whilst devouring (as I did) “Wines of the Rhône”, it was just how easy it is to read, and equally enjoyable. As of necessity, the Rhône requires a lot of facts, and there are a lot of key producers. It would be easy to get bogged down in endless names and numbers. Equally, you don’t want a load of flowery prose when the detail is important. I’m not totally sure how the author manages to tread an almost perfect path between the two. One reads wine books to absorb knowledge. There’s an argument that if they are too easy to read you finish too quickly to retain that knowledge. In my case I do much of my reading in the hour or two before I turn out the light, and I don’t want to be sent to sleep prematurely. No chance of that here.

Are there any negatives? Well, the maps are okay but a little pedestrian. That’s not down to the author. You just need your copy of the World Wine Atlas to hand to scan the villages in just a tiny bit more detail (monochrome is never an easy medium for maps of overlapping vineyard appellations). I suppose some real enthusiasts may complain that the book is just too short and that there are not enough producers profiled in full. I guess a 360-page book at £30 will sell more than 700pp at what would now be considerably more than £42.50 today, I presume. I actually think that in aiming for the widest possible audience within what is undoubtedly a specialist area, the author has weighed the balance well.

As I have intimated before, I thoroughly enjoyed reading “Wines of the Rhône”. I don’t think there is any praise I can give higher than the fact that it really has reignited my interest in a wider region I used to buy from with great regularity, yet which to a significant extent had fallen off my radar in recent years, as I had begun to explore further and further east within Europe, and, for my Grenache-based wines, the higher altitudes of Spain. In fact, my next task is to try to seek out Grenache from the Rhône which hints at the excitement of what I have discovered this past decade from Spain, at hopefully a more advantageous price. As well as all the established classics, Matt Walls shows us that in parts of the Rhône we are possibly at the beginning of something. Perhaps a second Rhône Renaissance? So that’s an emphatic “Buy”!

Wines of the Rhône by Matt Walls was published in 2021 by Infinite Ideas Publishing as part of their ever-growing Classic Wine Library (rrp £30, though discount codes and cheaper sources may be sought for those unable to afford the full price).

The other older books and authors also mentioned can pretty much all be found at numerous online sources, often used copies. There’s a world of viticultural social history out there to explore.

Posted in Fine Wine, Rhone, Wine, Wine Books, Wine Writing | Tagged Infinite Ideas Classic Wine Library, Matt Walls Author, Northern Rhône, Robin Yapp, Southern Rhône, Wines of the Rhône by Matt Walls, Yapp Brothers | 3 Comments

Field Blends and Gemischter Satz – Why Should we Get to Know Them?

Posted on 11/03/2021 by dccrossley

Gemischter Satz, a wine that brings joy to my soul. Back in 2016 the UK wine trade magazine The Drinks Business asked whether Gemischter Satz will be the next big thing. Well, it hasn’t quite worked out that way but there’s no doubt that this wine designation is a lot more well known, and certainly appreciated among connoisseurs, if not the general public (who right now are more likely to be getting to grips with the delights of pink Prosecco). Those of you who read my Blog with some frequency will know that I have a bit of a thing for Gemischter Satz and I thought I should tell you why.

My journey to understanding and appreciating Gemischter Satz, and in particular, Wiener Gemischter Satz, began long before I ever set foot in Vienna. I started my journey in wine at a time when varietal labelling was really taking off. We Brits all think of Australian Chardonnay and Shiraz as the catalysts for our modern obsession with grape varieties, although our North American cousins had been developing their own obsession with varietal labelling even before those wines hit our shores. But there is one European wine region which stood out for varietal labelling despite being firmly seated at the Appellation Contrôlée table, and that was Alsace.

On my first visit to Alsace at the end of…well, a very long time ago, I fell in love with the region of course, but as an adventurous, and more impecunious, wine lover I drank a fair bit of Edelzwicker. This is Alsace’s traditional blend, certainly at that time the cheapest wine in the Winstub (though if you were Hugel and you made a really good one from a fine site, you called it Gentil). Not always a field blend, but often so, it seemed back then as if it were just a bunch of different grapes thrown together, what was left from the fruit set aside for the varietals, plus a bit of Chasselas, Sylvaner and Savagnin Rose (Klevener not Klevner) that no one wanted.

When Alsace designed its Grand Cru system in the 1980s it was only the more noble white varieties which were designated as being good enough for this supposedly terroir-specific super appellation. No Sylvaner, no Pinot Noir. The rising value of Grand Cru varietal wines saw the Edelzwicker blends fade away. Except there is always someone who will go against the crowd and that man was Jean-Michel Deiss. His views on the subject were, and are, forthright. He’s a great source of quotes explaining the philosophy, as he sees it, behind the field blend. Those below are from Andrew Jefford’s The New France (Mitchell Beazley, 2002).

“What is terroir? It is a matrix by which the possible can be uttered…History robbed us of our memory…we no longer knew what Ribeauvillé meant…we have to find out what is possible once more.”

“Before the arrival of Crus, varietal diversity was the only way in which Alsace’s terroir could speak.”

According to Deiss, the field blend is perhaps a truer expression of place than the imposition of a single variety on a named site?

If the Grand Cru system forced the region’s winemakers to focus on terroir in a different way, something was lost in regulating what grows best, and thereby what should be allowed to grow, on that terroir. But Deiss has ploughed his own furrow, and has resolutely stood up for the field blend, albeit with wines which are beautiful and fine expressions of terroir over gape variety (though he does also make varietal wines, it is his blends which shine brightest). Now is not the place to expound on the mistakes and the ills of Alsace’s Grand Cru system, but suffice to say that it was Alsace which highlighted the field blend when I was getting to grips with my single varietals.

What is more, I don’t recall field blends being a part of the picture in my WSET studies back then. It was doubtless seen as an irrelevance. Like the pergola, which I wrote about recently, part of a peasant tradition wholly rejected by the university-trained viticultural scientists of the 1980s and 1990s. I sometimes wonder whether these men in white coats ever gave a second thought to the cultural and historic significance of the field blend, let alone its potential efficacy for the wine producer, especially in more marginal climates.

It’s worth spending a paragraph explaining why the field blend had proved such an attractive option to winemakers in the past. In a less technological age without synthetic agrichemicals and with the perils of uncertain climate/weather to ripen the grapes, a co-planted site of different grape varieties was a good insurance policy. Varieties ripen at different times and some are susceptible to different pests and diseases. Planting different varieties together meant that in most years a farmer would get some healthy grapes and if he (usually he back then) co-fermented them together, some would be over-ripe and give alcohol, some under-ripe and give acidity…and all would be more or less well.

Now we skip forward to 2013. As a subscriber to World of Fine Wine, when I received my copy of Issue 40, I was about to read an article which I have never forgotten. “Wiener Gemischter Satz – Vienna’s Heart of Gold”, written by Alder Yarrow, told me everything I needed to know about a wine I’d heard of, and even drank once at that point, but knew almost nothing about.

Vienna is not the only region of Austria to make a co-fermented field blend called Gemischter Satz, and many would rival Vienna’s in terms of excitement (you all know Joiseph Mischkultur, I suspect) but Wiener Gemischter Satz is the only Austrian blend of this type to be awarded DAC status (AOC equivalent). As the only wine region lying truly within a major European city, the viticultural practices and the drinking traditions of Vienna loom large in any study of wine in a social context. The cultural significance of the field blend here is exemplified like nowhere else.

The slopes of the Nussberg on the northern edge of Vienna

The DAC rules require a field blend…of at least three varieties (often many more and I have encountered at least one wine with twenty-six varieties), where one variety does not exceed 50% of the blend. There are two types of “WGS”. All Wiener Gemischter Satz must be under 12.5% abv (an unusual stipulation) unless it comes from a single site, where it requires 12.5% abv or more. This has led to the development of two modern styles of the DAC wine, more or less replacing the rather old-fashioned wines destined for sale by the jug in the city’s buschenschanks and heurigen, which were somewhat analogous to the Edelzwicker of old in Alsace.

The heuriger is Viennese wine central and a visit to the city should involve the exploration of several if you are able. They started out as the most rough and ready bars set up by the farmers to sell their new wine in the lighter months and into harvest. In time they began serving simple (usually cold) food to accompany the wine, and were ascribed into law as “buschenschanks” under Josef II. The heuriger (plural heurigen) is usually larger than the buschenschank, inns or restaurants run on broadly similar lines (we’ll not go into the differences here) by the now famous winemakers of Vienna. Many are “pop-ups” in the summer, either in fixed locations up in the vineyards, or in the wine villages. Some have become year-round restaurants proper.

Whenever I visit Vienna, which seemed to have fortuitously become an annual trip before Covid intervened, there is one non-negotiable outing. It involves a metro train out to Heiligenstadt and then a bus (38A if you are interested) which passes through the wine village of Grinzing before climbing up above the city. We get off near the Gnadenkapelle (nice café inside the gate) and then walk back along a path right by the bus stop, through woods, then vines, winding our way down through vineyards with vistas of the Danube and city, via the popup heurigen in summer, to an inevitable refreshment stop (stürm, or himbeerstürm, depending on season) at the famous heuriger Mayer-am-Pfarrplatz, the old inn where Beethoven once lodged, but also reassuringly close to the bus stop on Grinzinger Strasse, back to Heiligenstadt.

Perhaps we should look at some of the producers. The biggest name in WGS is Fritz Wieninger, who for more than thirty years has been at the forefront of re-establishing Vienna’s traditional wines as a serious proposition. His family farms a whopping 70 hectares, split between both sides of the Danube. On the left bank is Bisamberg, above Stammersdorf, where the winery is located, and on the Nussberg (right bank). The single site wines here are ageable beauties, whether his Nussberg Alte Reben, Bisamberg, Rosengartel or Ried Ulm, the latter a pair of smaller parcels, more or less premier crus, on the Nussberg. These are serious wines with around 13.5% abv and the capacity to age.

Fritz Wieninger and his Vineyard Manager, Georg Grohs

I spent a whole morning with the team at Wieninger a couple of years ago. Even though I had wandered the vineyards on a number of occasions, nothing beat driving around, from site to site with Fritz Wieninger’s vineyard manager, Georg Grohs, discovering the changes in the terroir after an extensive tasting. None of the sites better illustrate the semi-urban nature of Veinna’s vines than the tiny half-hectare Kaasgraben, surrounded by the encroaching wealth of Sievering’s villas.

Alex Zahel makes some cuvées in a similarly serious style. This is one noted producer whose base is not on the hills north of the city (though they do own vines there), but at Mauer to the southwest, within the city area. Some of the Zahel wines, with labels designed by Alex’s American wife, Hilary, are equally serious. They unusually have some vines on the Goldberg site, but you are most likely to find their own “Ried Kaasgraben”. The Zahel vines overlook the Kaasgraben Church in a narrow side valley. More opulent than the zippy cliché of WGS, another serious bottle.

There are some fascinating experimental wines being made now, such as the Hajszan Neumann amphora GS (this producer was taken over by Wieninger in 2014 but has kept its own identity), and one cuvée I have from Rainer Christ (at Jedlersdorf (Bisamberg)), called “Kraut & Rüben”, which has seen skin contact. These sit beside more traditional offerings from Mayer am Pfarrplatz (and their sibling Rotes Haus label, making a lovely Nussberg GS). Then there’s Michael Edlmoser, who has worked at California’s Ridge Vineyards. His wines can be heady expressions of the Mauer vines. Stephen Brook (The Wines of Austria, Infinite Ideas 2016, new 2^nd edn now available) mentions a Sauvignon Blanc “Riesberg” 2013 which hit 15.5%, a real expression of Californian Zinfandel in Viennese Sauvignon Blanc, perhaps. I’ve not tried it.

I’ll leave until last the producer who fits most neatly within my own favoured philosophy of low intervention winemaking, Jutta Ambrositsch. First mentioned by Alder Yarrow, I had to seek her out purely on the basis of what he had written about her, but having bought several of her wines from London specialist, Newcomer Wines, I didn’t meet her until a London tasting in 2018. Jutta’s wines do not always conform to the restrictions of WGS, so they will be labelled most often as a table wine equivalent. Don’t let that put you off. Jutta left as career in graphic design and cajoled Fritz Wieninger into giving her a job as a volunteer stagiste. He became her mentor and helped set her up with some rented vines in 2002. Since then, she has acquired tiny plots of always old, often abandoned, vines and now farms around five hectares.

What she makes is wholly natural wine, vegan-friendly (as Jutta is, like most of my family, vegan herself), and she follows biodynamic practices to make wines which leap out of the glass, so alive are they. Try anything from her, but if you can, try to secure a few bottles of “Rakete”. It’s unusual as a pale red wine, a co-planted field blend of Zweigelt, St-Laurent, Merlot and Blauburger. The label suggests you “shake resolutely and drink chilled”. It takes us back from the serious wines of the single sites to the joyous beating heart of the Gemischter Satz tradition. I can think of no better modern interpretation of a time-honoured tradition. In better times you might find one of her wines as the house wine at the unmissable Weinbistro Mast in the city’s 9^th District. She’s hard to track down because she doesn’t have her own winery premises, but every summer she will open a pop-up heuriger and may well be there, serving her wines with simple food.

Wiener Gemischter Satz is a wine of many facets, and there are many styles to explore. But the advantage for the wine lover who enjoys wine travel is that they are made in easily accessible vineyards close to a city whose attractions grow as you become more familiar with it. Vienna is not all Hapsburg conservatism. You certainly don’t need a car to explore here, and if you enjoy walking, you’ll enjoy the Nussberg in particular. But more than anything, Wiener Gemischter Satz gives any inquisitive wine lover a window on the wines of another time, updated to the present day through a philosophy which views following winemaking tradition as a valuable cultural goal. In doing so, these producers have created something here in Vienna which is quite unique…and beautiful.

Some facts:

Vienna has a little over 600 hectares of vines, about 80% of which are white varieties. The Nussberg is the largest single hillside block of vines with 200 hectares planted on its south or southeast facing slopes ranging in altitude between 150 to 350 masl. Bisamberg has 250 hectares but these are more dispersed between (on my count) 26 different sites to the northeast of the city. Mauer, mentioned above, is much smaller with 50 hectares.

Access to the Nussberg hill is, as explained, relatively easy. The swiftest route into the vines is via Grinzing. My suggested route is more downhill. Bisamberg involves a long tram ride out to Stammersdorf, but even then the vineyards are a little bit of a trek on foot.

I have written extensively on Vienna and her wines. The following articles may be of interest if you want more:

Wieninger and Wiener Wein

Heuriger, Heurigen, Buschenschanks and Popups – A Walk in the Woods and the Vines

The seminal article by Alder Yarrow was in World of Fine Wine, Issue 40 (2013).

Posted in Alsace, Artisan Wines, Austrian Wine, Vienna, Viticulture, Wiener Gemischter Satz, Wieninger, Wine, Wine Travel | Tagged Bisamberg, Deiss Alsace, Field Blends, Fritz Wieninger, Gemischter Satz, Jutta Ambrositsch, Nussberg, Sievering, Wiener Gemischter Satz, Wine and Culture - Vienna | 4 Comments

International Women’s Day

Posted on 08/03/2021 by dccrossley

Today is International Women’s Day. The wine world seems full of women doing great things, but that doesn’t make it the slightest bit egalitarian, nor often very pleasant for them. It does not mean we work in an industry free of misogyny. This past year we have seen senior wine colleagues making inappropriate and hurtful comments towards fellow women professionals, women whose intelligence and powerful journalistic prose, drawing in a new generation to wine, might just threaten the position of a few staid old-timers who may have taken their finger off the pulse.

I cast an eye over my extensive wine library this morning. There are wine books written by women, including Wink Lorch, Anne Krebiehl, Alice Feiring, Rosemary George, and not forgetting a good number by Jancis. But the recognition which comes with authorship (and remember, Wink’s amazing and important books were self-published) is mostly granted to men.

In the world of the sommelier, we saw many reports of sexual harassment at the highest level through 2020. I’m not surprised. A young woman of my acquaintance was assaulted by her boss a few years ago. He was successfully prosecuted but yet perhaps typically, his colleagues blamed the victim for ruining his career. Such stories don’t always come to light as that one did, but they are there.

Women abound in wine retail, yet it is most often in the “ranks”, rarely in very senior management positions, and certainly not in proportion to their presence on the shop floor. There are, of course, exceptions. One is Littlewine.co (who naturally have a special pack of three wines to celebrate this day). Founded by two young female entrepreneurs, who completely share my own values over a range of issues, what they have taught me, and this came very much to light in the way they addressed discrimination within the industry, is that one must look for the positive. Positivity wins, negativity loses. So, I don’t intend to write any more on the ills affecting women in wine. Others with a real stake in the discrimination they face have done it with more authority than me. Today I want to celebrate the female contribution to wine, and in particular, that contribution to my own treasured bottles.

One area I have not yet touched on is women actually making and creating wine. I have met the majority of the women winemakers I’m going to be listing below, but I don’t know any of them well enough to know what difficulties they have faced as they set out to make wine in very much a male dominated profession.

The recognition of women winemakers as a distinct group is relatively recent. There have always been women making wine. We can go back a lot further than Lalou Bize-Leroy (of DRC and Domaine Leroy in Burgundy), who began her illustrious career in the mid-1950s, but there were few women taken seriously in the winery back then. One of the first women who caught my attention, because at the time I used to buy the first wines she made, was Caroline Frey.

Growing up in Champagne (her dad owned half of Billecart-Salmon), she studied oenology at Bordeaux and has since shot to fame making wine at La Lagune in Bordeaux and at Paul Jaboulet in the Rhône (and, on her own account, in Switzerland). Although her talents are considerable, and her positions (it goes without saying) deserved, she does have an obvious advantage in working for her father’s operations. But that doesn’t detract from her pioneering achievements in two bastions of conservative male domination.

My plan is to raise a glass to a number of women winemakers who, without any particular rhyme or reason, have become important to me. I find myself buying and admiring their wines more and more, wines which bring me intense joy. I don’t know why, but especially in the past few years that number has grown tremendously as indeed has the number of prominent women winemakers on wine lists around the United Kingdom. I resolutely refuse to say that they make feminine wines, or bring a “female touch” to winemaking. Nor that they are “intuitive” or “empathetic”. I believe in equality in the core of my soul. They are no “different” to men who make wine per se, but it is clear that these women make wines with a great deal more personality than many of those men.They have talent.

In the spirit of, and borrowing from, the contemporary jazz supergroup, Sons of Kemet, I would just like to raise a glass on International Women’s Day and say:

My Queen is…Jutta Ambrositsch

My Queen is…Veronica Ortega

My Queen is…Annamária Réka-Koncz

My Queen is…Victoria Torres Pecis

My Queens are…Stefanie & Susanne Renner

My Queen is…Stephanie Tscheppe-Eselböck

My Queen is…Marie-Thérèse Chappaz

My Queen is Julie Balagny

My Queen is Alice Bouvot

My Queen is…Kelley Fox

…and many more, especially for some reason around the shores of Burgenland’s Neusiedlersee, but I’m not sure that it’s down to any mist of egalitarianism that drifts off those shallow waters. Thank you all for such glorious wines..

Posted in Natural Wine, Wine, Women in Wine | Tagged Alice Bouvot Arbois, Annamária Réka-Koncz Hungary, Celebrating Women Winemakers, International Women's Day, Julie Balagny Beaujolais, Jutta Ambrositsch Vienna, Kelley Fox, Marie-Thérèse Chappaz Fully, Rennersistas, Stefanie Renner, Stephanie Tscheppe-Eselböck, Susanne Renner, Veronica Ortega Bierzo, Victoria Torres Pecis | 2 Comments

Recent Wines February 2021 (Part 2) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 04/03/2021 by dccrossley

February Part 2 begins with the entry level Champagne from a now established star Grower before heading to a part of the Loire, Cheverny, I’ve not now been to for too long. We have another wein from Max Sein, a natural wine from a region which is less “naturally inclined” than many in Austria (Kamptal), and a Nebbiolo from Valtellina but labelled as an IGT. This second part ends with a great Pinot with a decade on the clock from Martinborough in New Zealand and a Vin Jaune to finish after some friends kindly sent me a Mons Jura selection of Mont D’Or, Morbier and Comté (how else to truly honour such a generous gift).

BRUT RÉSERVE VIEILLES VIGNES CUVÉE NON-FILTRÉ, BÉRÊCHE (Champagne, France)

Bérêche used to be the one producer I would always try to visit no matter how short a time I had in the Champagne region, which would most often be just one night on returning from Eastern France. So I always feel my heart skip a beat of excitement as I crest the Craon de Ludes where their winery sits, surveying the plain towards Reims. Regrettably, due to Covid, it has been a while and my stocks purchased there have dwindled, though supplemented last year from their UK importer.

Raphaël and Vincent have vines on the Montagne and the Marne, which both contribute to this cuvée. The base here is 2014, disgorged September 2017 with a dosage of 7g/litre. The grape blend is 35% Meunier, 30% Pinot Noir and 35% Chardonnay, but the wine contains 35% reserves, quite a high proportion, from 2012 and 2013. It is, however, made from old vines and is not filtered.

As always, the Brut Réserve is pristine with a very clean attack. The bouquet has lovely orange peel (more than lemon) citrus and a touch of bergamot. The palate hints at hazelnut and honey and there’s a saline mineral texture on the finish. Sip it and hold it there in the mouth, this is a beautiful Champagne. I drink many of Raphaël’s Champagnes from a wine glass but for this cuvée I use Zalto Champagne glasses. They enhance the delicacy and minerality of this wine. Personally I do not know of a more crystalline and pure entry level Champagne. With the way Champagne prices are going for the other cuvées, this is just as well.

Bérêche’s UK agent is Vine Trail.

CHEVERNY ROUGE 2019, HERVÉ VILLEMADE (Loire, France)

Cheverny is a small appellation in Touraine, a little to the south of Blois. We are lucky to have friends with a family home in one of the hamlets near to the enormous Renaissance château at Cour-Cheverny, after which this AOP is named, so we know the region and its winemakers, although my early visits were to the tasting room at Jacky Blot’s Domaine de la Taille aux Loups at Husseau, and to the wine shop of François Chidaine on the river just east of Montlouis (highly recommended, they sell much more than merely Chidaine wines).

Cheverny is in fact two appellations. Cour-Cheverny is purely for wines made from the interesting but rare Romorantin variety. As a dry wine it can be acidic, but locally you may find some rare Moelleux versions which can be worth a punt ageing them. Cheverny tout-court makes plenty of white wine. Some authors suggest that the Sauvignon Blancs, often blended with some Chardonnay, are best and there are some interesting wines here made by a few locals. Increasingly, at least as interesting as the Sauvignon-Chardonnay blends, are the reds blending Pinot Noir and Gamay (similar to Passetoutgrains from Burgundy or Dôle from Switzerland’s Valais).

Hervé is perhaps the big name in Cheverny, yet all his grapes are grown organically and he’s been following a natural winemaking philosophy since the 1990s. This is his entry level red, a negoce wine made naturally from bought-in organic Pinot and Gamay fruit. It sees a fifteen day maceration followed by ageing in used oak. It’s a simple wine but absolutely packed with fruit and despite registering 14.5% alcohol you genuinely wouldn’t know, it’s in perfect balance. Concentrated cherry and a strawberry top note, with a liquorice twist on the finish. I think some people might initially place it as “New World”. It’s a versatile wine, so use it for barbecues or winter nights by the fire where it will be equally effective. This is only £19 folks.

Currently available via Littlewine.co .

« LES AUTOCHTONES » 2019, MAX SEIN WEIN (Franken, Germany)

I recently posted a review of Max’s white blend, “Trio Sauvage”, which I enjoyed immensely. This is a single varietal from old vines and a step up the ladder. Max has worked his way around before setting up at Wertheim-Dertingen, west of Würzburg, but for me it’s his stint working at Gut Oggau which piqued my interest. But he’s also worked in New Zealand, and with Judith Beck, also in Burgenland. He returned to take over 3.5ha of vines farmed before him by his father and grandfather.

There are two varieties Max seems to really like. The first is Silvaner, perhaps not a bad choice given that it thrives in Franken. The other is Schwarzriesling, which he prefers to call by its French name, Pinot Meunier. This particular wine is his top Silvaner from vines over sixty years old. The terroir is limestone with around 5% red sandstone and the wine has a racy mineral edge which is so common with these soils. It’s a very focused wine but there’s breadth here too. It has a very attractive savoury side to it, but more than anything, freshness. I suspect this may age well but I wasn’t at all sorry to have opened it. I suspect I shall really begin to learn Sein language over the next few months, unless his wines all sell out.

Max Sein Wein is the first German addition to the Basket Press Wines portfolio.

GRUNDSTEIN BLAUER PORTUGIESER 2018, NIBIRU (Kamptal, Austria)

Nibiru is a collaboration between Julia Nather and Josef Schenter (of Weingut Schenter), who began making wine together at Schönberg-am-Kamp (to the east of Wachau and Kremstal) from the 2015 vintage. The name “Nibiru” reflects their philosophy – it’s a planet named by the Sumerians which apparently enters our galaxy every 3,600 years, travelling in the opposite direction to the planets in our own solar system…there may be little evidence for this planet, but the Nibiru Cataclysm is a predicted collision between Earth and a large planetary body which some believe will take place during the 21^st century. Thankfully the lady who predicted this suggested the destructive event would take place in 2003.

But I digress…we have a very tasty natural wine here which is unlikely to wreak the destruction of mankind. Deep purple in colour, it is, like all the tastiest Blauer Portugieser, full of concentrated dark fruits with a bit of an edge, the product of what I call sharp fruit acidity. The alcohol content is a whopping…10%, which makes it qualify as an honorary fruit juice. It’s great fun and chillable for spring and summer. A great wine to pour a big glass on a Sunday afternoon whilst sitting outside with a good book. It won’t send you immediately to sleep.

Imported by Modal Wines.

NEBBIOLO “BOTONERO” 2018, IGT ALPI RETICHE ROSSO, MAMETE PREVOSTINI (Valtellina, Italy)

Alpi Retiche is the IGT label for the wines of Lombardy’s wider Valtellina region, which runs horizontally east of Lake Como, pushing up towards the Swiss border, enveloping the town of Sondrio. I am not wholly sure why this wine is not labelled Valtellina, as it is a 100% Nebbiolo (known here as Chiavennasca, but this producer uses “Nebbiolo”), so I presume it is outside the DOC.

The vines are still grown on steep terraces at altitudes between 300 and 700 masl, so this is a real mountain Nebbiolo. I looked at the Mamete Prevostini Home Page and it does look rather beautiful there. I’ve drunk lots of Valtellina but have never visited. This sees a six day maceration, followed by eight months in stainless steel, and then a further six months in bottle before release.

It’s not really like Piemontese Nebbiolo, nor indeed like most Valtellina I’ve drunk, but it does explode with red fruits to match its ruby red colour. It strikes initially as surprisingly like Beaujolais with cherries, then strawberries. There’s a little texture and tannin on the finish though, which grounds it. As an entry-level wine it doesn’t attempt complexity, just simple but sappy fruit. It’s a fun wine too, not expensive and something a little different. It oozes mountain air and sunshine.

This was £20 from Butlers Wine Cellar. The importer is Alpine Wines.

MARTINBOROUGH PINOT NOIR 2011, KUSUDA (Martinborough, New Zealand)

Hiro Kusuda was born in Tokyo and trained as a lawyer. He eventually became a diplomat working in Sydney before deciding on a dramatic career change…he went off to study winemaking at Giesenheim in Germany. Obviously a very intelligent and capable man, he must also have been very determined, and I believe something of a perfectionist. Why settle on Martinborough? It seems the moment of inspiration was tasting a 1992 Ata Ranghi Pinot Noir. Having drunk my last bottle of Ata Ranghi’s 2010 on New Year’s Day, I know what he means.

The Kusuda web site proclaims a goal “to make Pinot Noir with sheer purity and finesse”, and most people who taste his wines would agree he’s succeeded. Not that too many people get the chance because Hiro has become something of a cult winemaker back in Japan, where most of his bottles head.

The grapes are hand picked and handled gently at every stage of winemaking. The wine is aged 17 months in barrique, of which 22% (very precise) is new. Even at a decade old this shows really bright cherry fruit. In fact it’s all about brightness and lightness, which is lovely, but the abundant finesse floats over a smokiness (perhaps an oak influence?) and just a little remaining tannin. The alcohol level is 13%, which seems just perfect to add an extra dynamic, just a little weight. Wow, it is so long on the palate, lingering for ages. Drink now or don’t be afraid to keep longer.

I had to ponder hard to remember where this came from. I know my 2014 was a gift, but I’m pretty sure that this was purchased from Berry Bros & Rudd.

VIN JAUNE 2005, BENOÎT BADOZ (Jura, France)

Benoît’s family have been making wine around Poligny since 1659, which is very impressive, is it not? It was actually Benoît’s father who began making a name for the domaine, and his work has been carried on by his son. Domaine Badoz actually owns a ten hectare block of vines to the north of the town, unusual in a region parcellated over the centuries into often diverse and smaller plots. The soils are on the traditional Jura Marnes Bleus which make perfect terroir for Savagnin.

All the wines here are pretty low intervention, and historically so, with most vines never having seen pesticides. They make a full range of Jura wines, but I think it’s fair to say that their most famous product is their exemplary Vin Jaune. This 2005 sees the traditional six years plus ageing under a thin layer of flor (sous voile) which makes Vin Jaune so uniquely distinctive. It means that this wine isn’t quite as old, in terms of release, as it might seem, but neither is it a youngster.

I’d put this wine into a traditional, rather than modern, camp. That bouquet…you could sit smelling the glass for an hour and be perfectly satisfied. It has a palate dominated by a delicious nuttiness, with a fresh citrus acidity running through the middle of the palate. That acidity gives a zip to the wine which you might not expect from one of this age, but VJ takes a long time to mellow (we also drank a sample of a 1981 Château-Chalon Vigne-aux-Dames from the legendary Marius Perron the same evening and that had truly mellowed). The finish however became smooth and rounded on the finish. This is another wine of great length, as all good Vin Jaune should be. Classic old school, totally satisfying, especially with that Jura cheese selection (making me hungry as I type).

This bottle was purchased many years ago at The Sampler in London. The current vintage on their shelves is 2013, which at £45 is reasonable for good Vin Jaune these days.

Posted in Artisan Wines, Natural Wine, Wine | Tagged #theglouthatbindsus, Benoît Badoz Poligny Jura, Champagne Bérêche Brut Réserve, Cheverny, Fine New Zealand Pinot Noir, Grundstein Blauer Portugieser, Hervé Villemade Cheverny Rouge, Hiro Kusuda, IGT Alpi Retiche, Julia Nather & Josef Schenter, Kusuda Martinborough Pinot Noir 2011, Kusuda New Zealand, Mamete Prevostini Valtellina, Max Sein Les Autochtones, Max Sein Wein Franken, Nebbiolo Botonero Mamete Prevostini, Nibiru Kamptal, Pinot Gamay Blend Loire, Recent Wines February 2021 (Pt 2), Vin Jaune Benoît Badoz 2005 | 3 Comments

Recent Wines February 2021 (Part 1) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 01/03/2021 by dccrossley

February yields just fourteen wines. Partly, I guess, as it’s a shorter month and partly because we drank some wines I wrote about in early winter. We will still go for two parts, seven wines in each. In Part One I offer you an exquisite and quite rare Bourgogne, a Priorat with a difference and a tasty white blend from Burgenland, followed by an unusual red Piemontese, a Savoie which might possibly be my wine of the year so far, another equally fantastic Burgenland, red this time, from one of my most adored producers and, to finish, a classic older South Australian Riesling, hailing from a different period in my wine life.

BOURGOGNE CHITRY 2018, ALICE & OLIVIER DE MOOR (Chablis, France)

The De Moors are based at Courgis, southwest of the town of Chablis, beyond the large Premier Cru of Montmains. It is remarkable to think that they have now been making wine here for more than thirty years, because in this time they have gone from being the first example of truly natural winemaking in the Chablis region to being acknowledged superstars whose wines fetch ever higher prices (as a very recent purchase of Premier Cru “Mont de Milieu” showed me). My first ever bottle of De Moor was their Chablis “Humeur du Temps”, picked up on a whim in a discounted bin at Berry Brothers’ “factory outlet” near Basingstoke well over a decade ago. One bottle and I was hooked. I’d never quite drunk Chablis like it.

Chitry is one of the so-called minor Bourgogne appellations in the general Chablis region, or perhaps I should say the Auxerrois. There is a key difference. The grapes for Chitry are still Chardonnay and still planted on clay/marl soils also prevalent in Chablis. However, without the famous name, few estates have made much effort with these wines. You can count on the fingers of one hand those Chablis producers who do, although a few domaines (such as Goissot) have made a name purely from Auxerrois fruit. But the terroir suggests more is possible, and from De Moor, it is.

The De Moors lavish as much effort here as in Chablis, so this wine, never very easy to source, can be something of a hidden gem. It’s fresh, very mineral, saline, but yet it has that rondeur coming from ageing in older oak (the 2018 was aged in a large foudre). It’s apple-fresh but with the touch of weight and gras that suggests a more “serious” appellation.

Such purity and beauty. As the back label states, “I am only the fruit of a respected and beloved soil…I hope to bring you joy”. You sure did, and the De Moors always do.

If you are lucky you will find this at Les Caves de Pyrene. Tiny quantities.

PRIORAT “CLASSIC” 2018, LECTORES VINI (Priorat, Spain)

Priorat has something of a reputation in my house for very boozy, dense reds. Ever since I first bought a few bottles of Scala Dei back in the 1990s every bottle I have bought has perhaps seemed more impressive than enjoyable, very subjective I know. But on the tasting scene a few years ago I began to encounter Fredi Torres, who with Mark Lecha makes up Lectores Vini. After a long chat with him at Viñateros, one of the last tastings I went to in London in March 2020, I decided I needed to get a bottle to try at home. This was the first Priorat I’ve bought in many years, despite loving the wines of Spain more generally.

What stands Fredi Torres apart, as a Priorat producer, is the fact that he’s actually Galician. He’s also lived in Switzerland, Argentina, South Africa and Burgundy. His cosmopolitan winemaking activities cover Galicia (with Silice Viticultores) as well as Catalonia. What stands his Priorat apart is a much fresher style where acids play an important role. Although this “Classic” is made from only 70% Garnacha (with 25% Carignan and 5% Syrah), it has something in common with the beautiful new wave Grenache of Gredos et al. In fact, there’s even a splash of white Macabeo somewhere in here, and although it is raised in oak (around 15% new), it’s not oaky, even now at just over two years old.

It has an enticing bright colour with a purple rim. The bouquet is fragrant cherries which are translated to the palate where they sit happily with a twist of liquorice and a touch of tannin, both adding bite to the finish. This is a lovely modern Priorat. If these wines normally tire your palate, give this one a try.

Imported by Modal Wines.

INTERGALACTIC 2019, RENNER & RENNERSISTAS (Burgenland, Austria)

A new name for a new era, as the irrepressible Renner sisters have been joined by their younger brother, Georg, in what will be the next exciting phase at this Gols estate already brimming with exciting wines and ideas. The big change here is really the putting into practice of an idea which Stefanie told me about a few years ago, when she stated the aim first to get to know each individual variety and their terroir…but in the long term to focus on blends. It is blends which really hold the greatest interest for the siblings.

Intergalactic is one of the new wines they have developed, in this case a white blend of Chardonnay (well, a little), Gewurztraminer, Grüner Veltliner, Muscat Ottonel and Welschriesling. The grapes all come from one vineyard planted in 2017, as a part of that project. It’s a true field blend, but not one that is co-fermented. The grapes are macerated on skins for three to eight days, depending on variety, which adds texture and a little colour, but not really a significant amount.

Next, the wine sees nine months ageing on gross lees, some in 225-litre barrels and some in 500-litre larger oak. Bottling is, as always here, with as little sulphur as they feel able to get away with. The result smells of slightly floral mango fruit with orange, lime citrus and herbs. There are nice acids, a little texture and a palate which is bone dry despite the rather exotic fruit on the tongue. It’s another Renner beauty, and the label is next level too.

This can be found at both Newcomer Wines and Littlewine.co.

“68” 2019, CASCINA TAVIJN (Piemonte, Italy)

The area known as Alto Piemonte is becoming increasingly popular as prices for Barolo and Barbaresco become ever more Burgundian, but there’s another side to Piemonte, known as Alt-Piemonte. Here, in the Monferrato hills to the northeast of Asti, Alto- and Alt-Piemonte come together in an estate making truly individual wines.

Nadia Verrua may look very youthful, but her family has a century of farming these hills behind them. The estate measures ten hectares, but only half is planted to grapes. Their other main crop is hazelnuts. Things are done naturally, with zero chemical inputs (including no added sulphur). The grapes, in this cuvée a 50-50 blend of Barbera and the wonderful but rarely seen Ruché, are fermented together for a whole two months on skins (no stems) and are then aged in a whole gamut of different vessels, ranging from oak botti to cement and fibreglass.

The result is an absolute riot of red and dark berry fruits with a hint of violet on the nose, all kept bouncing in the glass by some fresh and zippy fruit acidity. It’s a wine for enjoying, not pondering over, and it really does illustrate how under-valued (if I might say so) Ruché has become in the Piemontese mix.

The cuvée is yet another wine named after a road number, which of course in Italy, whether north or far south, means the SP68.

This, and other wines from Cascina Tavijn, are available from Tutto Wines via their online Tutto La Casa.

CÔTILLON DES DAMES 2015 VIN DE FRANCE, JEAN-YVES PÉRON (Savoie, France)

Jean-Yves Péron has farmed at Conflans, close to Albertville, since 2004, right in the heart of the Haut-Savoie. His vineyards are on slopes of mica schist between 350 to 550 masl, and his parcels are tiny. Thankfully he manages to bring in some fruit from other like-minded (read fully organic) growers, including some cuvées in collaboration with growers in Italy’s Piemonte.

Côtillon des Dames is a name for different cuvées with the same characteristic yellow label. They include sometimes a multi-vintage blend, a Reserve and a vintage, and this is a nicely aged 2015 vintage wine. The grapes are Jacquere and Altesse, two of the region’s autochthonous varieties. They see enough skin contact to make this a genuine amber/orange wine.

This is pretty obvious from the colour, which might scare any more conservative readers, but it’s the bouquet which really grabs your attention. It is no less than explosive with orange citrus. I’ve been enjoying the season’s blood oranges right now, and that is exactly what I got here. That almost overpowering scent. The palate is certainly textured but there’s a heap of exotic fruit which is almost like the sweet and sour of a Chinese dish, but with a nice Seville Orange marmalade bitterness on the finish.

An extraordinary wine for the adventurous, contemplative, challenging, difficult for sure, but perhaps this is why this may be my wine of the year so far. Mind you, the next wine’s pretty damned good too…

A reasonable range of Péron wines are usually available via Gergovie Wines, who like Tutto above, specialises in wines made without added sulphur.

JOSCHUARI ROT 2011, GUT OGGAU (Burgenland, Austria)

So, we probably all know by now that Gut Oggau is a family winery and heuriger based in Oggau, a hamlet just a kilometre or two north of Rust, on the western shore of Burgenland’s Neusiedlersee. As Rust is highly recommended (for a host of reasons which I have written about before), the most effective way to visit Gut Oggau, and to be able to taste and drink, is to hire bicycles in Rust itself. Oggau is close enough that you can wobble home.

Joschuari sits in the middle generation of the Gut Oggau family of wines, a “parent”. He is a rather complex Blaufränkisch grown on the superb limestone terroir above the lake, vines being forty years old. That terroir drives the wine, as it does all of the fine examples of this variety from this location. Its signature is a racy mineral edge which is given more of an accent here with 50% of the fruit being fermented in concrete (the rest in oak). It is then aged 12 months in the same blend of the two vessels.

This is, for me, a wine to lay down, perhaps more so than Josephine, the other parent who I perhaps know more intimately. At ten years old this seems as fresh as the day it was bottled. It still has that characteristic dark tinge to the colour. This is reflected in a dark-fruited bouquet, where you can also almost smell the limestone (or is it a touch of that concrete-induced high note, or both?). The palate is beautifully concentrated and very long. It’s a serious wine, but its freshness makes it joyous to drink. Biodynamic, around 20 mg/l sulphur added, a life affirming bottle. I expected no less from the caring genius of Gut Oggau.

Imported by Dynamic Vines, Bermondsey.

SPRINGVALE WATERVALE RIESLING 2010, JEFFREY GROSSET (Clare Valley, South Australia)

Jeffrey Grosset knew he wanted to be a winemaker in his mid-teens, so on leaving school he went straight off to Roseworthy College, and after graduating wound up by his mid-twenties working as senior winemaker for a large-scale Australian wine group. But his future was obvious…that he’d go it alone. That he was able to do so was in large part down to help from his parents, both in helping to fund the purchase of an old dairy at the southern end of the Clare Valley, and from his dad’s physical labour in helping convert the grapes from a mate’s Riesling vines at Polish Hill into 800 cases of wine for his first vintage.

Jeffrey now farms 20 hectares over the valley, making much more than just Riesling. But if a lover of Australian wine thinks of Riesling, it is surely Grosset of whom they will think first. He’s still most famous for his Polish Hill Riesling, and people often therefore think of the Springvale, from fruit at Watervale, as a kind of second label. This most certainly isn’t the case. Springvale is merely different. The Watervale fruit is different, more generous than the Polish Hill, where the fruit comes off very poor soils on hard shale. Instead Watervale is mostly red limestone and loam with shale mixed in. Three different clones are grown organically, hand harvested from a six-hectare block.

As Jeffrey Grosset repeats so often, the idea initially was to blend the two sources but he soon found that didn’t work. He was one of Australia’s first voices in favour of the expression of “place” through wine, something the Clare terroir taught him. He was also, partly at the behest of his importer, David Gleave (Liberty Wines), an early exponent of screwcaps.

Whereas you really wouldn’t want to broach a Polish Hill too young, the Springvale can be drunk early. But even at more than a decade old, as this bottle was, it showed an attractive green-gold colour and on the nose, an expression of pure lime cordial, the palate revealing a firm backbone of acidity you don’t quite expect unless you know these wines fairly well. That palate is crisp, mineral and bone dry and (goes without saying) incredibly long. For a 13% Riesling it’s still very elegant too. I’d say that despite being a decade old it will surely go another seven-to-ten years minimum.

Grosset is usually available fairly widely in the UK, via importer Liberty Wines, but also through The Wine Society and Berry Brothers (among others). I happen to remember that my bottles all came from The Sampler (Islington branch), though nothing is currently listed there.

Posted in Austrian Wine, Burgundy, Italian Wine, Natural Wine, Neusiedlersee, Piemonte, Savoie Wine, Spanish Wine, Wine | Tagged #theglouthatbindsus, "68" Cascina Tavijn, Bourgogne Chitry, Burgenland, Côtillon des Dames 2015, Clare Valley South Australia, De Moor, Fredi Torres and Mark Lecha, Gut Oggau Joschuari 2011, Jean-Yves Péron Conflans, Jeffrey Grosset, Nadia Verrua, Piemonte, Priorat, Priorat Classic 2018 Lectores Vini, Recent Wines February 2021 (Pt 1), Renner Intergalactic, Rennersistas, Savoie, Springvale Riesling 2010, Watervale Riesling, Weingut Renner Gols | 1 Comment

Wine and Cheese Anyone? Reviewing Oz Clarke’s English Wine with Ned Palmer’s A Cheesemonger’s History of the British Isles

Posted on 22/02/2021 by dccrossley

This week you get two book reviews in one article and, I think for the first time, one of them isn’t about wine. Tempted as I’ve been in the past to review books on my other passion, music, I have sensibly refrained. But cheese, surely that counts for being so plainly associated with wine for centuries. It happens that I read these two books consecutively over the past two weeks, and they both have a common geographical focus, the British Isles. Of course, I’d not be reviewing a cheese book here unless I thought it was something special, and a little different. What I will say, before we move on, is that both books have a strong narrative, and so as well as informing they also entertain. Perhaps this is why I read them so quickly. Please take the time, if you can, to read both reviews.

First, to Oz. Oz Clarke’s book is called “English Wine”, though he explains in a reader’s note that this is in no way intended to upset the Welsh winemakers, of whom seven get a mention in an albeit short chapter. It is because, as Oz rightly remembers, “British Wine” is made from imported grape concentrate. He might have taken a leaf out of Ned Palmer’s cheese book’s title, but then he might have clashed with Stephen Skelton’s “Wines of Great Britain” (2019).

You kind of know what you might get from the cover, which sports a cartoon of Oz sitting atop the White Cliffs of Dover sipping a sparkling wine in a “flute”. These cartoons appear throughout. Beneath is the strapline “From Still to Sparkling…The Newest New World Wine Country”.

The book, which runs to 176 pages, begins with a little history, but thankfully only a little. Oz does mention the debate as to whether the Romans really did make wine from their English vines, and he does mention the vineyards of medieval England, whilst acknowledging that they were probably fairly insignificant compared to imports from the Gironde and later Portugal, not to mention beer (and small beer). But he doesn’t labour the point.

In fact, by the time we have reached page 40 we have covered more up-to-date matters like the importance of location for a successful vineyard, the planting spree of the 2000s and questions of what grape varieties to plant and what to make from them. It’s a shorter summary than you’ll find elsewhere, less detailed but more succinct.

The short middle part of the book, which ends the more general sections, covers Sparkling Wine, which Oz naturally calls British Bubbles. Even if you’ve done a stage at Taittinger you’ll still find this nine or so pages interesting, but most people reading this Blog will not learn anything new. That said, it does lead us in nicely to the main body of the book, effectively the last hundred pages, which is a “Tour of the Regions”.

As you can see from the Contents photo, England and Wales is broken up geographically, although Oz is not (I think) advocating regional PDOs (in a European sense) for English and Welsh wine (which at least one major producer in Sussex seems to advocate). In fact, Oz is rather good at simply describing the geology of the vineyards, which naturally doesn’t take any notice of County boundaries.

He dismisses the idea that English vines have to be grown on Downland chalk, giving a shout-out for the Thames Valley gravel beds, for “greensands” in particular (another type of detritus-rich marine deposit), and even pointing out where vines have been successfully grown on clay in some places, that supposed “no-no” for serious viticulture in England due to its normally high water retention. In fact, he is also very adept at explaining other aspects of terroir throughout the book, especially slope orientation, rainfall and, very pertinent to where I live, wind, in a way that’s simple enough that you won’t forget the lessons.

I suppose it is this regional coverage in the book which is most relevant for readers who are not novices. The directory should give us an insight into the workings of the wineries and vineyards whose wines we are likely to find in the shops, and indeed if it does its job, this section will make us want to go out and try these wines. I do think it achieves this very well. You just need to read the entry for one of England’s very oldest (and smallest) commercial vineyards, Breaky Bottom (p84ff) and I challenge you not to want to go out and buy some (Give Butlers Wine Cellar in nearby Brighton a call as they are usually well stocked with Peter Hall’s different sparkling cuvées). Perhaps even his bottle-fermented Seyval Blanc for the more adventurous among you? Most should begin with the numerous cuvées made from Champagne’s traditional trio of varieties.

Breaky Bottom, nestling within the South Downs near Rodmell, Lewes (Mick Rock/Cephas), one of a few lovely photos in Oz’s book

We get all of the big players included here, and the entries are well written. They generally get right to the heart of what drove individuals to want to create wine in England as well as listing the more mundane aspects, such as planting ratios and maturation techniques. We also get a good number of the newer names on the scene, something I personally felt (obviously a subjective opinion) that Stephen Skelton’s 2019 “The Wines of Great Brtitain” (which I reviewed last year) failed to give us.

I guess you want examples? Skelton seems to ignore Ben Walgate’s Tillingham (at Peasmarsh near Rye, East Sussex). Ben is England’s great experimenter, and if like me you believe that those working at the fringes are most likely to push the envelope for everyone else, then Tillingham is an important place in English Wine (not to mention a serious venue for experiencing innovative vineyard hospitality through their smart accommodation and restaurants). Oz ends his one-page entry for Tillingham saying “…there’s no doubt that if biodynamic vineyards and natural winemaking are to play a part [in the future path of English wine], Ben Walgate will be leading the charge”.

So, Oz covers the whole range of British vineyards, large and small. He does it very well. I was disappointed to see some omissions, for example Westwell Wines on the North Downs of Kent, at Charing, where Adrian Pike is hardly less innovative than Ben Walgate. Then, on a more traditional note, there’s Jacob Leadley’s Black Chalk in Hampshire. I know Oz must have tasted Black Chalk as I’ve spotted him at the Wines of Hamphire Tasting at 67 Pall Mall on at least one occasion. It was pretty much on the back of the very first releases by Jacob that I identified Black Chalk as heading swiftly towards the top of the rankings for English Sparkling Wine, and I was not alone in that at least one prominent wine writer shared my enthusiasm. Black Chalk cemented its place at the 2020 Wine GB Awards, where they won “Best Newcomer”.

If I’m really picking nits, as well as omitting Westwell and Black Chalk, I would personally have liked a bit more than mere “directory” information for that other great innovator, Ancre Hill in Monmouthshire. Ancre Hill might well have become known a decade ago for some cracking Welsh sparklers, but having recently drunk their red petnat made from Triomphe and being soon to drink another bottle of their innovatively-labelled “Orange” (made from Albariño), I’d suggest this vineyard has a broad portfolio of exciting wines.

I must say that one thing I am very pleased about is that Oz doesn’t dismiss still wines. It might be pertinent to note here that just as the climate of at least England’s south coast is becoming remarkably similar to that experienced in France’s Champagne Region a decade or so ago, Louis Roederer has announced two new and rather expensive Coteaux Champenois still wines. I have no doubt that these trailblazing cuvées from a forward-looking Grande Marque will be followed in time with other still cuvées, to join those of the Growers (some of which are pretty good already).

As Champagne gets warmer, so does England. If the future may now so obviously look sparkling, we must understand that still wines will have a place in our wine story. Some do already, and as they are easier and cheaper to produce than classic method, bottle-fermented, sparklers, they provide tempting cash flow (as England’s massive investors, the Driver family at Rathfinny, astutely recognised, releasing their Cradle Valley Pinot Blanc/Pinot Gris blend as their first sparkling wines matured on their lees in Alfriston). Whilst Bacchus establishes itself as a genuinely English variety, in terms of the unique white wines it produces here, there is no doubt that many winemakers have already been hooked by the search for the holy grail of exceptional English red Pinot Noir. Some of you will know what I mean if I quote Hobo Johnson: “I woulda bought a Lambo but I’m not quite there yet” (from Subaru Crosstrek XV). But they will get there one day very soon.

How to sum up? I enjoyed Oz’s book immensely. If you want a lot of dry facts, perhaps you might want to look elsewhere. It’s relatively lightweight as far as hardbacks go, literally speaking. I’d not say it’s “lightweight” as regards content, but Oz is not writing a PhD thesis either. In fact, I’m sure this consummate entertainer is attempting nothing of the sort.

I’d say Oz will appeal to two kinds of reader. First would be perhaps my twenty-three-to-thirty-year-old self, getting interested more seriously in wine for the first time. The second type of reader is me now, a wine obsessive who wants to consume as much as possible about this new wine frontier. The book’s narrative drives the text along and frankly I could have read it all in one long, fully catered, duvet day. If I’d not enjoyed it, you’d not be reading a review. And as a subject, English (and Welsh) wine is something we all need to get to know pretty quickly.

English Wine by Oz Clarke is published by Pavilion (hardback, 2020, rrp £16.99 or US $ 24.95). I include the dollar price because for North American readers interested in seeing what all the fuss is about, this book is a great place to start.

Now please don’t stop reading because I would very much like to spend a few paragraphs telling you about a book which could almost be a companion to Oz Clarke, A Cheese-monger’s History of the British Isles by Ned Palmer (Profile Books, hardback 2019, this soft cover edn, 2020, rrp £9.99).

Ned Palmer, like most people involved in the renaissance of the fine cheeses of our islands, had no intention of such a career. This budding jazz pianist ended up taking a “temporary” job at Neal’s Yard Dairy in London’s Covent Garden before eventually, after a great deal of travels, cheesemaking jaunts and getting to know Great Britain and Ireland’s best cheesemakers, founding The Cheese Tasting Company in 2014.

I own a few books on cheese, but this one is a little (a lot) different, and that’s why I’m bringing it to your attention. Over ten long chapters, Ned gives us a highly entertaining overview of British and Irish cheesemaking throughout our history. He begins with our Neolithic past before moving towards our present-day real cheese revival, via the Romans, the Monasteries, Cromwell’s Commonwealth, the Victorians, the 20^th century with its wars, right up to the present day. There is feast and famine, and the near destruction of craft cheese as an industry here, before signs of new shoots from the 1970s, and what we can genuinely call a renaissance since 2000.

Each chapter has a signature cheese, in some way relevant to the time period. Ned will usually take us to visit its finest proponents and we get a history lesson somewhere between a visit to the British Library’s darkest corners and one of those “Horrible Histories” books. This is another book with a narrative that keeps you reading until your eyes can no longer stay open (if like me you are reading a chapter a night in bed). It had one other effect too, in some ways not what you want, but certainly an indication of just how good a read this was: even after a good dinner, reading Ned Palmer’s prose made me genuinely hungry for the cheese in question. A real feeling in the stomach and an uncanny ability, on several occasions, to smell that cheese in the depths of my memory.

This is a brilliant book, and not surprisingly it won a Sunday Times Book of the Year Award, as well as being shortlisted for the André Simon Awards and for a Fortnum & Mason Guild of Food Writers Prize. It brought me two additional avenues of research, both of which I shall be pursuing.

At the end of the book Ned details some “favourite cheeses”, listed by type with a brief paragraph about them. Many are classics if you are an habitué of Neal’s Yard Dairy or Paxton & Whitfield. I was also led to Ned’s web site, www.cheesetastingco.uk ,where you can find a list of fine cheesemongers both in the capital and around the country. I was very happy to find one shop listed in the market town closest to where my parents live which I had not previously known existed, and which, by location, ought to sell the finest example known to man of my father’s favourite cheese. Another reason I can’t wait for Lockdown to end.

I put up a review of a cheese book on my wine blog because I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I’m sure it will rank among my books of the year, and if my few paragraphs explaining its format appeal to you, if of course you love cheese, and if of course you are not one of those with a pathological inability to appreciate the fine cheeses of our British Isles alongside the wonders of taste produced by our European cousins, then you might just feel the same way.