David Crossley's Wide World of Wine

Holiday Wines July 2025

Posted on 24/07/2025 by dccrossley

In a brief diversion from the “Recent Wines” theme (the wines we drink at home), these are ten of the wines we drank on a week’s holiday on the South Coast. Actually, these were merely consumed by four of us over three days of the week, Friday to Sunday, with a few more wines on Thursday and Monday not covered here so, arriving home on Tuesday evening we are now on a three-day detox.

The wines were mostly new to me, the exception being the last. I own a bottle of this and someone said keep it a little longer, but the bottle we drank here was singing. You will notice that many of these bottles come from Lymington’s Solent Cellar. It remains one of my absolute favourite wine shops. I always spot things on the shelf I miss online, though co-owner Simon Smith is very good at pointing me towards more wines to empty my wallet with. Some of the wines here are by no means “obvious” choices, especially as some I’d never heard of. All the wines here, both from this shop and elsewhere, were exciting.

I also got to taste some German wines at Lymington’s Solent Cellar which had been preserved after a German tasting there the night before. Those bottles will follow. It was a reminder not just of how good German wines are, but also the diversity available.

A couple of the wines were drunk at The Gun in Keyhaven, just outside Milford-on-Sea. It has been a couple of years since we’ve been but I can still highly recommend this transformed former pub, built in the 1600s and a pub since 1783, it is now owned by Chris and Kitty Cecil-Wright (Kitty being Hugh Johnson’s daughter). The menu is local and the quality of food is, I would say, higher than the reasonable prices suggest.

Où Que L’on Soit, Max & Friends (Champagne, France)

This is a Coteaux Champenois from the 2020 vintage, made from Chardonnay grown around Romery, which is northwest of Hautvillers on the Montagne de Reims. The Max in question is Maxime Renault, and he makes only still wines from the region. Inspired by Pierre Overnoy, his wines are “natural+”, with zero added sulphur, both biodynamics and regenerative ecology being at the heart of what he does on his 1.8 hectares. This is a lovely wine, lean in a good way in that it is precise and you can taste the intricate skeletal structure under the fruit. Les Caves du Forum in Reims sold this (53€).

Montedesassi 2019, Il Borghetto (Tuscany, Italy)

This is a very good value Toscana IGP made by Antonio Cavallino’s small-to-medium estate in Chiantishire, yet intentionally keeping the wines out of the DOCG (which, being bottled in the Burgundy shaped bottle means they can’t qualify anyway). Organic/biodynamic fruit (95% Sangiovese, 5% Canaiolo), this is Sangio with a leaning to Pinot Noir’s elegance but with a degree of power as well. The palate of this 2019 echoes the wafting fragrance of the bouquet’s cherries, spice and wild flowers complemented by savoury notes. I was quite taken with it. Retail, around £30, imported by Alliance Wine. Great value, the 2019 drinking so well right now. Must remember to get some in my next Solent Cellar order if they have any left.

Wintricher Ohligsberg Riesling Auslese 2017 (50cl), Julian Haart (Mosel, Germany)

This wine simply does what it says on the bottle, but does it rather well. With 7.5% alcohol and a rapier-like acidity, this is certainly young, but thrilling nevertheless. Julian farms at Piesport. Once he was one of the new stars of the Mosel, but he’s pretty well established in that role now, and he is part of a long tradition, being custodian of one of the oldest private wine estates on the river. This will be nothing short of sublime when mature. Now it is merely profoundly exciting. £65 at The Solent Cellar, now out of stock.

La Closerie “Les Beguines” Extra Brut, Jérôme Prévost (Champagne, France)

Prévost is based at Gueux on the Montagne de Reims, from where he has been bottling some of the finest examples of Champagne found anywhere since 1998. Les Beguines is 100% Meunier, aged in oak, the code on the label (LC16) showing it is from the single vintage of 2016. It was dosed Extra Brut at around 2g/l. Peter Liem recommends drinking this cuvée (one of only two made here, the other being the earth-shatteringly wonderful Fac-Simile Rosé) within ten years of vintage. Sounds about right. This was sensational, but quite mature. If you (as I do) like Champagne with the complexity of bottle age, this is right on point. A genuine terroir wine, so long, so good. £105 from Solent Cellar but out of stock. Vine Trail imports.

« Gamet » Coteaux Champenois Rosé 2022, Clos du Goulot (Champagne, France)

This is a tiny production still pink wine made from a parcel of Meunier planted in 1960 at Fleury-la-Rivière, just north of Damery and the Marne. In fact, it’s a mere three-minute drive from Romery, site of the first Coteaux wine I wrote about. Vines are south-facing and they receive a forty-hour saignée (the colour being bled off from the result of a gentle eight-hour maceration). Another example of the excellent still wines now being made in the heartland of Champagne by growers I’d never heard of before. An elegant Rosé made from a grape variety capable of excellence in the right hands (but I think you probably knew that). Another wine from Les Caves du Forum in Reims, circa 34€. Just 600 bottles made. A bargain!

On s’en Fish! 2023, Domaine Gardies (Roussillon, France)

This IGP Côtes Catalanes red is made organically by Jean and Victor Gardies at Espira-de-Agly (Agly Valley). Cinsault (85%) and Carignan are fermented by carbonic maceration to make a fresh and chillable red which despite 13.5% abv tastes good with fish. The tannins are gentle and the fruit (red berries, cranberry and strawberry dominant) is vibrant. With a nice label too, this is a cracker at just £21 from Solent Cellar (Lymington). The importer is Alliance Wine. I have a friend who has just been to Roussillon who would love this!

Weisser Burgunder “R” Morstein 2021, Seehof (Rheinhessen, Germany)

The vineyard, Morstein, needs little introduction. Klaus Peter Keller has (along with Philipp Wittmann) made this one of the most famous sites in Germany. Winemaker Florian Fauth is actually Klaus Peter’s brother-in-law, and he’s making excellent value wines from the same region. This very much includes Pinot Blanc, from the same site. Off limestone and clay, it ferments in large (1,200-litre) oak, where it stays for seven months. It’s a creamy wine with 13% alcohol giving it just the right amount of weight but no flab. The palate is like peaches and cream, but with acidity to balance. Look for hints of white pepper too.

I like Weisser Burgunder at lunch. This single site version may be a bad choice to drink the bottle solo, being a little more alcoholic than some, but it is gorgeous. It will pair with a range of white fish from lighter to meatier. I have enjoyed the Seehof Chardonnay (from the Steingrube site), and have more of that in the cellar, but this for me is as good. At £17 it is remarkable value. From Solent Cellar, imported by Boutinot.

“Electio” Xarel-Lo 2021, Parés Baltá (Penedès, Spain)

This is a quality Cava producer at Pacs del Penedès, which was founded towards the end of the eighteenth century. This still wine is the result of biodynamic (Demeter cert) farming and its barrel-fermented Xarel-Lo fruit comes from isolated, century-old, terraces and 70-year-old vines. They call it a micro-cuvée. Pale yellow, with camomile on the nose and textured, mineral, white peach and peach stone on the palate. You get a hint of Mediterranean herbs on the finish. Pretty special, but not cheap – £45 at Hedonism Wines. Imported by Top Selection Wines.

Sobre Lías Crianza 2023, Finca Viñoa (Ribeiro, Spain)

Bottled under the Finca Viñoa label, this is made by Bodega Pazo de Casanova at Santa Cruz de Arrabaldo, Ourense. This is a 12-ha domaine situated in the Val del Avia, comprising seventy terraces on granite planted to the region’s autochthonous varieties. This organic white seems to blend mostly Treixadura (85%) with roughly 8% of Godello and some other varieties including Loureiro and Albariño. Straw-coloured, the bouquet mixes green apple and lemon with smokey notes. The palate is herbal and mineral with a citrus zip. A refreshing white which is just perfect for oily tinned fish, of the kind many indie wine shops seem to stock nowadays, assuming you can’t get them fresh from the Atlantic. £22 from Solent Cellar, via Alliance Wine.

Rioja Reserva Viña Tondonia 2001, Lopez de Heredia (Rioja, Spain)

LdH is one of the now famous bodegas clustered around the railway station at Haro, in the far north of Rioja Alta. Founded in 1877, this family-run estate is famous for long-lived, traditional, wines of great beauty. Tondonia is a single site (though 100 hectares) on the right bank of the Ebro, from which they make their finest wines, it should be noted in all colours, although strangely the Rosado is perhaps the hardest to find.

In this 2001 Reserva we have the successor to the 1995. Tempranillo (70%) was blended with 20% Garnacha and 5% each of Graciano and Mazuelo, first fermented in old wood (the famous vats here are over 150 years old, but are immaculately maintained), after which they age it for a decade in used barrels. These are the traditional 225-litre casks made of American oak, produced in the bodega’s own cooperage.

It’s a medium-bodied red, elegant and smooth. The bouquet is spiced, and the palate has a slightly chalky texture with genuine salinity on the finish. Carefully crafted, yet so sensual (and very long). Someone suggested I keep my own bottle for a few more years, and one merchant counsels opening it in 2031. This bottle was drinking beautifully, but having had the wonderful experience of sipping this bottle (a friend’s), I feel I can give my own a little more time. I doubt it will stay in the cellar that long, though.

My own remaining bottle came from The Sampler, now just in Islington, where you can currently buy a magnum of the 2011 for £105 or a half bottle of the 2012 for £30. Prices always vary for all the Tondonias so it is worth looking around. As for the Rosado, The Sampler was selling it for £98 but thank goodness they have none left to tempt us. They do have the 2004 Gran Reserva red for £210.

Ooh, and we also drank some of this…wow!

Recent Wines June 2025 (Part 2) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 11/07/2025 by dccrossley

We begin Part 2 of June’s Recent Wines, those we drank at home, with a very rare and special Californian white. Wine number two isn’t quite as rare but it is also a remarkable and special wine. How to follow those? A pale pink from Switzerland, and a well-aged bottle of one of Portugal’s finest wines, a Südtiroler Weissburgunder and a Sauvignon Gris from the Dordogne. When I said, in Part 1, that there’s something about June that always throws up some vinous gems, I was not exaggerating.

The Alley 2019, Christina Rasmussen (California, USA)

I’m aware that many of my readers will know Christina, and will have done for many years. She has achieved much in her relatively small number of decades, not least in being co-founder of Littlewine, and planting a very interesting vineyard in England. She had been spending time in the States with wine luminaries Abe Schoener and Rajat Parr, and that is how she wound up making her own wine there.

The grape Christina chose to vinify is Palomino, and its source, the Bridgehead vineyard in Contra Costa County. We are east of Napa and just south of the Sacramento River. The land here is a mix of suburban homes and once-prosperous agriculture, with the land scarred by industrial levels of agro-chemical blitzing. But those vineyards which have survived here contain very old vines, some one-hundred years old.

These Palomino bush vines aren’t that old, but are not far off, planted in 1935, and have been farmed organically by Cline Cellars. They were hand harvested on 13^th August 2019 by Christina with help from Megan Cline, Abe Schoener and friends before being foot-trodden, gently basket-pressed, and then moved, 90% to an old barrel in Chinatown, SF. The remaining 10% went into a demijohn for an eight-week maceration before blending into the barrel. Aged on the lees, the wine was bottled in March 2020.

One very well-known English winemaker said this on Instagram: “I love this wine”. So do I. The bouquet is pure (in both senses) Palomino. The fruit is balanced but broad, the wine is dry and long, and drinking it in June 2025, it has gained complexity without losing its mineral freshness. Alcohol is balanced at 12%. Maybe what I like most is that breadth of fruit flavour, but yet it is curtailed within walls (perhaps walls of texture). The fruit doesn’t spill out at the edges.

There were only 202 bottles made. I have been privileged to drink this twice, first a bottle belonging to Tim Philipps, and this second, shared between myself, my wife, and a wine trade friend who I rightly decided had to drink it too. The thing I’ve learned about Christina, she’s quite sharp and a quick learner. She has learnt from the best, not just with Abe and Rajat, but also in her travels for Littlewine. I’m sure she will make some more wine as good as this one day.

Wine purchased direct from CR, £40.

Kheops 2016, Les Vignes de Paradis (Savoie, France)

I was in the Scottish Borders a week ago and I saw one of Dominique Lucas’s entry level wines in a store for £44. That is probably more than, or as much as, I paid for this top cuvée from one of Savoie’s top half-dozen winemakers. Dominique makes wine in a very unfashionable part of Savoie. It’s that southern shore of Lake Geneva, or Lac Léman as the French and Swiss call it.

You may know the shore-side town of Evian-les-Bains. Few wine lovers will have tried the local Appellation wines, one of which is called Crépy. I will admit to something of a thing for Crépy back in my youth. It was often marketed as “Crépytant”, a play on Petillant. It is made from Chasselas, as are the other three appellations lake-side. So, a good quiz question is “name five French AOCs made from Chasselas” (Crépy, Ripaille, Marin and Marignan, the fifth being Pouilly-sur-Loire, of course). Dominique farms within the Crépy appellation.

Kheops is not Chasselas, and is not an AOP wine. It is made from 100% Chardonnay, at Ballaison. It is bottled as IGP Vin des Allobroges, the old name for the local Vin de Pays, taken from the people who inhabited this region in the iron age and into Roman times.

Dominique now has 7.5-ha of vines but this is another tiny production wine: 690 bottles in 2016. The regime is what I’d call “biodynamic plus”. No chemicals added anywhere, any time, but any action taken by the winemaker either in the vines or in the winery is done after careful observation of the stars and planets.

Ageing for this cuvée is famously carried out in a pyramid, a 1/100^th-size replica of the Egyptian Pyramid of Khufu, made from local materials, where the wine spends two years. Dominique believes the shape enhances flavour intensity. You might think this is all a bit ooh, wooh, but wait until you taste it!

This is nothing short of electrifying (our guest had asked for something “electric” and I hope she got just that). Dry mineral texture, but soft, lemon citrus acidity and complex fruit, where the flavours really do swirl around on the palate like Van Gogh’s starry night. It’s a wine I can’t compare to any other and some of what I experienced drinking this was truly unique. And I have another bottle left! Thank you, Doug for spotting Dominique early. My bottle cost £45 from Solent Cellar, I think (now long gone). Contact importer Les Caves de Pyrene for other sources.

Oeil-de-Perdrix 2022, Domaine de Montmollin (Neuchâtel, Switzerland)

This wine usually comes around once a year for me, along with one of this ancient domaine’s Chasselas wines, preferably the unfiltered “nouveau” version. Oeil de Perdrix (partridge eye in English) refers to a very pale but striking pink colour. You’ll find wines thus labelled occasionally in France, perhaps made in the Loire from Pinot Gris (a speciality once of Reuilly, there called Malvoisie for some reason). You will find similar wines made in Italy from Pinot Grigio, but there the focus is on the colour’s coppery side, being called ramato.

This cuvée is made from Pinot Noir, and whilst other Swiss wine regions used to make oeil de perdrix from Pinot Noir, most notably Geneva, the name has now been reserved for the northern region of Neuchâtel. Domaine Montmollin, at Auvernier on the shores of the Lac de Neuchâtel, dates back to the 17^th Century. Today, Benoît Montmollin and his sister Rachel run the estate, assisted by winemaker Christelle Delamaison.

The vineyard is large, 50-hectares over eight lakeside villages, but they were all converted to biodynamics between 2016 and 2019. This wine has a lovely aromatic delicacy, and the crispness of a white wine (you will be surprised that the alcohol is 13%), but you also get the fruit, and a little of the structure, of a red wine.

The producer counsels keeping it for two-to-three years from the vintage. I know we often get “old” Rosé in the UK, last year’s vintage, so to speak. That doesn’t help when a pink-ish wine will age, and many of them do, from Rosé des Riceys (ageing essential) through to Bandol Rosé, or good Tavel. This wine does take a bit of age, and drinking it at almost three years old, it was lovely.

I really like this wine, enough to try to buy it every year, though finding a retailer who stocks it gets harder each vintage. I guess wines from places like Switzerland and Japan, even Czechia and Greece, are a hard sell these days, which is a crying shame. My bottle came from Solent Cellar (£27) but it is now all gone (this was their last bottle). Oxford Wine Company has stocked this vintage in the past as well. The importer is Alpine Wines, who currently have it priced online at £28.68, and you can of course buy direct from them.

Batuta 2004, Niepoort (Douro, Portugal)

Dirk Neipoort made this classic, age-worthy, Douro red wine from very old vines (some over 100 years old), since 2003 taking the fruit from Quinta do Napolès. This Niepoort property lies south of the Douro between Peso-da Régua and Pinhão, the vines up at between 350-750 masl. The blend is Tinta Roriz, Tinta Amarela (aka Trincadeira) and Touriga Franca. I hope I’m not exaggerating in calling it one of Portugal’s finest red wines.

It’s a wine which requires some age, to be sure. Before Covid I remember asking someone who knew and worked with Dirk Niepoort whether this bottle would be a good shout for a wine dinner I was going to. He said no, keep it. Sage advice. Opening the bottle last month, this was inspirational. A blend of Dirk’s flair and open mind, plus his wide experience, doubtless contributed, but he still required top class fruit and found it at this Port property. With it, he was able to wave the batuta (conductor’s baton).

The bouquet is a haunting fruit-drenched party, the palate is silky dark fruits, blueberry especially, with real depth. There is a mineral edge, but the silky fruit clothes it but doesn’t smother it. There are now no appreciable tannins. Their absence allows more tertiary notes, slightly earthy, to come through, but it is unquestionably the fruit that dominates.

After twenty-one years in bottle, more-or-less, this is as sensational as any Red Bordeaux (and anyway, with a few exceptions 2004 was just a “good classic” vintage there). With wines like this, from the depths of my cellar, recalling their source is impossible unless I have a specific memory. It might have come from Butlers Wine Cellar in Brighton, because I know I bought other Niepoort wines from them, like Redoma and Charme. Today, the same wine can be found for maybe £160-£170 a bottle.

Weissburgunder 2024, J Hofstätter (Alto Adige/Süd Tirol, Italy)

I have confessed to liking Pinot Blanc before, and it’s not just me. I have friends who do as well. It always surprises me that it isn’t more popular as plenty of it is inexpensive and it is usually a better bet, quality-wise, than similarly priced Pinot Grigio in Italy. It’s often a good bet on an otherwise dull lunchtime wine list.

Weingut J Hofstätter is based at Termino (when speaking Italian). They were established in 1907 and now farm 50ha, specialising in Gewurztraminer and Pinot Bianco/Weissburgunder (depending on your linguistic proclivity). Viticulture is increasingly low intervention and as a project here they have introduced bee-keeping, which of course means they won’t use pesticides. They don’t claim to make natural wines but do claim to totally respect the environment. The winemaker is Markus Heinel.

This 100% Weissburgunder is bottled under the equally bi-lingual DOC of Alto Adige/Süd Tirol. The grapes, off light marl soils, got into the winery swiftly for an immediate gentle press before a temperature-controlled cool fermentation. The wine was then aged on lees in stainless steel.

You get a very typical cool-climate mountain white wine where winemaking is all about fruit, purity and precision without taking away some weight. It has that expected crystalline structure, with peach and herbal notes on the nose. The palate is fresh, but has a bit more body than the bouquet suggests, and this is another wine from a mountain region that shows 13% alcohol (though when I say “shows”, it doesn’t grab you and shake you in any way). That alcohol, I suspect, will enable the wine to age a year or two, but I’ve no regrets at popping it open now.

This bottle came from The Wine Society and cost £15. It is available quite widely, but more in the price range of £22 to £24 at other retailers, as far as I can make out.

Sauvignon Gris “Nasturtium” 2023, Ferme L’Apogee (Dordogne, France)

Ferme L’Apogee describes itself as a “Permaculture garden, restaurant and natural wines in the heart of the Dordogne”. No-till, biodynamics and sustainable, regenerative agriculture are the name of the game and worked into this is natural winemaking, with everything that entails, to include zero added sulphur.

The couple behind it, Vincent Lebon and Millie Dominy, relocated to Sainte-Croix in the bastide country of Bergerac from Plateaux, Brighton’s exceptional natural wine bar and restaurant, post-Brexit. If you have ever driven down the D660 from the Dordogne to the beautiful and most famous of the bastide villages, Monpazier, you will have passed pretty close.

I have counted nine wines in the range here, five of which are currently being listed by Basket Press Wines. Jiri and Zainab have always been good friends to Plateau, and vice-versa. In a former life, Jiri mixed cocktails there, and Basket Press tastings at Plateau were some of the best wine evenings I spent in Brighton. We used to be more or less Plateau regulars, and I’m sure it’s still the best place for natural wine in Brighton, even if the wines of Pierre Overnoy and Emmanuel Houillon are probably long gone from the list. I’m pretty sure they still make a fine negroni too.

Nasturtium is made from Sauvignon Gris. With all the Sauvignon Blanc in France and New Zealand we tend to forget it comes in grey, and indeed green, as well. Nasturtium spent two months skin contact followed by ten months ageing in amphora. The result is distinctly orange in colour and a bit cloudy (unfiltered, of course). The scent is of blossom (I can’t be more specific here). The palate is very exotic, lovely amplified orange flavours with hints of more tropical fruits. There’s a little of that typical amphora texture. With zero added sulphur there’s a little volatility, fine by me, it comes with the territory. It doesn’t detract from the pleasure of a lovely natural wine with a distinct personality.

I did over-chill it. As it warmed up a lot more was released from the glass, both bouquet and palate. Almost all of that volatility dissipated, leaving just enough for an edge. It is on the Basket Press Wines list at £30. All five cuvées are there or just under the thirty pounds mark. I grabbed a red, “Scribbly Gum” (Merlot and Cab S) in the same order. I know there’s a pétnat as well. I believe they are available at Plateau if you are down in Brighton.

Posted in Artisan Wines, Californian Wine, Italian Wine, Natural Wine, Portuguese wine, Savoie Wine, Swiss Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wines of Southwest France, | Tagged #theglouthatbindsus, Alto Adige Pinot Bianco, Bridgehead Vineyard Contra Costa County, Californian Palomino, Dirk Niepoort Batuta, Domaine Montmollin Auvernier Neuchâtel, Domaine Montmollin Oeil de Perdrix, Dominique Lucas Ballaison Savoie, Dordogne Wine Ferme L'Apogee, Douro Table Wine, Ferme L'Apogee Nasturtium Sauvignon Gris 2023, Ferme L'Apogee Sainte-Croix Dordogne, J Hofstätter Sudtirol/Alto Adige, J Hofstätter Weissburgunder 2024, Kheops Chardonnay Savoie, Les Vignes de Paradis Kheops Chardonnay, Neuchâtel Wine, Niepoort Batuta 2004, Niepoort Douro Table Wine, Oeil de Perdrix Neuchâtel, Recent Wines June 2025 (Pt 2), Sauvignon Gris, Savoie Natural Wine, Swiss Oeil de Perdrix Rosé, The Alley 2019 Christina Rasmussen, Weingut J Hofstätter Termino, Wine from Crépy Lac Léman, Wine in a Pyramid | Leave a comment

Recent Wines June 2025 (Part 1) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 08/07/2025 by dccrossley

June is always my favourite month on account of it containing the longest day and the Summer Solstice. It has a habit of throwing up some wine surprises too. Not the big names, but rather wines which would surprise most wine lovers with how good they are. I can already see an impossible choice for “wine of the month” looming in my end of year review, between the Galician wine here in Part 1 and the Savoie in Part 2, but any adventurous palate would almost certainly enjoy all of these.

Our six bottles in Part 1 begin with a Crémant Rosé from the Jura, followed by another wine of roughly the same hue from Alsace. Ringing a change next, a Scottish cider, then a white from Italy’s smallest region, Aosta. Then there’s a new wine from Czechia, before we end with that Galician I mentioned.

Crémant du Jura Rosé Brut Nature [2020], Domaine Overnoy (Jura, France)

This is not, of course, the famous Pupillin Domaine, but that of Guillaume Overnoy, down in the south of the region. Guillaume is at Beaufort-Orbagna, in the Sud-Revermont, where he farms a little over six hectares. Pierre Overnoy is his great-uncle. He did his apprenticeship at Domaine des Marnes Blanches, and when he returned to his family domaine he immediately set about implementing natural winemaking and input-free viticulture. As a result, Guillaume’s wines are beginning to get noticed.

He grows all of the Jura varieties, both the autochthonous varieties and those international varieties common in the region, and this pink sparkling wine is 80% Chardonnay and 20% Pinot Noir. It sees 18 months on lees before disgorging, and there is zero dosage. However, some still Pinot Noir is added for colour, a lovely salmon-pink, and the wine has a slightly lower pressure of 5.5 bar.

It strikes you first as fruity, but there’s a very attractive savoury twist. The finish is almost tart with red fruit. The lower pressure makes it attractive with food, though it is equally good as an aperitif. I like this kind of versatility because you can have a glass before dinner and then continue the same wine through the meal. That’s good in this case because it really is “moreish”. You want to drain the bottle.

This cost £32 from Communiqué Wines (Stockbridge, Edinburgh), via importer Vine Trail. To buy a pink Champagne this good you’d have to pay much more than double the price. I hope to buy some more for that very reason.

Pink Pong Macération 2022, JM Dreyer (Alsace, France)

Jean-Marc Dreyer is based at Rosheim. We are getting into that thrilling wine frontier of Northern Alsace here, north of Barr and Obernai but south of Molsheim, for those who haven’t perhaps ventured this far from the tourist trail. Jean-Marc is a natural winemaker, but is also often described as a holistic winemaker. He does have a philosophy which goes far deeper into nature and the natural environment than most.

It is worth reading Camilla Gjerde’s Natural Trailblazers to understand that philosophy, and that of his friends, Yannick Meckert and Florian Beck-Hartweg. That chapter in Camilla’s 2024 book explains pretty much, by focussing on just these three growers, why I always argue that Alsace is the most exciting place for natural wine in France right now, taking over the baton from The Loire and The Jura.

Pink Pong is a skin contact wine (JM is a skin contact man, for sure) made with that new classic blend of natural Alsace, Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris. Is it a light red or a Rosé? Who cares? Fruit is what it’s all about: cherry, strawberry and cranberry, mostly. The label states that the wine is made “SAINS”. That’s “Sans Aucun Intrants ni Sulfites Ajoutés”.

It’s another glass drainer of a wine, 12.5% alcohol but tasting like fruit juice. I think this is quite sought after and not always easy to find. Gergovie Wines is the UK importer and I bought this from their shop/restaurant at 40 Maltby Street (London). They are currently out of this cuvée, but do still have a couple of Jean-Marc’s wines listed. Pink Pong will cost between £30-£40 in the UK if you can find any. Quite feral, though for me, very pleasantly so.

Overture, Naughton Cider Company (Fife, Scotland)

You might have seen that I wrote about the Naughton Cider Company in the second part of my focus on the Cork & Cask Summer Fair, the previous article on this site. This bottle, which I didn’t really talk about much there, was drunk a week before the Fair. It is, as the name suggests, the entry into Peter Crawford’s world of “Champagne Method”, bottle-fermented ciders.

You’ll know, if you read that article, that Peter has orchards on the family farm at Balmerino, in Fife, close to the Tay. This is a blend of both cider and culinary apple varieties, vinified in oak using Champagne yeasts. After bottling it gets two years on lees for its second fermentation.

It has a very fine bead, a fresh apple nose and crisp “lemon zest” acidity on the palate. It has a cider freshness but the method used to make it helps give a very refined cider, even though Peter has described this as “our prologue…”. Only around 1,200 bottles made and at 7.7% abv it has a slightly lower alcohol content than the next two ciders in the range.

My bottle came from Aeble Cider (£21) in Anstruther, a shop and cider bar which I never fail to pop into when I’m over on the other side of the Forth. However, as you may have guessed, it can be currently found in Cork & Cask (Marchmont, Edinburgh or online) as well, for just £20.

Petite Arvine 2021, Lo Triolet (Vallée d’Aoste, Italy)

It’s worth repeating, as people still find it confusing, that the province and wine region of Aosta/Aoste is officially bilingual, so that you will often (more often than not) see the anomaly on labels of Vallée d’Aoste coupled with DOC. Being Italy’s smallest region, having just under 500-ha planted to vines, I’m often surprised, considering how little is exported, and how risk-averse many UK wine retailers have become, that we do see a few Aostan wines here. Lo Triolet is perhaps the producer I’m now seeing most of.

Lo Triolet is to be found at Introd, in the western part of the valley, quite close to the Mont Blanc Tunnel. We are just five kilometres from the Gran Paradiso National Park, and Marco Martin does make genuine mountain wines. Petite Arvine is certainly a mountain grape, better known in the Swiss Valais region, which is just over the Grand Saint-Bernard Pass. Aosta makes plenty of excellent Petite Arvine wines from several producers, and they are almost all somewhat cheaper than any good Swiss versions.

This one sees eight months in stainless steel after a brief maceration/fermentation. It is straw-yellow in colour and the bouquet has savoury notes plus stone fruit and a hint of white flowers. The palate is textured and waxy, with decent body (14% abv here) but a glorious freshness to balance that alcohol. I do like this and if Solent Cellar (Lymington, Hants) had any left I’d be putting another bottle in a pending order. Sadly it has all gone. Highbury Vintners might have some? My bottle cost £26.

Na Zdravi 2023, Krasna Hora Winery (Moravia, Czechia)

I visited this winery in Stary Podvorov in Southern Moravia back in 2022. They make a wide range of excellent value wines, although this is very much a family operation, using low intervention methods in the vineyard and winery. Nothing they make is overpriced. None of the wines represent anything less than excellent value.

This red wine, and a matching white, are brand new cuvées. They are a collaborative venture with their importer (see below). Na Zdravi means “cheers” in Czech, a good choice for an intensely fruity blend of, in this case, Zweigelt and St-Laurent. The vines are cultivated biodynamically on a long, sloping hillside up behind the winery. Winemaker Ondrej Dubas has created a juicy wine, with a lovely cherry bouquet, and which tastes of super-refreshing crunchy fruit with just a little grounding texture. It really is mouth-filling…smashable as they say.

Best served chilled, this 12.5% abv guzzler is just in time for summer. We drank it with fish & chips (of course we did). £20 from Basket Press Wines. I first saw this at The Sourcing Table, so they might still have some too.

Sal da Terra “Vino do Salnès” 2023 (Rias Baixas, Spain)

This wine is a collaboration (the name translates as salt of the earth) between Daniel Primack (our UK Zalto importer), Jamie Goode (presumably no introduction needed), and Ben Henshaw (Indigo Wines and The Sourcing Table), with Eulogio Pomares (winemaker at Bodegas Zarate). Zarate is located in the famous Salnès Valley in Galicia.

The wine is 100% Albariño, 60% coming from a site called Carballoso, in Xil, at 250 masl, 37-year-old vines 6km from the Atlantic Ocean on ferrous sand and granite. Those grapes were fermented and aged in 1,200-litre chestnut casks. The other 40% of the fruit is from Cambados, specifically the Francón vineyard, where 32-year-old vines grow on granite and red clay at sea level next to the ocean. This fruit is both fermented and aged in 1,500-litre concrete vat.

I last tasted the shockingly good 2018 vintage but it has been suggested that this 2023 is the best yet. It is simply stunning. I think Jancis Robinson may have called it the wine to get her back interested in Albariño (or words to that effect). I never got out of the variety, but this would for sure have that effect on most people. It has a smooth palate, broad, with peach and lime, and a lot of salinity. The nose is floral with more peach. The salinity gives it life, and it has genuinely great length. It is so worth the money. £30 from The Sourcing Table (Peckham Rye) in my case, via Indigo Wines. I might even call this, certainly the 2023, under the radar greatness.

Posted in Alsace, Aosta, Artisan Cider, Artisan Wines, Cider, Crémant, Czech Wine, Italian Wine, Jura, Natural Wine, Spanish Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Merchants | Tagged #theglouthatbindsus, Alsace Natural Wine, Another Pinot Noir Pinot Gris blend, Bodegas Zarate Rias Baixas, Champagne Method Cider, Czech Natural Wine, Eulogio Pomares winemaker, Fife Cider, Fine Albariño, Galician Wine, Good Crémant du Jura, Guillaume Overnoy Beaufort-Orbagna, Guillaume Overnoy Crémant du Jura Rosé, Jean-Marc Dreyer Rosheim Alsace, Krasna Hora Na Zdravi 2023, Krasna Hora Stary Podvorov, Lo Triolet Marco Martin Introd, Lo Triolet Petite Arvine, Moravian Wine, Naughton Cider Balmerino Fife, Ondrej Dubas Winemaker Krasna Hora, Peter Crawford Naughton Cider Co, Petite Arvine in Aosta, Pink Pong JM Dreyer, Recent Wines June 2025 Pt 1, Sal da Terra, Scottish Cider, Val do Salnès Rias Baixas | Leave a comment

Cork & Cask Summer Wine Fair 2025 (Part 2) – Uncharted, Alliance, Naughton Cider and some beer

Posted on 03/07/2025 by dccrossley

The second part of my coverage of the Cork & Cask Summer Fair begins with a selection from Uncharted Wines. This has a focus mostly on Westwell Wines from Kent (not exclusively) because, well, they are so good! Second up, Alliance. This is another agency, like Moreno Wines in Part One, which I don’t get to taste often, but I have been buying a few of their wines recently. Naughton Cider Company makes “Champagne Method” artisan ciders in Fife, and Peter Crawford was showing a new, special, cuvée I’d not tasted before. Peter also brought some Champagnes from his Sip Champagne import agency.

I’m also going to mention a few beers because, well, thirsts need quenching. I was going to say in this summer heat, but it has currently dropped to 13 degrees up here in Edinburgh. Our son got home from 42 degrees yesterday and seemed very happy to cool down…just to make everyone down south a little jealous.

Just to recap from Part 1, all prices are to the nearest £, retail at Cork & Cask (136 Marchmont Road, Edinburgh).

Uncharted Wines

I’ve known Uncharted Wines for as many years as they have been going, since 2017, I think. Like many small agencies they focus on smaller artisan domaines, but with a good worldwide spread. They import my favourite New Zealand producer, and have always had their finger on the Beaujolais pulse, in an already crowded market. Co-owner Rupert Taylor has also developed the wine in keg concept, and I think he was one of the first in the UK (maybe even the first) to begin commercialising this form of delivery in his previous role, before founding Uncharted.

Westwell Wines in Kent was taken over by Adrian Pike also in 2017, and he has established this vineyard as one of the most innovative and exciting English wine estates. I’ve written about Westwell enough before so I won’t add much here, except to note that they offer a range of visit options, including various food nights and other entertainments. If you don’t yet know the wines, you will see from the five bottles below that they certainly offer variety.

Westwell Pelegrim NV – Pinots Noir and Meunier plus Chardonnay, very fine and getting better with every release. It has some marked autolytic character, and it does get toasty with age but it also has a bright freshness, steely in youth. At £37 this is one of the best value English sparkling wines out there.

Westwell Unnaturally Petulant Pink 2023 – The same three “Champagne” varieties as Pelegrim. The second fermentation didn’t start so Adrian added some more sugar and yeast to get it going again, prior to bottling, hence the name of this pink petnat. Pale salmon colour, a fruity beauty perfect for summer. It really is! £30.

Westwell Village Chardonnay – My first taste of this (2023). A blend of younger vines planted in 2019 and older vines planted a decade earlier in 2009 (before Adrian arrived). It was made in stainless steel. It’s a bright and crisp wine, closed under screwcap. Dry, lemon, lime and grapefruit. It has less depth than the estate version but it doesn’t lack depth, and scores on freshness and price (£22). Or try a 20-litre keg for £574.59 direct from Uncharted.

Westwell Little Bit – This wine is made from the leftover pressings from Westwell’s sparkling wines. As they are pressed very gently there is still good potential in what remains. They had been experimenting with the third pressing of Pinot Noir and Meunier and in 2023 put it into stainless steel where it underwent a “constantly evolving fermentation”. Floral and fruity (red fruits) and a little texture on the palate in a wine the colour of pale peach skin. This wine works so well because 2023 was such a “fruity” vintage. Although it’s a little different to most pink wines, I can’t think of a better value English Rosé (£18), but this will interest wine obsessives more than supermarket lovers. Just 10% abv.

Westwell Pinot Noir 2023 – Picked late October, 70% of the fruit was destemmed, 30% whole bunches. The grapes were then layered, like a lasagne, in tank to undergo a semi-carbonic maceration. The free-run juice was then moved to another stainless-steel tank to complete fermenting (with indigenous yeasts). A pale Pinot, let it unfurl in the glass to get that ethereal nose of a violet top note underpinned by ripe red cherries. The palate brings in more red fruits, strawberries being particularly attractive. It will age into a more savoury wine if you let it, despite its low, 10.5%, alcohol. I’m thinking pair it with a mushroom wellington.

The label here, like all of those at Westwell, I think, are extra special, and come from illustrations by Adrian Pike’s partner, Galia Durant. Her illustration of Bacchus on “Unnaturally Petulant Pink” is my current favourite.

Village Chardonnay, Pinot and Gus with A Little Bit

Curtimenta Orange 2023, Espera (Alcobaça, Portugal)

This is the token non-Westwell offering I picked from Uncharted, but I’m including it as a prime example of how good Portuguese wine is right now. This may not be as cheap as some wines from a country offering some good prices, but it’s a lovely drop of wine. Curtimenta effectively means “orange wine”, so I guess me calling it “Curtimenta Orange” is as silly as saying “naan bread”, but at least you know what you are getting. Rodrigo Martins is fashioning some nice wines on his five hectares, an hour north of Lisbon.

Arinto and Fernão Pires grapes see three weeks on skins. The colour is between peach skin and light amber, with apricot on the nose along with a floral note, and some mineral texture with the fruit on the palate. Espera means “wait” in Portuguese, and I think that this wine will reward a little patience. That said, it had enough impact last Saturday to get a profile here. £27.

Alliance Wine

Alliance was founded in 1984, in Ayrshire, so a true Scottish importer (they do have a London office but HQ is still up here) which now imports wine from two-hundred producers in more than twenty countries, as well as making wine themselves in France, Spain and Chile. They have a good presence in Scottish retail, but also seem to work with a few wine shops I buy from in London and the South of England.

August Kesseler “The Daily August” Riesling 2024 (Rheingau, Germany)

This is a blend, after separate vinification, of grapes from sites including Hattenheimer Wisselsbrunnen, Erbacher Siegelsberg and Lorcher Schlossberg. The wine sees no oak. It is intended as an easy-drinking dry (12% abv) but fruity every day wine to accompany fish, seafood, salads and white meats. Labelled as a Gutswein but from an esteemed VDP producer, this is juicy, fruity and has racy acidity. £20 for a good Rheingau Riesling, not complex but very enjoyable. There is a Pinot Noir in the same series.

Mosaic White, Domaine Chatzivariti (Paiko PGI, Greece)

Greece is a wine country which gets far less traction in the UK market than it deserves. If you want to see what I mean, try this wine. This estate, which has been operating for just over thirty years, is located in the Goumenissa Region, in Macedonia, Northern Greece. The winery was founded by Vagelis Chatzivaritis, but in 2017 his daughter Chloi returned from overseas and has introduced a low intervention approach.

Roditis, Sauvignon Blanc, Assyrtiko and Xinomavro (a red variety but immediately pressed gently off skins to avoid colour) ferment separately after which their juice is blended and aged on lees for just three months. The fruit fills the mouth, but this is essentially a light wine, a wine that begins with citrus and ends with quince on the finish, along with a bit of texture from the lees. I liked it a lot. £20.

Frappato 2023, Baglio Gibellina (Sicily, Italy)

This Terre Siciliane Frappato intrigued me because, for Frappato, it is quite cheap. It is actually made from vines planted on sandy soils at around 250 masl, in a part of Sicily (Salemi, inland east of Marsala) where much quality viticulture takes place at slightly higher altitudes in the hills. Grapes are picked before they become over-ripe to preserve aroma and vinification in stainless steel helps preserve it further. The result is a wine which won’t challenge the likes of COS Frappato in my affections, yet for £13 seems rather good value. Garnet colour, a surprisingly deep bouquet, a bit of bitterness and texture on the palate and 13% abv, so food won’t spoil it.

Lledoner Pelut Vieilles Vignes 2024, Cami del Drac, Terres Fidèles (Roussillon, France)

Lladoner Pelut (aka Garnatxa Pelluda or Hairy Grenache) is a Grenache mutation known for complexity and intensity, though little is grown. Matassa uses it to good effect, but a varietal Lledoner is quite rare. Alliance has created this wine as part of their project in the Pyrénées. Winemaking is overseen by Fergal Tynan MW (Alliance) and Emmanuel Cazes. They use old parcels of vines in the high Roussillon hills.

The fruit is fermented in stainless steel with a ten-day maceration on skins. It’s another luminous, pale red showing bright red berry fruits and liquorice. It has a hint of rusticity, but in a good way. Its texture means it needs food, but although this is just 12.5% abv, I’m guessing no one is going to choose this as an aperitif. Roussillon lamb might be a good choice, though I should stress that isn’t their suggestion. UK-reared should do, or maybe you appreciate mutton? £15 makes this another great value bottle, which seems to be the theme from Alliance on this occasion.

Naughton Cider

Peter Crawford has orchards on the family farm near Balmerino in Fife, on the banks of the Tay. To place him, we are just over the river from Dundee, and in the other direction, maybe fifteen miles from St Andrews. We are lucky, because this is a very beautiful location, to have good friends who are his near neighbours. However, since I tried my first Naughton Cider (from the wonderful Aeble Cider Bar and Shop in Anstruther) I have not managed a trip to Fife to coincide with Peter being around.

The ciders I describe below are all made by the same method as Champagne. Primary fermentation uses Champagne yeasts and takes place in barrels previously used in that region. The apple must is aged on lees for ten months or so before bottling, when it then undergoes its second fermentation (just like Champagne). The mousse is created by adding more Champagne yeast at this point, along with a dosage of sugar, before spending, depending on the cuvée, at least two years on the yeasts in bottle before disgorging by hand.

Overture blends cider apples and culinary varieties which are “vinified” (I don’t think “pommified” exists) in a mix of oak and stainless steel. This is crisp and fruity with a touch of complexity well-described as a mix of “bittersweet and bittersharp”. 7.7% abv, £20.

Brut Vintage 2021 blends eating and cooking varieties, again part-fermented in oak, and is probably the main cuvée at Naughton. A citrus-dominated bouquet (more than apple, I’d say) leads to a palate that has green apple acids and some noticeable salinity, and even a bread/brioche/biscuit element adding complexity and the sense of bottle age. 7.6% abv, £24.

Le Clos 2020 is made from ten different varieties of eating and cooking apples picked from a single, south-facing, walled orchard at the farm. Made in Champagne oak barrels (10 months), and then undergoing second fermentation and matured 44 months on lees in bottle, this is an elegant cider. It is nutty, citrussy, and hints at honey and toffee apple. It is also saline too, and still very fresh on the tongue. It comes in at a slightly higher 8.3% alcohol. The vintage produced just 295 bottles, so it will cost you £45 a pop, but this is among the finest UK ciders I’ve sipped. That’s even more expensive than the Swiss Cidrerie du Vulcain’s cuvées I’ve tried, but I would imagine some of Michelin’s finest would list this if they could get some.

Peter Crawford is also one of the founders of Sip Champagne, and he had brought along some bottles which I understand may find their way to Cork & Cask at some point soon. A couple I tasted are included here.

Champagne Paul Clouet Sélection Grande Réserve

I have been hearing about Champagne Paul Clouet but don’t know the wines. They are based on the southern side of the Montagne de Reims, at Ambonnay, but have vines on the Côte des Blancs as well. This multi-vintage blend of all three major Champagne grape varieties (PN 50%, Ch 30%, PM 20%), I think all from the Montagne, has a 2015 base plus reserve wines. It was disgorged November 2019 and dosed at 7g/l.

It’s a well-made fruity Champagne, balanced despite a higher dosage than many these days, and a wine which will show a bit of complexity in the right glass (not a flute, perhaps), and will gain more in a year or two if more mature Champagne is your proclivity. At an expected retail price of around £37 it is far more in line with what I’d prefer to pay than the more optimistic prices of some producers. If that price is reasonably correct, I could easily see myself grabbing some.

Champagne Delouvin/Nowack Delouvin Meunier Perpétuel

I do like a good Meunier Champagne (Prévost when I could once afford it). This is a gem, from a single cru, Vandières in the Marne (near Châtillon-sur-Marne) and made from a solera/perpetual reserve started in 1992. This bottling contains fruit from 1992 to 2020. The family baton is currently with tenth generation Geoffrey Delouvin, who works 7.5 ha all close to the winery in Vandières.

As well as an interest in Meunier I have something of a thing for Champagnes formed in a perpetual reserve. Bérèche Reflet d’Antan ranks highly in my top half-dozen subjective favourite Champagnes. There is always complexity, and maturity, if you like such a style. This has those things. It also has a nice fresh salinity. Even at £47 on Sip’s web site it still represents good value when you consider what a “solera” Champagne might cost you today.

Some Beer

I don’t drink beer by the gallon but I do like it. I have certain favourites, Kernel being one I regularly drank back in London and Brighton. In summer it’s nice to try something a bit different, and we are, after all, blessed with some very fine brewers up here around Edinburgh. They are what I’d call genuine craft brewers.

Pilot Rosé Sour: Pilot are in Leith, of course, Edinburgh’s port area. They literally started out in Matt Johnson’s garage in 2011. Fourteen years on, they have a thriving business but have remained staunchly independent. I’ve been a fan of their Peach Melba Sour for summer drinking but this “Rosé” was brewed to mark the opening of their bar, Vessel. Rosé is a lager made with the addition of red and white grape juice. An elegant sour for, perhaps, wine lovers after a tasting (the traditional palate cleanser is always a beer). c£3/330ml.

Campervan Puffin Isles Gose: Campervan is also based in Leith, though they claim to have been born in 1973 in, you guessed, a garage (in which there also lived a campervan belonging to nascent brewer, Paul Gibson), but the commercial craft brewery was opened in Leith in 2017, and Paul is now managing director. They also have a tap room in Leith (technically Bonnington) at 112 Jane Street. Puffin Isles is a Gose-style, made with Scottish pale ale and wheat malt, with Scottish sea salt and coriander seeds. 4.2% abv, £4.50/440ml. Puffin Isles is gluten free. We have a thing for puffins here, I should mention. Also look for the Campervan radlers (lemon/lime, Grapefruit/mandarin) and if you want low alcohol, try that 0.5%er in the photo next to our Puffin.

Vault City Blood Orange Radler: Vault City Brewery claims to be the UK’s largest sour beer producer but these beers still have a real artisan quality to them, despite brewing half-a-million litres every year. They are in Portobello, Edinburgh’s seaside (well worth a visit). The tap room is close to the centre of Edinburgh. Late last year City Vault announced that its excellent Portobello Tap Room was to close. A real shame as I only discovered it last year. Anyway, this Radler is very fruity, juicy, and 3.4% abv. £2.50/330ml.

Futtle Organic Wheat Beer with Bay: The “East Neuk” describes the Fife coast as it stretches up the northern coast of the Firth of Forth, towards the picture postcard beauty of the fishing village of Crail. The Fife Coastal Path allows a string of attractive villages and rugged coastline to be enjoyed. We try to walk a part of it at least once or twice every year and it is so far only on this side of the water that we have seen dolphins (including from the back garden of Crail’s very good Harbour Café). Crail also has what has been described as one of Scotland’s best seafood shacks, Reilly & Sons (only Sat/Sun at the harbour, but North Berwick’s Lobster Shack is open every day in the summer months if you are heading over our way).

Futtle Brewery is just outside one of those villages (St Monans) at Bowhouse, where it also has a shop and tap room. There is also a shop in Dundee, over the Tay to the north. Futtle makes what they call “natural beers”, with spontaneous fermentations, and following the “farmhouse brewing tradition of Northern Europe”. Their approach is also to make beers which follow the seasons. At the Fair they were showing their East Neuk Pale Ale on draught, plus organic lager and this organic wheat beer from can. I think their very good table beer is sold out right now.

Made with three types of organic wheat (including one spelt), and using bay branches to make a filter bed for the mash. This gives nice bay aromatics in a beer that is light and refreshing. 3.4% abv, c£4/330ml.

All of these breweries allow visits, but check opening times and whether an appointment is necessary. Not all, as you will read above, have a tap room on-site. They do all have web sites. The Vault City site has some astonishingly wacky drinks on it. Mango Chilli Margarita, Foggy Lemonade, or maybe Sudden Death X Vault City Doggo’s Delight Pastry Sour anyone?

If you fancy a trip to Fife, Bowhouse (where Futtle is based) has a very highly regarded mostly food and drink market on the second weekend of every month except January.

Posted in Artisan Cider, Artisan Wines, Beer, Champagne, Cider, English Wine, Natural Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Festivals, Wine Merchants, Wine Shops, Wine Tastings | Tagged Adrian Pike Westwell Wines, Alliance Wine, August Kesseler Daily August 2024 Rheingau, Baglio Gibellina Frappato 2023, Baglio Gibellina Sicily, Cami del Drac Lledoner Pelut VV 2024, Campervan Brewery Leith, Campervan Puffin Isles Gose, Champagne Delouvin Meunier Perpetuel, Champagne Method Cider, Champagne Paul Clouet Selection, Cork & Cask Summer Fair 2025 (Pt 2), Domaine Chatzivariti Paiko PGI Greece, Edinburgh Craft Beer, Espera Alcobaça Portugal, Espera Curtimenta 2023, Fife Cider, Futtle Brewery Bowhouse Fife, Futtle Organic Wheat Beer with Bay, Galia Durant Illustrations, German Wine, Greek Wine, Lledoner Pelut, Mosaic White Domaine Chatzivariti, Naughton Brut Vintage 2021, Naughton Cider Company, Naughton Le Clos 2020, Naughton Overture, Peter Crawford Naughton Cider, Pilot Brewery Leith, Pilot Rosé Sour, Portuguese wine, Rheingau Wine, Scottish Cider, Sicilian Wine, Terres Fideles Alliance Wine, Uncharted Wines, Vault City Blood Orange Radler, Vault City Brewery Portobello, Westwell Little Bit, Westwell Pelegrim NV, Westwell Pinot Noir 2023, Westwell Unnaturally Petulant Pink 2023, Westwell Village Chardonnay 2023, Westwell Wines Kent | 2 Comments

Cork & Cask Summer Wine Fair 2025 (Part 1) – Moreno, Poggiarello, Roland and the Electric Spirit Company

Posted on 01/07/2025 by dccrossley

I’ve said this before, but the Cork & Cask Wine Fairs (Summer in June, Winter in November) have become highlights of my Edinburgh wine year. The winter event tends to be strongly wine-focussed, I guess with Christmas around the corner, whilst the summer fair broadens out what’s on taste, especially with far more beer.

India Parry Williams (Manager, and also co-founder of the Wild Wine Fair), who organises these events with Jamie Dawson (Wine & Spirits Buyer, also a founder of the rather special artisan whisky bottler, Blind Summit), was my first contact on the Edinburgh wine scene when I moved up here in late summer 2022, so I won’t deny that I am very grateful to her, but these wine fairs are essential for me. It’s one of the few chances to get to meet up with a selection of mostly smaller importers of artisan wines all in the same place.

We shall split the wines etc tasted on Saturday into two parts. No long and dreary notes to take up thousands of words, just enough to try to convey the excitement of both the occasion and of the products I am highlighting here. That said, the things I do write about, well I liked them for different reasons, so I’ll try to get that across as well.

In this Part One, I shall cover Moreno Wines, with an additional feature on one of their producers, Poggiarello Winery, to follow. Then we shall see what Roland Wines had on offer. We finish here with perhaps the first pre-mixed cocktail I’ve ever got truly excited about, the Blood Orange Negroni from the Electric Spirit Company.

Part Two (to follow later this week, all being well) should cover Uncharted Wines (a bit of a Westwell focus for me), and Alliance Wine. I also finally got to meet Peter Crawford of the Naughton Cider Company. Peter makes fine cider using the traditional “bottle-fermentation” used in Champagne, but he also imports a different kind of fizz as the joint-founder of Sip Champagnes, so sparkling traditional method cider wasn’t the only thing on (or rather, under) the table.

I shall end Part Two with a few beer reflections, especially highlighting some beers for the current climate.

All Prices shown (usually to the nearest £) are retail, from Cork & Cask (136 Marchmont Road, Edinburgh). As usual, this close and friendly team from the shop put on a truly enjoyable, if busy, event in St Giles’s Church Hall, Marchmont.

India and Jamie with their hard-working team do this twice a year, and I for one am grateful they do

Moreno Wines

Moreno has been around for about fifty years, and it has always had a reputation for supplying interesting wines lower down the price spectrum. This might be one reason that even in all the years I regularly attended London Trade Tastings I don’t ever recall tasting their portfolio. However, they are not all aout the value end of the market by any means. They had some lovely wines on the table on Saturday, poured by the knowledgeable Antonia Macfarlane. As a matter of fact, two of the wines Moreno imports were among the bottles I grabbed from Cork & Cask after the tasting, along with that cocktail I mentioned, and a few beers.

Château Picoron “No Lemon No Melon” (Bordeaux, France)

Picoron is run by an Australian couple, Glenda and Frank Kalyk, who took over an estate making wine since 1570. The vines are all around the Saint-Emilion region but they are bottled as Vin de France. Glenda and Frank seem to have something of a thing for Merlot. They like palindromes too, it seems. Here, Merlot comes in every imaginable shape or form (red, pink, fizzy and, yes, white), all made from organically grown fruit, low intervention viticulture and winemaking, and with minimal sulphur added.

This cuvée is a white Merlot. Merlot gently pressed to make a white wine (think Pinot Noir in white Champagne cuvées) is something of a speciality in Switzerland’s Italian speaking Ticino region. I’ve had a few, and all but the most expensive have been disappointing for the money. None are remotely cheap.

This wine is very good. I love the fresh acidity and it is presumably the low sulphur that gives it a liveliness on the tongue with no fruit covered up. It’s a kind of mix of red fruits and some more exotic, peach and mango perhaps, going on. £22.

Château Picoron “Tattarrattat” Merlot (Bordeaux, France)

This is also very different. It has a “Merlot price tag” in terms of alcohol (13.5% is maybe even “restrained” for Merlot these days), but it is made by carbonic maceration. I think the white Merlot had a reasonable production run, but this cuvée was only 4,200 bottles. It’s wonderfully fruity, and despite that alcohol level, sipping it chilled from an ice bucket at the fair, worked really well. The alcohol was well disguised by the wine’s super fruit profile and more of that fresh acidity. Also £22.

Mosel Riesling 2023, Hermann Ludes (Mosel, Germany)

Julien Ludes calls this the quintessential breakfast wine. Just off-dry (10.5%) from the Thörnicher Schiesslay site, it is gently floral with a little r/s and some CO2 prickle. Easy drinking for a day like today, which I can tell you, here in East Lothian it feels significantly warmer than any day I remember last year. And just £16.

Carignan, Bosbrand (Wellington, South Africa)

This is a good example of a great value South African. It is a blend of 50% old vines plus young vine Caringnan grown around Wellington, just north of Paarl. The young vines doubtless give it a very fruity core, but there’s also a more mature-tasting savoury edge. Described as organic/biodynamic, and you might even detect a touch of oakiness from somewhere, but retailing at £15, this seems as remarkably good value as anything I’ve been drinking recently.

Meet the Maker – Jannet Iathallah from Poggiarello Winery (Gutturnio, Italy)

Poggiarello is in Gutturnio, one of those super famous DOCs of Northwest Italy, grouped with Oltrepò Pavese, Colli Tortonesi and Colli Piacentini, in the province of Piacenza, in the region of Emilia-Romagna. This is just the kind of region where you can find a lot of fairly commercial wine alongside some hidden gems.

Jannet

Of course, gems are what we have here. Cork & Cask sells a number of wines from Jannet’s (sic) range and I’m only highlighting three. The sparkling red was described by one person as “going to be your wine of the day”. I won’t nail my colours to any mast but I did buy a bottle and will hopefully drink it soon. These wines are also imported by Moreno.

La Malvagia is a white wine made from Malvasia di Candia grown biodynamically, but it is fermented with cultured yeasts. It’s clean and fruity with peach and orange on the nose, with citrus and balsamic notes on the palate. It is an entry level wine from a series called “I volti” (the faces). A nice intro to Poggiarello’s still wines. On sale for £24.

Ortrugo Frizzante is one of two sparkling wines, this being a bianco made from the Ortrugo grape variety, one usually having good acids coupled with higher alcohol than you may expect. These two sparklers (see also below) are made by the Charmat method, although I am learning that the old negatives about this method of production are very much outdated (though this is maybe not the time for a detailed look at how to improve the commercial method of tank-produced sparkling wine). This is a beguiling dry and grapey gentle sparkler (frizzante), very good in its own right, except that the red below is possibly even better. £20.

Gutturnio Frizzante Rosso is a blend of Barbera and Bonarda. Also Charmat Method (see above), but it is gorgeous (well, if you like wines like good red Lambrusco). It is dry, with super-concentrated dark and red fruits with a very attractive bitter, savoury edge to the finish. High quality cured meat platter coming up. £20. Decades ago, a bottle of “red sparkling burgundy” would often accompany us on a picnic. I guarantee this is better. Sappy and refreshing. In our house it would also go with Fish & Chips. Both wines are sealed spago-style, with a string-tied cork.

Roland Wines

Roland is one of a select group of wonderful small importers which came to prominence since I have been writing about predominantly natural wines. Founded by Hungarian-born Roland Szimeiszter, they initially specialised in artisan wines from Central and Eastern Europe. They now have a small list of twenty-one growers based in seven countries. These four wines are all very appealing, though you might already know the last one.

Crazy Lúd 2023, Oszkár Maurer (Subotica, Serbia)

Subotica is, along with Tisa, a wine region in Serbia’s far north. Vineyards are mostly planted on sandy soils. Here, we are right on Hungary’s southern border. This is a field blend of Welschriesling, Bakator, Piros Magyarka and Riesling, and is Maurer’s entry point in terms of price. Vines are bush trained and mechanisation just stretches to horse-power for soil preservation. 70% of the fruit was destemmed and direct-pressed but 30% was macerated on skins for two days. Ageing was around ten months in old oak and stainless steel. A tiny addition of sulphur was added at bottling. Despite a short maceration, it tastes like an “orange wine”, but yet with very refreshing, lifted, sour fruit. £25. If you want to try a Serbian wine, this is one to go for.

“Just Enjoy” 2023, Bott Frigyes (Garam Valley, Slovakia)

It’s nice to see a wider range of Slovakian wines now available in the UK. Bott Frigyes is one of the producers that has an increasing profile. They farm ten hectares of vines at 250 masl above the Garam River, on the slopes of the Muzsla Hills. The soils mix limestone and volcanic rock. Open vat fermentation of Tramini (sic) and Welschriesling takes around three weeks, before pressing off the skins into used oak for 8 months ageing on fine lees. Aromatic, with peach and pineapple plus something spicy. That is matched in a savoury edge to a creamy palate. Quite easy going now, though it may add complexity with age (not that it needs any). A natural wine. £30.

Kühlbar Zweigelt, Christina Netzl (Carnuntum, Austria)

This isn’t a DAC Carnuntum wine. It’s a natural wine labelled merely “Weinland Austria”. It is made at Göttesbrunn which is sort of southeast of Vienna, west of Bratislava and north of Burgenland’s Neusiedlersee. But you don’t really need to know all that if you are looking for a wine that fits the cliché of “summer in a glass”, because this is it. Red cherry fruit, violets on the nose, fresh and easy, 11% abv and just under £20. It even has a pretty label. Don’t let that put you more serious wine obsessives off taking this on a picnic. I mean, just look at the colour!

Fred XI, Strekov 1075 (Southern Slovakia)

Zsolt Sütö may be the best-known winemaker in Slovakia, at least among lovers of natural wine. He might also be Slovakia’s best-known drummer. Certainly, the most famous photo of him must be that in which he’s playing his drum kit out in the vines. He’s been making wine at Strekov since 2002. The varieties here in Version 11 of his iconic glugger are 30% Blauer Portugieser from 2020, 50% Alibernet from 2019, and 20% Dunaj 2020, all grown on clay-loam over limestone. I won’t enumerate on the complex and different fermentations and the mixed ageing regime.

This is grade-one glouglou stuff, unfiltered and zero added sulphur. It is easy to drink and refreshing, vibrant and electric, but it does have a negroni-like bitter twist and a touch of tannic texture on the finish. As Blauer Portugieser is a teinturier variety (red flesh), it has a deep and dark colour that belies its refreshing lightness of touch. Not a beginner’s wine, despite being easy going. Be open to it and it will reward you generously. £30.

Electric Spirit Company

In 2015, this company was responsible for opening the first distillery in Edinburgh’s “booze port”, Leith, in forty years. Leith no longer imports most of Scotland’s wine, but if you are thinking of spirit distillation (and bottling), then Edinburgh is buzzing. The company first and foremost makes a very highly regarded, and “awarded”, gin called Achroous (Sichuan pepper and fennel along with the juniper). Good flavours for a negroni.

This gin is one of the ingredients in their pre-blended Blood Orange Negroni, along with Valentian Vermouth (a super-premium Scottish-made vermouth) and Fusetti artisan bitters (made near Milan). These are blended with blood orange distillate made in-house from Sicilian fruit and a little “Scotch New Make”. The result is a very aromatic negroni, a good blend of citrus and bitterness. I’ve never found a pre-made negroni (my favourite cocktail) which has come close to the real thing. Sometimes negroni in a tin is acceptable – on the beach for example. But this bottled one is next level.

I have a bottle ready for some visitors next month. It just requires a day in the fridge, ice, and some slices of the best organic, unwaxed oranges I can find. £27 (Gospa Citrus oranges, by the way, if you can find them). If the temperature pushes above thirty degrees, then a small addition of tonic water can maybe spritz it up a little for a longer drink. At 22% it probably comes in a little lighter than the negroni’s I make, but then again, naval gin rations are dangerous when you’re in a heatwave.

James is justifiably proud of his creation

Posted in Artisan Cider, Artisan Wines, Cider, Natural Wine, Premium Spirits, Slovakian Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Festivals, Wine Merchants, Wine Shops, Wine Tastings | Tagged "Just Enjoy" Bott Frigyes, Achroous Gin, Austrian Wine, Bosbrand Carignan Wellington South Africa, Bott Frigyes Garam Valley Slovakia, Christina Netzl Kuhlbar Zweigelt, Cork & Cask Summer Wine Fair 2025, Electric Spirit Co Blood Orange Negroni, Electric Spirit Company Leith Edinburgh, Hermann Ludes Mosel, Jannet Iathallah Winemaker, Moreno Wines, Oszkar Maurer Crazy Lud, Oszkar Maurer Subotica Serbia, Poggiarello Winery Gutturnio, Pre-mixed Negroni worth buying, Roland Wines, Serbian Wine, Slovakian Wine, Strekov 1075 Fred XI, Strekov 1075 Slovakia, Zsolt Suto Strekov | 1 Comment

Wines of the Loire Valley by Beverley Blanning MW (Book Review)

Posted on 26/06/2025 by dccrossley

As someone who has been a bit of a wine obsessive for a number of decades, I find that things, in this case a more than average interest in any particular wine region, come around in cycles. The world of wine is so wide that you can either focus on one or two types of wine, and then miss out big time, or you can follow my approach, which is unashamedly eclectic. Such is the case with the very large region, one of more than fifty appellations, which we group together as “The Loire”. For me, The Loire is now taking up more cellar space than it was a few years ago (now I see I am neglecting Tuscany, oh dear!).

My early interest in The Loire was as someone just out of university, well before I began the long road of wine study and qualifications. Back then, wine was a good enough reason to go on holiday somewhere, but it had to compete with other things. In this case, it was history (all those châteaux to visit) and cycling. I have never missed the chance to cycle in wine country, and I could almost write a book on all the wine regions with good cycling routes.

Generally, the cycling paths and routes along the rivers here, at least before we hit Sancerre, are relatively flat, although I do recall from the last time I ventured on a bike in the region, in Touraine, that even a fairly gentle climb post-lunch in Candes-St-Martin to the abbey of Fontevraud proved taxing. Wine, in that case a bottle of Baudry Rosé as I recall, and a hot day, made me experience what it’s like for a pro to crack on the Alp d’Huez, except I was climbing maybe less than 100 metres over perhaps a kilometre. Then I got a puncture.

Over the years I’ve visited the Loire a good number of times, both its more tourist-saturated vineyards between Saumur and Cheverny, Sancerre (when many fewer visitors went there) and also the upper reaches at Saint-Pourçain, where the Sioule joins the Allier. I’ve never stopped over in Muscadet, only travelled through. I think it’s fair to say I have now found the pendulum has swung back and whilst I have no immediate plans to visit the region any time soon, I am enamoured by its wines once more.

Chenin has always been a variety I love, more than Sancerre et al’s Sauvignon Blanc if I’m honest. When it comes to Cabernet, modern (ie ripe) Franc is delicious. The upper reaches, making those mountain wines, really appeals to me, and Muscadet is surely now one of French wine’s best kept secrets, no longer focused on the cheap stuff which the UK used to import in the 80s and 90s.

The Loire also has some gems yet to gain wider appreciation. These include varieties traditional in the region, making local specialities worth exploring. Grolleau (Gris and Noir), Pineau d’Aunis, Sacy (aka Tressallier), Gamay Saint-Romain, Côt (Malbec) and Pinot Gris (aka Malvoisie here) all make wines we should try if we can find them, alongside more ubiquitous grape varieties found elsewhere, although my list of obscurities above doesn’t count them all, merely the ones which most appeal to me.

I don’t drink a lot of Romorantin, nor Loire Chasselas, though I’m ready to be convinced. Folle Blanche (Gros Plant) gets tasted occasionally. I’d try more varietal Loire Negrette if I saw some (we did drink a bottle in a restaurant outside Vouvray once, of all places), and Menu Pineau, point the way please. Gamay from most of the Loire can be appealing, but especially that aforementioned Gamay Saint-Romain from the mountainous volcanic vineyards in the far east.

Finally, let’s not forget that The Loire was one of the catalyst regions for “natural wine” in France. A long history of unconventional viticulture here includes one of the first and most vocal advocates of biodynamics in Nicolas Joly at Coulée de Serrant. I am otherwise unsure exactly why so many natural winemakers were drawn to make wine in the region, especially in those parts that are damp and prone to fungal diseases, but it has attracted many, and their wines always get a very popular reception from the international wine buyers and professionals who flock to the Dive Bouteille Fair (in the tufa caves of Saumur this February just passed).

They are equally appreciated in the more fashionable establishments in London and throughout the UK. The much-missed London restaurant with a Loire focus, Green Man & French Horn (a narrow, former pub in St Martin’s Lane) is however no longer with us. It closed in 2015. I’m sure I’m not the only one to miss the excellent Loire-inspired food and Loire natural wine it offered diners for what seemed like a very short time.

So much for my indulgence in Loire nostalgia. Last year Master of Wine Beverley Blanning wrote a new book called Wines of the Loire Valley. Although it has taken this long for it to come to the top of my reading pile, it does seem well-timed. I have been actively buying a few Loire wines of late, and Beverley has confirmed that the wine merchant advice I have received has been sound. I’m sure this book will help me going forward. I should add that what you really want to read in an author bio of a book on this particular region is that he or she “spends much of her spare time in the Loire Valley”.

Although there have been a number of Loire books published since the first one I ever bought (Hubrecht Duijker’s The Wines of The Loire, Alsace and Champagne, Mitchell Beazley – 1982, I think, a fascinating work of its time), here we have a book which is very much up-to-date.

The book follows a pattern established by those in the same series, the “Infinite Ideas Classic Wine Library”, now under the Academie du Vin Library imprint. You will see from the photo of the contents that we begin with a little history, followed by geography/geology, wine styles (of which the Loire gives us more than most), appellations and grape varieties.

Then we move through the wines of France’s longest river and its tributaries, from the eastern vineyards closest to the sea, the Pays Nantais, through Anjou, Touraine, the so-called Central Loire (around Sancerre and Pouilly-sur-Loire), and finally a decent number of pages devoted to the vineyards and wines broadly grouped as “The Auvergne”, where we have four pockets of vineyards in Saint-Pourçain, Côtes d’Auvergne, Côte Roannaise and Côtes du Forez.

For each appellation Blanning not only covers all the factual information needed to understand the styles of wine being made, but she also covers what is happening today in terms of new developments etc. Plenty is happening, from the classification of certain sites in Anjou as Grand and Premier Cru (which will surely open the flodgates elsewhere in the region) to the renaissance of Cabernet Franc wines in Saumur-Champigny, Chinon and elsewhere. She doesn’t shy away from certain controversies, which occasionally arise from inter-appellation jealousies, and she also gives adequate space for the new and experimental. You certainly feel that where a minor grape variety is gaining a little bit of a profile it will be covered, even when production of such wines is still low.

Following on from each sub-region and appellation’s introduction, which can vary from a few pages to just a paragraph, we get treated to a profile of what the author considers the “notable producers” who make wine there. I would say that pretty much all of the important classical producers are profiled along with plenty whose wines I have never tried. There are some exciting names for me to lookout for.

François Chidaine is one of Montlouis’s leading lights

If I have one gripe about the book, I would say that these profiles show first of all good local knowledge, but secondly a little bias in taste…potentially. Very few of the “natural” wine producers whose wines we can buy quite easily in the UK get an individual profile. Some do, and some appear after the main profiles in a list of “other producers to try”. But many don’t. A good few of the winemakers who do get an extended entry do not appear to have UK distribution, though I would not suggest that this is important, far from it. It merely suggests that all you wine importers out there should have read a copy.

Natural wine as a whole does get some general coverage, but I feel the author is wary of those especially who eschew the addition of sulphur. I too was quite wary of some early Loire natural wines, say back in the 1990s and early 2000s, but I think that natural winemakers have over the ensuing decades learnt that 100% healthy grapes and very high standards of cleanliness in the winery are essential to lower the risk of spoilage, and I find faulty natural wine a rarity these days, albeit not completely eradicated.

I also find that many wine faults, including the infamous mouse taint, will in many cases dissipate over time. The old and conservative dictum that natural wine doesn’t age is not only wrong. In some cases, age can be its best friend. That, at least, is my own experience over the twenty-five-or-so years I have been open to low intervention wines.

However, I have dwelt over long on the one case where I perhaps diverge in views and taste from the author, although I might be wrong. In no place is she overtly negative about natural wines. Indeed, Blanning does highlight one area where the Loire has changed over its whole great length, in the increase in organic viticulture. As Beverley rightly points out, most of the so-called notable producers profiled along with their wines are working organically, and many have been doing so for a long time.

The pages have a smattering of photographs, some in colour. There are maps for every appellation and these are at the very least adequate. For a region like the Auvergne, you get a broader location map (see photo), but some smaller sub-regions get a more focused map, like that of the Quarts de Chaume Grand Cru and the Coteaux de Layon Premier Crus in Anjou. The book ends with a useful glossary and appendices on vintages (c. the past twenty years) and production figures, plus a bibliography.

If you want to reacquaint yourself with a region whose time has finally come, not least because warmer temperatures benefit a number of the Loire’s autochthonous grape varieties (despite unseasonal rain, hail and frost), along with a new generation of exciting vigneron(ne)s who often have obtained wide experience overseas before coming home to work the family vines, then this book will fulfil your need.

Coverage can reasonably be called comprehensive, a major achievement for such a large wine region, one which extends to around 500 kilometres west to east. This book is timely for Loire wines of all types, but especially those from artisan winemakers, which are definitely appearing in greater number on the shelves of independent retailers once more.

You will also read up-to-date information about the Loire Valley’s top producers, many whose estates have undergone a recent change in generation or, in a few cases, have completely new owners who have to live up to the legacy created by their famous predecessors (Domaine Huet in Vouvray is just one standout example among several).

If you want to read about many of the region’s more famous natural wine makers, then you might need to look elsewhere (as much as any books I would suggest UK readers look at the list from Les Caves de Pyrene, who import around forty-five natural wine stars from The Loire, some of whom you can read about in this work, others who you can’t).

But that only goes to show that such knowledge is easily obtained through a trusted wine merchant. What Beverley Blanning has written is essential reading for any Loire fanatic, or for any wine lover wanting to know more about this varied and now very exciting part of viticultural France. If you are interested in The Loire, you probably need this book.

I for one am so glad I now know about producers like Grange Saint-Sauveur, totally “media-shy” but making ethereal, fresh and balanced wines with minimal inputs in a remote corner of Anjou, along with others who, like Antoine and Alice Pouponneau at Saint-Sauveur (Antoine boasts a roster of work experience and consultancies most would envy) have greatly expanded my list of wines to seek out.

Wines of the Loire Valley by Beverley Blanning MW was published in 2024 by the Académie du Vin Library, priced £35. The publisher will often offer a discount code, but it is also currently available from a large multi-national vendor which you may know for just £26.87.

The Académie’s web site for direct sales can be found here:

http://www.academieduvinlibrary.com

The rear cover with its book publicity

Posted in Artisan Wines, Loire, Wine, Wine Books, Wine Travel, Wine Writing | Tagged Académie du Vin Library, Beverley Blanning MW, Blanning Wines of the Loire Valley 2024, Grapes of the Loire, Loire Valley Wines, Loire Wine Book, Loire Wines, Top Loire Wine Producers, Wine Books, Wine writing, Wines of the Loire Valley (Book Review) | Leave a comment

Recent Wines May 2025 (Part 2) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 18/06/2025 by dccrossley

A little later than usual, Part Two of the wines drunk at home during May had to make way for a couple of more pressing articles. You may remember that in Part One we were rather spoilt with a mix of obscurity sitting beside some stand-alone fine wine. The Saumur Blanc from Antoine Sanzay was very special after a little extended bottle age.

Here we have what I hope is an equally eclectic mix, though no Nepal this time. If a sparkling wine made in Burgundy using Alsace fruit isn’t eclectic, then an amphora Bacchus from Devon surely is (with a contender for label design of the year). Rennersistas from Austria are always welcome on my blog, as is Magula from Slovakia. We also have a second appearance from an Alsace producer moving towards lower intervention, and to finish, a sub-£30 petnat that it took me ages to track down. Those who know a soul-filled wine when they see one will know why I was persistent.

À Bulles Perdues 2022, Naïma & David Didon (Burgundy/Alsace, France)

This couple live at an old farm at Chassy-le-Camp in the Côte Chalonnaise, within the AOC of Bouzeron. David has previously worked at Domaine de Montille in the Côte de Beaune, and with friends Dominique Derain and Julien Altaber.

The couple farm just two-hectares of vines, a single vineyard plot on yellow limestone, but they have room to expand. Farming here is biodynamic, with a horse used sparingly for vineyard work, so as not to compact the soil. They are working with a homeopath to assist with vine health, and are planting trees in the vineyard as part of an agroforestry project.

However, this sparkling wine takes its biodynamic fruit from Alsace. We have 90% Riesling with 10% Muscat, made by the same traditional method as any Crémant, but obviously in this case labelled Vin de France. In some ways you wouldn’t call this a complex wine but it is very enjoyable and very good indeed. It’s very fresh and has a nice spine of acidity. You get perhaps a little Muscat on the nose, as a discreet floral element but the Riesling dominates the palate. The finish is pleasantly savoury. It reminds me not of a Crémant de Bourgogne, nor d’Alsace, but something closer to a good, fresh and youthful Sekt. I’m sure it will age, but I loved the purity (with a capital P) of this 2022.

I’m a fan of Sparkling Riesling done well, which this certainly is. It was an excellent suggestion (as always) from Russell at Feral Art & Vin (Bordeaux), and cost me €32. I can’t spot this cuvée in the UK but there are a number of Didon wines available through Uncharted Wines, and currently I think one via Provisions London. I am assured all their wines are worth checking out. I shall be tasting some Uncharted Wines offerings soon, and perhaps this wonderful small domaine will be present?

Artefact 2022, Castlewood Vineyards (Devon, England)

This is rather a hidden gem of English wine, because as far as I can see it doesn’t have a high-profile distribution. I managed to drink a few bottles of the 2021 (my first vintage but I think this cuvée was born in 2019). Although my first taste of the 2021 was purchased by a friend, I’m sure if I had seen this on a shelf I’d have been tempted, merely by the unusual bottle and the label. As I said in my intro, the label of this next vintage (2022), which continues a tradition of graphically depicting the year’s defining moments, is even more striking. It is created in the style of a traditional decorative Ukrainian folk art called Petrykivka painting.

The wine is made from the GF1 Bacchus clone, grapes harvested in October 2022. They were crushed and destemmed into four 300-litre Tuscan amphorae where they first spent 21 days on skins, fermenting with indigenous yeasts. Next, a period of ageing for eleven months on lees in the same vessels. Finally, the wine was racked into stainless steel tanks and allowed to settle for four months. The wine was neither fined nor filtered.

Castlewood makes a range of English wines, including sparkling wines, but this one is an ongoing annual collaboration with Luke Harbor, Group Beverage Director for the Pig Hotels Group. Just under 1,000 bottles were made.

This is very clearly Bacchus on the nose with grapefruit to the fore, but there’s also blood orange. Nice acids combine with exotic fruit flavours and texture from the lees contact and the amphora. Everything is nicely melded together.

It’s a remarkable wine that I think needs wider appreciation. I think it is exceptionally good, so much so that I begin to doubt may palate, perhaps. Anyway, I shall continue to seek out the next vintage if I can’t find another ’22.

I have only ever seen this in the cheesemonger IJ Mellis (Edinburgh and St Andrews), where it cost £31. It has been listed in the past by Forest Wines, and it is sold out on the Castlewood Wines web shop, apparently listed there previously for only £22. Definitely worth checking out if you ever find one, especially if you write about English Wine. No info yet about a 2023.

Waiting for Tom Rosé 2021, Rennersistas (Burgenland, Austria)

Gols is the kind of wine village you dream of when it comes to top natural wine producers but there is no doubt that when Stefanie and Susanne Renner invaded their father’s winery a special energy was unleashed here. All credit to Helmuth for trusting the vision of his daughters, one forged whilst working with the two Toms (Shobbrook in the Barossa and Lubbe in South Africa and at Matassa in the Roussillon). Brother Georg is now firmly on board to push the tractor (among other important viticultural tasks).

One of the Toms, I could not possibly say which, was regularly late, hence the name of the eponymous cuvée (in red, white and pink). For this vintage of the Rosé biodynamically grown Zweigelt and Blaufränkisch were direct-pressed and, post-fermentation, aged on lees in used wood.

This isn’t too pale. The bouquet is still fruity and vibrant and the palate has zesty red berry flavours galore. Fruit and mineral texture combine so you get a stream of strawberry and watermelon flowing over rocks and pebbles. It’s the kind of uplifting palate that uplifts the spirits too.

This was from Newcomer Wines, the importer, and cost £30. You can find Rosé at half the price but it will be less than half the fun and, I hope, half the thrill. I bought it this year. If you are the kind of person who worries that we never get the most current vintage of Rosé in the UK, you need not fear here. In fact, contrary to the propaganda that says natural wines cannot age, I think many improve in bottle, if well stored.

Frankenstein 2022, Charles Frey (Alsace, France)

Domaine Charles Frey is based at Dambach-la-Ville, just north of Sélestat, which town sort of marks the boundary between the higher-sited vineyards of the Haut-Rhin and the generally lower-lying vineyards of the Bas-Rhin to the north. If you read the older wine gurus, they will suggest this distinction is, in general, qualitative, especially with most of the Grand Crus being sited in the southern part. If you visit Alsace and look for yourselves you will find that perhaps most of the exciting stuff going on there now takes place north of this line.

Much of the excitement centres around lower intervention viticulture and winemaking. As the natural wine pioneers have forged ahead their influence has spread to larger domaines, who had previously worked more conventionally. The Charles Frey domaine is now run by Charles’s grandchildren, Julien and Thiébaud. They have 14-hectares of vines planted on a wide range of local terroirs, including on the Grand Cru Frankstein. Farming has been organic since 1996 and they now follow biodynamic practices.

If the name of this cuvée sounds remarkably similar to that of the abovementioned Grand Cru, it’s for a good reason. The regulations for Grand Cru sites in Alsace don’t allow for blends. Things tend to move slowly here, and it is only relatively recently that Pinot Noir and Sylvaner may be labelled Grand Cru on a small designated selection of these sites.

Frankenstein is a nice name for this cuvée. It is a blend of Riesling, Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer and Muscat. In my opinion these blends, popularised decades ago by the majestic wines of the deconstructive genius, Jean-Michel Deiss, point a way to the future here. We have, from a granite base, a wine full of exotic fruits, spice and wild flowers. I found hints of all the varieties mentioned above, but no single one dominates. There’s a place for single varietals, but the complexity of the blend does give me an impression of a wine of place, not just a “Riesling” etc.

The wine spent twelve months in ceramic vessels and the result is a palate that is smooth, ever so slightly creamy, and certainly very long. The bottle became a little cloudy towards the end, giving a little more (soft) texture, and body.

For me, this tastes like a terroir wine. It seems ridiculous that you cannot release a cuvée made from a selection of varieties which, if bottled on their own, could be labelled Grand Cru, yet here we have a mere Vin d’Alsace. I will need the logic explained to me. You and I know that at every level some of the most interesting and innovative wines made in Alsace today are blends.

This came from The Solent Cellar. They sell, I think, five lines from Charles Frey, but their system shows just one Frankenstein left (£31.50). Also try Butlers Wine Cellar (Brighton), who have four Frey cuvées listed online, including this one and their Crémant, which I’ve not tried (£22.50, quite inexpensive if it’s any good).

Baccara 2019, Magula (Little Carpathians, Slovakia)

Magula is one of my favourite producers in Slovakia (others include Strekov 1075, Slobodne and Bott Frigyes). They make exciting natural wines in the Little Carpathians region, close to the Austrian border in the southwest of the country. The current generation is the fourth to be making wine here and viticulture is now completely biodynamic without synthetic inputs. The same can be said in the winery.

Baccara is a blend of Blaufränkisch with Rosa, plus a splash of Dunaj and Hron, both local crosses. Dunaj (Slovakian for Danube) crosses Muscat Bouchet x Oporto with St Laurent, whilst Hron, named after a tributary of the Danube, crosses Arbouriou and Castets (both SW France).

This is a cuvée of just 1,085 bottles, named after the black rose depicted on this wine’s lovely label. Dark in colour, the bouquet is one of concentrated cherries and berries, which combine with a floral quality which fits nicely. The palate is very juicy, but with the grip of ripe tannins which still linger in this 2019. They add a nice edge and bite.

I first tasted this vintage back in March 2024, and my recollection suggests it is no less concentrated and fresh than it was fifteen months ago. I can never decide which Magula wine I like the most, but for certain I always enjoy this one a lot. It’s probably the Magula wine I’d recommend first if you want to explore more from Slovakia.

Available from Basket Press Wines, £31.

Pet-nat 2021, Piri Naturel (Nahe, Germany)

There are a few producers who those deeply into German wine with a modern outlook seek out, but who have perhaps not quite raised their profile above a more general radar. Christine Pieroth is notable for two things which are very much at the forefront of both regenerative viticulture and combating climate chaos – Agroforestry and modern disease-resistant hybrids (known in German speaking Europe as PIWIs).

She is also an inspired fan of permaculture, a method of farming which is slowly gaining ground all over the world today. Part of permaculture includes the management of water resources. With massive floods (Ahr) and the very opposite when the Rhine became too shallow for river barges recently, water management will be key

Christine made her first harvest in 2018. She has grown her domaine to a still small 7-ha in which she has planted Souvignier Gris, Calardis Blanc, Sauvitage, and Regent hybrids alongside more traditional vinifera varieties (Riesling included, of course). The ecology she is creating alongside the vines is a first for the Nahe, a calculated experiment which the locals might feel uncomfortable with, but which is based on a system being widely trialled elsewhere.

Why plant trees, hedges and shrubs? It is first and foremost simply to increase biodiversity, something lost to most wine regions. Biodiversity should promote a healthy ecosystem and, eventually, benefit the vines which are clearly suffering from an extended period of chemical inputs and monoculture.

Anyway, I could go on for pages about what Christine Pieroth is doing. You can read a lot more about this producer in Camilla Gjerde’s wonderful second book, Natural Trailblazers (Now What Publishing, 2024).

This petnat is made from approximately 30-year-old Scheurebe and Müller-Thurgau, off loamy soils at 200 masl. The first fermentation is in stainless steel and is continued in bottle, where it remains undisgorged before sale. It is raw and lively, with pear, peach and lemon sherbet. It has a gentle sparkle (not sure what the pressure measurement is).

I’d describe it as a gorgeously fruity petnat with a savoury twist and a soulful, gentle side to it. That said, I would perhaps not keep this 2021 much beyond this summer on account of its delicate softness. Christine is taking her long family wine tradition and giving it a modern outlook with the environment, ecology and regeneration to the fore, along with sustainability in the face of very noticeable change in the climate of the Nahe, which, shielded from rain by the Hunsrück Mountains, is certainly a challenger for hottest and driest wine region in Germany today.

My bottle came from Cork & Cask (Edinburgh), but was, I think, their last. The importer is Roland Wines. They list it for £28.

Posted in Alsace, Amphora Wine, Artisan Wines, Austrian Wine, Burgundy, English Wine, German Wine, Natural Wine, Slovakian Wine, Sparkling Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Merchants | Tagged A Bulles Perdues Domaine Didon, Alsace Field Blend off Frankstein Grand Cru Site, Amphora Bacchus, Artefact 2022 Castlewood Vineyards, Castlewood and Luke Harbor Wine Collaboration, Castlewood Vineyards Devon, Charles Frey Frankenstein 2022, Christine Pieroth Winemaker, English Amphora Wine, German natural wine, Julien and Thiébaud Frey Dambach-la-Ville, Magula Baccara 2019, Magula Little Carpathians, Naima and David Didon Burgundy, New Ecology in the Nahe - Piri Naturel, Piri Natural Petnat, Piri Naturel Nahe, Renner Family Gols, Rennersistas Gols Burgenland, Slovakian Natural Wine, Waiting for Tom Rosé | Leave a comment

Heroic Viticulture and Thrilling Wines – Matt Gregory in Leicestershire

Posted on 13/06/2025 by dccrossley

We occasionally use the phrase “heroic viticulture”, but in doing so we are most often conjuring up someone whose vines sit high up a mountain in the Swiss Valais, Aosta or Chile. Fifty years ago we might also have said it of people trying to make wine in Britain’s soggy climate, but in the 2020s, with some seriously fine red wine coming out of Essex, masterful wines of all types emanating from Monmouthshire in Wales, and sparkling wines which the wine competitions seem to big-up to rank alongside fine Champagne, then the United Kingdom may no longer come to mind as the outer reaches of the wine world.

And yet…just as people like Ben Walgate pushed the boundaries of British winemaking when he buried a few qvevri’s under an Oast house (hop kiln) at Tillingham in Sussex all those years ago, Matt Gregory is pushing another boundary. One of location.

Although Matt’s Walton Brook vineyard in the Leicestershire Wolds is not the furthest north of England’s commercial vineyards, it is the one with the highest profile, in what is, objectively, a relatively hostile environment. The east side of the county of Leicestershire is notoriously wet and windy, and once you get north of England’s sunshine county, Essex, the countryside might seem, to most observers, more suited to grazing sheep. Wool was, after all, the East of England’s great wealth provider in centuries past.

To succeed in growing grapes in these Wolds surely fits any sane description of heroic. To make natural wines, farming without synthetic inputs, is next level. Matt Gregory has somewhere around three hectares of land on a slope that faces south and sits at 100 masl. The bedrock is Jurassic limestone mud overlain with glacial deposits from a mere two-million years ago with (inter alia) flint, ironstone and quartz.

In 2008, 800 Seyval Blanc vines went in here, along with 800 Solaris, 400 Regent and 150 Madeleine Angevine. In 2009, 2,000 each of Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Bacchus vines were added. It’s a good mix of vinifera varieties and the classic hybrids planted in England originally in the 1970s, vines giving resistance to disease, especially the fungal diseases which are rife in warm and wet micro-climates like this one.

Whilst Bacchus is established now as a variety very much suited not just to the English and Welsh weather, but equally to an English vibe, those other four hybrid varieties seem to suit those winemakers opting to make natural wines with more zip and less alcohol in an English setting.

It’s funny but the trending subject in regenerative modern viticulture is PIWIs. PIWI vines (technically “pee-vee” as it is the acronym for Pilzwiderstandsfähige Rebotsorten) are effectively modern hybrids bred to stand up to the diseases made more prevalent by climate chaos, first among them being the different forms of mildew, but we were doing something quite similar in England in the 1970s, although to be fair the modern hybrids are many more in number, the result of decades of nursery work, much of it taking place in Switzerland today.

Matt took over the vineyard in 2020, converting the viticulture to organics. In the spring it looks like a wildflower meadow between the rows. Of the three hectares, Matt has two hectares planted to vines and the remaining hectare comprises “managed hedge-lines and headlands”. We’ll mention hedges later.

I first came across Matt in the years before Covid, introduced to him by his then agent Uncharted Wines (he’s now with Wines Under the Bonnet). I remember Rupert of Uncharted pointing him out at a tasting by telling me Matt had worked with Theo Coles. He knew, of course, that Theo, under his Hermit Ram label, makes my favourite wines in New Zealand.

Theo is himself a great boundary pusher too, making innovative natural wines in North Canterbury, on New Zealand’s South Island. Matt knew Theo first because they worked together in a branch of Oddbins in the early 2000s. They went on to work on a couple of projects together in Italy (where Matt has also made wines), before Theo headed back to find fame, at least among clued-up wine lovers, back in NZ.

Matt and I both know that Theo Coles’s Hermit Ram wines are beautiful examples of natural wine made in a marginal setting, as North Canterbury can be. The Coles philosophy is deceptively simple, but he thinks a lot about what he’s going to do, or likely, not do, before he does it. Matt has probably benefited a lot from Theo’s friendship.

Another string to Matt’s bow, those Italian wines, were made in Piemonte. There are still some wines available which were made by him in Northern Italy, just as there are still available wines made by Charlie Herring Wines’s Tim Phillips when he made wine in South Africa (with both being worth seeking out).

Matt doggedly pursues a low-intervention regime in the cellar, in this case situated in an old stable block a short drive from the vineyard, but over the border in Nottinghamshire, that Matt has made into a fully functioning winery now. It’s at Wolds Wine Estate, a totally separate business, but one for which Matt oversees production.

Everything begins on the sorting table, so to speak. Healthy grapes are a very important factor here. In fact, essential. Matt is a firm believer that “the vineyard is the birthplace of the wine” and if you are not going to throw on the chemicals you absolutely must have healthy and ripe fruit. Wild yeasts, no fining nor filtration, and sulphur only added if deemed absolutely necessary (and then never more than 20ppm) are the rules.

Unfortunately, Matt can’t get any certification, even organic, because the vineyard is surrounded by a 500-acre conventional farm. He just has to hope that there isn’t too much contamination from his neighbour. In making wine in this way, Matt believes his vineyard is able to express itself, in terms not just of the terroir, but also of the vintage year. As he says himself, he wants to make “not just English wines but […] somehow Leicestershire wines”.

Wines Under the Bonnet currently lists five wines from Leicestershire on their web site, although I’m not sure if they have yet to update the site to include Matt’s latest cuvée (more of which later). These are:

Fizzy White – usually a blend based on Bacchus, in 2023 zero sulphur.
Fizzy Pink – a new classic blend, of 50:50 Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris, in 2023 just minimal sulphur. It’s a grape mix which has become super-cool in Alsace.
Field White 2023 – three quarters Seyval Blanc with c 20% Bacchus and 5% Solaris with varying degrees of skin contact, just 9% abv. 10mg/l sulphur at bottling.
White 2023 – A varietal Bacchus, 80% macerated on skins for 6 weeks, the remaining 20% for just 10 days. 10mg/l sulphur.
Orange 2023 – A skin-contact Solaris, 9 weeks on skins, then 8 months on fine lees in stainless steel. 10mg/l sulphur.

The wine we are missing is Matt’s new cuvée, Hedge Line. This 2023, a blend of Matt’s abovementioned hybrid varieties, is named after a hedgerow Matt is planting, via a crowdfunding campaign, in order to increase biodiversity, as well as to provide a wind break.

Generally, 2023 was a wetter than usual vintage but Matt is a master of canopy management. That, and a spectacular two-week spell of sunshine in September 2023, saved the day and even helped Matt harvest a bigger crop than usual. Hedge Line is a delicate wine, just 9.5% abv, and perhaps one full of unique flavours, although when pushed to name its bouquet and flavours I’d go with English apples over anything else.

There are, according to Matt, some new wines in the pipeline. A red from 2023 is awaiting release. It blends 70% Pinot Noir with 30% Pinot Gris, 25% being aged in an old Barolo cask given to him by Dosio Vigneti in La Morra. He says “it’s fairly grown-up stuff but still very English. Ought to be out in the autumn or so”.

The 2024 vintage saw a very small crop. There’s a fun pale pink waiting to be bottled, with a blend very similar to the red. This one fermented in an old Barbera puncheon (500-litres) from the Coppo winery in Canelli (Piemonte). He also says “there will probably be a light red/dark pink from 2024 as well, but I’m still working on that”.

What Matt is doing in the East Midlands is pretty astonishing. To make wines as good as these in this unreliable climate you need confidence and nerves of steel. You also need to be a very good winemaker. Pure insanity is just not enough.

Matt Gregory Wines can be sourced via Wines Under the Bonnet. Despite his small production I am seeing his wines in many of the best independent wine shops in England, and indeed Scotland.

You can also read more about Matt in Abbie Moulton’s excellent New British Wine (Hoxton Mini Press, 2023).

Uncharted Wines may still have some bottles, including some of the Italian wines. Bat and Bottle, the Italian specialist importer/merchant in Oakham also stocks Matt’s wines, primarily for local distribution but some of the wines are on their web site.

Go check him out!

*Photo Credits – first three, and final photos credited to Jojo Cooper Photography, used with permission from Matt. Label shots all mine.

Posted in Artisan Wines, English Wine, Natural Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Heroes | Tagged English Natural Wine, English Wine, Extreme Viticulture in England, Hedge Line 2023, Heroic Viticulture, Leicestershire Wine, Matt Gregory Winemaker, Theo Coles The Hermit Ram, Walton Brook Vineyard, Wine in the Leicestershire Wolds | Leave a comment

Rhône in White at the Sky Bar Edinburgh

Posted on 10/06/2025 by dccrossley

Sometimes it is difficult to know how good a tasting will be, and occasionally you think it could go either way. I didn’t know what to expect last Wednesday from Rhône in White, a tasting of white wines from the whole length of the Rhône Valley organised by Diana Thompson/Wine Events Scotland which took place in the very well selected Edinburgh Sky Bar. If I was worried by the possibility of tables of generic wines, I was wrong. Of over 100 wines on show I selected, by means fair and foul, a little over thirty to taste, and I think fifteen have made it to my notes below.

One thing that signalled this tasting would be worth attending was that it was accompanied by a Masterclass given by Matt Walls and Alistair Cooper MW. I’ve known Matt from before the days when he emerged as the best contemporary writer on the Rhône today, and I have total respect for his opinions. As an aside, if you have read my reviews of the first two “Smart Traveller’s Wine Guides” (Académie du Vin Library), Matt has authored one on the Rhône which is due out in the autumn.

Alistair and Matt in full flow

The whole of the wider Rhône region is second only to Bordeaux in terms of hectares of vines in the whole of France, with around 63,000 ha (Bordeaux has 95,000, and third placed Loire has either 37,000 if you believe the Inter-Rhône figures, or 56,000 if you follow those in Beverley Blanning’s 2024 book on The Loire!).

Of that figure, 75% of the wine produced is red, 13% Rosé, and white wine comes in at 12%. That said, white wine is growing in share, and whilst there is white wine that is pretty generic, where artisans make one or more white wines, they usually make an effort to produce something worthwhile. They are aided by an extremely broad choice of grape varieties. More than thirty in total, so I won’t list them here, but the sheer variety does come through in the wines I’ve included.

The Rhône is not seen as being at the forefront of natural wine in France (one special Côtes du Rhône co-operative excepted, though not represented here), but organic viticulture has taken off. There are some biodynamic producers, and a lot of estates now practice what is termed Exploitation Haute Valeur Environmentale. This appears to be a step up from Agriculture Raisonnée. So, there’s still a way to go for many, but most estates I profile appear to be at least organic. The overall figure for the region’s organic producers is now 19%, up from 12% in 2020.

One reason for this could be climate change. Although counter-intuitive, the professional body, Inter-Rhône, suggests that aside from frost and hail risks in some sub-regions, the changing climate has worked in favour of these white wines. Perhaps this is because the varieties on offer are very well adapted, in most cases, to warmer conditions. Alcohol levels may seem quite elevated, especially if you drink the kind of white wines I do, but when the wines have good freshness to balance the alcohol this doesn’t pose a problem. Where we had, say, 14% abv, these whites seemed fresher than many reds of the same level.

Some of the producers below will be known to you, but several are looking for UK distribution. They are worth a look. As we are seeing a significant rise in the status of White Rioja, and as Loire white wines continue to gain popularity, whites from the Rhône could easily be the next success on the market. Prices, in some cases, are astounding…and I mean that in a good way. The UK is already the second biggest export market for the Rhône by volume (16% of exports), although it is noteworthy that third-placed USA generates more income. We Brits are, as always, bottom-feeders through the supermarkets as a whole, where an awful lot of generic Côtes du Rhône red passes through.

My main positive from the tasting was freshness. This is once more counter-intuitive. The Rhône is generally perceived as a warm region as a whole, at least the Southern Rhône, and I’m sure we have all drunk those big, waxy, whites which were not uncommon at all a decade ago. The big surprise for me was how balanced the best wines were, and this was often despite alcohol levels of 13.5% or 14%.

If there is a negative, it’s the labels. The Rhône still has some of the dullest labels around. Now, I know labels shouldn’t matter, but not everyone will be reading an article like this one. If you are standing in a wine shop looking at the shelves I doubt many of the bottles here will leap out at you. There’s no need to go with the full-on crazy hipster natural wine label if it isn’t your style, but a bit of colour wouldna’ go amiss. The first wine below, from Luberon, at least makes something of an effort. Am I wrong?

All the wines below stood out for me. One of them (wine number two, below) I really couldn’t make my mind up over, and one (the Chapoutier) clearly needs long ageing, but the rest I would be happy to drink now or over the next few years. I have not used the categories into which they were divided (Fresh…Fruity…Rich & Complex…) largely because I didn’t always think those descriptions best described the wines.

Château La Canorgue AOC Luberon 2024

I go back to the 1980s with this estate, which once famously appeared on that comedy classic, Absolutely Fabulous (if anyone is old enough to remember it). It’s a blend of 25% Clairette, 25% Marsanne, 25% Roussanne, 15% Bourboulenc and 10% Rolle. We need to get used to “Rolle” because it is now the authorised name for Vermentino in France. Alcohol comes in at 13%. Demeter Certified biodynamic.

A lovely fresh bouquet, quite tropical (pineapple and mango in there) flies out of the glass. The palate has a textured quince bitterness on the finish. Very good value at £20 from Yapp Bros (there are a Red and a Rosé too). I’ve has a hankering to drink this again and so tasting it here was a pleasure.

Domaine TréluS Ventoux Blanc 2024

Yes, that is a capital S. This is the wine I wasn’t sure about. 48% Grenache Blanc, 44% Bourboulenc and 8% “Vermentino” (sic), and 13% abv. This was very fruit-forward, more floral than I expected but also showing lemon zest and quite exotic fruits. I wasn’t sure whether the choice of bottle was an attempt to make this look expensive, but it ain’t no posh wine, I think. But it was a commercially appealing, fruit-forward, bottle that if priced well would be very gluggable on a sunny afternoon. It appealed to a certain something in me at a very basic level. Organic. Looking for distribution.

Domaine Lombard “Culture Libre” Côtes du Rhône 2024

2024 is looking a potentially nice vintage for white wines here. Domaine Lombard first came to my attention some decades ago, via its obscure (back then) Côtes du Rhône Brézème. It was a red wine, a kind of cross between a mini-St-Joseph and a mini-Cornas, made in the hinterland between the river’s northern and southern sectors. Since then, the estate has changed ownership and winemaker, I believe, and labels too by the look of it. Yapp Bros discovered it, originally, but they have presumably parted company if indeed this is the same producer?

This cuvée blends 40% Grenache Blanc with Clairette and Bourboulenc, plus tiny amounts of Roussanne, Marsanne and Viognier, knocking out 14.5% abv. If it tasted like 14.5% then I’d have run a mile, but this was balanced out by depth, restraint and some decent acids. Organic and looking for a distributor.

Domaine Montirius “La Muse Papilles” Côtes du Rhône 2023

This domaine is set in the shadow of the jagged Dentelles de Montmirail, in an area best known for the wines of Vacqueyras and Gigondas, which have long had their own appellations. Montirius is a biodynamic producer, and this white wine is a blend of Clairette, Roussanne and Grenache Blanc (more or less equal proportions).

If other wines get described as “refreshing” I’d have to describe this as “super-refreshing”. It has a linearity which I mean as a compliment, a nice filigree spine in a wine nevertheless rocking 13% abv. Despite the label suggesting otherwise, this is the antithesis of a big, alcoholic, Rhône white. Flint Wines import, and look at this, £18.50. One of the bargains of the day, perhaps. I’d definitely buy a couple. One London retail source for this wine is The Sourcing Table in Peckham Rye, which I visited recently (highly recommended).

Domaine Pierre-Jean Villa « Saut De L’Ange » Saint-Joseph Blanc 2023

Like Domaine Lombard, PJ manages to get two wines into my selection. This Chavanay producer first came to attention as one of the founders of the negociant Les Vins de Vienne, who were instrumental in reviving the vineyards at Seyssuel, just south of Vienne. His own 17ha estate produces cuvées from across the Northern Rhône’s top appellations. Certified organic, Pierre-Jean is now moving to biodynamics.

This cuvée is made from one variety, Roussanne. The colour is pale straw, the bouquet is gently fruity, and it shows 13% abv on the label. However, again this is a great example of freshness allied with depth. There’s a bit of body. I think a year or two would give complexity, but I do like that youthful freshness and vigour. A classy wine which Flint Wines (again) bring in and retail at £27.55.

Château La Nerthe “Les Cassagnes” Côtes du Rhône 2023

La Nerthe is a well-known Châteauneuf producer, an appellation which has gone very much upwards in price over recent decades (in the case of the red wines, perhaps in tandem with alcohol levels for the AOC generally). This white blend of Viognier (32%), Grenache Blanc (28%), Roussanne (24%) and Marsanne (16%) is labelled at 14%, and we all know there is often some give and take on that.

However, sited in the “fruity and round” category (which it is), it is also complex and food-friendly. It shows a good whiff of classic viognier on the nose, quite refined for a wine of the south. It has good weight without any flab, just a little bit fleshy. There’s a good, long, classy finish. £14 via Bibendum.

Domaine de L’Oratoire Saint-Martin « Réserve des Seigneurs » Cairanne 2024

This is one of the best-known domaines in Cairanne, and one of the few here with a longer tradition of biodynamics. In his Wines of the Rhône (2021) Matt Walls writes “The reds are pure and elegant, and the white wines deserve particular praise as some of the best in the Southern Rhône”. Just as well my palate spotted this then, although at the time Matt wrote that, the domaine had just changed hands.

Blending 30% each of Clairette, Grenache Blanc, Roussanne and 10% Marsanne, this is perhaps one of the more savoury wines I tasted, but I loved how the varieties gelled together. The fruit rides effortlessly down the middle of the palate, moved along by waves of fresh but gentle acidity. The alcohol, 13.5%, doesn’t intrude but it has the body to make it food-friendly. The RRP is listed at under £15, which I find hard to believe, from Justerini & Brooks.

J Denuzière Saint-Peray 2022

I had to look up this producer, but I didn’t learn a lot. Saint-Peray has come a long way since I first encountered its white wines in the 1980s, an appellation that for many decades was content to play on the fact that Wagner appeared to like its now rare sparkling wines. Games have been upped since then.

This wine is perhaps not wholly typical of modern-day Saint-Peray, which seems to me to try to position itself somewhere between a white Saint-Joseph and a white Hermitage. It’s a blend of 70% Marsanne and 30% Roussanne, knocking out 13% alcohol, so all pretty normal so far. It’s a conventionally made wine (so not remotely organic). What caught my attention was its beguiling bouquet that sucks you in. Tasted well-chilled it had a nice zip to it, hiding that 13% abv. The producer is looking for distribution. Well-priced it would likely do well.

Domaine Pierre-Jean Villa Condrieu 2023

This second wine from Pierre-Jean is from perhaps the single appellation that more than any other sparked my interest in shall we say more obscure wines and grape varieties. Condrieu is pure Viognier, and although its fame has spread somewhat in the past thirty-to-forty years, back in the 1980s it was a rarity. When I visited Georges Vernay towards the end of that decade, I was sitting talking to the man who had almost singlehandedly saved Viognier from extinction.

Vognier is perhaps not difficult to do, so to speak, but I think it is difficult to do well. Young vines can sometimes exhibit a bouquet of strong “Parma Violets”, a sweet I always associate with aged aunties. It is also a variety often prone to producing over-alcoholic wines. I once bought a Napa Viognier without checking the label and at 15% abv it was an expensive mistake. It was all over the place.

My interest was piqued here by seeing a Condrieu listed at just 12.5% abv in the tasting booklet, but the bottle’s back label told me 13%. Nevertheless, it smelt lemon-fresh with no sweet violets on the nose. It has a slightly oily texture and a stony, quince-like finish. Imported by Flint Wines with the price described as “tbc”, this is the first Condrieu I’ve tasted since Covid and I’d be more than happy to drink the whole bottle.

Mas Des Bressades “Excellence” Costières de Nîmes 2023

Mas des Bressades’s red wine is one I know from decades back, I’m not sure from where but either something I regularly came across in French supermarkets or possibly from Majestic Wine in the UK. This is a 45ha estate run by the Marès family at Manduel and it has been in the same family for seven generations. Wines here have been organic for around five years.

Excellence is a blend of 80% Roussanne/20% Viognier. It starts out on the nose fresh and a little lemony, and then a floral note comes in, like a distilled essence, but more a hint than full-on floral. In some respects, this gives an initial impression of simplicity, but then it gets deeper and a little more complex, with a little more richness showing. Alcohol is listed as 14%.

The Wine Society imports this, although it isn’t on their web site right now and price is listed as “tbc”. It probably isn’t expensive.

Domaine Lombard Brézème Renaissance 2023

Brézème is Côtes du Rhône, not an appellation in its own right, although perhaps Yapp Brothers used to blur the boundary. And why not? This obscure little enclave in a sort of vinous no man’s land between Rhône’s north and south has a story to tell.

This is quite a smart blend of Marsanne (80%) and Roussanne (20%) off sandy loam with pebble and limestone scree. The grapes are aged half in oak and half in stainless steel. The bouquet is lemon and straw with gentle floral notes, the broad palate all fleshy stone fruit held together by mineral tension. It needs to be held together by something at 14% abv, but this is definitely a food wine. It has an interesting tart finish and it isn’t in any way ponderous. It would go well with any kind of game bird with mushrooms in a cream sauce kind of dish, and with strong cheeses. I also suggest it will age for a good few years too.

As with the other Lombard wine here, they are currently looking for UK distribution.

Château Courac Laudun 2024

Laudun was once one of the Côtes du Rhône villages where wines were reasonably cheap, but generally uninteresting. This property is making more interesting wine, if this cuvée is representative. It is a real château, at Tresques. It’s a large property, 100ha in all, making around 150,000 bottles of red Laudun and 30,000 of white. Both have been described as “ageworthy” by Matt Walls, who suggests a few magnums of the red would fit nicely in any nascent cellar.

This white is a blend of Clairette, Grenache Blanc and Roussanne, an uncommon but appealing combination. It is yet another 14%er, and it is quite big, but it is fresh too. Pear and pineapple leap from the glass, pear especially. I’d call it impactful.

Once more, The Wine Society is listed as importer but with price “tbc” (it isn’t on their web site…yet…). They have listed a Courac red for £10.50, and if it is remotely similar in price, then ageing a few for several years, even just a year or two, well, you could do worse.

M Chapoutier Hermitage Chante Alouette 2021

This is one wine that requires little introduction. 100% Marsanne from one of the Northern Rhône’s best-known houses, this is classic white Hermitage. It has a big bouquet with an almost meaty, savoury, quality. Its broad palate is hardly developed at all but it will unquestionably age for many years. 13% abv and Demeter-certified for agriculture biologique (biodynamic).

I haven’t seen this around in the UK for a long time. The importer is listed as Young Charly (they appear to be Belgian?), with Noble Green Wines (Twickenham) listed as retailer, listing this for around £69, reduced to £63 as part of a mixed six.

Cave Poulet et Fils Crémant de Die Brut 2022

Die and its region, the Diois, has always suffered an identity crisis in terms of whether these are wines of the Alps of wines of the Rhône, but these days they are considered, administratively, as Rhône, although Wink Lorch includes the region in her Wines of the French Alps, where it seems to me to fit stylistically. Cave Poulet is a large producer at Vercheny. A fourth-generation family producer which now has a decidedly modern outlook, they have a good reputation for a range which extends across this region’s diverse still and sparkling wines.

Crémant de Die is the appellation for dry sparkling wines made by the méthode traditionelle, Clairette de Die (mostly Muscat) being the region’s appealing sweeter sparkler with residual sugar and lowish (8.5%) alcohol. So, we have here a dry (very dry) sparkling wine with gentle bubbles and a medium mousse. The main component is Clairette (somewhat ironically, Clairette de Die should really be Muscat de Die) at 85%, blended with 10% Aligoté and 5% Muscat.

It’s a wine which does make you sit up and take notice. We have a well made cheap sparkling wine, and this really is its plus point – when I say cheap, The Wine Society is selling this for £11.50. As an aperitif wine that you can also let flow freely at a party, this is spot on.

Domaine La Ligière « Chante Coucou » Muscat de Beaumes de Venise 2023

We Brits were early takers for Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, and back in the mid-1980s it was something even those without an ounce of wine geekery in their bones might serve as a dessert wine. The producers found this hilarious, because they all drank it as an aperitif, and some even for breakfast.

Although Beaumes produces some very good red wines, here we are tasting a white Vin Doux Naturel, a wine where grape spirit is added during fermentation in a process called mutage. Fermentation is thereby arrested, leaving a wine of some sweetness combined with a good hint of spirit, and higher alcohol, here 15.5% abv.

The very good and more traditional Domaine des Barnadins was on show, which is very much worth buying (Holman Hunt imports it, The Good Wine Shop branches retailing it for £14.50). La Ligière is perhaps better known for its reds, but I liked this Muscat, and they currently have no UK distribution for it.

Is it the quirky bottle that puts more serious importers off? It has a soft nose, no spirity harshness, and the grape spirit is well-integrated. It tastes modern and fresh, and it has a touch of individuality. Perhaps it is a style of wine due for a comeback?

La Ligière goes for the quirky bottle and you can just see the more traditional “Bernadins” to the right

That brings us to the end of an interesting and enjoyable tasting, at a good venue with such good light (and views). In a vast region like the Rhône the wines can be hit and miss, but these wines featured here stood out for me. As a very fussy wine shopper, I would make a detour for one or two of these, and the rest I’d be happy to buy if they leapt off the shelf.

As it remains clear that wine prices continue to rise inexorably, The Wine Society, whose own current social media campaign suggests wine inflation is running at 19% (an underestimate, if anything) does seem to have spotted real value here (as across most other regions, to be honest). Flint Wines appears to have some buying expertise here as well.

Posted in Artisan Wines, Rhone, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Masterclass, Wine Tastings | Tagged Château La Canorgue, Diana Thompson Wine Events, Domaine Lombard Brézème, Domaine Montirius Rhône, Edinburgh Wine, Edinburgh Wine Tasting, Matt Walls Masterclass, Pierre-Jean Villa Northern Rhône, Rhône in White Tasting (4 June '25), Rhône White Wine, Rhône Wine, Tasting Sky Bar Edinburgh, Wine Events Scotland | Leave a comment

Recent Wines May 2025 (Part 1) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 03/06/2025 by dccrossley

May’s selection of wines drunk at home include a number which even I drink rarely, although it’s not only the more obscure among them to which that applies. We kick off Part One with a white Rioja. I’m behind the curve on the excitement you can find there. Next, a Nepalese wine which you’ll be lucky to find outside of Nepal so you’ll need to take my word for it, so to speak. Less rare in my house, a beautiful sunset Burgenlander, an exciting Savoie, a majestic Loire Chenin and, to finish the first half case, a red from Geneva. Suitably wide-worldy, I hope. Six more to follow in due course, to make twelve wines of the month from eleven different regions.

Rioja Alavesa Blanco 2021, Bodega Amaren (Rioja, Spain)

Bodega Amaren is part of the large holdings of the Luis Cañas family of wines. The wine we are drinking now is one of the new-wave of bottlings from individual sub-regions withing the Rioja appellation (Vinos de Zona), in this case, Alavesa. Situated north of the Ebro, it has a rich history, both literally, and in wine terms for smaller family-run estates, and many vineyards are situated at altitude. Fresher conditions can favour elegant and fresh white wines.

It is also worth noting that Alavesa in particular has become a popular destination for Spanish wine tourism. Of course, it boasts a selection of stunning winery architecture, both traditional and super-modern, but now there’s also a well-designed regional wine route, and Laguardia is fast becoming a destination for wine lovers who want a bit of history and gourmet food.

Although this bottling is described as a “limited edition” they still appear to have made 21,000 bottles. It’s a blend of Viura, Malvasia and Tempranillo Blanco, aged in a mix of oak (80% new) and concrete tanks for ten months with regular bâtonnage. The vines are all old, some more than 100 years old, situated at up to 550 masl, around nearby villages Samaniego and Leza. “Low intervention” viticulture is practised.

So, what’s it like? Actually, really good. Definitely it gives off a vibe of a wine of place, but also very tasty. Fresh citrus turns quite tropical on the fruit spectrum. The palate has a chalk-dust texture, stone fruit and a bit of salinity, and juicy with it. With 13.5% abv and new oak it still manages to taste fresh. That new oak seems integrated, though you might guess it was vinified this way. I actually found this bottle quite gorgeous, enough to make me want to buy some more White Rioja.

This cost £28 at Smith & Gertrude Portobello. The importer is Alliance Wine.

Rose Koshu 2024, Pataleban Vineyard Winery (Kathmandu Valley, Nepal)

Much of the technical expertise going into Pataleban today comes from Switzerland and Germany, but the winery and vineyards were originally set up with input from Japan. This is why, alongside a range of European vinifera varieties, there are several hybrids you might find planted in Japan, and Koshu, which was once thought to be a vinifera species but now considered such a hybrid (between vitis vinifera and one or more East Asian vitis species).

For any reasonably adventurous wine obsessive in the UK, Koshu may be the only grape from Japan that they know. There are plenty more, and Japan’s wine scene is thriving now, but it seems like the UK is no longer the place it was…where you could taste wine from almost anywhere in the world.

Nepal’s only commercial producer of grape wine has vineyards at Kewalpur (where the winery is located), Kaule and Ghiring, in the Kathmandu Valley not far from the capital (relatively, just 16km to the resort, but the traffic is always terrible). There are about 40 acres of vines in total (c18.2 ha), planted at between 750 to 1,600 masl. The monsoon is the greatest enemy of viticulture in the Kathmandu Valley, but the altitude of the plantings does much to negate the humidity one might otherwise expect. The vines are trained high and netted for birds, which would otherwise strip the vines of fruit.

This wine is so fruity. Certainly the 2024 is the best vintage of Pataleban Koshu I remember tasting, but the fresh new vintage might help. I had a bottle of this in Nepal last November, but this suitcase bottle seemed even better. Mid-pink in colour (Koshu is most often vinified “white” in Japan, but like Pinot Gris, it is a pink-skinned grape), it has a nice soft mouthfeel and the fruitiness of a boiled sweet. Unlikely as it sounds, that’s a compliment. I’m referring to its juiciness. I’d say there is a little residual sugar but fresh acidity to balance it.

It would be easy to present this as just another weird wine I picked up along the road, but I really like it. I wish I could have a case to share around. As I haven’t, you’ll need to head to Nepal to prove me wrong.

The Pataleban Vineyard Resort at Chisapani has a nice hotel, set on a forested hillside, away from Kathmandu’s urban buzz and pollution. On a clear day the mountain views are spectacular and there are nice forest walks. Here you will find a smaller vineyard with lots of hybrids. The winery itself, and the main vineyards are further down the valley. Tours and tastings are available. Touring the vineyard and winery at Kewalpur, the bus or car usually leaves from the resort after breakfast.

A range of wine stores in Kathmandu sell Pataleban’s wines, although storage is not always uniformly cool. Don’t expect fine wine, but what these guys are doing in Nepal is highly creditable and I know that the wines will get better and better, if the economics and bureaucracy of making wine in Nepal allows it.

Abendrot 2022, Weingut Koppitsch (Burgenland, Austria)

It has been a while since I’ve drunk a Koppitsch wine, around a year, I think. Long a favoured producer for me, at Neusiedl am See on the northern edge of the Neusiedlersee, I also have a kind of connection with this wine. Abendrot translates as both sunset and afterglow, bringing to mind two pieces of music (one classical and one rock) which are special to me and have been for many decades.

In this particular case we have a gently pale red wine which fits its name perfectly. Alex and Maria have blended red and white grapes (Welschrieslng, Rosenmuskateller, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc, St Laurent, Blaufränkisch and a touch of Syrah) from the limestone Neuberg above the lake. Farming and winemaking are biodynamic and low intervention. The couple, who have a deep connection with nature, are creating a range of lovely natural wines, of which this is certainly one.

As you might expect from a blend of so many varieties, it would be hard to single out specific ones. Overall, I have the impression of raspberries with a grapefruit and lime acidity. I was also getting lingonberry, but in my defence, I did have a jar of Ikea’s lingonberry jam on the go at the time of drinking (I’m a secret fan, even more so of their cloudberry, when trying to eke out the home-made stuff).

I think it’s a gorgeous, sensuous, wine…even if I am biased. £31 from Communiqué Wines (Stockbridge, Edinburgh), imported by Roland Wines.

Veronnet 2020, Domaine Corentin Houillon (Savoie, France)

Corentin Houillon is a member of the family famous for a couple of estates in the Jura. He worked for Stéphane Tissot up there, and also for Dominique Derain, before making wine in his wife’s native Switzerland. He now farms five hectares at Chautagne, on glacial terrain surrounded by forest. 2020 is only his second vintage here, at Serrièes-en-Chautagne (too recent to appear in Wink Lorch’s seminal Wines of the French Alps). Chautagne is located north of the Lac du Bourget and just south of the once well-known sparkling wine enclave of Seyssel.

“Veronnet” is Gamay, or alternatively Mondeuse depending on whose description you read, fermented for 21 days, 40% as whole berries. It’s a natural wine with no added sulphur. The bouquet is gently fruity, though the palate has a touch of voluptuousness, balanced by a little grippiness and texture. It is both an exciting wine and maybe a little unique for Gamay too (I have to admit, it does speak Mondeuse to me, and usually Gamay is not a difficult grape variety to identify). I’ve not said a lot about it, but it’s the wine’s simplicity that is key to its attraction for me. Corentin Houillon, famous family name or not, is clearly a vigneron to watch.

Purchased directly from importer, Newcomer Wines, this retails for £35. If you definitively know what it is made from, please do tell us.

Saumur Blanc “Les Salles Martin” 2018, Antoine Sanzay (Loire, France)

Antoine joined this six-generation Saumur estate in 1999, and has eleven hectares of vines at Varrains, just two varieties: Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc. It was previously a typical farm of polyculture, where grape growing was just one element of the ecosystem. Those grapes went to the local co-op.

Antoine began through experimentation, his father and grandfather both having passed away when he was a mere ten years old. That said, those who mentored him as a young man read like Loire royalty (they include Guy Bossard, Bernard Baudry and the Foucault brothers). Now he is established as one of the best producers in Saumur/Saumur Champigny, and his wines have the advantage of not costing the prices asked by some other well-known domaines in the region.

Les Salles Martin is a Chenin Blanc from a single site of this name, 1.16 ha on limestone. The vines are quite young after replanting, maybe seven years old. Ageing is fairly traditional, in a mix of older barrique and foudre, for 18 months on lees. Antoine follows organic practices and his wines are very much low intervention.

The colour is a burnished pale gold with legs galore down the sides of the glass (abv here is 14%). The bouquet is like a field of hay with hints of ripe apple, the palate is rich, almost oily, but the balance is perfect. There’s great tension provided by good acids. The result is a steeliness and characteristics I’ve seen described by others as “deep minerality” and “flinty”. It’s a lovely, typical, Chenin. Classy!

£34 from The Solent Cellar. It seems to be out of stock at the moment, but this is a retailer with a new-found interest in the Loire so I hope they get more in. The importer is Carte Blanche Wines.

Prince des Vignes 2019, Christian Guyot (Geneva, Switzerland)

I’m always keen to drink Swiss wine, largely because it is either so hard to find in the UK, or so expensive when I do have access to it. That is not really the fault of those intrepid importers, like Alpine Wines, who do try to infiltrate the British market, one which I would once have said shows a cultural preference for cheap wine, but now will probably admit that most people just can’t afford them.

Christian Guyot is based at Bernex, one of the wine villages, along with Dardagny and Satigny, which are located to the west of the city of Geneva, on the Rhône’s left bank. He’s been farming here since 2008 and makes a dozen cuvées from a range of international varieties alongside new PIWIs (modern hybrids designed to combat various diseases or temperatures).

One of the PIWI varieties Christian has planted is Divico, of interest to me because it is one of the vines I’m giving a rather optimistic “go” up here in sunny Scotland. In some ways sadly, this wine is not made from Divico, largely because I’m yet to taste a wine made from this variety. This is in fact a varietal Merlot, from a single parcel at Bernex. It is aged on lees in a mix of 450- and 500-litre oak for 22 months, after an initial four-day cold soak and eight days in small vats. Long ageing in oak appears to be a thing at this estate.

At almost six years the wine is still fairly structured, but also expressive with plenty of concentrated darker fruits. It is not untypical of a wine made from low yields of fruit, unfiltered and knocking out 14% abv. It is impressive in what one used to call a “modern” way, once, where the power has not yet been dialled back. Nevertheless, impressive it is, and enjoyable too, especially with food. Definitely one for a juicy steak. I liked it. I liked the heavy bottle less.

This bottle was a gift, the second bottle out of the six which flew in from Geneva in April. There you might pay around 30CHF (£27), which only goes to show that Swiss wine prices in the UK are in good part the fault of our wine duty and tax regime. If a good range of Swiss wines were available here for £30 it might be a game changer. More usually, prices for all but generic Chasselas start at £40-£50 and climb swiftly upwards.

Posted in Artisan Wines, Austrian Wine, Loire, Natural Wine, Nepal, Neusiedlersee, Rioja, Savoie Wine, Spanish Wine, Swiss Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Merchants | Tagged #theglouthatbindsus, Alex & Maria Koppitsch Neusiedl am See, Antoine Sanzay Varrains Saumur, Bodega Amaren, Burgenland Wine, Chautagne Wine, Christian Guyot Bernex Geneva, Corentin Houillon Veronnet 2020, Geneva Wines, Koppitsch Abendrot 2022 Burgenland, Koshu (Nepal), Loire Chenin Blanc, Loire Wine, Luis Cañas family of wines, Nepalese Wine, Pataleban Rose Koshu 2024, Pataleban Vineyard Resort, Pataleban Vineyard Winery Nepal, Prince des Vignes 2019 Christian Guyot, Recent Wines May 2025 (Pt 1), Rioja Alavesa, Rioja Blanco, Saumur Blanc Les Salles Martin 2018, Savoie Natural Wine, Swiss Wine | Leave a comment

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