David Crossley's Wide World of Wine

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.

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

The Sourcing Table – A Source of Excitement in South London

Posted on 21/05/2025 by dccrossley

When I lived in London Peckham Rye was not somewhere I could locate swiftly. That may have reflected the unintended prejudices of someone bound firmly north of the river (if you count the South Bank Centre as an exception), but then again, I’m not sure it was considered somewhere to aspire to live back then. Nor, especially, was Battersea for that matter, but times change. I did venture south to see the Eagles play once, but that’s another story.

I was aware maybe a decade or so ago that the joint-owner of a fashionable London wine shop moved down that way, and although he has since moved with his family to La France Profonde, his pioneer spirit was followed to Peckham by some fashionable restaurants, and around (it seems) 50% of the young people I know in the wine trade. It’s hardly surprising, as Bellenden Road, a five-minute walk from Peckham Rye station, itself a mere fifteen minute/three-stop train ride from Blackfriars, is full of tasteful shops and, in the sunshine, a very nice vibe.

Bellenden Road is where you will find The Sourcing Table, a wine shop and bar offering wine by the glass and a small plates menu as well. The roots of this project lay in an idea by Ben Henshaw as to the kind of wine shop he’d like to see. Ben founded importer Indigo Wine in 2003. Indigo has grown in twenty-odd years to become one of the UK’s most awarded, and indeed innovative, importers. Ben also launched Mother Rock in 2015, a wine project with Johan Meyer in Swartland, South Africa. Indigo imports a wonderful range, but if I were to highlight one country, they have really got under the skin of Spain. Of the wines I left The Sourcing Table with last week, three out of four were Spanish.

Ben is also joined at The Sourcing Table by some behind the scenes names familiar to those of us in the world of wine. These include director Will Burgess, a former classical musician who has since become something of a wine entrepreneur; Paz Levinson (now head executive sommelier at Groupe PIC in Paris); Rajat Parr (who needs no introduction to many readers but is undoubtedly one of California’s most innovative winemakers); and Dr Jamie Goode, whose always perceptive wine writing is matched by his popularity as one of the most entertaining and best speakers on the wine circuit. That’s a list of finely tuned palates and deep, deep knowledge.

The Sourcing Table is a perfect example of why I keep telling people about the pleasures of browsing. Browsing, for me, is one of my great passions. I mean that as much for record stores and bookshops as for wine shops. Something always jumps out from the shelf, as indeed a South African white wine did for me on my trip here. I know this is a time when we all sit at a screen and order online, just as I placed an order from my favourite coffee roasters this morning before I began typing. But a mx of browsing and a chat with the staff (Henry in this case), is definitely recommended.

The shelves are brimming with bottles you won’t easily find elsewhere. The wines Indigo imports feature prominently, but this isn’t a mere Indigo Wines showroom, so there’s plenty on offer from all over the wine world. I was especially pleased to grab a bottle of Bodegas Zárate winemaker Eulogio Pomares’s collaboration with Jamie Goode, Zalto importer Daniel Primack and Ben Henshaw. I’d come across the amazing “Sal da Terra” Albariño a number of times since its original release at tastings, but had never managed to buy a bottle. It’s a wine that you could call a benchmark for salinity, and one that Jancis Robinson says (to paraphrase) made her fall in love with this underrated Galician grape variety again.

There’s another such collab by the same miscreants which you may find on the shelf (and another Indigo line), called Salt Éire. The wine hails from that wonderful maker of English wine, Dermot Sugrue and the name is a nod towards his Irish heritage. It’s a still wine, a multi-vintage, solera-aged Chardonnay no less. I seem to leave a bottle behind, so to speak, every time I visit a wine shop. On this occasion I was limited not only by what I could lug back to Fleet Street, but what would fit inside my suitcase for the journey north as well. I deeply regret I did not grab that bottle. It has been giving me nightmares ever since.

Salt Éire hiding next to some Black Book cuvées

There are so many other tasty offerings from Spain on the shelves. As with the wines of the Canary Isles, we are beginning to see a wider offering from the Balearics, and those of Soca-Rel are well worth exploring. The winery and vineyards are on the island of Mallorca, between Concell and Binissalem. If you are used to some of the more alcoholic wines from the island, Soca-Rel’s may surprise you with more subtle flavours more in keeping with today’s taste, especially for lighter reds.

I can’t not mention, as they say, one producer from an excellent range of Rioja’s which might have gone under my radar were it not for a recent Rioja piece in Decanter Magazine. That is Bodegas las Orcas.

Raimundo Abando is a former athlete and third generation winemaker at his family bodega which dates back to 1900 in Rioja Alavesa. He grows Tempranillo and a little Graciano for the reds and Viura for his Rioja Blanco, which is an old vine cuvée (80-y-o vines) aged in oak.

That is just a paltry few wines from The Sourcing Table’s 350-or-so bottles on the shelves. If I had the means, both physical and financial, I could have walked out with at the very least sixty exciting bottles, which is not something I can say for every wine shop, even some good ones.

One thing that is clear about this store is the importance placed on staff knowledge. I mentioned Henry earlier and he’s the shop manager. Friendly, very clued-up but not at all in your face is what you want when you go wine shopping, and Henry has this down to a tee. In some shops its all about what they want to sell you. They don’t listen. Not the case at all here.

Far right pic, a pair from Krasna Hora (Czechia) so new that I hadn’t seen them before

On the food front, you can get what they call “Bar Snacks”. Cheeses (from Mons), charcuterie, rillettes, paté, tinned fish, Gordal olives and almonds all look top quality, and the crisps are Torres, of course (four flavour options, more than most). About twenty wines are listed by the glass, along with beers, cider and soft drinks, but there’s also a nice Coravin list on the blackboard (see photo) which, on my visit, included Evening Land Chardonnay, Andreas Tscheppe Gelber Muskateller, Château St-Anne Bandol Rosé and La Stoppa’s Barbera blend. The wealthy Peckhamites can also grab a £30/glass Clos Erasmus Priorat, but that’s a wee bit over budget for my purse.

As a bar this is a great community asset, somewhere for a tasty morsel and a chance to sample a wonderful wine by the glass. But it’s located in a community with many fine places to grab a drink and food. Just walking out of Peckham Rye station you pass Levan, with its empty unicorns lining its windows. As a wine shop, however, The Sourcing Table stands out as a rare beast in London. In a city stocked to the brim with wine shops all challenging for your love, a few stand out as exceptional. The Sourcing Table is one of these. Not so much worth a detour as worth a special journey. Do pay them a visit.

As nearly always on wideworldofwine.co no form of remuneration was received for this review.

The Sourcing Table is at 184 Bellenden Road, London SE15 4BW.

Opening hours are:

Mon-Weds 1pm-9pm

Thu,Fri 1pm-10pm

Sat 11am-10pm

Sun 11-5

Posted in Artisan Wines, Natural Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Bars, Wine Merchants, Wine Shops | Tagged Ben Henshaw Indigo Wine, Best London Wine Shops, Bodegas las Orcas Rioja Alavesa, Indigo Wine, London Wine Shop and Bar, Sal da Terra Albariño, Soca-Rel Mallorca, Spanish Wines, Sugrue Salt Éire collab, The Sourcing Table Peckham Rye, Wine | 2 Comments

Bordeaux by Georgie Hindle – The Smart Traveller’s Wine Guide (Book Review)

Posted on 16/05/2025 by dccrossley

Having read and thoroughly enjoyed Fintan Kerr’s Rioja Guide in the Academie du Vin Library’s The Smart Traveller’s Wine Guide series (see review, 31 March 2025), I wanted to explore these handy little guides further. Although four further titles are coming soon, I think the only other one so far released is Bordeaux by Georgie Hindle.

This guide is perhaps a different proposition to that for Rioja. Bordeaux is a vast region, not that Rioja is small, but it produces a very large range of different wines. So many that perhaps Bordeaux is really a group of different wine regions, tied together by similar grape varieties and to a degree a shared history. Most of the wines produced there, in volume terms, are fairly ordinary, everyday bottles, and many trade on the fame of the relatively smaller number of estates that are without question among the most famous wine labels in the world.

The difficulty for anyone writing a guide which is intended for the traveller is to negotiate a path between, one the one hand, a focus on the region’s “finest” wines and properties, which are mega-expensive, exclusive and rarely easily accessible to mere mortals, but doubtless of interest to us all, and on the other hand, covering that which is affordable and accessible, but which will likely be less glamorous and exciting. It’s a question of balance and insight.

Of course, as a travel guide, we also have to read about restaurants, bars and accommodation. This is at least as important as visiting wine châteaux for most visitors. The options are endless in a city like Bordeaux and its surrounding vineyards, so the guide also needs to cover all of this and more. Saint-Emilion has always provided a lure for tourists, but the wider region’s vineyards, except perhaps as one drives much further north of Bordeaux, within the Médoc, are no longer the desert they once were when it comes to wining, dining and then sleeping it off.

Georgie Hindle has been writing about wine for around fourteen years, starting out on Decanter’s online presence, and she is now Bordeaux Correspondent for Decanter Magazine, as well as being editor of Decanter Premium. She lives in Bordeaux, so she is well placed for inside track knowledge (although a team of five others assisted in preparing the listings in the later sections of the book).

As I intimated earlier, the first part of the guide outlines the history, the wine classifications and en primeur system, geography, grapes and reading a label. This takes up around eighty pages, leaving a further 100 pages, near enough, for the core of the book: visiting Bordeaux and its region(s). Here, in this first part, the author faces, well, more than a century of writing on this very subject.

Overall, Georgie does a pretty decent job of giving us a précis of all the relevant information we need under these headings. I’m not going to make any specific criticisms, because it’s a difficult job she had, and I’m sure that whilst more space would have allowed for greater explanation, and indeed nuance in places, no reader of this “guide” would want this part of the book to take up more space than necessary. Indeed, I’m guessing there was a brief to follow because this first section is exactly as long as the corresponding one in the Rioja Guide.

I only make one comment, regarding an omission. Readers may see the (in my opinion) misleading designation “Saint-Emilion Grand Cru” on wine labels. These wines are, of course, not “classified” properties, as are the Grands Crus Classés etc of 1955 (the year Saint-Emilion gained its own 1855 lookalike), but merely get to append the designation “Grand Cru” for being in their specific locations and abiding by certain appellation rules. So, Saint-Emilion Grand Cru is not really a designation of quality as the 1955 Classification of Saint-Emilion pertains to be.

It confused me back in the mid-1980s when I first visited Saint-Emilion in my mid-twenties, and saw all those temptingly affordable pretend Grand Cru wines. I’m sure it confuses newcomers no less today. Unless they abolished it without me noticing. That would be a capital idea. An explanation would perhaps have been useful for consumers, but I’m sure its omission was for a reason.

For sure, what we do get is an up-to-date description of the region’s designations among the various classifications, 1855 onwards. This is most useful with all the changes, resignations, and litigation etc of the past decade or so, thinking specifically of super-litigious Saint-Emilion, and the ever-confusing array of different Cru Bourgeois designations. So contentious have many of these classifications become that it is hard to keep on top of where various châteaux stand outside of the (very nearly, see para below) set-in-stone 1855. If we don’t know which 1855 châteaux are punching well above their weight, the author of this guide will enlighten us.

Mind you, I did laugh on the “How to read a Bordeaux label” pages. It says “…note that Mouton [sic] does not add Grand Cru Classé en 1855 to make clear it’s a First Growth. Anyone picking up a bottle of Mouton should be expected to understand its rank”. I think it omits those words because it wasn’t classified as First Growth at all in 1855, and had to wait until 1973 to join that club, a matter which has not been forgiven by the relevant branch of the Rothschild family, perhaps?

What’s perhaps the most useful part of this small book follows, the actual guide to visiting Bordeaux and the towns and villages within the wider Bordeaux appellations. We get pages devoted to châteaux tours and tastings, châteaux restaurants (perhaps the biggest addition to wine tourism here in the last twenty years), and a meaty selection of restaurants, bistros and bars in Bordeaux and elsewhere. There are also five Bordeaux wine shops listed, very useful because buying wine at the châteaux themselves is only possible in limited cases.

Saint Emilion gets its own coverage, quite rightly. In a busy town so full of tourists, it is useful to get some recommendations from those who live in the region. In fact, as with the Rioja Guide, there are winemaker recommendations for restaurants dispersed through the text. These do tend to be more towards the top end, when it comes to price, but two separate winemakers recommend Le Saint-Julien, in (guess!) Saint-Julien. It would also appear on my list of restaurant recommendations. Good, traditional, regional food and a good wine list, unless you need to go (very) large. Not very expensive either, relatively speaking.

Another recommendation I concur with is the bistro in the village of Bages, Café Lavinal. In fact, a perfect Pauillac morning would be a visit/tasting at Châteaux Lynch-Bages (one of the best visits available in the Haut-Médoc), popping out via the back door onto the square at Bages to visit the Bages Boutique (maybe consider a bottle of the rarely encountered Lynch-Bages Blanc off the shelf) and then over to the café for lunch.

It might surprise many that it is now possible to stay in guest accommodation in a number of châteaux. Pichon-Baron is not one of those, unless by invitation, but having been privileged to stay in that architectural wonder myself (with a bedroom directly above the famous staircase to the front door), I can say that such an experience is one not to be missed if you can stretch to such accommodation, which will never be inexpensive.

I will also draw attention to Pessac-Léognan and the wider Graves, rightly described on many occasions in this guide in a way that shows what an attractive sub-region it is. Definitely a part of Bordeaux that can get overlooked, but not only is the scenery pleasant, so are the wines, which tend to offer some of the best value in Bordeaux, even arguably it the property includes Haut-Brion in its name, good value existing at all levels of quality.

The problem with Bordeaux, as I stated in my intro, is that the focus is so often on the extraordinarily expensive, not just for wines but also for accommodation and dining. To a degree this guide does have its focus on glamour, but between the Michelin stars you will discover some of the most interesting places to eat and drink. We are also given five wine shop recommendations, among the many which pack this city. They provide an opportunity for tourists who can’t, or don’t have time to, visit the vineyards to buy a bottle or two.

I would say that perhaps if one thing is underplayed, though it isn’t ignored, it is the significant move finally being made in the direction of organic, biodynamic, and “natural” winemaking in wider Bordeaux.

Many UK wine merchants are now working with estates which are looking at sustainable and regenerative, low-intervention viticulture, some even at the highest level of the heirarchy, though many more at properties we might call “petits châteaux”, along with a number of small artisan producers. This movement is increasingly reflected in the city itself. The bar/shop “Au Bon Jaja” (usually known as just “Jaja”) gets a couple of mentions, and they tend to specialise in low intervention wines.

The wine shop Feral Art & Vin in the old part of the city does not get a mention in the relevant section of this guide, though it does boast a number of winemakers (some from the top châteaux) and top chefs as customers for its range of only natural wines, sourced from Bordeaux, wider France and some parts of Europe. Its opening hours are currently limited (check online), but I can’t recommend Feral more highly if natural wine is your thing. It’s pretty unique in Bordeaux. Feral is at 22 rue Buhan, close to the Grosse Cloche.

I think its time to summarise. Georgie Hindle does a good job of summarising the wines, terroir and appellations of Bordeaux in a book and format that is not the place for a lengthy exposition. In fact, she quotes Jane Anson a number of times. Jane is a Contributing Editor to Decanter, and like Georgie, lives in Bordeaux. Her Inside Bordeaux, published by Berry Brothers & Rudd in 2020, is a good recent book on Bordeaux if you need more depth on the wine.

The Guide itself, to both the city and the vineyards, is the really useful part of the book. It is geared to wine lovers and written by someone with both knowledge and passion for the wines and the places. Although much of this part of the book describes, albeit alluringly, places I would not be able to stay at and dine at myself (on account of cost), there is enough here that is relevant to me to make it definitely worth tucking my copy in my rucksack. Especially because it is small, light and inexpensive.

Reading it at home, it definitely made me want to visit Bordeaux again, ironic because we were planning to visit this year, but now we shall be visiting Switzerland instead. Whether the forthcoming Smart Traveller’s Wine Guide to Switzerland will be published before I go, I’m not sure. It also made me want to drink more Bordeaux, though my stocks of mature, classified, Grands Vins has dwindled over the past few years and they are not likely to be replaced at current market prices.

But as this guide explains, there are good, affordable, wines there, sitting somewhere between the famous names and the sea of wine filling the shelves of supermarkets, wine that perhaps trades on the name “Bordeaux” whilst being made by methods a long way from those made by the meticulous top châteaux.

Bordeaux, in the wider sense, does have something for everyone, for both the super-rich collector types and for ordinary wine lovers. I assume my readers fall mostly into that latter category. Bordeaux for the likes of you and me does seem to be making a comeback, and this is often on the back of a realisation by the once very private, stand-offish, occasionally snooty, proprietors that in the modern wine world, wine tourism is part and parcel of the sales pitch. Wine tourism is a feel-good form of marketing that gets a wine region noticed and talked about.

In reality, with a revitalised city at its heart, and finally plenty of options for experiencing not just the wines in-situ, but also the wider concept of “Bordeaux” (I have still never visited the Cité du Vin wine museum though), perhaps for the world’s most famous wine region, now may be just the right time to visit. This guide is not perfect. I think the main reason is the impossibility of writing something both concise and at the same time comprehensive on such a vast and varied wine region, with a multitude of wines and terroirs, which are so famous worldwide that the exclusivity exhibited there is bound to dominate.

But Georgie Hindle has, with the help of her contributors, written a really useful guide to enjoying anything from a long weekend to a more extended visit. For myself, I would not fly to Bordeaux without it. You only need to discover a couple of bars and restaurants, a good wine shop and a couple of châteaux that will give you a tour and tasting and this inexpensive book will have paid for itself.

I think many of us who, for a while, disputed the relevance to us of what seemed like a region of expensive and exclusive wines and wine experiences, might be persuaded by this little book that things are changing. The runes have been read by many estates wishing to widen their customer base and to follow the lead of Napa and many other wine tourism destinations.

Bordeaux, by Georgie Hindle, is published by the Academie du Vin Library as part of the new Smart Traveller’s Wine Guide series. It can be purchased via their web site, http://www.academieduvinlibrary.com , for £12.99, or ordered from good independent book shops. As Lettie Teague of The Wall Street Journal says, it is “packed tight with practical advice and informed opinion”. Definitely worth getting a copy, even if you are not planning an imminent visit.

Posted in Bordeaux Wine, Fine Wine, Restaurants, Wine, Wine Books, Wine Tourism, Wine Travel, Wine Writing | Tagged Académie du Vin Library, Bars and Dining in Bordeaux, Bordeaux by Georgie Hindle (Book Review), Bordeaux Châteaux Restaurants, Bordeaux Dining, Bordeaux Tourism, Bordeaux Travel Guide, Bordeaux Wine Shops, Châteaux Visits Bordeaux Region, Eating in Saint-Emilion, Eating Out in Bordeaux, Georgie Hindle Author, The Smart Traveller's Wine Guides, Visiting Bordeaux, Visiting Saint-Emilion | 2 Comments

Recent Wines April 2025 (Part 3) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 09/05/2025 by dccrossley

The opening wine from this third and final part of the bumper April edition of Recent Wines (what we drink at home) is a well-aged Burgundy Grand Cru. You might think it’s downhill all the way after that but not a bit of it. All of the five bottles which follow it are both really good, and perhaps in some ways even more interesting. They came from Burgenland, Penedès (a different producer to that in Part 2, and Alt, not Baix), Geneva in Switzerland, Moravia (Czechia, that even older bottle I promised) and Arbois. If I had to choose a favourite, something I try to avoid, it would be hard to better the last wine of the whole month. I always profess to love sharing great wine but I am not sorry to have been able to savour that one over two nights.

Clos de Vougeot Grand Cru 1999, Domaine François Lamarche (Burgundy, France)

This is one of the benchmark domaines on the Côte de Nuits, now run (since 2019) by François Lamarche’s daughter, Nicole, but this 1999 vintage was made under the eye of François. The Clos itself is a high-walled ex-monastic vineyard totalling a substantial 50-hectares. Wines from this GC can be variable in the least, and the Burgundy mantra “grower, grower, grower” is never more important than when purchasing wines from this patch of Côte d’Or dirt.

This is a bottle I’ve cellared since purchase soon after release. As a summary I’d say it is good, certainly impressive, but not among the finest Red Burgundy I’ve drunk, but that said, it is always a joy and a privilege to drink old Burgundy. As with old Bordeaux, my stocks are dwindling and they are not going to get replenished at Grand Cru level.

This was actually not as mature as I’d expected. It opened quite closed, with savoury notes to the fore. As it developed in the glass the fruit comes into view, and nice fruit it is, gentle and soft. Aromas of Marmite and cep grow too. So, the bottle delivered more than I’d hoped, but it took a little time. There are those who will be able to explain this wine to me, the kind of folks I used to lunch with at The Ledbury and La Trompette, including Burgundy’s finest buyer, Jasper Morris. But they weren’t there to help us. It remained an enigma, to a degree, but it was nice to be reminded of flavours that were once somewhat more frequently experienced.

This bottle came from Berry Brothers, I think. You could still find a bottle today but you’d pay £100+ at auction.

Kalkundkiesel Weiss 2022, Claus Preisinger (Burgenland, Austria)

Not that I encourage people to go and visit winemakers, taking precious time and demanding free tastings, but it has to be said that the outside deck on the first floor of Claus Preisinger’s modern winery, looking down over Gols towards the reed beds and the shallow water of the Neusiedlersee, has to be one of the more pleasant places to enjoy a bottle of crisp and textured white wine. Your glasses will likely be resting on Claus’s cool surf board table, and your gaze will remind you of why this is one of the wine world’s most attractive places.

Claus started his domaine aged only twenty, and twenty years later he has been successful enough to expand to a significant 20-hectares. This includes vines in Gols, and also in Purbach, Weiden and Mönchhof, all around the top side of the lake.

Kalkundkiesel (“chalk and pebble”) Weiss is a blend of Pinot Blanc (Weissburgunder), Grüner Veltliner, Welschriesling and Muscat. The grapes spent four days on skins. As a result, the wine is zesty and “mineral”. Ageing was in barrel, eight months on lees, giving a texture that gently exfoliates the tongue, emphasis on gently, though. You get pristine fruit in a zippy white wine that, despite just 11% abv, lacks nothing in body. Nowadays this is one of Claus’s cheaper white wine cuvées, but it’s great value, a superb wine, from a guy who I’ve always considered a genius.

The importer is Newcomer Wines, from whom I purchased it online (£33). I have fond memories of my first visit to Newcomer, then in Shoreditch Box Park. I bought three bottles, one being a Preisinger Zweigelt, the wine that had led me to Newcomer, who have remained one of my absolute favourite importers. My passion for a whole raft of Austrian wines stems from Peter and his team.

Sus Scrofa 2022, Celler Pardas (Penedès, Spain)

Like the old 171 bus I used to get to work in London, wines from Penedès seem to come, after an inordinate wait, in pairs. Whilst I have been drinking the wines of Entre Vinyes (see Part 2) several times over the past twelve months, it is a very long time since I’ve had a wine from Pardas. Certainly, pre-Covid. Finding this was simply down to my preferred shopping method, browsing in-store.

Ramón Perera and Jordi Arnan established Celler Pardas when they bought the Can Comas estate in Alt Penedès in 1996, but they didn’t bottle their own wines until 2004. The whole estate is sixty hectares, but much is forest, scrub and pasture. The name of this cuvée, Sus Scrofa, comes from the Latin for wild boar, which are, as you can imagine, prevalent here.

Sus Scrofa is an entry level red, but quite possibly one of the most tasty entry level wines you’ll find this summer. The grape variety is one that I like a lot and always have: Sumoll. It is grown here on clay and limestone soils at between 200-to-300 masl. This natural wine is fermented and aged for just three months in concrete tanks.

You can talk about the bitter cherry fruit, the nice bit of grip etc, but it all boils down to this being one beautiful, vibrant, “smashable” red, easy to drink in the sunny weather we’ve been having, preferably cellar-cool. We drank this on Easter Sunday when others were maybe pulling out some more “serious” wines, but we loved it. It comes very highly recommended indeed, because it will only set you back £21, from Communiqué Wines (Edinburgh). Imported by those finger-on-the-pulse Spanish experts at Indigo Wines.

Pinot Gris 2020, Domaine de la Devinière (Geneva, Switzerland)

Willy and Camille Cretigny cultivate 13 hectares of vines at Satigny, one of the main villages in the Geneva Appellation, situated on the Rhône’s Rive Droite, to the west of the city. Those who know Swiss wines may be less familiar with those from Geneva than from better-known appellations, such as Valais and Vaud. However, these gently rolling hills make some excellent wines, which at least within Switzerland are becoming more appreciated, although the World Atlas of Wine (8^th edn) now acknowledges this, pointing out that these vineyards “have changed more than any in Switzerland in recent years”.

It might also be worth pointing out that although you won’t perhaps have heard of Satigny, it is actually the largest single wine commune in the country. The village is also home to the Geneva co-operative, which is a good place to look for wines at the (relative) value end of the region’s output.

The domaine grows a total of eighteen grape varieties, using organic and sustainable viticulture. They’ve been members of BioSuisse, Switzerland’s main organisation for organic certification since 1995. In 2024 they were named “Rookie de L’Année” in Gault & Millau’s Guide Suisse.

Pinot Gris is a variety that seems to do well this side of Geneva. This one is aged in oak, though as it isn’t overtly oaky, it may well be used wood. It certainly has typicity, being very obviously that variety. It has a richness, smooth fruit (pears and quince), but a very savoury finish. Nice length, dry, it’s a lovely wine. It tastes “modern”. It reminded me a little of some of the nicer artisan PG I’ve drunk in Australia as much as any from Europe.

This was brought from Switzerland in a suitcase, a kind gift (with five other bottles) from friends in Geneva when they visited last month. Pretty much your only hope of finding Geneva wine in the UK is via Swiss specialist, Alpine Wines. If you do visit Geneva, the vineyards here make an attractive day out with some nice walks among the vines. Dardagny, the other main Rive Droite village, is my favourite. Domaine des Hutins, based there, is another good choice to visit (best to telephone for an appointment).

Frankovka 2015, Dva Duby (Moravia, Czechia)

In Part Two I promised to add an even older Moravian Wine to the two I profiled there. This wine has been aged for a decade, and it really shows how magnificent these Czech natural wines can be. Jiří Sebela is the man behind Dva Duby, making wine at Dolní Kounice in the hills of Southern Moravia.

This is an old vine cuvée, the vines being over sixty years of age. The vines sit over grandiorite, a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock similar to granite, but with more plagioclase feldspar than orthoclase feldspar present. I know my emphasis on the geology might be misplaced, even tedious, but does not grandiorite sound really cool? If you ever find a photomicrograph of grandiorite you may get some idea of my fascination with geology.

If you can’t visit Czechia (or Slovakia) to see some, you may also spot an outcrop of granodiorite near the lighthouse in the Bay of Roses, where the Catalonian Pyrenees fall into the sea (and you can then visit the oldest barrel-vaulted church remaining in Europe, high on a hill above, Sant Pere de Roda/Rodes).

Back to Moravia…this Frankovka, or Blaufrankisch as it is perhaps better known in its Austrian iteration, is aged in a mix of oak and acacia. Maybe you are getting used to this split between barrels in Moravia, where acacia is very popular. All of the Dva Duby wines are natural wines. This is a wine smelling of intense red fruits, mostly red cherries. At ten years old, however, it has taken on a paler colour than any bottle of this wine I’ve had previously, a pale brick red. With wild mushroom, truffle, and autumnal notes, it is sedate.

It makes a strong impression. It has elements somewhere between aged Pinot Noir and, perhaps even more so, aged Syrah, more than what we might expect from a younger Blaufrankisch. It is a genuinely gorgeous wine, and very fine, yet if you buy this on release it will only cost you a little over £30. How many people here in the UK would think to age it a decade? Something to ponder. The importer is Basket Press Wines.

Savagnin Amphore 2016, Stéphane & Bénédicte (Domaine A&M) Tissot (Jura, France)

Domaine A&M Tissot was far from the first Jura producer who I bought wine from when we began visiting Arbois in the later 1980s, but I was beginning to get to know the wines of André and Mireille in the mid-1990s when their son, Stéphane, returned from overseas to get stuck in. In three decades he has transformed a good domaine into a great one.

For me, it is one of the finest in France, though it pains me that UK Jura lovers tend to appreciate some of the more fashionable names. This is surely because Stéphane, aided by his wife, Bénédicte, farms 50 hectares. Nevertheless, the multitude of innovative wines he makes are all biodynamic, natural wines (around 25-30% receive no added sulphur) which range from merely excellent to genuinely world class.

Mireille Tissot passed away in 2023. She was a lovely, warm, lady, though it is very many years since I last saw her. At first, Stéphane’s parents were somewhat nonplussed with what he was doing at what was already the clear leader of all the various Tissot domaines around Arbois. It was a kind of mix of perfectionism and rampant experimentation. We had his sensational hors classification sweet wines, ignoring appellation rules where they impeded quality and excitement. Then some very adventurous manipulations of Crémant du Jura. Later came some terroir-specific Vin Jaune, and a host of different Chardonnays.

Perhaps his greatest innovation was the introduction of amphorae, which were very rare in France back then. A line of them was the first thing you noticed on approaching the winery, down to the left side of the church in Montigny-les-Arsures. It was an approach we most often made on foot after one of my favourite vineyard walks, which also happens to pass beneath the famous 8-ha vineyard Stéphane revived below the Tour de Curon, from which he makes a genuine “Grand Cru” of a Chardonnay.

Both Savagnin and Trousseau are made in Amphora versions. The Savagnin sees five months in these clay vessels on full skins, without the addition of sulphur at any stage. This 2016 was opened perhaps a year before I intended, but it still delivered as much as I wanted. The key for this kind of wine is not to be tempted to open it too soon. It takes time to achieve perfect balance.

The colour is full-on orange, the nose is unmistakably marmalade. Why do so many orange wines smell of oranges in some way? The palate is dry, this accentuated by the texture, but there’s smooth fruit and it doesn’t taste tannic or dried-out. It has rounded-out nicely and is long and impressive, yet it is also lip-smackingly delicious as well. That’s not always the case with skin-fermented white varieties.

I suggested in my intro that this was my Wine of the Month, the best of the eighteen wines presented here over April’s three parts. That’s something I usually refrain from saying until my Review of the Year around Christmastime. It really was a pleasure to be able to enjoy it over two nights. It’s worth noting that the alcohol sits quite low, at 12%. Lower than one might expect. It is well-judged for a wine so in balance.

I purchased this at the domaine’s shop on the Place de la Liberté in Arbois. I’m not sure what a bottle will cost from Arbois today, but Berry Brothers in the UK will sell you a 2020 for £73. Over my budget, but very tempting as I could easily keep that for another five years, tucked away. Berry Bros say that the 2020 is “youthful”, so there you go.

Posted in Arbois, Artisan Wines, Austrian Wine, Burgundy, Czech Wine, Natural Wine, Spanish Wine, Swiss Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies | Tagged #theglouthatbindsus, Arbois Savagnin in Amphora, Burgenland Natural Wine, Celler Pardas Alt Penedès, Claus Preisinger Gols, Clos de Vougeot 1999 Lamarche, Czech Natural Wine Can Age, Devinière Pinot Gris 2020 Geneva, Domaine A&M Tissot Montigny-les-Arsures, Domaine de la Devinière Satigny Geneva, Dva Duby Dolni Kounice Moravia, Dva Duby Frankovka 2015, Geneva Wine, Jura Orange Wine, Jura Wine, Moravian Wine, Pardas Sumoll, Pardas Sus Scrofa 2022, Preisinger Kalkundkiesel Weiss 2022, Recent Wines April 2025 (Pt 3), Stéphane & Bénédicte Tissot, Stéphane Tissot Savagnin Amphore 2016, Willy & Camille Cretigny Winemakers at Satigny | 2 Comments

Recent Wines April 2025 (Part 2) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 05/05/2025 by dccrossley

To run through what’s in store in Part Two (of three) of my wines drunk at home in April, we begin in Germany and continue with Jura, Penedès and Champagne. We finish up with two wines from Czechia (or Czech Republic, as many still call it in the UK). I know, two wines from the same region (Moravia) in the same article, that’s a little slack of me, no? Not a bit of it, they are both exceptional wines from older vintages (with a single, even older, bottle to follow next time).

Elbling 2021, Jonas Dostert (Mosel, Germany)

This is a wine which looks, on the face of it, quite simple, but with Jonas nothing is ever simple, or at least in that mildly negative sense. Jonas has been based, since 2018, at Nittel, on that unknown stretch of the Mosel southwest of Trier and the confluence with the Saar. His vines are on limestone here, not your usual Mosel slate (perhaps one of the reasons he makes such amazing Chardonnay).

Elbling is not a variety many outside of Germany will have tasted, perhaps, and there’s a lot of cheap and commercial Elbling in Germany. Here, it is treated with respect. Jonas makes natural wines aiming for freshness and low alcohol, yet wines with poise and tension. His mantra is that the more you do in the cellar the less you taste of the vineyard.

This Elbling is pale, crisp and appley, a very refreshing wine with a steely edge to it, but just 10.5% abv. I must add that it does have some weight to it. More than you’d expect taking what I’ve just said and the low alcohol into account. Just enough weight to give it a presence, something to ponder over and a dimension over and above that refreshment value. This may be because it was aged in wood, albeit used larger oak. That said, it still has a nice brittle quality, something akin to pressing on thin ice with deeper waters beneath.

So far, Newcomer Wines has just brought in this single wine, I think. They list it at £33, but as Jonas made only 861 bottles, it may not last for long. As a 2021, the acids have perhaps subsided a bit but it is still drinking really well. There are other wines available. My go-to merchant in France, Feral Art & Vin lists his blend of Elbling, Pinot Gris and Chardonnay (Karambolage), a Chardonnay/Elbling blend (Pure Dolomite), and from the new 2023 vintage, Chardonnay, and Elbling Alte Reben.

I’ve not tried that old vine Elbling but at least two people have recommended it highly. There is also a Pinot Noir but it’s out of stock, but the Crémant (he’s another German winemaker who uses French over German terms for his labelling) may be available. Really wish I had a lot more Dostert than I do.

Crémant du Jura Brut Nature NV, Domaine Pignier (Jura, France)

The three Pignier siblings who brought this Montaigu domaine (near Lons) to prominence are close to handing over to Antoine’s son, Thibault, the first of the next generation to commit himself to this highly regarded twelve-hectare domaine in the middle south of the region. I mention Thibault because he worked with Marie-Thérèse Chappaz whose biodynamic vineyards in the Swiss Valais are very special to me. The wines continue to be low intervention, natural, wines, following biodynamics too, with just a small sulphur addition before bottling.

The Crémant is an important wine here. According to Wink Lorch (Jura Wine Ten Years On, 2024), it forms 20% of production. This traditional method wine is mostly Chardonnay (85%) with Pinot Noir, all planted on chalky limestone. It spends 18 months on lees and is bottled with zero dosage.

The bouquet shouts freshness first, and the palate is crisp, but there is ripe appley fruit and a quality which I always hear described in France as nervosité (which maybe translates as nervousness or restlessness). It’s a certain kind of tension and it wakes you up. Left to warm in the glass it does develop and some autolytic character evolves. I’d say soft brioche. It hasn’t had years on lees but it still shows class. It’s why I grab a bottle when I see one. Especially as the price is usually in the low £30s, rare now for quality sparkling wine.

The importer is Raeburn Fine Wines. My bottle came from Smith & Gertrude (Portobello).

Macabeu Sotaterra “Oniríc” 2022, Entre Vinyes (Catalonia, Spain)

This is the third wine from Entre Vinyes I’ve found since I received a very strong recommendation for their wines from my mate Alan March. He really hit the nail on the head in that the Entre Vinyes wines are so good, but also so cheap, at least relatively speaking.

Maria and Pep’s story has been told before, but to be brief, they created this project in Baix Penedès’s Foix Natural Park in 2012. A holistic approach ties in the viticulture with nature and ecology, of which they have a deep appreciation. The landscape here is wild and, insofar as is possible, they want to keep it that way.

This is a skin contact wine, Macabeu fermented fourteen days on skins and then further aged on skins for nine months in amphorae buried in the vineyard. The colour is a gentle orange. With low alcohol (10.5%, like the Dostert) this has a delicacy both on the bouquet where it is both floral and fruity, and on the palate. There, you find a mix of citrus (lemon and orange) with some more tropical notes, but also an underlying texture and fresh acids.

It’s remarkable how the texture isn’t very assertive, nor very tannic, considering the length of time on skins. Indeed, this wine’s best attribute is that it is gentle, not aggressive. This is, by coincidence, another wine purchased from Smith & Gertrude, and it cost just £23.50. This time the importer is Modal Wines.

“Le Cotet” MV, Champagne Jacques Lassaigne (Champagne, France)

Emmanuel Lassaigne is the best-known winemaker in Montgueux, the small Champagne enclave close to Troyes. It’s technically in the Aube/Côte des Bar, though closer to the Côte des Blancs in its geology (chalk rather than the Aube’s more usual marls).

You know, it’s funny how relatively recently numerous little pockets of vines within the wider Champagne region, but outside of the well-known “Côtes”, have come to people’s attention. Perhaps this is why the part of Champagne we used to call simply “The Aube” is now known as the Côte des Bar, so that the Aube’s other pockets (as with similar outposts in the Marne) can have their own identity.

The generalisation made by classic wine writers is that the grapes grown on Montgueux’s more southerly south-facing chalk slopes ripen early, and for once they may be right because Emmanuel Lassaigne certainly makes wonderfully ripe and vinous Chardonnay from his small holdings.

That the fruit is excellent has always been a secret, and some larger houses further north wanted to keep it that way according to a story in Robert Walters’s excellent Bursting Bubbles (Quiller 2017). When asked by a visiting beer executive whether a certain famous label used Montgueux grapes they denied using any fruit from outside of the Marne, yet they were (and maybe still are) the biggest purchaser of fruit from this tiny region.

Mind you, Walters also quotes Charles Heidsieck’s famous chef de cave, Daniel Thibault, as saying “If there is a Montrachet in Champagne, it is in Montgueux that we will find it!”

All this is just to set the scene for a wine from a tiny 0.6-ha lieu-dit called Le Cotet, made by a man who would rank among my favourite four Growers in Champagne. The vines are Chardonnay, all around fifty years of age. The cuvée is always made as a multi-vintage blend of two main vintages, the older aged in oak, plus reserve wines from further much older vintages, added by a method called “remise en cercle”, whereby they have been kept not in tank or oak, but in bottle, on lees, before disgorging directly into the blend.

Bottled with zero dosage, the bouquet is all honeysuckle florality. The palate mixes straw, hazelnut and a creaminess which after six years in my cellar (despite three moves) is showing signs of lovely complexity. Effectively, this is a “natural wine”, and it does have real vinosity. One or two Growers make wine which are sometimes likened to White Burgundy, and perhaps this is one. It might appeal less to the purists, but how can you argue this isn’t special?

I bought this from Les Papilles in Paris. They have been great friends to Emmanuel Lassaigne. In fact, they used to (maybe still do) sell their own bottling from Lassaigne for their House Champagne. You can purchase Le Cotet for 84€ there right now (also available in magnum…now there’s a thought).

Divý Ryšák 2017, Richard Stávek (Moravia, Czechia)

Richard is one of the original “gang of however many” when it comes to the Moravian natural wine movement. He has a fifteen-hectare farm which has 4.5-ha planted to vines. My visit to tour his very wild and beautiful vineyards and to taste in his home, just two weeks before I moved to Scotland in 2022, was one of the most thought-provoking, enjoyable and illuminating visits I’ve been privileged to take part in.

Ryšák is the name for a “ginger” wine, a field blend of red and white varieties. Here, it’s a field blend of Blaufränkisch, Blauer Portugieser, Welschriesling, Grüner Veltliner and the hybrid Isabella, from a site on sandy loam, where the vines are all more than 45 years old. Farming is organic and winemaking is natural.

The grapes go into open-top fermenters for just two or three days and then the juice is transferred to used acacia wood for a year. The result is pretty amazing, partly on account of its age (2017!). It is still very fruity and juicy, still fresh, but there’s also a more serious side. A highly unique wine, certainly in style (a few Moravian natural winemakers keep it alive), and one from a unique winemaker as well. If he were in France Stávek would be making “unicorn” wines, highly sought after and sold on the grey market. I’m perhaps grateful he isn’t.

Basket Press Wines is, of course, the importer here and this was purchased direct, from their web site. When they restock (I can’t see any current vintage there), expect to pay £30-£40.

Chardonnay 2018, Otá Ševčik (Moravia, Czechia)

In some ways these Czech natural wines that I’m always banging on about can really come into their own with a bit of bottle age to them. The previous wine proved that (a 2017), and this one does so even more pointedly. Otá Ševčik is one Czech producer I’ve neglected a bit, and I’m so pleased this wine has well and truly put me in my place.

Ota farms a mere 2ha of vines on magnesium-rich, clay, loess and chalk soils at Boretice. As one of the founding members of the Moravian “Authentiste” Group, he farms organically and makes his wines without synthetic agro-chemicals. The importer’s web site bio of him points out that these wines age especially well.

This Chardonnay comes off a single site called Čtvrtě, from which Ota’s neighbour, Jaroslav Springer, makes a very fine Pinot Noir. The grapes undergo a short maceration, 48 hours on the skins, and post-fermentation the wine first spends 18 months on gross lees and then nine months on fine lees. All the wine goes through malolactic, but half is aged in oak and half in acacia, both larger 600-litre barrels.

The colour is a beautiful deep gold. The bouquet is more honeysuckle than more traditional Chardonnay notes, perhaps because the palate is so honeyed and rich. It’s worth noting that for the variety, 12.5% abv is lowish, and the richness, which still seems very fresh, is a lovely surprise. There’s a nice soft texture as well. I could try unsuccessfully to describe this bottle all day, but I can’t help coming back to my original scribbled note: “remarkably like a very good Meursault”.

Well, it was certainly remarkably good. This came from the Basket Press Wines archive and I don’t think they would have any 2018 on their web site. On the basis of drinking this, I will certainly be looking to grab some of this from a recent vintage, hoping I can keep my hands off it for five or so years. I think it retails for £22-£25.

Posted in Amber Wine, Artisan Wines, Champagne, Czech Wine, German Wine, Jura, Mosel, Natural Wine, orange wine, Spanish Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Merchants | Tagged #Crémant du Jura, #theglouthatbindsus, Basket Press Wines, Best Aube Growers, Cave Les Papilles Paris, Champagne Jacques Lassaigne Le Cotet, Czech "Ginger" Wine (Rysak), Domaine Pignier Montaigu, Elbling, Emmanuel Lassaigne Montgueux, Entre Vinyes Baix Penedès, Feral Art & Vin Bordeaux, Jonas Dostert Elbling, Jonas Dostert Nittel Mosel, Macabeu Sotaterra Oniric Entre Vinyes, Moravian Natural Wine, Natural Wine, Newcomer Wines, Ota Sevcik Boretice, Ota Sevcik Chardonnay 2018, Raeburn Fine Wines, Recent Wines April 2025 (Pt 2), Richard Stavek Divy Rysak 2017, Smith & Gertruce Portobello | Leave a comment

Recent Wines April 2025 (Part 1) #theglouthatbindsus

Posted on 01/05/2025 by dccrossley

I promised last time out that April would be a bumper month. We had a couple of lots of wine-loving visitors which nudged the total of wines for the month to above twenty, and the eighteen that made the cut will be covered in three parts, six wines in each. There’s plenty of diversity as usual, from inexpensive refreshment to stately old classics. Here, in Part One, we have a qvevri wine from the Barossa, a superb Savoie Jacquère (a merchant recommendation), a long-forgotten Dão rediscovered, a Martinborough Pinot Noir over ten years old, one of my favourite Alsace wines and a Carricante white wine from Etna.

I hope some of these bottles pique your interest, but I promise that there will be some stunning wines in Parts Two and Three to follow.

Field White 2019, Alkina (Barossa, South Australia)

Alkina is based at Greenock, and their mission is to make “terroir wines” over in the Western Barossa Ranges. Alkina is an indigenous Australian name meaning “moon” or “moonlight”, which they say embodies their respect for the land and the forces of nature. The farm was established by Argentinian vintner, Alejandro Bulgheroni, working with winemaker Amelia Nolan, in 2015. The farm is based on old 19^th Century buildings and a vineyard planted in the 1950s. There are 43 hectares, farmed organically.

Field White is made from old vines, those 1950s plantings, fermented on skins with natural yeasts in a 700-litre Georgian qvevri (the estate also uses a lot of Italian amphorae for other wines, so they like clay/terracotta, and I believe some of this wine may have been made in amphora as well). The blend is primarily Semillon, but with 5% comprising Riesling and Doradillo (known as Doradilla or occasionally Jaén Blanco in its native Spain). Post-fermentation, the qvevri was topped-up and sealed. A small addition of sulphur was made immediately prior to bottling.

This is clearly an “orange wine” judging by its deep and luminescent amber hue. The bouquet strikes as lime and green apples, but the palate shouts salinity. The finish is textured and I’m now nervous of calling it a slate-like texture (see my previous article), but it does have a sharpness of texture which I would not describe as acidity. There are acids but they are juicy/fruity acids. Smooth fruit over a textured base.

It seems to me that this bottling is quite unique in Australia in that I could mistake it for a Georgian wine. It does, on second glance, have a Barossa feel, perhaps the 13.8% alcohol (the label says) assists us there. It’s a very good wine. It impressed me enough at the “Clay Wine” tasting in February to go out and grab a bottle. It isn’t really a wine for knocking back, though, more for contemplative sipping. The label art is by traditional artist Damon Coulthard of the Adnyamathandha Nation.

I purchased this retail from Raeburn Fine Wines in Edinburgh, who also import Alkina. Expect to pay between £30-£40.

Avant La Trompête 2022, Vin de Savoie, Camille & Mathieu Apffel (Savoie, France)

I can’t speak for everyone, but I’ve learnt to trust the recommendations of certain wine merchants, one’s who appear to know my tastes. This is a wine from a producer I’d never come across, but I bought it on such a recommendation, and of course I didn’t regret it.

This couple are based at St Baldoph, which is just north of the AOC Aprémont, or if you prefer, just south of Chambéry. Mathieu took over the cellar of a retiring winemaker (Denis Fortin/Domaine de Rouzan) in 2017, Camille joining in 2020. They farm 3ha in Aprémont and a couple of hectares in the Combe de Savoie. Mathieu is a Jura native and worked at Domaine Pignier (one of whose wines we shall meet in Part 2).

Jacquère was always seen as the boring, sometimes workhorse, grape of Savoie but that has changed, and it is mostly through natural winemaking that this has happened. Mathieu converted to organics in 2018 and is now making natural wines with minimal intervention. I don’t know about all his cuvées, but this one has zero added sulphur.

Even from the first sniff you suspect that this has a certain Alpine dryness, and you also get some characteristic herbal notes. Speaking of character, there’s an inordinate amount of it in this wine, way more than you might expect from the variety. Doubtless it’s down to careful viticulture and those methods which leave the wine alone to do its own thing. The wine has some texture, and a lot of tension. It’s a genuinely gorgeous wine, taut but hinting at a restrained opulence.

This was recommended and sold to me by Spry Wines in Edinburgh (£33). Newcomer Wines is the importer. As Newcomer expands outwards from Austria, increasingly into France, they are finding some gems.

Dão Tinto Colheita 2020, Quinta dos Roques (Dão, Portugal)

This is an estate whose wines I drank many years ago, but I haven’t purchased any since perhaps ten or more years ago. I spotted this on the shelf of a wine shop I occasionally pop into (as one does), having failed to find a couple of wines I usually gravitate towards in there. I’m very glad to reacquaint myself with this producer.

The estate, ten kilometres south of Mangualde, was effectively founded, in wine terms, at the end of the 1970s by the Roques de Oliveira family. They persisted with local varieties despite pressure at the time to go international, and their commitment to quality has led to most commentators hailing them as being a major part of the Dão renaissance, along with sustainable and regenerative viticulture in Portugal’s oldest appellation.

Luis Lourenço, a former maths teacher, is now in charge and he has updated the winery but kept the old stone lagares in place alongside the computerised cooling and other modern additions.

This Tinto is a blend of Touriga Nacional, Jaen, Alfocheiro, Tinta Roriz and Tinto Cão, from vineyards at the heart of the region, both physically and metaphorically, on granite for what it’s worth. This red is I suppose an entry level wine. It is fermented in tank and aged in wood, barriques mostly, of which some are new and some older.

You get deep flavours of dark fruits, and intense but silky texture, with a good bit of grip. We drank this with Lebanese-style flatbreads, spiced and with Greek-style yoghurt and pomegranate seeds. It was a very good match. It proves that Portuguese wines are really such good value too.

Much as I try to buy new and different wines, I’m finding it quite hard to stop myself going back for more. Just £21-ish from Lockett Brothers. Quinta dos Roques wines are available through Raymond Reynolds, and I’ve seen various cuvées at Oxford Wine Co, Hedonism, Fortnums, and The Wine Society. I used to buy them from Butlers Wine Cellar in Brighton, who are known (like Raymond Reynolds, of course) as a Portuguese specialist, and they currently list three wines from the same stable.

Martinborough Pinot Noir 2014, Kusuda (Martinborough, New Zealand)

This is a wine I’ve cellared a long time. Hiro Kusuda studied law and then went to work for Fujitsu, but a corporate life was not his dream. He trained at Geisenheim in Germany but decided to settle in New Zealand in 2001, establishing himself in Martinborough, at the southern end of the North Island.

At the time, this region was beginning to get a reputation as the place to watch for Pinot Noir, the original Martinborough Estate (est 1980) blazing a trail to stardom in the preceding decade, along with Clive Paton’s Ata Rangi. Both estates took good advantage of the reasonably low rainfall (for North Island, where Martinborough is its dryest part) and well-drained gravel/shingle terraces.

What perhaps singles Hiro Kusuda out is that he was, as far as I can recall, the first Japanese winemaker to make a big splash on the world wine stage. He shares with a number of his compatriots working internationally a determination to make world class wines. For Kusuda, his real interest was Pinot Noir, of which he has around 4-ha to play with.

Viticulture is really meticulous and at harvest the fruit is sorted berry by berry. This 2014 was aged in French barriques for fifteen months (26% new) and for this vintage he produced 6,221 bottles. Colour-wise, it’s in the paler spectrum for the variety, but not too pale. The bouquet is magical, ethereal, a mix of red fruits, maybe a hint of something darker, and plenty of savoury elements. The palate still has structure but the fruit is smooth and silky. Very long, very impressive. Well worth ageing.

You can still find this vintage around. Mine probably came from Berry Brothers (no idea of the price), who still list some by the case. Lay & Wheeler seem to have bottles (£165). If you do buy a more recent vintage, I presume it will age well if you let it.

Red Z’Epfig 2020, Lambert Spielmann/Domaine in Black (Alsace, France)

As this is one of my favourite Alsace wines from one of my favourite producers, I find it hard to let my last bottle go. Thankfully an order via Cork & Cask in Edinburgh furnished me with some 2023, so this was popped with friends to spread the joy. Lambert has a small domaine of around three hectares at Epfig, with further small parcels at Dambach-la-Ville, Obernai, Nothalten and Reichsfeld.

Most of these parcels are surrounded by nature and Lambert’s focus is very much on things like biodiversity and regenerative farming. He’s also one of the young vignerons in Alsace with an interest in agro-forestry, which I first saw for myself in 2017 at Domaine Durrmann.

This red, despite its allusion to Led Zeppelin, is not heavy. It’s a light and juicy blend of equal parts Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris, a blend which has become somewhat fashionable among the younger producers. You can see why, it’s total glouglou gorgeousness in a glass.

The vines are 30 years old. All the fruit was co-fermented as whole bunches for ten days before pressing into used oak. Ageing therein was for just nine months. It really is all about those vibrant red fruit flavours, which are explosive on both the nose and palate. There’s just enough texture to hold it down on the ground, rather than allowing it to take off like a balloon into the sunset.

If you are wondering how feral it is, yes, a little bit. Not one for the naysayers. But for me it is merely close to the edge, not leaping over it. Also, this is proof that natural wine can age and last as well as conventionally-made wines with all their life-inhibitors.

Lambert’s track to listen along with (there’s always one on the back label, him being a musician as well as winemaker) is Maggy Bolle’s “Les Enculés”. My 2023 from Cork & Cask cost £30. Tutto Wines is the importer.

Etna Bianco 2022, Az Ag Tornatore (Etna, Sicily, Italy)

This is a large producer, the largest estate on Sicily, so its not at first glance the sort of wine you’d expect me to write about. I took a fancy to it in a well-known Italian emporium, in part because I’d not really spotted any Etna white wine for ages. Whilst we are well aware that red wines of genuine class are made on the mountain’s volcanic slopes, the white wines often get ignored.

Tornatore farms a massive one hundred hectares of vines, but this producer, founded back in 1850, claims a commitment to sustainable viticulture which includes renewable energy as well as the usual biodiversity, lower interventions etc.

This bianco is made from 100% Carricante, a variety so autochthonous to Etna that it is claimed to have been growing on its slopes for more than a thousand years. It’s quite rare to find Carricante outside of Sicily. Although it can produce acidic wines from high yields, it is at its best at altitude, and the grapes for this wine come from above 650 masl, near Castigliano di Sicilia. This quality improvement is due to the diurnal temperature variations at this altitude, which allow for a slower and longer ripening cycle, where acids are retained into a later harvest, but are not dominant.

This cuvée undergoes harvest by hand off the slopes of Etna. The grapes are destemmed before a slow and gentle crush. Post-fermentation the wine spends three months on the fine lees. Pale straw in colour, the bouquet has grapefruit, crisp green apple and herbs. The palate is crisp, and others have described it as particularly mineral, with savoury touches, but it also has a little honeyed and creamy texture to it, assisted by that time spent on lees. It’s not a heavy wine (just 12.5% abv) but it isn’t insubstantial.

So, this isn’t a natural wine, and it isn’t an artisan wine, but I did enjoy it and thought it very good value. And I like Carricante. Hence its inclusion here. I can no longer afford to drink £350+ worth of wine per month, and at £22.50 from Valvona & Crolla (Edinburgh) this was worth the punt.

Posted in Alsace, Amber Wine, Amphora Wine, Artisan Wines, Australian Wine, Italian Wine, Natural Wine, New Zealand Wine, orange wine, Portuguese wine, Savoie Wine, Sicily, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Merchants | Tagged #theglouthatbindsus, Alkina Field White 2019, Alkina Wines Greenock Barossa, Alsace Natural Wine, Australian Qvevri Wine, Avant La Trompette 2022, Azienda Agricole Tornatore Etna, Barossa Wine, Camille & Mathieu Apffel St Baldoph Savoie, Carricante on Etna, Dão, Dão Tinto 2020 Quinta dos Roques, Domaine in Black Spielmann, Etna Bianco, Hiro Kusuda Martinborough, Jacquère, Kusuda Martinborough Pinot Noir 2014, Lambert Spielmann Alsace, Martinborough Pinot Noir, Natural Wine, New Zealand Wine, Quinta dos Roques Dão, Recent Wines April 2025 (Pt 1), Red Z'Epfig 2020 | 2 Comments

Taste the Limestone, Smell the Slate by Alex Maltman (Book Review)

Posted on 25/04/2025 by dccrossley

Between 2010 and 2016 I subscribed to wine’s perhaps most serious journal, World of Fine Wine. On occasion I was able to see my own words on their pages, but back then it was, mostly if not entirely, a bastion of classical thinking, at its most extreme in the quarterly tirades against natural wine which French wine luminary Michel Bettane gave in his column. It was probably the cost of the journal which led me to allow my subscription to lapse after six years, but good old Michel didn’t help matters. Despite all of Michel’s musings, World of Fine Wine was, and remains, at the cutting edge of commentary and research on the wide world of wine.

I am grateful to World of Fine Wine for introducing me to two writers whom I might never have otherwise come across. One was Barry Smith, whose work on sensory perception has been of genuine importance to the world of wine, and Alex Maltman, a geologist whose equal passion for rocks and wine goes back to his student days. He now has twenty vines from which he makes wine in his garden in Wales, where he remains Emeritus Professor of Earth Sciences at Aberystwyth University.

Alex has become wine’s geologist, so to speak, so intertwined have his passions become. He has contributed to both seminal works The World Atlas of Wine and the Oxford Companion to Wine. This is his second “wine book”, the first being Vineyards, Rocks and Soils… (OUP 2018). Professor Maltman has become the leading exponent of bringing a reality check to the notion that rocks are directly ingested by vines, and so the direct taste of bedrock cannot be sensed in the glass. Or, as the aforementioned Professor Smith more bluntly put it more generally, “The idea that you can taste minerals from the soil is absolute rubbish” (quoted in Simms, Grape Expectations, New Scientist May 2015).

People once thought that vines lived by effectively eating the soil. The discovery of photosynthesis blew that idea out of the water. As for the soils in a vineyard, they usually bear little relation in time or place to the underlying bedrock, having been deposited, eroded (for example by ice age glacial action), and then deposited anew, much later. And anyway, we know as fact that most rock is neither soluble, nor can it form a gas (via vaporisation). So, we can’t taste or smell it. Even flint, when it strikes in a flintlock rifle, because what we smell (not that I suppose many of us ever smell the discharge of a flintlock these days) is the gunpowder, not the flint.

Nevertheless, one of wine’s fashionable obsessions at the moment is “minerality”. Maltman points out that geology was almost never mentioned by wine writers until relatively recently. I don’t know who began our rush to describe “minerality” in wines, but I do clearly remember Rhône specialist John Livingstone-Learmonth’s “STGT” (soil to glass transfer) club, which he describes (Wines of the Northern Rhône, UCP 2005) as producers like Auguste Clape of Cornas, where “For years, their wines have quietly brought forth the truth about their vineyard…”.

Today, minerals, rocks and strata get a mention in almost every tasting note I read (and indeed many I write myself). Just this week, an Instagram post by my favourite Swiss producer, Marie-Thérèse Chappaz, mentioned an article by Roberto Sironi highlighting the granite her vines rest upon (Fully e Martigny, L’enclave granitica del Valese). But if you read this book, and I hope you will because it’s one of the most exciting and stimulating books I’ve read on any subject for a while, many of your preconceived notions about rocks and wine will be questioned. Just don’t expect the outcome to be simple.

The contents of the book follow a fairly broad approach comprising introductory thoughts followed by a more detailed look at the range of bedrock types on which vines grow around the world. Granite, Tufa and its soundalikes, Shale/slate/schist, clay, and of course limestone.

If you think about it, there are many famous European wines which are completely synonymous with certain types of rock in popular perception. The Mosel and slate, Champagne and chalk (to a degree), Burgundy and limestone, Sancerre and Pouilly and flint, Central Baden’s Kaiserstuhl and volcanic rocks. Of course, let’s not forget Sherry on its white albariza soils, often described as chalk in some articles, but it is in fact “white, marly soils rich in calcareous plankton” called diatoms.

We tend to forget that these certainties often differ outside of Europe, and in any case, to use one example, more Champagne vineyards sit above rocks that are not chalk. To give another example, we often pair Syrah and Gamay with granite. In the Northern Rhône, Hermitage is by no means all granite, neither is Côte Rôtie granite (though Condrieu, planted exclusively to Viognier, is). By far the larger part of the Beaujolais region is not granite, that so-called perfect match with Gamay, although in general it does predominate in the Crus. Such pairings are not wrong per se, but we need to be careful of generalisations.

The content of the book is in places detailed, and we do learn plenty of science, but Alex always expands our knowledge outwards too. The author is able to combine academic rigour with a wider perspective coming from his deep knowledge of wine (viticulture and winemaking). I guess what I’m trying to convey is that Alex writes well, and taking on the science is no burden at all.

We also learn about many of the people who made the discoveries that took geology and viticulture forward. There’s a whole chapter on James Busby, who most wine lovers who have visited Australian vineyards may well have come across (along with those well-versed in New Zealand history). This chapter, however, perhaps tells us more about what he didn’t actually achieve (the man and the myth). Another fascinating story of how wine myths can emerge.

I would also highlight the chapter called “Winescape UK”. All of my readers in Great Britain will certainly find Maltman’s geological journey through our islands extremely helpful, perhaps especially in detailing the mixed geology underpinning Southern England’s sparkling wine production (including the chalk versus greensand debate), and some pointers as to why places like the Crouch Valley in Essex might be that sought after Grail for red wine. You won’t taste the thick layer of London Clay in your Crouch Valley Pinot Noir, but many of its properties combine with the warm, sunny and dry climate here to make red wine production qualitatively profitable.

For rock fans: the book is littered like scree with photos like this

As is typical in this book, it’s not all about the bedrock. Kaolin (continuing the clay theme) is a specific type of clay, and it is perhaps most famous for its use in making fine porcelain, the first European samples having been smuggled out of “Kaulin” in China’s Jiangxi Province by Jesuit priests. It later turned out, fortuitously for the English, French and German fine porcelain industries, that the same clay could be dug up in Haute-Vienne, Cornwall and near Meissen.

But kaolin also has many cosmetic applications. For vines, the spraying of comminuted kaolin particles onto vine leaves not only acts as an effective sunscreen in regions with high ultraviolet radiation, but it also helps promote more even ripening. In Australia’s Granite Belt (Queensland), where an estimated 15% of the crop can be lost to sun burn, it has proved invaluable.

To further question the arguments of those who suggest rocks influence wine’s flavour, the chapter “Four Elephants in the Wine Room” looks at what it says on the tin, four factors which have a major impact on wine taste. These are soils, rootstock selection, choice of yeasts, and ambient factors affecting taste perceptions, all of which could be argued have a far greater impact on the taste of wine than the underlying vineyard geology.

A slice of Coonawarra Terra Rossa

Nevertheless, as writers, we persist with the geology. Perhaps weirdly named rootstocks and commercial yeasts are far less exciting for our readers than rocks, and personally I do think vineyard geology does capture the imagination. It helps paint a picture of the landscape, irrespective of any effect on the grapes grown above it, and today I believe readers are more interested in a wine’s story than in a tasting note. This is, at least, my own modus for writing about wine, by-and-large. If a wine sounds interesting enough, then I feel sure my readers will go taste it for themselves.

All of this said, geology is far from irrelevant, despite science telling us that vines take more life and vigour from gasses in the air, from sunshine and from judicious watering (by rain or irrigation). Geology naturally has a major impact on water retention and availability for the vine, and in some cases soil matter and rain can react with bedrock to exploit fissures and cracks, enabling vines to delve deeper to find moisture. This is especially true in vineyards underpinned with limestone and some clay.

Whilst nutrients from below come via humus in the soil rather than direct transfer of minerals from rocks, there is also the question of mycorrhizal networks (the symbiotic association between a fungus and a plant, the fungus giving the plant moisture and nutrients in exchange for sugars from those plants).

The study of the workings of these networks is in its relative infancy. However, for such networks to thrive, or even exist, you do need to have “living soils” of the type more likely found in a vineyard which has not been sprayed by synthetic pesticides and herbicides, and where the soil hasn’t been compacted by heavy machinery, so that the creatures that keep the soil living can exist and thrive, as opposed to a vineyard the subject of napalm death.

So why do we persist in explaining which rocks vines are planted on top of almost every time we describe a vineyard? The idea that we can taste those rocks is scientifically unlikely at best, but yet there is the power of metaphor. This is what I feel validates the use of descriptions of minerality in all its forms in a tasting note.

We say wines smell of cherries or grapefruit, or taste of quince and melon. Naturally they do not contain these fruits, but at least here there is a scientific basis for such descriptions in the compounds shared between these fruits and the finished wine. Minerality is a more nuanced metaphor, usually coming from either something we find hard otherwise to describe as a smell, and certainly as texture on the palate.

One obvious and often used metaphor, one I remember from my own childhood, is the smell of blackboard chalk in the classroom, something I suspect has been confined to the past by modern classroom technology. It would be easy to suggest that when we say a wine is “chalky”, perhaps we are thinking of a vague recollection of “chalk dust” from a blackboard duster often directed, as a projectile, in anger at a child unable to answer the teacher’s question sufficiently quickly (the least painful of many classroom punishments in the arsenal of our teachers back then). I bet you don’t know that classroom chalk is made from the mineral gypsum (calcium sulphate), so it isn’t chalk in that sense at all. The rock called chalk is not dusty.

To justify my use of mineral allusion I always wheel out my experience, one I will never forget (or perhaps be allowed to) whilst hiking up to a mountain refuge in the Val d’Aosta. For me, this is my own justification for utilising mineral descriptions, despite accepting that you cannot “taste” a rock. You might have read it before, but it’s an oldie and a goodie and so worth wheeling out again.

We had a bottle of local wine, Vin Blanc de Morgex et de la Salle, made from the Prié Blanc variety. Stopping for a picnic lunch, which certainly contained some artisan Fontana cheese, I wedged the bottle in a cold mountain steam which tumbled down from what was an ever-shrinking (on every visit) small glacier. It didn’t take long to chill. Morgex doesn’t have a particularly big bouquet, merely herbal, and it tastes (pleasantly, I should state) like a herb-infused mineral water. However, the wine had a texture which reminded me of the pebbles on which the bottle sat. I couldn’t resist taking a smooth pebble from the water and proving my theory by licking it.

I was not tasting the pebble as such, but my tongue was experiencing a texture. Lucky that the base of the stream wasn’t flint, or I’d probably have cut my tongue. It was also fortuitous that being at some altitude meant the water was less likely to have been contaminated by the local (and then considerable) marmot population. But I think this experience does shine a light on how rocks may have at least a tenuously valid place in wine tasting. I was able to relive that moment with Proustian perfection just last month, on opening a bottle of Morgex I’d fortuitously picked up at Raeburn’s.

“It’s been a long time since I rock and rolled” (Geological Time Chart on p169)

In summary, I feel I need to repeat what I have already said near the beginning of this article. This is a brilliant book. I have to declare an interest in geography and geology. Not only was Geography (along with History) one of my two favourite subjects at school (with associated field trips to areas like the limestone scenery of the Yorkshire Dales and the Jurassic Coast of Dorset very much enjoyed), but I was brought up close to the remains of an extinct volcano, lived for twenty-eight years on the chalk and flint of the South Downs, and now live among more volcanic rocks and sandstones of some complexity in Scotland.

All of that said, I’d go so far as to say that this book would be a stimulating read even for those wine lovers with, on the face of it, much less of an interest in geology than my own. I’d venture you don’t have to be a total wine geek like I am to find it a stimulating read either. In my own case, it’s difficult to contain my enthusiasm. I think a lot of my readers would enjoy it, and I mean “enjoy”, not merely find it illuminating (which, of course, they will).

Taste the Limestone, Smell the Slate by Alex Maltman has just been published (2025) by the Academie du Vin Library, and is available through good independent book shops, via the popular online sources (if you must), or direct from the publisher via their web site at www.academieduvinlibrary.com for £35. It’s a nicely produced hardback of just over 300pp with quality binding and some lovely photos.

My copy was kindly provided by Academie du Vin Library for review, but I hope my genuine enthusiasm speaks for itself. For me it will unquestionably be one of my wine books of 2025.

Posted in Geology and Wine, Minerals and Wine, Subjectivity in Wine Tasting, Tasting Wine, Viticulture, Wine, Wine Books, Wine Science, Wine Writing | Tagged Académie du Vin Library, Geology and Wine, Kaolin as a Wine Sunscreen, Minerality Debate, Minerals as Metaphor in Wine Tasting, Professor Alex Maltman, Properties of Wine's Underlying Bedrock, Rocks and Wine, Taste the Limestone Smell the Slate (Review), Vine Nutrient Uptake, Vineyard Soils, Wine Book Review, Wine Geology of Great Britain, Wine writing | 4 Comments

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