David Crossley's Wide World of Wine

My New Austrian Klangers

Posted on 27/04/2016 by dccrossley

My introduction to Austrian wine, and the reason I became such a big fan, was the wines of the Danube (Kamptal, Kremstal and above all, Wachau). Producers like Präger, Hirtzberger and Knoll formed a part of my cellar long before I first cycled the Danube path. But they, along with the sweet wines of the late Alois Kracher, also acted as an introduction to what I think is one of the most exciting and experimental wine countries in the world right now, and that’s saying something. Whilst the epithet “The New” is attached to Australia, South Africa and California with some frequency in the wine press, there’s at least as much going on in Austria, and it’s only just peeking over the radar for much of the traditional wine media.

There’s no doubt that some of London’s dynamic new wine merchants have got the Austria message, not least Dynamic themselves who import the exciting wines of Gut Oggau, who I ceaselessly bang on about. And of course there’s Austrian specialist Newcomer. I’m on an Austrian roll right now: I was at Newcomer yesterday, picking up a few favourites, whilst today I took delivery of a box of Heidi Schröck, another favourite, from Alpine Wines.

Relatively new to me is Meinklang, who are becoming another of my cherished experimental Austrians, though “Austro-Hungarians” would be more accurate. I’ll explain later. I’ve not tasted the whole range yet, not by a long way, and I look forward to tasting what they bring along to the RAW Wine Fair next month, but I’m already impressed with the wines. It’s getting through some of the mystery surrounding the domaine that I’m also looking forward to. So in anticipation of meeting them at RAW, here’s a little introduction.

The first Meinklang offering to come my way was a glass of “Konkret”, proffered at Winemakers Club (under Holborn Viaduct on Farringdon Street). They import the wines (along with Vintage Roots). I thought I knew who Meinklang were – the winery of the Michlits family. Their biodynamic, Demeter certified, domaine is at Pamhagen, on the eastern side of Neusiedler See, right on the border with Hungary. As well as wine, they grow fruit and cereals, and farm cattle – they’re quite well known for their beef in Austria, so I’m told. They make a range of wines here, and I drank their pretty Grüner Veltliner just last week at Brighton’s famous vegetarian/vegan restaurant, Terre-a-Terre.

But the Michlits family have another side, one that involves that bit of mystery – a touch of cross-border winemaking. They came by some vines in the Hungarian region of Somló, a small old wine region in Northwestern Hungary, slightly closer to Lake Balaton than to Pamhagen. Nagy-Somló, is the wider name for the dispersed vineyards here, but Somló itself is a volcanic hill which rises from the plain. Photos of it remind me a little of Baden’s similarly extinct Kaiserstuhl. This was once all part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the end of the First World War, and the Michlits family owned vines here before the Iron Curtain came down at the end of the Second. Today’s generation, Werner and Angela, had a very strong desire to make wine from Somló grapes again. The hill itself is planted with a range of grape varieties: Olasz Rizling, Furmint, Hárslevelú, and a grape very special to this particular region, Juhfark.

Like the Grüner I drank last week, the glorious “Konkret Weiss” I mentioned above is made from their Austrian vineyards. Or is it? Several Austrian wine shops appear to think it’s from Burgenland, but unlike some other wines in the range, its label doesn’t say so. It’s a remarkable wine, almost the colour of cherry wood, very much in the mould of a skin contact wine. The concrete egg has a certain porosity, and concrete of all types is coming back into fashion. Many producers say that their wines age a little more slowly in concrete, and the egg shape apparently allows for a freer movement of the liquids and solids during fermentation. You may have seen the photos of the concrete eggs at the Michelini Brothers’ SuperUco winery in Dave Stenton’s Argentina article, published here last week. The grape variety in Konkret Weiss is Traminer. I’ve also read about a red version, made from Sankt-Laurent. I’ve yet to try it, but it should be on taste at RAW (see below).

From the Somló vineyards I’ve so far managed to find the Hárslevelú 2014 and the Juhfark 2012, or should I say the H14 and J12. The wines are thus labelled presumably because the grapes are harvested in Hungary and then trucked back to Pamhagen to be vinified. They have no Austrian designation, such as Landwein, the back label merely stating that they are “biowein gewonnen in Österreich”. The idea is no different to London Cru shipping grapes back to their urban winery. In theory it’s also not all that different to Friedrich Becker making some of his gorgeous Pfalz reds from old monastic vineyards over the border in Alsace, although he’s allowed to label them as Pfalz, perhaps due to proximity to the border (his Saint-Paul single vineyard Spätburgunder is a Pfalz Grosse Gewächse, so arguably Alsace’s first Pinot Noir Grand Cru, of sorts). The same is possible on the Slovenian-Italian border, where Brda and Collio meet, of course.

The Juhfark is pretty unique, not only to this region, but in flavour too. Repeated acquaintance might easily enable you to spot it in a blind tasting. It has a lemon-citrus acidity, and then a roundness which I have seen described as “honeyed”, even though the wine is dry. For me, there’s a sort of smokiness, allied to that texture so often found with wines grown on volcanic soils (think red Marcillac, though it isn’t quite the level of iron filings you get with that wine – perhaps there’s a hint of Etna there but it’s hard to draw comparisons). Whoever wrote the current Hungarian section in the latest Mitchell Beazley World Atlas of Wine states that the grape “needs aeration and age to shed its harshness”. This bottle, at three-and-a-half years has a little age, but splashing it into a carafe is not a bad idea.

There’s also a very tasty pét-nat in the range, called, appropriately, Foam. Meinklang make a large range of wines from their Austrian holdings of around 50 hectares, as well as fruit juices and some interesting looking beer. At RAW they will be showing the following wines on Stand 188:

H13, Foam 2014, Graupert Pinot Gris 2014, Burgenland Red 2014, Graupert Zweigelt 2013, Blaufränkisch 2013, Konkret Röt 2012 and Pinot Noir 2013.

According to the above mentioned Wine Atlas, other producers of note in the Somló region are Kreinbacher, and Hollóvár.

So to tell the truth, I am not a lot further along the road of discovery for Meinklang than most of you out there. But I’m looking forward to the journey. I’ll be heading straight for their stand at RAW, along with those other Burgenland producers, Gut Oggau, Christian Tschida and Claus Preisinger. I’ll be sure to let you know how I get on.

UK importers:

Vintage Roots

Winemakers Club

Nuevo Argentina – The Maverick Michelini Brothers

Posted on 22/04/2016 by dccrossley

The following article was contributed by Dave Stenton. Dave is the other half of the partnership behind the Oddities lunches at Rochelle Canteen, which regular readers will see written up on this Blog. He also organises regular wine dinners, such as the three “New Beaujolais” events which we both sourced wines for last year. Dave shares with me a similar outlook on wine – we both enjoy the fine wine classics as much as anyone, but we also revel in the thrill of exploring the outer reaches of the wine world, and in the potential purity, and expression of something fundamentally different, in so-called natural wines. Dave has a particular interest in The New Argentina, having made multiple trips to the country and having visited most of the major wine regions. This article is based on his most recent visit in January 2016.

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Mid-summer in Buenos Aires. The nights are hot and sticky and the thunderstorm that will bring brief respite from the humidity is still a few days away. Few red wines suit this setting, least of all the big, bold reds that are Argentina’s stock in trade. But the wine I’m drinking is different. It’s a carbonic maceration Bonarda. Just 11% alcohol, and it combines the juicy exuberance of Beaujolais with the earthy, ferrous flavour profile of Marcillac. It’s refreshing. And delicious. It’s a wine that would stand out in any context. But in Argentina it’s revolutionary.

That was January 2013, and my introduction to the Michelini brothers: a winemaking dynasty with roots in Italy’s Le Marche region, determined to redefine South American wine. The four brothers – Matias, Gerardo, Gabriel and Juan Pablo – have a burgeoning collection of solo projects – Passionate Wine (Matias), Gen del Alma (Gerardo and wife Andrea), and Blanc de Alba (Juan Pablo and sommelier Agustina de Alba). They also make wine collectively under the labels Zorzal and SuperUco.

Matias & Gerardo Matias with some biodynamic soil

SuperUco is also the name of the brothers’ new biodynamic bodega in Los Chacayes, close to Tunuyán in the Uco Valley. Most wineries in Mendoza are massive. Faced with Argentina’s infamous inflation it makes little sense to save; better to invest in infrastructure. SuperUco bucks the trend. The building is octagonal and no more than 20 paces in diameter. Approach from the east and its asymmetric concrete pillars are framed by jagged Andes peaks. The compact interior is filled with terracotta amphorae, concrete eggs and oak barrels in varying proportions.

SuperUco: view from the vines and interior

The wines range from relatively mainstream – Zorzal’s Terroir Único range – to wildly experimental. Alongside the aforementioned Bonarda, in the experimental category there’s a Torrontés fermented on its skins for two months, a co-fermented carbonic maceration blend of Malbec and Pinot Noir and, in Chile’s Maule Valley, they blend Mourvedre, Grenache and Riesling. Unusual blends are a hallmark. So too are high acidities and low alcohols.

“Always freshness, always tension,” says Gerardo, when asked if the diverse range of wines they produce share a ‘signature’. I point out that neither term is readily associated with Argentine wine (although this is changing). “We drink a lot of wine from Argentina but there is not much that we really like,” is his response. Such frankness doesn’t always endear them to the neighbours. But it explains the brothers’ urge to experiment and ignore traditions. Other winemakers and growers may raise an eyebrow at some of the more outlandish production methods, but they don’t dismiss the brothers entirely. “A journalist friend of ours who has visited lots of the other wineries, said, ‘Be careful, a lot of people are watching you, copying you, and trying to make wines the same way’,” says Matias. Egg-shaped concrete fermentation vats illustrate the point. De rigueur in Argentina now, but absent from the country prior to 2011, when the Michelinis had their first ones built.

Gerardo and Matias with an egg

The Michelinis push geographical as well as metaphorical boundaries. They make a Chardonnay in Chubut, Patagonia, a region below the 42nd parallel. They have also planted Chardonnay and Pinot Noir at 2,000 metres in Mendoza, 500 metres higher than the region’s next highest vines. They may make wine in Peru in the future. “You have to try new things, and break rules, in order to progress,” says Matias. It doesn’t always work out. “We lose some of the production [when we experiment] but that’s part of the learning curve; and ultimately it leads to better wines.”

“We feel like we are in pre-history. This is not Burgundy. We don’t have three centuries behind us,” says Gerardo. “It is only in the future that we will fully understand this place.” One place in particular that generates real excitement amongst Mendoza’s winemakers is the sub-region of Gualtallary. For once, the Michelinis align with their peers. “Gualtallary is Argentina’s Grand Cru,” says Gerardo. “It’s a magic place: all the varieties grow well there, not just reds but also Sauvignon, Chardonnay. Place is more important than variety: that’s the magic of Gualtallary.”

Some of the most striking Michelini wines are white. “Uco Valley has the potential to make really good whites,” says Matias. “Once people understand the opportunity, we will see many more great white wines from here.” The brothers’ portfolio includes: Agua de Roca, an intensely mineral Sauvignon Blanc that’s drawn comparisons with André Vatan’s Sancerres; a blend of Sauvignon, Semillon, Chardonnay and Viognier picked when most other winemakers are still on their summer holiday, hence its name, Verdes Cobardes (which translates as Green Cowards: hail is a perennial threat in Mendoza); and JiJiJi, a Chenin Blanc with the crunch and bite of young Vouvray.

The above whites – and several of the brothers’ reds – have alcohol levels between 10-11%. The global trend for more refreshing, lower alcohol, wines shows no signs of abating. But few wine lovers consider Argentina as a source of them. The Michelinis are acutely aware of this ‘right time, wrong place’ predicament. “It’s more challenging to sell wines like ours because of people’s preconceptions about Argentine wine,” says Gerardo. “But that makes it more interesting. We like a challenge!” They will have help: the next generation of Michelinis – the brothers have 15 children – are already producing wine. And Gerardo is confident: “We feel the future is good. Step-by-step Argentina will show a different side of itself.”

Tasting at SuperUco

For links to some of the Michelini projects, see:

zorzalwines.com

passionatewine.com

For UK stockists of their wines, see:

Hand prints SuperUco logo

Posted in Argentina, Wine, Wine Travel, Wine Writing | Tagged Argentine Wine, Argentinian Wine, Chubut Patagonia, Dave Stenton, Gabriel Michelini, Gaultallary, Gerardo Michelini, Juan Pablo Michelini, Los Chacayes, Matias Michelini, Mendoza, Michelini Brothers, Passionate Wine, SuperUco, Tunuyan, Uco Valley, Zorzal Wine | 3 Comments

The Real Deal Part 2 (Real Wine Fair 2016)

Posted on 19/04/2016 by dccrossley

Regular followers will have read the first part of my article on the Real Wine Fair at Tobacco Dock last weekend (see here). There I concentrated on just three interesting producers who might not be among the most well known at the event. If I write about everyone I tasted and liked it would make for a very long (and perhaps dull) article. So here, in Part 2, I’m going to give a more general roundup of everything else (by country or region), sprinkled liberally with a few photos. Even then, with all the names mentioned here, I had to miss out so many, especially producers I know well. I didn’t get to taste any from Alsace, much as I like Mann, Frick and Binner, and I tasted few Loires, despite them being the first region for natural wines which sparked my interest all those years ago.

FRANCE

Beaujolais: Just a quick visit to these tables. I like Rémi Dufaitre (Dom du Botheland), having bought their wines in Paris last year, and I did really want to try the new vintages of Foillard and Lapierre. The Foillard 2014s are superb, especially the Côte du Py, and Lapierre’s Raisins Gaulois 2015, always a great value bottle, is excellent, and possibly a signal for this vintage.

Foillard

Burgundy: A few seasoned naturalistas told me they were missing out Burgundy, but with four exciting domaines I have not tasted in depth for some time, I didn’t. Alice de Moor was there, showing her Aligoté (seriously good), a Chablis (Vendangeur Masque) and a lovely Ardèche Chardonnay 2015, just bottled and (I think) on its way right now. Domaine de la Cadette (Vézélay) make great little wines (in a good sense) from one of the Yonne’s least known regions. Try them all. Domaine du Corps de Garde (Jean-Hugues & Guilhem Goisot, Côtes d’Auxerre) are one of the first domaines I bought from Les Caves de Pyrene. Their wines are genuinely brilliant, often mineral and crystalline. Last but not least here, Julien Guillot’s biodynamic Vignes du Maynes (Macon) presented an exemplary range including some Beaujolais I’d not tried before. But the Macon-Cruzille wines (Aragonite white and Manganite red) represent the peak of their output, some of the most “living” wines in Burgundy (which also age well, indeed preferring a few years in bottle).

De Moor Alice

Les Vignes du Maynes

Jura: A massive array of Ganevats on offer (I counted ten at one time), but of course the fans were crowding around Anne (J-F’s sister) and her husband, making this one of the most difficult stands to taste at. You either adore this iconic producer or you wish he’d add some sulphur. I’m happy to be in the former camp, but I’m objective enough to see why cuvées like Madelon and “Y-à-Bon” scare some people. I did bring home some of the cheapish Le Jaja de Ben, which is one of his wines containing some of the ancient Jura cépages, plus Gamay. Ganevat makes this as a negociant wine, hence the price (about £15 UK retail), but it’s soft and fruity and might provide an intro for those who want to try him out. I’m increasingly enamoured with his Chardonnays above all others, but I missed out on the £50+ Cuvée du Pepe – I just hate crowds at tastings. A quick word too for Julien Mareschal of Domaine de la Borde in Pupillin. These look a good value range which I plan to explore in more detail.

Anne and husband, Ganevat (no Jean-François today)

Loire: Alexandre Bain was showing several different cuvées. Bain’s Pouilly-Fumés are guaranteed to get me back onto the Sauvignon Blanc. Jo Landron was showing his impressive moustache, and his Muscadets always get me excited. I was cross not to try those of Benoit Landron as I heard good reports. I had to shun a dozen producers I already know here, but I did visit La Coulée d’Ambrosia (Layon). A tasty pét-nat followed by some interesting Chenins (one made Vin Jaune style, sous voile).

For a detailed look at Nicolas Carmarans, See Part 1 (link at top of page).

ITALY

Another fruitful exploration. I began the day with a good slug of cloudy Prosecco di Valdobbiadene from Floris Follador’s Casa Coste Piane (another bottle that came home on the train). Perhaps these wines are well known to many of you, but they are amazing. I only learnt recently that these cloudy Proseccos are known as Col Fondo (Mina Holland in #nobrot10). I have long loved the wines of La Stoppa (Piacenza). Fellow Blogger Alan March (amarchinthevines.org) said that the Macchiona 2007 was his wine of the day. I think it blends Barbera and Bonarda like it blends the flavour of black olives with smoky bacon aromas. A wonderful wine…but they make a great range, including stunning Malvasia, too. Bera (Canelli, Piemonte) have something in common with La Stoppa, my having discovered them on what may have been my first ever trip to Les Caves’ Artington warehouse near Guildford. Every wine here is a winner, but I adore their most frivolous – they make one of the best half-dozen Moscatos in the region. A first for me were the wines of AA Filippi from Soave, shown to me by Emma Bentley (another wine blogger and consultant). They have some of the highest vineyards in Soave, planted with very old Trebbiano Di Soave and Garganega. Very good value wines.

A more in depth tasting with Stefano Bellotti can be seen in Part 1 (link at top of page).

I will not mention the Sicilians, I love them all (including at the end of two months, I hope, Salvo from Agrigento who is managing the building work at my house). I wrote about Sicily here and I’d only be more or less repeating myself. That said, that article didn’t mention de Bartoli whose wines from Marsala and Pantelleria have to be tasted. Bukkuram, their Passito di Pantelleria, even comes in a (just about affordable) 25cl bottle, perfect for the train home, a dark unction of rare beauty. No Foradori, you ask? I confess, I forgot, but thankfully it’s coming to a wine shop near me very soon – the Pinot Grigio Amphora was wine of the day for another friend, and it would be hard to argue that anyone can do Teroldego better.

Emma Bentley for AA Filippi

Occhipinti Vino di Anna

COS

SPAIN

The cream of the crop here included Forja del Salnès (Rias Baixas) – I think most people know their Cos Pés Albarino, but the whole range is impressive. I think in Spain they are better known for their reds. From a similar part of the country, Mengoba (Bierzo) were equally impressive. But the star of the Spanish cohort for me was Daniel Landi, whose Méntrida Garnachas from high altitude plots are possibly the most elegant wines from that grape I’ve ever tasted. Almost dumbfounded me. Daniel was also showing the more weighty but still massively impressive wines of Commando-G. My favourite here (not listed in the catalogue) was the high altitude Rey Moro parcel (2013). 14.5% alcohol rested very lightly on this wine. Again, last but not least, Recaredo‘s Cavas. This is how Cava ought to taste, and as with the Coste Piane Proseccos, this is as far removed from supermarket Cava as you can get.

Daniel Landi, star of Spain Commando-G

Commando-G

BEST OF THE REST

USA: Clos Saron (Sierra Foothills, California) make an interesting range and a few of their wines, the Blue Cheer Carignan/Cinsault, Out of the Blue Cinsault, and the Pleasant Peasant Carignan, are all of special interest (but they’re expensive). Beckham, and Kelley Fox, got good press elsewhere but I didn’t taste them. You can read about La Garagista from Vermont in Part 1 (link at top of page).

Australia: Patrick Sullivan was pouring (liberally) a selection of his own wines. I loved the wild and wacky “Haggis Wine” (“all the shit that isn’t good enough to go anywhere else” or words to that effect, said a slightly wobbly Patrick, but it’s bl**dy good nevertheless) and I was also taken with the “New World Wine”, a Pinot Noir/Malbec blend. Amazing labels here. Patrick was also pouring wine from some of his friends and I tried and loved the Barossa Shiraz “Romanee Tuff” from Tom Shobbrook (wanted to try that for some time) and Anton’s Domaine Lucci Wildman Blanc (late-picked Sauvignon Blanc with a tad of noble rot – seriously!).

Patrick Sullivan in full flow

Patrick’s Haggis and Tom’s Romanee Tuff

more Tom Shobbrook

There was so much more I didn’t get to try, including the Georgians (I’m told that the Sunday night party was so wild most of them never made it back for Monday), the Friulians (but seriously good), De Martino (Chile), and worst of all, South Africa (I can vouch for Radford Dale‘s value and for Testalonga). No, worst of all was my failure to taste any Austrians (you know how much I adore Austrian wine), but RAW will have Christian Tschida, Gut Oggau, Meinklang and Claus Preisinger for starters, so all’s not lost.

I hope you weren’t disappointed I failed to mention a favourite. I did my best though. Even after spitting most (but not all…) of my pours, and just one beer afterwards, I was just about in a good place for the journey home (focused on the need not to break any of my heavy stash). A great event, fun, lovely wines, if not for all tastes. One well established blogger said of the Loire cohort “there were gems but the hit rate was very low”. This only proves that we all have different tastes and different perceptions of how a good wine should taste. I think there’s a divide which would be hard to bridge between those who grew up on affordable wines from the classic regions, and those new to wine this decade who are just discovering how exciting the hobby can be. I don’t doubt that there is clever marketing at play with some of these clued-up and social media-savvy producers, but there is also no doubt that the producers here preach a different philosophy, which strikes a chord with a public more willing to experiment than perhaps at any time in the history of wine. Despite the prohibitive cost of most good wines from regions like Bordeaux and Burgundy, there have never been more interesting wines for the ordinary (non-oligarch) wine lover to try and buy.

Posted in Natural Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Tastings | Tagged AA Filippi Soave, Alexandre Bain, Bera, biodynamic wine, Casa Coste Piane, Clos Saron, Commando G, Corps de Garde, Coulee d'Ambrosia, Daniel Landi, de Bartoli, De Moor, Domaine de la Borde, Domaine de la Cadette, Domaine du Botheland, Domaine Lucci, Foillard, Forja del Salnes, Ganevat, Goisot, Jo Landron, Julien Guillot, La Stoppa, Lapierre, Les Caves de Pyrene, Mengoba, Natural Wine, Patrick Sullivan, Real Wine Fair 2016, Recaredo, Remi Dufaitre, Tom Shobbrook, Vignes du Maynes | 3 Comments

The Real Deal (Part 1)

Posted on 18/04/2016 by dccrossley

I was at East London’s Tobacco Dock yesterday for the Real Wine Fair. This is an event for natural and low intervention, organic and biodynamic, winemakers organised by Les Caves de Pyrene, the wine agency who were first responsible for promoting a complete portfolio of these wines in the UK. The two day fair, showcasing more than 160 producers, goes hand-in-hand with Real Wine Month, promoting artisan producers through independent wine shops and bars throughout the UK, and which (presumably by coincidence) leads up to the other major natural wine event in London this year, RAW Wine (15/16 May 2016).

The Real Wine Fair this year was a far cry from the first event Les Caves organised in a small, sunny, room in West London some years ago. The Tobacco Dock venue has its negatives (the usual Sunday engineering works on both Underground and Overground certainly made getting there a bit complicated for some producers unaware of closures), but it provides a good tasting environment up until the point when the post-lunch crowds on the public day make it a bit of a tight squeeze. The food court was excellent, and even better was the well stocked on-site Caves de Pyrene shop – I managed to lug six bottles home with me, but I rather wish I’d opted for a suitcase.

main room at Tobacco Dock and the Caves de Pyrene shop on site

I certainly didn’t get round anywhere near all 160 producers, each showing (at a guess) an average of five cuvées, but I spent a good four or five hours tasting. So in this Part 1, I plan to mention three interesting producers I spent more time with, and then in Part 2 I shall give a more general picture of what else I tasted.

I’ll begin with the most unusual. There were, without doubt, plenty of weird (and usually wonderful with it) wines on show, but the prize for the most unusual portfolio might well go to a winery from a place that even I’ve never tried wine from before – Vermont. The North American wall of producers was pretty exciting, lots of interesting wines, and I see a few of the established wine journalists have already been mentioning one or two on social media. But perhaps La Garagista Farm and Winery were just a little odd for those more esteemed pens.

Garagista are located on Mount Hunger, just east of Lake Champlain. Their stand had a very helpful hand drawn map to help us out, because my North American geography was certainly not up to locating them with certainty. The philosophy here is both that of natural wine and biodiversity in the vineyard, and on the wider farm homestead. It’s very much a community based philosophy as well.

ah! Vermont

The wines are distinctive, not merely because of their origin, but because of the grape varieties used up in the cool climate of Vermont (cool? temperatures can reach -30 in a bad winter). Five wines were on show, and they were presented by chief winemaker Dierdre Heekin and one of her team, Caleb Barber.

Caleb & Dierdre

Grace and Favour 2015 – this is a crown cap sealed pét-nat, bottle fermented but without disgorgement. A great example of the genre, relatively simple but refreshing and lively. Made from Black Muscat, there’s enough of the Muscat family’s aromatics to identify it. Great fun, and indeed, it was one of the half-dozen wines which made it home with me, as much for its unique provenance as anything else. The only negative, this retails in the upper 20s (£ Sterling), making it substantially more expensive than some pretty good European pét-nats.

Harlots and Ruffians 2014 – this is a 50:50 blend of La Crescent and Frontenac Gris (and I’m sure you’re keen to know that La Crescent comes from a cross between St Pepin and ES 6-8-25, with that well known stalwart of English table wine, Seyval Blanc, back in the parental lineage). We are, after all, looking at grape varieties able to withstand such freezing winters. La Crescent is variously known for Germanic tasting wines and, occasionally, something more akin to Sauvignon Blanc. This wine might be seen as a cross between the two, and was perhaps less interesting (and extreme) than the next wine…

Vinu Jancu 2014 – the name intrigued me. It’s Sicilian dialect for dry wine, and it undergoes five weeks’ skin maceration. It exhibits the usual texture of a skin contact wine, also evident in the onion skin colour. It’s also cloudy, but very fresh and very interesting. My favourite of the two whites.

Damejeanne Rouge 2014 – Another US developed cold climate hybrid, Marquette, combines with 10% La Crescent to make a wine that has some of the flavour characteristics of Pinot Noir, with quite concentrated cherry fruit, along with a slightly bitter or earthy finish so often seen in wines made from hybrid vines (similar to the Luckett Vineyards wine from Nova Scotia which we tasted at the last Oddities lunch).

Loups Garoux Rouge 2014 – the pick of the two reds, a single site wine from their West Addison vineyard, almost beside Lake Champlain. Served from carafe, this is really intense. There’s concentrated blackcurrant with cherry, and a bitter elderberry (Caleb’s take)/redcurrant (my less educated take) on the finish. Frontenac Noir is the grape variety.

A really interesting range of wines from a state not well known for its wines (I believe this producer is the state’s only exporter). Worth exploring, partly for their obscurity for sure, but also in their own right.

I’ve written about Stefano Bellotti and Cascina degli Ulivi (Piemonte) before, but until yesterday I’d only tried his skin contact white, A Demûa. A chance to taste the range and meet the man was a privilege and a treat. Stefano took over his grandfather’s vines in the mid-70s, converting to biodynamic practices a decade later. His farm is one beautiful integrated ecosystem, with mixed crops and husbandry complementing the vines. If you want to see a little of Stefano, and to get an idea of the problems he has had with the wine authorities for creating this beautiful, chemical free, piece of Northern Italy, watch Jonathan Nossiter’s film, Natural Resistance.

Stefano

Bellotti Bianco “Triple A” Vino da Tavola [2015] – sealed under crown cap, light sparkle, 100% Cortese from Tassarolo. 12.5%, light filtration and a touch of sulphur. A simple wine for happy quaffing, perhaps, but still a good (and lively) introduction to Stefano’s stable.

Gavi 2014 – Stefano does attain the DOC sometimes. You wonder why, considering so much Gavi is dull, and this certainly isn’t. South facing slopes on red clay, 100% Cortese (as the DOC requires). What you notice is the freshness with this wine, and that for such a renowned natural winemaker (substitute “notorious” if you are a local bureaucrat) you don’t get anything scary or odd. It’s just a lovely, well made wine, no flash, no hype.

A Demûa 2014 – so nice to taste the new vintage of this. It’s here that Stefano leaves the box, perhaps more than with his other wines. It’s a blend of Timorasso, Verdea, Bosco, Chasselas, Musqué (Chossellot) and Riesling, sold as a Monferrato Bianco. These are seriously old vines (some more than 100 years old). “Demûa” is dialect for “fun and games”, and that’s what this is. Nine months of skin contact creates an onion skin colour, more texture and scents of flowers. The palate has nuts and a saline lemon finish. Stefano counsels (well, ably translated as he speaks little English) serving this not too cold, at cellar temperature rather than from the fridge. Simply stunning. Another of the wines I brought home, even though I shall get more next month.

Filagnotti 2013/Montemarino 2013 – these are two single vineyard Cortese. Montemarino (Monferrato DOC) is one of the highest hills of the Gavi zone. The wine undergoes three days maceration and is aged in 15hl oak, old of course. An elegant wine from grapes grown on limestone. By contast, the Filagnotti (Gavi DOCG) vineyard is on red clay, exposed South West, and ageing is in 25hl acacia wood, on lees for around 11-12 months. They are again both 100% Cortese, and therefore a great advertisement for the existence of terroir: two beautiful, if subtly different, wines. Perhaps the Montemarino has more floral elements, the Filagnotti more typically almonds.

Bellotti Rosso “Triple A” [2014] – the red version of the first wine tasted. This is a Dolcetto/Barbera blend from multiple sites. A rich, dark red, sealed like the Bianco under crown cap, 13.5% alcohol and no added sulphur. Just like you’d imagine (good) natural wine to be, joyful quaffing for rich Italian food.

Dolcetto Nibio 2008 – a nicely aged single variety made from a very special local strain of Dolcetto (Nibio means red stalk, reminding me of Jura’s special red-stalked Chardonnay), a biotype which Stefano thinks has been around Tassarolo for a thousand years. It’s a tannic wine, despite its age (it has forty days’ maceration and a year in old oak), and it is meant to represent an example of the traditional red of the region, despite the relative lack of appreciation for Dolcetto in contemporary Piemonte. Sappy and delicious.

Mounbè [2009] Piemonte DOC – Pure Barbera from Montebello, also with a nice amount of bottle age, and my personal choice of the reds tasted. It gets a few months longer in wood than the Dolcetto, and wood of differing sizes. The wines may be quite structured when young, but this has aged beautifully, the kind of Barbera which, despite the temptation to reach for a Nebbiolo on such occasions, would partner Piemonte’s rich game cuisine so well.

Stefano Bellotti has had a sort of myth created around him, a contadini at odds with officialdom and a champion of natural wines. Yet he doesn’t shy away from using a little sulphur, and he’s not averse to happily sharing his vision of biodiversity with visitors. His wines are just lovely. They are clearly different, yet there’s nothing weird about them – although the A Demûa is a touch unusual. I almost can’t quite put my finger on why I’m more drawn to Stefano’s wines than so many others…but I am.

The last producer I want to highlight today is Nicolas Carmarans. Nicolas doesn’t have a web site. He makes wine in one of France’s poorest yet most beautiful departments, Aveyron. His domaine is located near Montézic (near the reservoir lake of the same name), by the River Truyère, just north of Entraygues. We’re a little northeast of the glowing pink-stoned city of Rodez here, and just west of the barren but beautiful Monts d’Aubrac.

Nicolas used to run the Café de la Nouvelle Marie in Paris, which some long time followers of the French natural wine movement may recall. He and his family moved full time to take on just over 3 hectares of Chenin, Fer Servadou, Negret de Banhars, Cabernet Franc and Malbec (a very typical local mix) from which he makes a range of fine Aveyron IGT cuvées.

Les Carmarans

Selvès Blanc 2014 – is a nice pure Chenin which tastes fresher than many Loire versions. A bit more mineral perhaps, no pear or quince, and too dry for tarte-tatin notes. It’s a wine which initially strikes as quite simple, then some complexity builds in the glass. A grower, as they say. Given time you’ll love it.

Mauvais Temps 2014 – I didn’t ask “why the name?”, but this vineyard is part of a large 20 hectare slope where the vines were killed by the terrible frost of 1956 (see link to article below, where I found this fact). It is a red blend of 60% Fer, 30% Malbec and 10% Cabernet Franc. This is very approachable and drinking nicely now. It’s kind of an entry level red in some ways, but that’s not a criticism. It’s a wonderful wine, I’m almost tempted to borrow a Parker phrase for the amount of tangy fruit (but I won’t). In fact, this is another wine which accompanied me on the train home.

Maximus 2014 – is pure Fer Servadou, the unique grape of the region. This cuvée is from granite soils. There’s that iron filings note in evidence, the one you also get with Marcillac reds, which somehow evokes the volcanic soils quite common around here. But the fruit is really concentrated too, quite dark fruits with a brambly edge. This is a lovely wine, though it might well benefit, get even better, from a little age.

L’Olto Rouge 2013 – this has benefited from even one extra year in bottle. Again, 100% Fer, but from argilo-calcaire (limestone) soils this time. Quite brooding, if that’s not too indistinct a descriptor? A lovely wine, drinking now (for me, though I can’t claim expertise, it has less potential to age than the Maximus, which is reflected in price – though all these wines are great value, nothing pushing above £20).

The excellent Wineterroirs Blog has a very good article on Nicolas from January 2012, to which you can link here if interested.

Do visit Aveyron if ever you can. It’s rural and tranquil in a way which much of France used to be thirty years ago. The wines of Marcillac are reasonably easy to find in the UK, less so those of Entraygues(-et-du-Fel) and Estaing. But amid the deep river valleys and heavily wooded slopes you will discover the old village of Conques. The village and its restored abbey church are enough of a draw, as is the abbey’s treasury containing reliquaries of rare beauty. But amid these treasures is one of the finest examples of religious art in Western Europe, the Majesty of Sainte-Foy (Saint Faith), a golden statue, almost life-size, of the enthroned child martyr covered in rare gems (just about anything you can imagine from sapphires and pearls to emeralds and topaz, along with cameos and intaglios from classical times). Of unknown date and origin, Bishop Bernard of Angers was worried in 1010 that it might be just too beautiful as a religious object. It certainly has that level of beauty. An astounding piece of craftsmanship.

Posted in Natural Wine, Wine, Wine Agencies, Wine Tastings | Tagged Aveyron, biodynamic wines, Cascina degli Ulivi, Dierdre Heekin, La Garagista Farm and Winery, Les Caves de Pyrene, Majesty of Sainte Foy Conques, Natural Wine, Natural Wine Fair, Natural Wine London, Nicolas Carmarans, Real Wine Fair, Stefano Bellotti, Vermont Wine | 6 Comments

Oddities (April)

Posted on 10/04/2016 by dccrossley

A dozen wine obsessives congregated once more at Rochelle Canteen on Friday in order to taste another batch of weird and wonderful wines from out of the way regions. I think we might have surpassed ourselves in terms of wine regions, if the first two wines were anything to go by. I’m not sure that the wines themselves quite scaled the peaks of some of our previous encounters – there were no Gravners or Selosses – but equally, I didn’t hear anyone express any great negativity about the wines either. Add to that the food, many saying it was the best Oddities meal yet (which is something I hear every time we visit Rochelle Canteen) and everyone left feeling happy and sated. I will readily admit that I was even less restrained when it came to the food than the wine.

In any event, the beauty of these lunches in not the Parker Points esteemed wine writers and Masters of Wine might award the wines (though both come to these lunches from time to time and always show restraint in relation to such vulgarity). It’s the act of discovery which counts. Making a rarely, if ever, encountered wine your wine of the day, discovering more evidence that a far off country can do wonders with a classic if normally regionally constrained grape variety, or even better, finding a brilliant £13 wine that’s available in a well known London wine shop: all of these came to pass.

1. Chöying White 2016, Laurie Lange, Kathmandu, Nepal – Laurie Lange is an American who spends part of the year studying in Kathmandu and the rest guiding tours in Alaska. She’s turned her hand to wine after success with mushrooms, and plans to take on beer as well. The grapes come from India, via the street, and we think they could be the table grape, Thompson Seedless. The vinification vessels are 9 litre water containers of the type you see in offices, or doctors’ surgeries. The first time I tasted this it reminded me of Vaudois Fendant/Chasselas. This bottle was more aromatic, but with a chalky dryness. It shows a creditable 13.5% alcohol, which most people picked up on, and there’s a touch of skin contact in the colour, there being a tinge of onion skin. There’s also much less acidity than when I tried this in Kathmandu, so it may not be a long keeper, though still very fresh. I’m sure Laurie will keep me up to date. It’s a creditable effort and if anyone had any suspicions that it was “home made” they didn’t voice them. Laurie has an off-dry rosé bubbling as I write. [We’ve just bottled our own white here and there’s a bottle in the fridge waiting for the sun to dip below the yard arm. I’m sure it will be less appealing than this was.]

Laurie’s Chöying – it means “body of qualities” in Tibetan)

“White Buried” 2013, Luckett Vineyards, Gaspereau Valley, Nova Scotia – We get a few wines from Canada to taste, but this is my first ever wine from NS. The 100% L’Acadie grapes (me neither) are vinified in Hungarian oak, placed underground in the same terroir as the vines. Just 200 cases are bottled. Some guessed a hybrid grape variety but that was about as far as we got, other than (eventually) Canada. It’s a fresh medium white with a slightly smoky nose, replicated on the palate, the oak being mostly, but not wholly, integrated. Very nice to try this. When wines of unusual origin taste good the concept of these lunches is vindicated…and we learn just a little more about wine.

“Imathia” White 2014, Chrisohoou Estate, Naousa, Greece – This was one of my top wines on the day, brought along by Jason (Theatre of Wine). Quite “Greek” (it’s from the northern Greek province of Central Macedonia), though not quite sure how we define that? Also quite Chenin-like, if obviously not Chenin…which must sound very cryptic. It probably just means “suitably different from what we usually encounter”. I think we’d realised by this stage that guessing the wines was going to be unusually tough this month. A fresh, minimum intervention, white made from the Priknadi grape (another variety I was encountering for the first time). Lovely, herby with citrus, 13% alcohol. I’d probably pair this with risotto, despite mixing Greek wine with Italian cuisine.

Dr Loosen Ürziger Würzgarten Riesling Alte Reben Reserve 2011, Mosel – What? You say! An Oddity? But this is a wine not commercially released, which underwent 24 months ageing on lees. Made as a dry wine as an attempt to replicate the wines Ernie’s grandfather made, this is a real success, a super wine. Dry, without petrol notes, just what I insist on calling great minerality in its texture and dryness. Many, myself included, put this as either a New Californian, or New Zealand Riesling. Totally threw us, but an unqualified success. I do rather wish I had a few bottles.

Rkatsiteli 2012, Kakhetia, Georgia – We were unable to decipher the estate name from the Georgian script (sadly the English script, as you will see, does this nice wine few favours). A touch of sweetness on the nose might deceive, but the palate is dry, textured by skin contact but not as much as many, see photo (I would say it actually tasted more like a traditional white wine than the often almost tannic style of some orange wines), and it had an unusual freshness, good length and concentration.

Stapleton & Springer “Blanc” Pinot Noir and Stapleton & Springer “Orange” Pinot Noir, both 2014, Moravia, Czech Republic – These two wines, forming a pair, are both available (I believe) for £13.75 btl/£12.50 case, from London’s Lea & Sandeman. Pinot Noir vinified en blanc is rare, but not unknown. Vinified as an orange wine is really unusual. Both wines are lovely, but most of us were very impressed by the latter…although to be fair, I’m not sure it was exactly orange in colour. There was definitely a touch of pink. Lovely strawberry nose which eventually gave the variety away despite what we could see. Amazingly gluggable and refreshing. This would have made most people’s top four, I think. Must grab some. They also have a couple of cuvées which retail at around £3 more, and which look interesting. See here.

“RPM” Gamay 2013, El Dorado, California – Made by Arnot-Roberts and Rajat Parr, this was another contender. More structured than much Beaujolais, quite a serious wine. It’s far from the first really good Californian Gamay I’ve sampled in the past couple of years, but made without too much hang time it keeps itself quite taut. Yet another example of Roberson’s skilful selection of these New-Cali wines, and I’ve yet to taste a wine from either Arnot-Roberts, or Rajat Parr, which was anything less than exciting. A great combination.

Ruché di Castagnole Monferrato 2013, Montalbera – Sorry about the blurred photo here. I’ve had this wine a good few times, most recently I think at one of Warren Edwardes’ spice oddities lunches. I like it a lot, although I didn’t recognise it on this occasion. It seemed a bit fatter than I remember, and also lacking quite the brambly bite on the finish which might have brought a glimmer of recognition. Or perhaps I was concentrating too much on the wonderful Wiltshire Duck which was sitting in front of me? Anyway, I’ve recommended this wine before so I’m happy to do so again. The same producer makes a delicious Freisa too.

Humagne Rouge 2009, Simon Maye & Fils, Chamoson, Valais (Switzerland) – I was perhaps more disappointed here than by any other wine. I’ve had it a few times before and it was lovely, like a smoky Syrah-like red with concentraed fruit. Humagne is, of course, one of the signature grapes of the Valais, and although I drink more Swiss wine than many, I so rarely take them to tastings. The fault here was a certain hollowness in the middle. It may well have closed down, as a couple of people suggested. A shame.

Chianti Classico Brolio 1964 (?), Barone Ricasoli, Tuscany – With the date indecipherable, we relied on Antoine’s memory. It was the first ever fine wine he bought, so it was wonderfully kind of him to share it. It was on its last legs, to be fair, but not wholly shot at all, and at least 50% spotted it was Sangiovese (to be embarrassingly honest, the other 50% thought it was Nebbiolo!).

Brunello di Montalcino 2006, Altesino, Tuscany – What is my problem today? I thought this was Barbaresco, and I wasn’t completely alone there. Altesino is the first Brunello I bought, early 1980s vintages after a tasting with David Gleave at the old Winecellars in Wandsworth. Maturing nicely with poise, and not showing any of the real bombast of some modern Brunello (among its fans, 2006 is seen as an elegant vintage in Montalcino, lacking the power and fat of some). It grew on me too. I’ve not bought Altesino for ages but I’m told (thanks Shon) that it can be well priced at auction these days. This is approachable now but will mature.

Cuvée “Longo Mai” 2009, Domaine des Hautes Collines, St Jeannet/IGP Alpes Maritimes, Provence – This IGP sits up above Nice, and is even tinier and less well known than Bellet, though it shares the equally rare Braquet grape variety with that AOC. This cuvée also includes Cabernet Sauvignon, Grenache, Merlot and Syrah, all vinified separately before blending and transfer to glass bonbonnes. These are left outside (as sometimes happens in Banyuls at the other corner of Southern France), usually on a rooftop here, before three years of oxidative barrel maturation. This wine divided opinion quite sharply. Some people said they didn’t get it. It was probably, by a whisker, my personal wine of the day, so there you go. Unusual, complex and thought provoking, even before discovering its method of production.

Campania Rosso IGP 2011, Azienda Monte di Grazia, Tramonti (Amalfi Coast) – 90% Tintore with 10% Piedirosso from old vines, made with minimum intervention just inland from the Amalfi beaches, yet far more exciting than many wines flogged to tourists. The vines are actually 120 years old, and the result is far too serious for undiscerning tourists, for whom a “mere IGP” might be misleading. A nice touch of age here, which I suspect those centenarian vines merit. It also has that iron filings and earthy note which you find in nearby (red) Lacryma Christi (though those wines are most usually 100% Piedirosso, the minor component here).

Ajaccio AOC Cuvée Faustine 2004, Comte Abbatucci, Casalabriva, Corsica – Another thing we don’t often get treated to, a magnum of Corsican wine with more than a decade under its belt. It’s a blend of Niellucio and Sciàccarello, made by a family directly descended from Napoleon Bonaparte. Their now biodynamic domaine dates back to 1950. A wine with evident age to it, most had a stab at an old Tuscan (well, Niellucio is Sangiovese), but we thought it older than 2004. There was a move towards Corsica as its origin once Tuscany was rejected. Think old Chianti with a bit more bite. Very enjoyable, and a generous bottle for our final red.

Galilee Mount Hermon Dessert Muscat 1990, Yarden, Israel – Made at Yarden’s Golan Heights Winery from Muscat à Petit Grains grown in Galilee, it’s rich but not heavy, quite sweet but not cloying. 14% alcohol. It’s actually a good wine which is readily available in the US for very little money. These two halves had received the kind of bottle age I suspect this wine rarely manages and it was still fresh. A nice wine with which to finish the meal, and no great complexity to interfere with the sheer indulgence of our delicious rhubarb crumble. Sometimes the simple wines make the best matches.

Posted in Oddities lunches, Wine | Tagged Chöying Wine, Chrisohoou Estate Greece, Comte Abbatucci Cuvée Faustine, Domaine des Hautes Collines, Dr Loosen, Humagne Rouge, L'Acadie Grape Variety, Longo Mai, Luckett Vineyards Nova Scotia, Moldavian Czech Wine, Montalbera Ruché, Monte di Grazia, Nepal Wine, Priknadi, Rkatsiteli Georgia, Rochelle Canteen, RPM Gamay, Simon Maye & Fils, St-Jeannet, Stapleton & Springer, Urziger Wurzgarten, Yarden Mount Hermon Muscat | 6 Comments

Now This Really Is Weird!

Posted on 07/04/2016 by dccrossley

It’s not often that I blog about a single wine. That’s not to say that there aren’t single wines worth focusing on. I mean, everyone was writing about the new vintage of Krug a couple of months ago, but that’s the point – you don’t need me to tell you about a wine like that when the real wine writers are all over it. The wine I’m going to tell you about today warrants attention not because it’s famous or expensive. It may be rare, in that Newcomer Wines in Shoreditch Boxpark might have sold out of it by the time you read this, but it’s getting the spotlight here for a different reason. By a very long way, it is the weirdest wine I have drunk this year, indeed, perhaps for several years.

The wine is an Austrian pét-nat, made by the méthode ancestrale, from a blend of Riesling and Grüner Veltliner near Hollenburg (in the Kremstal, not far from the famous abbey of Stift Göttweig). The producer is Christoph Hoch. Christoph is an interesting guy. He makes still wines from his five hectares of chalky vineyard, but he’s got all sorts of interesting ideas about making sparkling wine, and this has led him to forge great friendships with some fine Champagne growers, principally Benoît Tarlant, and the Laherte and De Sousa families.

I’m fairly sure that even with these friendships, those Champenois would be fairly shocked at Christoph’s Kalkspitz. The first thing you notice is the crown cap seal. It’s common among pét-nats, and of course common in Champagne for the first fermentation. But Kalkspitz, in line with its production method, is not disgorged, so that the sediment of the first fermentation remains in the bottle. But it’s not the sediment as such which is shocking.

It’s quite common now for producers of pét-nat wines to offer two options for consuming them. The first is to stand them up for a few days so that the sediment falls to the base of the bottle. Careful opening and pouring will give a relatively clear and clean-tasting wine. Option two is to chill the bottle horizontally, or to invert the bottle before opening. The wine will then be cloudy, with the sediment being distributed in suspension. This gives an altogether different experience – the wine will taste a bit more yeasty and will have a very different texture.

Well, in for a penny (did you expect less?), I went cloudy. The bubbles are nice and small and the wine smells a touch yeasty, but there’s also a clean citrus nose as well. On the palate the wine is fresh and palate cleansing, but also there’s a chalky texture (some might say earthy). On the one hand I can imagine Newcomer having some problems with this, despite their adventurous customer base. It’s clearly wine, but I described it at the time as a cross between wine, cider and beer (the cider comes through as an appley note and the beer perhaps from the yeast, the “wheat beer” look and the froth on top). And as to the look of it? Well, see the photo – is just looks wrong by most standards. In some countries they would not have allowed its release, but Austria isn’t as vinously conservative as you may think.

Yet saying that, there are no negatives about this wine, for me at least. In some ways it’s a simple wine, but it also has hidden depths. Whether you’d call them complexity is open to personal interpretation. It’s obviously made by someone who is experimenting from a position where he knows what he’s doing. What Hoch has made clearly pushes the boundaries of pét-nat winemaking just a little further than most people whose wines I’ve tasted. Kalkspitz won’t be for everyone, but for the adventurous it’s just something else to stimulate the palate.

Regular readers will know I do like my musical puns. This one was felt too obscure to use as a title by the “editorial board”, but I can’t help it – Kalkspitz reminds me of Spizzenergi’s 1979 classic, Where’s Captain Kirk (“the best Star Trek song ever” – John Peel). It’s not just the name. It’s quirky and bursting with energy and life, if a little rough at the edges. For the new kind of wine drinker, that’s pretty much a fine recommendation in itself. But for the more conservative, approach with caution.

Christoph’s current project, due for release in 2017, is a méthode traditionelle sparkler with no non-wine additives (ie no added yeast or sugar). Can’t wait to see how that turns out.

Kalkspitz 2015 – Christoph Hoch, Hollenburg, Kremstal, 10.5%, Méthode Ancestrale. Contact Newcomer Wines via the web site link above (opening para) for UK availability.

Posted in Austria, Austrian Wine, Sparkling Wine, Wine | Tagged Austrian Wine, Christoph Hoch, Hollenburg, Kalkspitz, Kremstal, Méthode Ancestrale, Newcomer Wines, pét-nat, weird wines | 4 Comments

Is This the Outer Edge of the Wine World?

Posted on 01/04/2016 by dccrossley

I’m just returned from spending the best part of March in Nepal (hence the lack of posts here). It’s my third trip there, and the second in two years. People like to know what it’s like, and I always answer along the lines that it’s both challenging and stimulating, but that the latter outweighs the former. You can get used to no hot water, even no water at times, along with the other privations and deviations from our pampered Western expectations (sixteen hour electricity outages are common every day in the capital). You can’t get used to the dust, and in Kathmandu, the terrible pollution, but you can put up with it. You can also show a philosophical resolve against the near inevitability of getting sick from something you ate. But little prepares the first time visitor for the sheer colour of the Nepal experience – people, temples and shrines, flora and fauna, landscapes, and above all, the astounding mountains.

Yet I do weep for Nepal, a country in which half the population earns less than a dollar a day (ranked 140th in terms of world poverty). After a decade or so of civil war, 2015 saw first a major earthquake, and then a blockade on the Indian border which deprived the country of gas, kerosene and petrol. The streets were quiet and people were cooking on open fires on their balconies and terraces. There is wealth, serious private wealth if you look beneath the veneer. The officials with whom the wealthy Western diplomats and employees of the NGOs mix live in almost hidden gated communities, drive 4WDs and dine in smart restaurants serving Western food and alcohol at highly taxed prices. But there’s little infrastructure. Kathmandu’s ring road is one long, wide, dirt track choked with traffic at a standstill – thousands of motor bikes jostling with taxis, buses, lorries and carts. There are no rules, apart from the occasional policeman’s whistle trying to bring order at traffic light free intersections.

So don’t expect a wine industry here. There is one, of sorts, but not in the sense we understand. There’s a long tradition of commercial fruit wine production, based on fruits and herbs. It’s not the kind of thing to interest most wine lovers, but it can provide an occasional alternative to the more satisfying local beers, such as Gorkha, or Sherpa (billed as Nepal’s first ever craft beer, and my favourite thirst quencher there).

We spent a week on the lakeside at Pokhara, about a seven hour drive west, down the fertile Kathmandu Valley. It’s an idyllic place, a large lake surrounded by hills and, in the morning light, magnificent views of the Annapurnas and Machhapuchhare (“Mount Fishtail”). It was in what is probably Pokhara’s most expensive supermarket that we found Hill Hut Winery’s “Dandaghare Pindhi Herbal Dry”. They described it as a sweet red, made from “fruits, roots, herbs and honey”. To be more accurate, the colour was mid-tawny, not red, but it was reasonably drinkable. Imagine a Palomino table wine (not remotely like anything Equipo Navazos would make, I should say, though I am thinking unfortified Sherry) to which has been added a good large tablespoon of honey. Although it’s hard to be totally objective in such a beautiful location, you’d finish the bottle, though perhaps not dash out to buy more. They managed 11.6% alcohol. I will say, this was significantly nicer than any other fruit wine we’ve had in Nepal.

Pokhara Lakeside and Hill Hut Fruit Wine

When you return by road to Kathmandu you spend most of the day following the Trisuli river, well known in parts for its white water rafting. The valley is lush, even long before the monsoon rains turn it into a sea of rice terraces. Roadside stalls sell river fish and fruit. You pass beautiful villages up the valley sides, like Bandipur where, if you jump out of bed before dawn, you can go to watch the sun rise over the white peaks of the Manaslu Himal to the north.

If you stop at Manakamana you can ascend ten minutes in the modern cable car (made moderately famous by the 2014 “slowfilm” of the same name, by Stephanie Spray and Pacho Velez – “You could hardly ask for a more beautiful vision of souls in transit” : Time Out Magazine) to the temple to the fearsome goddess, Bagwati (an incarnation of Parvati) whose power to grant newly weds a male child comes at the price of sacrifice. The Austrian-built cable car survived the 2015 earthquake. The temple didn’t, nor did those inside it at the time. The temple is being rebuilt, but the sacrifices are still taking place.

As you approach Kathmandu the road rises steeply between Naubise and Thankot. On these hairpins the inevitable breakdown of heavily laden lorries causes jams lasting hours. As you begin to crest the hill there is a turn-off to the settlement of Chisapani. Here you will find the Pataleban Resort and Vineyard. It’s the only commercial vineyard producing its own wine in the country.

There are around 2ha of vines on the Chisapani site, but there are two other sites nearby. The vineyard was founded in 2007 by Kumar Karki, with strong involvement from Japan. This is why, among the seventeen grape varieties being trialled at Pataleban (everything from Delaware and Muscat Bailey A to Chardonnay) there are several Japanese varieties and crosses (including Koshu). They make a red, white and rosé, but production currently only stands at around 3,500 bottles per year, almost all sold to guests at the exclusive resort hotel.

Pataleban Vineyard Resort

The challenges faced by the staff here are considerable. The grapes are all trained on a widely spaced high cordon and netted against birds, monkeys, and the occasional leopard. Harvest (they only crop once a year, unlike some parts of India) comes at monsoon time. Imagine that, bearing in mind the stress to producers which a bit of rain causes on the Cote d’Or!

When we visited, the white and pink were sold out, but the red proved to be both palatable and interesting. All the winemaking equipment has to be imported. I think much comes from Germany. The wine is clearly well made, the grape variety being Khainori (a cross between Pinot Noir and Khaiji) grown in the estate’s Kaule vineyard. It has that kind of hybrid flavour you get so often with indigenous reds in Japan, a strawberry/raspberry fruit with a kind of foxy/woody note on the finish. It doesn’t lack balanced acidity and is refreshing and quite light. It costs 1,700Rs, a princely sum in Nepal, yet equating to about £11-£12. Vastly cheaper than an imported bottle of cheap, branded Chilean Cabernet from an air conditioned wine room in a smart Durbar Marg restaurant, and much more interesting. The 2014 we tried, and bought, has 12% alcohol.

The resort has a beautiful hilltop setting with more of those stunning mountain views when the air is fresh and the cloud lifts. They suffered damage to the hotel buildings during the earthquake, but repairs are well under way. As our guide, Sahishnu Shrestha, pointed out the embryonic “fine dining restaurant”, it is clear that there is real ambition here, and I wish them every success. What they have achieved so far, on the evidence of the red, albeit in a local context, is way beyond anything yet achieved viticulturally in Nepal, but perhaps not quite in terms of winemaking…

One of the pleasures of having a family member living in Nepal currently is the opportunity to meet people, both locals and Westerners. Our daughter is acquainted with a wonderful American called Laurie Lange, who is studying in Kathmandu for much of the year. Although her wider family has a long winemaking history, she has no direct experience herself, but she is both a creative and focussed individual with, seemingly, a genuine talent for anything she turns her hand to (successfully having grown mushrooms, for example, she also spends part of the year as a tour guide in Alaska).

Laurie makes wine in Kathmandu. In effect, it’s home winemaking. Most of her tools of the trade, including yeasts, hydrometer etc, came in a suitcase. For fermentation vessels she cleverly uses the ubiquitous drinking water containers so essential in Nepal. They hold around 20 litres of drinking water and you see them the world over, everywhere from airports to doctors’ surgeries, blue plastic attached to a levered tap (usually with a stack of plastic cups on the side). Onto these she affixes the air locks we normally see on demijohns, which seem to work well.

Laurie began by making a white wine from locally purchased grapes which, in Kathmandu, come in from India. March is a good time for grapes, and indeed for all fresh fruit which, despite a long overland journey on dusty roads, looks pristine on the street carts and in the fruit stalls. The grapes bear an uncanny resemblance to Thompson Seedless, although I’m afraid my ampelographical skills are wanting here. She’s calling the “brand” Chöying which is Tibetan and means “body of qualities: the basic state of all phenomena which holds all potentiality, all future qualities”.

The white is slightly hazy right now, but remarkably drinkable. I stress remarkably. The wine reminds me so much of a Fendant (Chasselas) from Switzerland’s Vaud (more specifically, La Côte on the north shore of Lac Léman between Geneva and Lausanne). I have no idea why it tastes like a Mont-sur-Rolle, but it does. That means high acidity, but not breaking the boundaries of acceptability. I’d have liked to talk to Laurie a lot more – I’m sure she could offer me some good advice on our own wine making efforts. She’s done her research meticulously, and her main worry is the haziness of the juice. I hope it will fall bright in time. She told me in an email this morning that she plans to bring over some bentonite for fining next time she’s back in the States. There’s also a rosé fermenting, semi-sweet with an “undertone of grapefruit”. Laurie’s not sure whether she likes it, but I wish I could taste it myself.

Laurie’s Chöying White

Maybe next year, Laurie? As I said at the top of this post, Nepal has its challenges. When you are spending an almost inevitable day in bed, when there’s no water for a shower in the morning, or when you are being followed by people wanting money, or to sell you trinkets, you do sometimes look forward to the luxury of getting home, I admit it. But when the time nears to leave, all such thoughts are banished. And when you do get home your thoughts immediately turn to when you might go back.

Typical Liquor Store, Kathmandu They do grow grapes in Nepal!

Nepal is stunningly beautiful and visiting the country is hard to beat as experiences go. The people have been truly shafted – by nature’s violent earth movements, by the global economy, by years of endemic corruption, and by the rivalry of the two emerging superpowers which hold Nepal like the filling in a hot dog, squeezed between India and China, who show petulant childish jealousy should the country appear to favour one over the other. Yet the many ethnic groups which make up Nepal are some of the friendliest people on the planet. And the country does not lack for people trying hard to improve things. Nepal welcomes tourists like few others, and boy does it need them. The former Maoist Leader, Prachanda (nom de guerre of Pushpa Kamal Dahal), said he wanted to turn Nepal into the “Switzerland of Asia”. There’s a hell of a way to go, but miracles are possible…

Posted in Nepal, UNESCO World Heritage Sites, Wine, Wine Travel | Tagged Chöying Wine, Gorkha Beer, Hill Hut Winery Pokhara, Kathmandu, Khainori Grape, Manakamana, Pataleban Vineyard, Sherpa Beer, Wine in Nepal | 7 Comments

Jurable or Merely Fashionable?

Posted on 23/02/2016 by dccrossley

When I first visited Jura in the 1980s only a few UK wine professionals seemed to have been there, and only one or two were extolling the virtues of the wines, principally the Vin Jaunes, from this attractive region. This despite its proximity to wine merchant home base, Beaune. Now, of course, there is no wine more fashionable, at least among younger drinkers, merchants and sommeliers. As I’ve said many times, when the classics become unaffordable, wine lovers need to look elsewhere. Jura combines the all important possibilities that can lead to stardom: some old time winemaking gurus, the return of some well travelled sons to established estates, a range of pretty unique wines, a few mavericks intent on quality, and reasonable prices. Only the last of those seems currently under threat, the product of this fame.

I organised a small dinner with the aim of establishing beyond doubt that Jura is able to make exciting wines of genuine quality. If the best wines can match the best from other regions, then Jura fashion will become lasting fame. But that’s a lot to ask of a region several French friends joke about, albeit perhaps less loudly now. Selecting which wines to take along to Quality Chop House last night was tough, and I settled on seven wines from just four producers: Stéphane Tissot is the well travelled son (Brown Bros in Australia, and South Africa), J-F Ganevat the maverick, and Puffeney and Overnoy/Houillon the gurus. No room for some of my favourite estates who have made a name for themselves more recently (La Tournelle, Hughes-Beguet, Bodines, L’Octavin etc). And the toughest call, no room for that classic Jura red variety, Trousseau (there’s only so much five can drink on a Monday night).

The Line-up

I think the evening was an unqualified success. All the wines performed at least approaching what I’d hoped, and several of the wines I’d defy anyone to say were any less stunning than classic wines from classic regions. QCH as usual gave us a wonderful meal, my choices including a mutton starter and monkfish main. We took hard cheese with the Vin Jaune and blue with the Vin de Paille.

Crémant du Jura “La Combe de Rotalier”, J-F Ganevat is a 12% non-dosé Chardonnay sparkler of real class and interest. There is often something nutty in Jura crémants, you even find it in the famously cheap but decent version Aldi sell, from the Maison du Vigneron in Crançot. This wine was served as an aperitif last night, but it was more than that, setting the scene for the wines to follow. Although it’s one of the more expensive wines of this AOC, and fiendishly hard to find in the UK, it represents great value compared to average Champagne. Crémant du Jura quality is generally pretty high.

“De Toute Beauté Nature”, Vin de France 2013, J-F Ganevat is effectively the wine which edged out a Trousseau. Why? It’s a good example of natural winemaking by perhaps its best know protagonist in a region where non-intervention has almost become the norm among the internationally recognised producers (stress almost). It’s a wine of freshness and fruit, just 12.5% alcohol, and made from a blend of (usually) around 70% Gamay plus a list of ancient Jura grape varieties. This is clearly Gamay, but with a more savoury aspect and, as one person said, something of a Barbera-like finish. Not at all like cider either! Ganevat specialises in these once important but no longer AOC-listed vines. There’s a lovely vine conservatory you can visit if you are ever in Château-Chalon, a walled Clos above the Puits-St-Pierre vineyard, accessed from quite near to the back of the church (there’s a path snaking down). It contains some of the, believe it or not, 51 varieties now recorded in the region as a whole. [See Wink Lorch’s essential Jura Wine for a list and more information.]

Arbois-Pupillin 2009, Domaine Pierre Overnoy is from one of the famous names of Jura wine, a sage to some and certainly a mentor to many younger producers. His total life commitment appears to be towards quality…and sourdough bread. Whilst Pierre bakes, and strolls through the vines, the wines are now made by Emmanuel Houillon and occasionally other members of that family (Adeline now makes her own wine with Renaud Bruyère, well worth looking out for). This wine is what Pupillin is famous for – Poulsard, or should I say Ploussard, for that is how they spell it in the world capital of this variety. Ploussard produces pale wines, this being no exception. There’s fruit for sure, even a hint of strawberry jam. But it’s an ethereal quality which makes it special, like (in the words of that obscure 1979 single by Teardrop Explodes) sleeping gas. Touch of tea leaf in there too! 12.5% alcohol.

Savagnin Amphore 2014, Arbois, Stéphane & Bénédicte (Domaine A&M) Tissot is a little young, but also I think, a wine which is going to be stunning. For starters, at 12% alcohol it lacks the heft of the 15% 2009 we drank at La Balance in Arbois last September (see one of the links at the foot of this post). Sometimes wine tasting terms can be subjective and fanciful, a topic on which I’ve banged on about just recently. But I challenge anyone to say this wine doesn’t smell of curry. Curry leaf to one, but a jar of medium curry powder to me. It has the orange hue to match, and a nice bit of tannin-like texture too. Very limited availability but a tiny bit reaches London. This is probably the first producer in the region to use terracotta on any scale, and Stéphane has a nice line of receptacles in Montigny-les-Arsures (different types too, but we won’t get too technical). Now you can walk into almost any young vigneron’s cave and see one bubbling away, covered perhaps in a layer of cling film to keep the dust out. Stéphane’s is the benchmark.

Tissot’s Vin de Paille, Puffeney’s Savagnin, Tissot’s Amphore

Arbois Savagnin 2004, Jacques Puffeney is a wonder to behold, and although all good things come to an end, the fact that Jacques sold his vines (to the Burgundians at Domaine du Pélican) means that we won’t see its like again (because the current policy of the pelicans seems to be only to make topped-up wines, which might change but this wine sees no topping up). Some people call this a mini Vin Jaune, but that is perhaps to fail to see the uniqueness here. It has that Savagnin tang, softened by eleven years in bottle. Complexity and length (repeated and repeated). 13% alcohol.

Côtes du Jura Vin Jaune 2003, J-F Ganevat is not a version of this Jura classic of classics from one of the established great names in this genre, but let’s face it, those who know Ganevat want to try his Vin Jaune. And as prices have risen, it’s nice to have this tucked away, bought at a price I could afford a few years ago (Vin Jaune is made purely from Savagnin aged under flor until 15 December of the sixth year following harvest, and is released the following February after the Percée du Vin Jaune, held just a couple of weeks ago in Lons Le Saunier this year, for the current 2009 vintage). This bottle is still a baby in Vin Jaune terms, as it was released six years ago and I’d normally suggest ten years in bottle to be worth aiming for. It has 13.5% alcohol, is nutty and is gaining smoothness, not yet having completely lost the acidity of youth. Of course, there’s Macle, or Berthet-Bondet, both of Château-Chalon, but I think this wine held up the reputation of Jura’s signature style very well indeed.

Vin de Paille 2009, Bénédicte and Stéphane (Domaine A&M) Tissot was the only way to finish a Jura wine dinner. Vin de Paille is made from grapes dried either in boxes or hanging from rafters for at least six weeks after harvesting, and then not released until the November, three years after harvest. The finished wine must contain between 320g/l and 420g/l of sugar and between 14%-19% alcohol (this had 14%), which is why so many producers, including this one, make so many “non-Vin de Paille” dessert wines. Vin de Paille is both rare and, usually, expensive (as now is Vin Jaune), but it’s a classy dessert wine. Sweet but not cloying, with a nice touch of complexity coming through. Jura is where straw wine originated in France (well, Chave fans might argue), and it’s now being tried all over the world – I’m sure some readers will have read about the Mullineux Straw Wine from South Africa I drank recently. This one is pretty much as good as it gets.

Vin de Paille in all its richness

So there we have the wines. We usually canvas opinions on Wine of the Night, and the Overnoy/Houillon Arbois-Pupillin was almost unanimously the winner, with the aged Puffeney Savagnin in second place. But I think all the wines did their bit for the region. Everyone seemed very happy. But these wines are all from some of the region’s best known producers. The task is to encourage people to get out and see what their wine shop has on the shelf. I have tens of different domaines’ wines at home, any number of which would have gone down well. Like Burgundy’s Côte d’Or just up the road, there are many producers, a few large, some medium-sized, and many very small. A lot of them reward exploration, as does the region itself. A trawl back through this Blog will reveal my notes on a couple of previous Jura trips, which if you are interested, can be accessed via the links below:

Between the Woodsmoke and the Water

The Contenders

Fine Sense of Balance

Watching Stéphane Tissot

Posted in Jura, Wine, Wine Tastings | Tagged André & Mireille Tissot, Arbois, Bénédicte Tissot, De Toute Beauté Nature, Domaine A&M Tissot, Emmanuel Houillon, Ganevat Vin Jaune, J-F Ganevat, Jacques Puffeney, Jura Wine, Pierre Overnoy, Ploussard, Poulsard, Pupillin, Quality Chop House, Savagnin, Stephane Tissot, Vin de Paille, Vin Jaune, Wink Lorch Jura Wine book | 1 Comment

Natural Resistance

Posted on 17/02/2016 by dccrossley

Being a little beyond my youth now, I grew up in a world without home computing and without mobile phones. I also grew up in a world without organic wine. That’s not quite true. Plenty of producers avoided chemical applications in the vineyard and a range of additives and manipulations in the winery, but we didn’t really know about them. Wine was just wine. Most wine was made using at least some of these interventions. In the latter half of the Twentieth Century producers were told to use pesticides and other synthetic preparations by their governments, who did so in the belief that they would help create rural prosperity in their agricultural sectors in post-WW2 Europe, by cutting disease and increasing production. Later, this form of farming became part of the “modern” methodology which was promoted by the soon to be revered university wine schools of the New World – an integral part of the New World wine revolution. It went hand in hand, or so it seemed, with new oak, stainless steel, hygiene in the winery and machine harvesting in the vines.

Much of the work of colleges like UC Davis in California or Charles Sturt in Australia (NSW), and indeed the work of Bordeaux and Dijon Universities, helped transform wine quality. We went from a world of affordable fine wine plus a load of plonk, to one in which we may no longer be able to afford much classic fine wine, but at least the rest is usually pretty drinkable and much more of it, delicious. But what comes around, as they say…and in the past few months we have seen quite a lot of negative news about the use of agrochemicals in wine production.

Perhaps by coincidence the two main stories have come out of those most famous of French wine regions, Bordeaux and Burgundy. Pesticides have been under scrutiny in the Gironde, the French département which encompasses the Bordeaux wine region, for some years. Back in 2014 twenty-three school children in Blaye suffered headaches and nausea when a vineyard next to their school was sprayed with pesticides, and an outcry followed. But the same issue in the same region came back into the news this year with a recent documentary on the French TV Channel, France2. The programme highlighted this most famous part of France’s wine patrimony as the most greedy consumer of pesticides in a country which itself ranks as Europe’s largest user. The issue has, as a consequence, been widely reported around the world. The programme, in focusing on the risk to children, has perhaps not done the region any publicity favours.

To be fair, the French Government has a plan to reduce pesticide use in agriculture by 2018, which is as admirable as it is perhaps necessary from a public health perspective. But by contrast, the other big story linked with agrochemicals is from France’s other great wine region, Burgundy. The vineyards of Burgundy have, in parts, been afflicted with a very serious vine disease, flavescence dorée. The regional authorities brought in mandatory use of a pesticide to fight the disease. Many organic producers are said to have purchased the pesticide but then tucked it away, without using it. To do so would negate their organic/biodynamic status.

Without debating all the issues surrounding flavescence dorée, how widespread and how much of a threat it really is over the whole region, and whether the proposed biodynamic remedies might be effective, one producer called Emmanuel Giboulot stated in public that he would not spray. He was pilloried by the authorities, and indeed by some fellow producers and members of the wider wine fraternity, but he received quite widespread support around the world (half a million people signed an online petition). In the end he received a fine of €1,000, half of which was suspended. Giboulot is a relative unknown, but another, much better known and very highly regarded, winemaker has since been charged with the same refusal to spray. Thibault Liger-Belair was acquitted of the same offence in relation to his Beaujolais domaine at Moulin-à-Vent, but on a technicality relating to procedure.

The way Bordeaux has reacted to the pesticide scandal has been to concentrate research on vines which are disease resistant. These vines, which I understand are not genetically modified, offer natural resistance to various diseases. I’m sure many of you know that Natural Resistance is the title of Jonathan Nossiter’s film about natural winemakers in Italy – a group of people dedicated to avoiding synthetic pesticides and fungicides, along with other winemaking manipulations. Although I accept that such practices may be problematic in the often damp maritime climate of the Gironde Estuary, this group of rebels (just a few of the ever increasing band of natural wine advocates around the world) are showing another route to avoid the effects of these applications.

Perhaps the star of Nossiter’s documentary is Piemontese contadini, Stefano Bellotti. Bellotti farms around 20 hectares of vines at his Cascina degli Ulivi estate in the Tassarolo Hills, close to Alessandria. This is better known as Gavi country, with the white Cortese grape playing the most important role in local viticulture. Whilst wine is Bellotti’s main preoccupation, his farm is mixed, with both cereals and livestock among a host of things he produces. In fact Monty Waldin has described the estate as “a vineyard which comes as close as possible to attaining the biodynamic ideal of a self-sustaining living organism” (Decanter Magazine’s Italy Supplement, February 2016).

Bellotti may come across as a bit of a conspiracy theorist in the film, believing that government is conspiring with the large multinationals which control food production in Europe, so that when we eat or consume rubbish, we become easier to manipulate by those who hold power. But he also, rather convincingly, argues that agrochemicals inhibit our intake of energy through plants. He also suggests that the EU is aiming to reduce the percentage of the population working in the agricultural sector, from the current 6% to the 2% which pertains in the USA, within its next ten year plan. That doubtless plays to the large multinationals who don’t really like the alternative competition to their food philosophy offered by small scale farmers. It would no doubt help cut agricultural subsidies too.

If Bellotti may seem an outsider prone to extreme views, perhaps he has good reason: just listen to this. In her book Natural Wine, Isabelle Legeron MW tells the story of how Bellotti, in order to increase biodiversity, planted some peach trees in one of his vineyards. According to the authorities, he had thereby “polluted” his land, and he was banned from selling the produce of this vineyard as wine. Does that sound like madness? For sure! To me, it even sounds like one act in a string of victimisation and bullying that wine producers like Bellotti face all the time. All over France and Italy, natural wine producers can no longer sell their wines under a local designation (DOC, AOC etc). True wines of terroir stripped of the chance to express that terroir on their label. Others fall foul of the wine police because they won’t add bags of sugar to boost the alcohol content of wines, which thereby are surely less reflective of their terroir and vintage than wines without this enforced chaptalisation. But I digress.

It seems to me that the wine world is in danger of polarising. Wine makers like Stefano Bellotti, and the other naturalistas around the world, may seem like outsiders to much of the wine establishment yet their influence is proving greater than you might think. As so often happens, those at the edges are not lost voices. Their philosophy resonates. Many small and medium-sized producers are rethinking their strategies. They begin with what is termed in France Lutte Raisonnée (literally “reasoned fight”). This pragmatic, as opposed to blanket, approach to spraying is often a beginning towards eventual organic certification.

Biodynamic viticulture, often the next step from organics, has really taken hold, especially among several of the finest producers in France, who have found that vines which have not been subjected to chemical spraying are able to create ecosystems (both in the life within the soils and the increase in beneficial fauna which can exist in a non-toxic environment) more able to resist disease, thus negating the need for these applications. Biodynamics scares many people who take a purely scientific approach, but the observations of its protagonists lead most who give it a try to end up going for full conversion, eventually.

Viticulture and winemaking heavily dependent on synthetic chemical inputs may increasingly become the domaine of large scale, industrial, producers and co-operatives, though even here many of the bigger firms are stepping back. Big wine multinationals make sure they have labels within their ranges which appeal to the more conscious consumer. That may not go as far as making “those faulty sulfur free wines that all taste of cider“, but organics is a start in the right direction.

The difficulty those who would like to see at least a substantial reduction in the use of agrochemicals face is the certain opposition of the multinationals who produce these products. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry. And where large scale wine production is concerned, minimising disease and maximising yields maximises profit…as well as, in the eyes of these producers, avoiding potential catastrophe and ruin. It’s the insurance policy these products claim to provide. Unlike a world famous producer in Gevrey or Vosne, the producer of large quantities of cheap supermarket wine can’t put up their prices by a few euros per bottle when there’s yet another small harvest.

The world, certainly Europe, is growing ever more conscious of food safety. Indeed, in many respects the European Union has been responsible for introducing the best and most thorough food safety legislation anywhere in the world. But the wine industry lags behind, in terms of labelling and in terms of testing.

As Stefano Bellotti says in Natural Resistance, we are in effect what we eat. If the testing of European wine samples is anything to go by, what we drink may well contain illegal pesticide levels in some cases, and sadly this even extends to organic wines. No matter how conscientious a producer might be, she can do nothing to stop her neighbour’s sprays drifting over her vines, especially if the spraying is being done from a helicopter. Thankfully this method of indiscriminate spraying is being outlawed in some regions, but pesticide drift is a massive problem. At least awareness of the problem is growing. Educating the consumer will eventually force the producers to take a different course. Well, we live in hope.

Natural Resistance is a slow and thoughtful film. It follows four winemaking families in different parts of Italy, committed to a non-interventionist wine philosophy. But it seems to me it covers more than that – it’s about a different way of living and of interacting with our planet. You don’t need to be an outright advocate for natural wines to take something from watching it. I found it very thought-provoking, although some people with a shorter attention span, and less acceptance of sub-titles, might find it less enjoyable than I did. But I think that most readers who enjoy my Blog would enjoy the film. I’m sure many of you will have watched it already.

As an act of solidarity with the much persecuted Stefano Bellotti, we shall drink a bottle of his 2012 A Demûa tonight. It was recommended to me by a wine merchant as “the best orange wine I tried last year” (sadly it has now sold out, but we may see it again, for sure). Bellotti grows the local specialities of Cortese and Barbera, along with a unique local strain of Dolcetto. But this wine is a blend of Timorasso, Riesling, Bosco, Verdea and Chasselas Musqué (according to Waldin, describing the 2013 version of this wine in the abovementioned Decanter article). The grapes, from vines over a hundred years old, are made into wine with skin contact, to create a complex texture to a wine combining nuts, herbs and citrus in a harmonious whole. Well, that’s what I’m hoping. Saluti!

Posted in Italian Wine, Natural Wine, Piemonte, Wine, Wine and Health | Tagged Cascina degli Ulivi, Emanuel Giboulot, Flavescence Dorée, Isabelle Legeron's Natural Wine, Jonathan Nossiter, Monty Waldin, Natural Resistance, Natural Wine, Organic Wine, Pesticides, Stefano Bellotti, Synthetic Vine Treatments, Thibault Liger-Belair | 2 Comments

Sicily’s Eastern Promise

Posted on 10/02/2016 by dccrossley

I fell in love with Sicily a long time ago, not as you might imagine by visiting the island, but after reading a book. John Julius Norwich’s “The Normans in Sicily” is the story of how the Norman House of Hauteville, under Robert Guiscard, conquered Sicily in the 11th Century, and how, under King Roger II this kingdom became perhaps the greatest centre of culture in 12th Century Europe. The book certainly paints a picture of the ruthless, bloody, and very possibly psychopathic, knights who subdued the island, but it also paints a picture of a beautiful landscape and the wonderful architectural legacy left by those early Norman rulers (Roger II, whose father spent much of the time away fighting, grew up in a court dominated by Greek culture and he effectively had a Greek education).

Sicily is big! It’s a large island, measuring around 130 miles east to west and, on its eastern shore, around 90 miles from Faro at its northern tip to Pachino in the south. Almost every article you read calls it “a continent in itself”. It certainly possesses almost every microclimate imaginable, from the baking plains where vast fields of wheat attracted the Greek and Arab invaders and colonisers who were there long before the Normans, to the snow and freezing cold on Etna, not only in the depths of winter. Sicily, lest we forget, is in places further south than parts of North Africa, yet Mount Etna rises to over 3,800 metres above sea level.

So, if we are going to talk about wine on Sicily, perhaps we should limit ourselves. There are lovely wines throughout the island, in the far west where the late Marco de Bartoli’s son, Renato, carries on his father’s great work, to the offshore islands, especially Pantelleria, where unctuous passito wines of the highest imaginable quality are fashioned from wind tormented vines, to mention but two examples. Sicily first became associated, for many, with bulk wine, at best weighty reds of high alcohol, at worst, plonk to beef up weedy northern juice. Yet it is now considered among Italy’s finest wine regions, and rightly so. The part of Sicily which appeals most to me, at least viticulturally, is the east. It’s the bit which has gained today’s fine wine reputation, in an age where fortified Marsala only now retains its appeal among a few well informed connoisseurs. So I am going to talk about Etna, Vittoria and Faro.

There are vines on the slopes of Etna as old as over a hundred years. Old bush vines in scattered plots climbing as high as 1,000 metres in some places, once tended by local farmers for home consumption. Many of these have been revitalised, although there are modern vineyards too, with modern trellising. The renaissance in Etna winemaking took place in the early 1980s, when local families like Tasca d’Almerita and Benanti began to bottle wines from the slopes of the mountain. The Benantis were aided by the region’s most famous wine personality, Salvo Foti. His deep knowledge has since allowed him to consult for a number of growers, as well as producing the I Vigneri range of wines, which I’ve sadly not had an opportunity to try. No one has done more than he to put these wines on the map.

The main red grape here is Nerello Mascalese. It’s often the main constituent of a blend including other local eastern Sicilian varieties like Nerello Cappuccio and Nocera, and it is increasingly bottled on its own. Comparisons with Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo are tenuous, but it is unquestionably a fine grape. But like those two noble varieties, it does seem capable of illuminating terroir, and I think that’s what those writers using this comparison intend to convey. The terroir here, especially on the northern slopes of the volcano around the towns of Randazzo, Passopisciaro and Solicchiata, is often covered in ash from minor eruptions. The soils are naturally volcanic for the most part. It is often pretty cold too. As producers always stress, these are mountain wines blessed with the sunshine of the South.

Producers often start their range with a generic Etna Rosso (or Bianco), and then release a number of single vineyard wines. The latter can be magnificent expressions of this unique location, though at suitably magnificent prices in some cases. Whilst the reds are gaining most of the fame, the whites have been sneaking up behind. Carricante is the main local white variety. At altitude these wines seem elegant almost to the point of being delicate when young – tangy, with a dry mouthfeel. As they age they don’t lose texture, but can fatten up a bit. Of course, that’s a broad generalisation, but these wines certainly show a capacity to age. So who to look out for?

Benanti – of all their wines, it’s the Etna Bianco Superiore “Pietramarina” which I have drunk most of, but as with all these producers, try any, no all, of their wines if you can.

Passopisciaro – from the town of the same name. You may recall I took the 2008 to the Oddities Lunch last week. Complex Nerello Mascalese from very old vines is the hallmark of this estate.

Terre Nere – from Randazzo, directly north of the crater. They are famous for their single vineyard wines which require age for them to express themselves fully. But I love their entry level white too. The first Etna wines I got to know really well.

Frank Cornelissen – this now famous Belgian began making wine here in 2001. He was a pioneer of sulphur free natural winemaking on the island. His wines are often mindblowing, from the simpler Contadino, through the majestic Munjabels, to the monumental Magma. I’ve also had disappointments, but I’m convinced this has been when retail storage was poor. Don’t display them under hot lighting, please.

Vino di Anna – I first came across Australian Anna Martens’ earliest vintages of “Jeudi 15” via UK importer Caves de Pyrene, of which her partner, Eric Narioo, happens to have been one of the founders. Anna also makes wines in terracotta, or qveri in this case. More natural wines, and if you like this philosophy you’ll like these. Based near Solicciata.

Also look for Pietradolce (Solicciata) and Girolamo Russo (Passopisciaro). I want to try more of the Russo wines, they seem to be quite unique, more restrained and elegant than most, in a DOC not exactly known for the big and flabby.

My most recent discovery from Etna has been the wines of Fattorie Romeo del Castello, such as the Allegracore, below. Based in Randazzo, this is an old estate, rejuvenated by Rosanna Romeo and her daughter, Chiara Vigo. Their oenologist is Salvo Foti, so they are in good hands. On the basis of just two bottles, I’m very much keeping my eye on this mother and daughter team. They have around 14 hectares of vines, with some over 100 years of age (which just missed destruction in an eruption of 1981).

There are, of course, plenty of other producers around the mountain worthy of comment. But as we are on the eastern side of Sicily, I’d like to talk about some more of her wines. Wines occasionally hidden in the publicity shadow of the volcano, but which are every bit as exciting. The wines of Vittoria, a town on the Southeastern bulge of the island, have been made famous by one producer, COS. Note the capitals, which distinguish them from the nickname of one of Bordeaux’s finest addresses. The three letters stand for the surnames of the estate’s three founders – Titta Cilia, Giusto Occhipinti and Pinuccia Strano. These three young men were at a loose end the summer before they went off to university, so Titta’s father gave them two metric tons of Nero d’Avola and prodded them towards the palmento, the old stone-floored winemaking hut. COS was born.

COS produce a range of wines now. The wine they rejuvenated is Cerasuolo di Vittoria, now Sicily’s first DOCG wine. It’s made from Nero d’Avola blended with a lovely local grape, Frappato. The wine which made them famous perhaps, is Pithos. It’s a Cerasuolo fermented in terracotta giare, or amphora. It has amazing texture and is a fickle wine capable of true sublimity. But COS also bottle a varietal Frappato, among others. It’s bright and pale in colour with light strawberry fruit, and has become the COS wine I look forward most to drinking. In some ways simple, yet in other ways, not.

The Occhipinti family has another star in the region, Arianna (a cousin of Giusto from COS). I only know three of Arianna’s wines – a red and a white called SP68 (white = Muscat of Alexandria blended with 40% Albanello, red = Frappato with 30% Nero d’Avola, both IGT), and the most beautiful expression of the Frappato grape I know, bottled as a single variety. There are another three wines I need to try, but so far they all exhibit true purity.

As an introduction to Cerasuolo you can always seek out Planeta’s version. Planeta are a large producer, with wine farms in several locations. For many, they are Sicily’s highest profile wine family. They are often accused of making wines in an international style, and indeed some are, though their ability to fashion wines from International varieties which could match some of their more famous iterations did more than anything to put Sicily on the wine map back in the 1980s/1990s. Their Cerasulo di Vittoria is a very decent expression of the DOCG and may be easier to find than COS. Planeta have also invested on Etna, and have an interesting and relatively new white, Euruzione 1614, made from Carricante with 5% Riesling. Even cheaper, and very much cheaper than the versions by COS and Occhipinti, is a Frappato which UK supermarket Marks & Spencer sell for £8, made by Stefano and Marina Ginelli (though if you are there, I’d recommend their Perricone made by Caruso e Minini at the same price). M&S have an adventurous range which explores Sicily further, including red and white Etna wines.

It feels as if time has almost run out, but if I can hold your attention just a little longer I’d like to take you to the extreme northeastern tip of Sicily, overlooking the Straits of Messina. Here, on steep slopes, is a tiny, 6 hectare, DOC called Faro. Its only major producer is an estate called Palari, run by architect Salvatore Geraci. Caves de Pyrene reckon these wines the island’s “most elegant”. Italian Wine Guide Gambero Rosso named the 2005 Faro as its red wine of the year, and Palari hasn’t looked back. As with Etna, Nerello Mascalese is the main grape, with others taking a minor part. There’s more of a nod to cherry fruit in these wines. The Faro DOC cuvée is very concentrated and ageworthy, but the less expensive Rosso del Soprano, which also includes some bought in grapes, is almost equally unique, especially after a few years in bottle. It seems, on its own terms, to combine elegance and richness. Wines worth going out of your way for. Not as fashionable as the Etnas, perhaps, but the fairly consistent tre bicchiere keep the prices in line with the best of that DOC.

There seem no be no shortage of articles about Sicily in the wine press, but there is a little known book on the island’s wines and winemakers, which I have enjoyed enough to read three times. It’s a few years old now, first published in 2010, but as a cross between a wine and a travel book, anyone interested in Sicilian wine may find it worth seeking out. It’s Palmento – A Sicilian Wine Odyssey by Robert V Camuto (University of Nebraska Press). He visits most of the iconic producers as well as soaking up the food culture of Sicily, and the descriptions of his visits, and often the journey to get to them, are evocative enough to transport you there.

As usual, the photos are my own, but there are small glimpses in a couple of those photos of photographs from an article on Etna by one of my favourite wine writers, Max Allen, which appeared in Gourmet Traveller Wine magazine, August/September 2015. Additional facts were gleaned from the Palmento book mentioned above, Hugh Johnson/Jancis Robinson’s World Atlas of Wine (7th edn, Mitchell Beazley) and from the various highly informative, book-like, catalogues of importer Les Caves de Pyrene.

All comments on the wines mentioned, and other opinions (and errors) are my own.

Posted in Italian Wine, Sicily, Wine | Tagged Anna Martens, Arianna Occhipinti, Benanti, Carricante, Cerasuolo di Vittoria, COS, Etna, Faro, Frank Cornelissen, Frappato, Girolamo Russo, Nerello Mascalese, Palari, Palmento, Passopisciaro, Pietradolce, Robert Camuto, Salvo Foti, Sicilian Wine, Sicily, Terre Nere, Vino di Anna | 5 Comments

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