I was very pleased to attend a tasting/masterclass introducing Ally Wines to the Edinburgh market on Monday. Ally Wines (pron. Al-eye, not Al-ee) is a London-based importer of small production artisan wines from the West Coast of America. Under the strapline of “Curiously Cool American Wines” Jennifer Williams-Bulkeley brings into the UK a range of wines from California, Oregon and Washington State, with a focus on cooler climates and alternative grape varieties. Her producers are quite often winemakers or viticulturalists at larger, often famous, producers but they are also engaged in producing wines under their own labels.
The wines on show were from an eclectic selection of grape varieties, hardly any Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon in sight, as well as there being a good few blends. As the Ally Wines website says, “This is not the American wine narrative so much of the world takes on board”. The event was organised by wine educator Isobel Salamon and hosted by Smith & Gertrude in Stockbridge, Edinburgh.
We were talked through a dozen wines by Jennifer, and there were some other odd bottles to taste ourselves. The brief notes below (necessarily brief as there are quite a few wines to discuss) will, I hope, give a flavour of the wines, their diversity, and a picture of what this importer is trying to introduce to the UK. Prices quoted include VAT. I’ve jotted down a few conclusions at the end.
The source of the fruit is the Bassi Vineyard at San Luis Obispo, off a young site cooled by the Pacific Ocean fogs. It is biodynamically farmed and made by the ancestral method, fermented with native yeasts. The wine was disgorged after a short two-months on lees in bottle. Just 66 cases produced. A simple wine, tinged pink from the skins, zippy with a fine spine of acidity carrying the fruit. A very tasty wine, delicious. I would buy this, for sure. About £37.
Stephen Hagen is a native of Oregon’s Willamette Valley, and he makes wine at Antiquum, based at Corvallis, where he lives with wife, Niki. This is an example of regenerative farming and as well has having just over 20 acres of vines, the couple also run herds of grazing and breeding animals (sheep, pigs, geese and chickens). This Pinot Gris, vinified en blanc, was pressed gently and then fermented in a mix of stainless steel and neutral French oak, followed by six months on lees. It has a mineral base and a softness to balance the gentle acids (it underwent spontaneous malo). Initially you get apples and pear, but it opens to broader tropical notes. About 500 cases were made, £36.
Moy Mell 2020, Dunites (San Luis Obispo, California) (11% abv)
The label’s name refers to a group of refugees, free thinkers who settled the dunes of San Luis Obispo County in the 1930s. The couple who run the label have joint experience in twelve vineyards around the world and aim to make terroir wines reflecting the coastal influence, on hillside sites on ancient sea bed uplifted by tectonic activity. Freshness and purity are their goals. This blend is 50% Pinot Noir (en blanc), 35% Albariño and 15% Chardonnay. It has fun, racy, acids and appley freshness. Moy Mell apparently means “meadow of honey” in Gaelic Irish. £28.60.
Kiona is a family winery based at Benton City in Washington State. The Williams family farms five sites, all of which they own, planted by John Williams and Jim Holmes in the 1970s in what is now the Red Mountain AVA. They were also noted pioneers in the Yakima Valley. Their “Artemisia” white wine (named after the mountain’s native sagebrush) is sourced from three sites and comprises 50% Semillon, 19% Sauvignon Blanc, 19% Roussanne and 12% Chardonnay in the 2020 vintage. Fermented in a mix of “clay” and barrel, it is aged ten months in oak (30% new). It’s very much a product of an AVA with a big diurnal temperature shift. It is both ripe-fruited, but with great acid balance, really elegant for a wine of 13.5%. £25.20.
Milhouse Semillon 2016, Fine Disregard Wine Company (Napa, California) (12.2%)
The organic fruit was sourced from a vineyard in Napa Valley’s Oak Knoll District whose soils are comprised of alluvial runoff from the Vaca Mountains. The daytime temperatures here are a good ten degrees lower than at the upper end of the valley. Some of the vines here produce a rare pink-tinged Sémillon mutation which has occasionally been found in South Australia. It has good body and mouthfeel for such a low alcohol wine, and as an extra dimension it has evolved nutty notes as a mature wine (and this does prove how well Sémillon can age). Fine Disregard are based in Saint Helena. £31.20.
The Old Vines 2019, De Sante (Napa Valley, California) (12.5% abv)
This frankly remarkable wine is made by David and Katharine De Sante, David having previously worked at Cullen and Katharine at Pierro, both in Western Australia. They started their own label in 2001, working with old vines and a mix of varieties ranging from the usual suspects to the unfamiliar. This field blend from the “Proof Vineyard” near Oakville includes Golden Chasselas, Green Hungarian, Pinot Blanc, Sauvignon Vert, and Semillon among others. Appley (tarte-tatin), slightly earthy, with yellow plum and greengage, and with hints of honey, and a waxy texture, all make this super-interesting. The only treatments used are natural tisanes and fusions. Fermentation is on lees in used oak. £44.40.
Adroît Trousseau 2020, Siletto Family Vineyards (San Benito County, California) (abv not seen)
We are on a roll here. I have always very much enjoyed Arnot Roberts’ Trousseau and I like this one very much as well. Chris Miller, a Master Sommelier, is the winemaker, and he also makes the wines for Seabold Cellars. I couldn’t find this bottle on the Ally Wines web site. I’m therefore missing both price and alcohol content, but what I can say is that it has delicious bright strawberries and cherries fruit with a nice savoury/slightly bitter finish. Nice texture too, just 217 cases produced. There was some debate whether it is a Rosé or a red. For the record, I’m in the “pale red” camp, but a wine to serve cool. There are Adroit Aglianico and Chenin wines on the Ally Wines site, ranging from £21 to £29.
This is a very small production Pinot, just 150 cases, from the cool and densely wooded Santa Cruz Mountain AVA north of Santa Cruz itself. This is the source for some pretty pricy wines but here we have something more affordable. A ruby-red Pinot which comes from sites in the northern part of the AVA, a sub-region known as Northern Skyline, with a high elevation above the fog line. This selection sees 18 months in French oak (15% new). It exhibits bright, youthful, cherry fruit from what has been described here as an exceptional vintage (though a hot one, and there were fires). There is a “Pinot smokiness” here, but nothing to do with smoke taint. £34.80.
Lemberger 2021, Kiona Vineyards (Red Mountain, Washington State and Oregon) (13.7% abv)
Well, the label affixed to the back says Lemberger whilst the main back label suggests a composition of 75% Pinot Noir, 24% Lemberger and 1% Cabernet Sauvignon. In fact, this is a rare interstate collaboration, the Pinot coming from Björnson Vineyard in Oregon and the Lemberger (and Cabernet) from Kiona in Washington State. If Lemberger is not that well known under this German synonym, it certainly is as Blaufränkisch, its Austrian name (this variety has more aliases than almost any variety I know, including Frankovka in Czechia and Kékfrankos in Hungary).
With big legs and a dark colour, its fruity Pinot element is nicely complemented with a spicy, ferrous Lemberger element. Lovely wine. It says it is vegan, and makes a point of the use of lighter glass for environmental reasons. £POA. It’s the wine generally known as “the crab label”, though on closer inspection I think it may depict a crab becoming a flower, and a very nice label it is too.
Red Mountain Lemberger 2019, Kiona Vineyards (Red Mountain, Washington State) (13.5% abv)
The Lemberger on Red Mountain was planted forty years ago, and the family produced the USA’s first ever commercial Lemberger in 1980. The original 1.8 acres of the variety has now grown to thirteen. 2019 was a reasonably cool vintage but a good summer enabled a long ripening period. As with the above wine, it’s not 100% Lemberger. There’s 14% Merlot and 5% each of Cabernet Sauvignon and Carmenère. Now it is drinking fruit-forward, but there’s a bit of texture and a crunchy finish. It’s hard to believe that the price quoted, £18, is not an error. Although perhaps I objectively prefer the previous collaborative cuvée, this must be one of the best value US wines I’ve tasted for some time.
Shypoke is a century-old ranch near the northern end of the Napa Valley. The terrain is based on alluvial river silts which Meg and Peter Heitz believe give very distinctive wines. Perhaps first comment goes to the alcohol content, so to get that out of the way, I’d say it’s high but gets the benefit of the doubt for being so in balance. Just four barrels were made of this deeply cherry-fruited red. It definitely suggests warm climate, yet it is also sophisticated, and structured. I think it will age a decade more (am I right?), but it is still impressive. I would not have guessed Sangiovese, but that makes it distinctively Napa.
Bel Canto Cara Mia Vineyard Red 2017, Cadence Vineyards (Red Mountain, Washington State) (14% abv)
Cadence, who are Ben Smith and Gaye McNutt, make this wine from the Cara Mia Vineyard about 200 miles east of their winery just south of down town Seattle. Ben is an ex-aerospace engineer, and Jennifer described him as one of the most meticulous winemakers she knows. This wine is a blend of Cabernet Franc (73%), Merlot (18%) and Petit Verdot (9%). There is a complex tech sheet of info about clones and barrels, perhaps reflecting Ben Smith’s meticulous nature, but what we have is 278 cases of classy red wine.
The Cab Franc comes through as more voluptuous than you get from the Loire but the fruit being ripe, and time, has helped the 50% new oak used here to integrate well. That said, this remains structured and quite big, but certainly impressive. Give it a few more years, or perhaps just open and let it breathe a few hours. Decanter Magazine described Cadence as one of the most consistently underrated producers in the US.
I will only mention a couple of wines from the “free taste” lineup because I can see I shall be heading well over my nominal 2,000-word limit.
Ossum Epiphanea Volume 1 2021, “Light Table Wine”, Ernest Vineyards (Mendocino County, California) (13% abv) is a crazy Sonoma County blend of Marsanne, Grenache, Picpoul, Mourvèdre, Cinsault, Counoise, Syrah and Roussanne. I think you might wonder just how “light” 13% is to a European palate, but it isn’t heavy, it isn’t out of balance and it is actually quite delicious. But neither is the price light at its usual £35. Ally Wines has it on offer for a very decent £26.40.
Disciples Red 2018, Bottled by the Crane Assembly (Napa, California) (15.7% abv) is possibly the most “Napa” wine I’ve had for a good decade or longer. Wow! 15.7%! There is fruit in there, both red and darker varieties, along with graphite and a touch of dark earth. But it is super-dense, though structured, not jammy in any way. In that sense it is a well-made wine and not an aberration, but it is quite a bit more alcohol than my old and partly jaded palate can take. To be fair, it tastes more like 15% rather than 15.7%, but all the same. I do know people that would adore this, and I’d buy it with one particular friend in mind were it not to retail for £54.60. Taste it if you ever get the chance, but buy it at your own risk.
So, a few words to sum up. An outstanding tasting, and so nice to get the opportunity to try so many wines outside the US mainstream. The Ally Wines portfolio is way larger than what I tasted here, with a lot more very interesting cuvées from a host more interesting “alternative varieties”. The wines I enjoyed most, from a purely personal perspective (knowing my quirky tastes as you probably do) were:
Outward Pinot Gris Petnat
De Sante Old Vines White Blend
Siletto Family Adroit Trousseau
Kiona’s Oregon Collab Pinot Noir/Lemberger
Those were my favourite four. I was going to mention a few others but I realised that pretty much all of them I’d buy if my four favourites were missing from the shelf. You’d have to grab the other Kiona Lemberger if you saw it, at just £18, and that crazy Ossum Epiphenea at its discounted price. The only wine I’d shy away from would be the Disciples Red, but I’d have met the challenge with enthusiasm in my youth.
Ally Wines has a web site at www.allywines.co and an Instagram feed at @ally_wines . For further information, especially trade clients (though private clients are equally welcome), contact Jennifer Williams-Bulkeley via jwb@allywines.com .
Many thanks to Isobel Salamon and Smith & Gertrude Stockbridge for organising, inviting me and hosting.
Isobel and Jennifer
Smith & Gertrude’s Stockbridge Bar (26 Hamilton Place EH3)
Around this time of year back in 2021 I reviewed Camilla Gjerde’s first book (see article 27-10-2021, “We Don’t Want Any Crap in Our Wine”). Camilla, who was born in Norway but now lives in Sweden, has a Diploma in Wine along with a doctorate in political science. This work was a timely profile of nine women making natural wine at a time when women in wine were beginning to have a bigger profile for their work. It is a lovely book in terms of design, layout and content, far from being a throwaway frippery. Though a “feel good” book, the author translated the passion, and indeed success, of the participants, so we ended up feeling inspired, as, I must say, were her choice of women winemakers.
So, I have been looking forward to receiving Camilla Gjerde’s second book. The title is Natural Trailblazers, with a sub-title “13 ways to climate friendly wine”. This is an altogether more prickly topic to write about. Effectively, we are looking at what people in wine, whether making it or selling it, are doing to decrease their carbon footprint in order to do their own small bit to ameliorate climate change/climate chaos (substitute as you wish).
It would be a good place to remind readers who have already come across Camilla and her work before that we are here very much in an area that she believes in deeply. In fact, Camilla’s own contribution is that, as with her previous book, her journeys around Europe to visit the participants for this latest work are all undertaken by train with her trusty Brompton folding cycle. Well, barring the occasional necessity of getting in a car (a dash across Paris in a taxi to avoid missing a train connection is something that has been forced on many of us). It is poignant (and possibly deliberate?) that the last chapter is loosely based around a rising star of Alsace, Yannick Meckert, who has totally given up flying.
As with the first book, Camilla worked with photographer Cecilia Magnusson, who follows Camilla on her journeys, only visible by an occasional photo of two folding Bromptons. Cecilia works in Stockholm, mostly in portrait photography for magazines and advertising, but her sensitivity to nature is evident. She has taken some lovely photos which bring the text to life, although I would say that the matt finish on the printing does render a small percentage of them a tint too dark for me (though I think this is a trend I see in almost every wine book printed on otherwise superior matt paper these days).
The back of the jacket entreats us to buy a copy with the words “Meet thirteen visionaries of natural wine, who are each leading the way towards a low-carbon future”. Those visionaries are grouped into three areas: in the vineyard; in the winery; and on the move. Quite simply viticulture, winemaking and transport. The “Notes” referred to below allow full fact checking should you so wish. All assertions are evidence-based.
Before we begin our journey through the book, I would like to address one issue some readers might have. Isn’t this all too little and too late? I think the following quote, from Physical Chemist and Nobel Laureate Ilya Prigogine is worth contemplating:
“When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order”.
Wine is quite a good example of outliers, rebels, experimenters, call them what you will, transforming the norms of viticulture and winemaking by bringing their work at the periphery into the mainstream.
In the vineyard we leap in with a visit to Katie Worobeck, a young Canadian who worked from 2017 at Ganevat. Her Maison Maenad, near Orbagna in the Southern Jura, had its first harvest in 2020. The first wine of hers I tried was De L’Avant, a 2021 Côtes du Jura Chardonnay from rented vines in Les Varrons, a famous site near Rotalier that certainly Labet fans will know. For me, this rang the bell of “star in the making”, and similar confidence has been placed in her by several Jura insiders, both in France and the UK. Luckily in 2022 she was able to finance the purchase of three hectares of her own from the sale of a house in Canada.
Katie is committed to agroecology and regenerative farming. She is quoted as saying “I think everyone should do something, and if you do something, you need to do the best you can.” This is surely the mantra of the whole book. Katie is inspiring, but she is also driven. Such strength, as exhibited by so many participants in this book, is astonishing (and that is both physical and mental strength).
Christine Pieroth (Piri Naturel) farms in Germany’s Nahe, a small and perhaps these days less well known than it once was wine region. It is named after a river between the Mosel and the Rhine, flowing through the Hünsruck Mountains to join the Rhine at Bingen.
Christine is already making quite a name as a wine producer but her first harvest was only 2018. She does have a whole seven hectares of vines though, farmed organically, inspired by permaculture. Her two areas of focus, at least for the purposes of this book, are hybrid vines and trees. Well, more than trees. A recurring theme is the introduction of trees, bushes and hedges into the vineyard.
Agroforestry (as it is called) is not new. I have mentioned it many times over the years but mixing trees and shrubs in with the vines is beginning to take off. Sadly, there are old-fashioned conservatives too dumb to see why forward-thinking viticulturalists are doing it. Pretty much every time Jeff Coutelou plants trees in his Languedoc vineyards some Le Pen-voting, chemical-ingesting, brain-free zone comes and burns them down.
Christine is also introducing PIWIs, the increasingly used German name for hybrid vines showing high resistance to fungal diseases. Some of these vine varieties, many pioneered in Switzerland and Germany, are beginning to be seen as one viable solution to the various effects of climate change, where “global warming” is also very much “global wetting”, as this past summer has illustrated. Humidity with rain is really a grape’s worst enemy in most situations.
Next, we visit Les Frères Soulier in the Gard, whose vineyards do not look like vineyards (no-till agriculture with animals), Catherine Dumora in the Auvergne (machine-free viticulture), and the wonderful Romaine and Hans-Peter Schmidt (of Mythopia in Switzerland’s Valais). Mythopia probably needs no introduction, but this chapter did make me sad, reading about the difficulties the Schmidts are facing. All I knew previously was that they make amazing wines, among Switzerland’s finest, if albeit increasingly unaffordable to ordinary worshippers like myself.
In the winery we meet Thierry Hesnault (Loire) for ancestral methods, Paolo Bertani (Puglia) for kegs and cans, Eric Texier (Rhône) for kegs and pouches, and Géraldine Dubois (Lyonnais) for keeping sales local, by bike.
On the move gets very interesting. Many will have heard of Sune Rosforth one way or another. It was his idea to bring wines to Copenhagen (since 2012, no less) by sailing ship, aboard the lovely Tres Hombres (pictured). If Sune’s profile is quite large in natural wine circles, Christopher Melin is fairly unknown outside of Copenhagen, but he and his team deliver around 90,000 bottles of wine a year by cargo bikes (90% of his sales). Ida Sundqvist is fighting to get as much wine as she can transported to Sweden by train.
The final chapter, as I have already mentioned, takes us to Alsace. Alsace is, for me, the most exciting centre for natural wine in Europe right now. The movement once settled on Mittelbergheim, south of Barr, around the circle of winemakers surrounding Jean-Pierre Rietsch, but it is beginning to spread further and further north. In Alsace’s northern sector (the Bas Rhin), where once very little of note was reported by the more conservative wine press, we are now seeing an explosion of young and radical winemakers. Not only are their wines natural, they are also pushing the boundaries of viticulture, or rather perhaps pulling them in.
The participants in this final chapter are rising stars Yannick Meckert (organic, no-till and given up flying), Florian Beck-Hartweg (how many different ways to lower your carbon footprint and also increase carbon capture), and Jean-Mark Dreyer (“the grower who wants to wear snowshoes in the vineyard”). The latter assertion may or may not be entirely serious, but this Rosheim grower is both a zero-sulphur and a zero-tractor man of whom Yannick says “if a tree wants to grow in the vineyard, he lets it grow”.
Such a fascinating chapter. You may think some of the views expressed are too extreme. I think these guys are experimenting, finding what does and doesn’t work, but coming from a different philosophy to the standard capitalist model of make as much wine as you can and maximise revenues as well. Their philosophy is to tread lightly on the earth, work with nature to make a living without the desire to get rich, and to act as guardians of the land for future generations.
Some of you may think they are crazy, but I guess they are just making their small contribution to the collective solution to what is a massive problem we all face, and tellingly this is done with full acknowledgement that wine is a luxury. They are not tasked with feeding a hungry world, but as that gets harder by the day using current methods, we can’t afford to ignore the small progress these pioneers are making.
Do you remember when natural wine was at the periphery, raged about by some wine writers and wine producers? Today, when people outside the wine trade ask what I write about, a good eight or nine out of ten know what I’m talking about when I say “mostly natural wine”. Perhaps in five or ten years they will also have been buying wine from cans, pouches and kegs, will know about no-till farming and agroforestry, and will have modified, however slightly, their modes of transport.
As for this book, it’s not just a nicely put together good read, which it certainly is. It also highlights topics that are essential, not just important. In doing so it expresses how hard it can be to achieve anything in a world that often seems blind and deaf to the unfolding climate disaster of our global industrial world. Camilla has managed to do this in a way that is entertaining to read, not dry like a manifesto or a polemic.
But it also shines a beacon of hope. That beacon shines from individuals whose message is to do what you can. That every small step is a step in the right direction. As the natural wine movement grew from small beginnings, so too will the environmental movement in wine, and indeed it is already, self-evidently, doing just that. It is not as if the individuals profiled in this book are the only contributors to solving these issues, but they are certainly applying very different thinking to most individuals.
As Manda Scott says in an article in Permaculture Magazine (“Thrutopia – Permacultures of Intelligence and Wisdom”, No 119, Spring 2024, pp53ff), “No problem is solved from the mindset that created it”.
I definitely recommend this book to anyone who can see and hear!
Natural Trailblazers by Camilla Gjerde, with photography by Cecilia Magnusson, is self-published under the Now What Publishing imprint (2024) and runs to just over 230pp (hard cover). It is available in some book shops and wine stores, but perhaps can most easily be purchased from Camilla Gjerde’s web site www.camillagjerde.com (also accessed via her Instagram @gjerdecamilla ). The UK price is £26 plus standard UK shipping (I think this is £5.95).
A lot has changed since I moved to Scotland in 2022. I think one of the main changes I had to get to grips with was that nobody knew me up here. In London I’d get invited to all the tastings and then spend a lot of the morning saying hello to people I know (certainly not complaining), but up here I had no profile and people more often wondered who was this old guy with a notebook? In fact, I must express my gratitude to trade members and writers up from London for making me feel the warmth I was initially missing.
The one exception was an introduction from someone whose kindness I can’t repay properly, who gave me an introduction to India Parry-Williams. People in Scotland who have any interest in natural wine will immediately know India as one of the co-founders of Edinburgh’s first and best known low-intervention wine fair, the Wild Wine Fair, or “Wild” as it has become known, to sit alongside “Real” and “Raw”.
India’s day job is as manager of retail, social media and events for Cork & Cask, a wine shop in the Marchmont area of Edinburgh, south of the city centre, about a ten-minute walk from the southern end of the Meadows. Regular readers will be aware that over the past few years I have singled out several wine shops to write about, and the criteria is more or less that if this shop were the only one left on the planet it would happily service all my drinks needs.
Previous inclusions have highlighted Butlers Wine Cellar in Brighton, Solent Cellar in Lymington and Feral Art et Vin in Bordeaux. These places tend to have the feel of a “London wine shop” outside London. Edinburgh does not lack good places to buy wine, and I won’t pretend that Cork & Cask is the only place I shop, but they do certainly fulfil the terms of the last sentence of the paragraph above. For me that means a strong game with natural wines, an adventurous range, increasingly a need for a good, deep and well-chosen range of single malts and a few curiosities from time to time. Oh, and the most friendly and helpful staff I could wish for.
Cork & Cask was opened in 2013 by Chris Mitchell. India came along in 2014 and the management team was completed by the arrival of Jamie Dawson in 2019. Jamie is in charge of the wine and spirit buying, plus the wholesale arm of the business. As I mentioned, India co-founded Wild Wine with Jo Radford, owner of Edinburgh’s now famous Timberyard Restaurant (where the Fair still takes place). Jamie is one of the hands behind “Blind Summit”, an indie whisky bottler specialising in often unique single cask Scotch Whiskies. The extremely well-trained and knowledgeable team is completed by Sandy, Sam and Connor in the shop and you get the impression that this really is a team game.
Cork & Cask does a lot. The retail shop sales are supplemented with a web site (expanded 2020), plus a thriving wholesale business for Edinburgh restaurants and bars. The shop is the busy hub. It is located in a part of the city inhabited by a lot of students and lecturers at the city’s several Universities and colleges, along with young families. It’s an area which over time has developed the sort of independent businesses that these customers want to see. They like a shop that works closely with small, independent, importers, they know about sulphites and agri-chemicals in wine production, and they prefer artisan over industrial.
The shop is pretty much an equal split between wines, beers and spirits, with Chris having the knowledge to develop a fairly unrivalled beer selection here, but it was India and Jamie who answered my questions.
When asked what sells right now, the first answer was the indie whisky bottlers. I know to my cost how good the range is, and I owe thanks to this place for my discoveries of smaller distilleries like those on the Isle of Harris (the Hearach, see article of 8 October 2023), whose rather special gin was already my favourite, and Arran’s Sauternes Cask, of which I’ve just bought another bottle.
The business is fortunate that Jamie has long experience in selling spirits, so has some longstanding relationships and even friendships with both established producers and new independent bottlers. The latter are the source of some of the most exciting releases on the revived and vibrant whisky market. His finger is firmly on the pulse. Jamie lives in Leith (as, coincidentally does India), which is Edinburgh’s old port. This really is whisky central, both historically but also now once more in the modern age as a centre for both creativity in the trade and for its whisky-loving community.
If you want some tips, Jamie suggests the small Leith releases from Fragrant Drops and Woodrow of Edinburgh for their single cask malts, and also Thompson Brothers for excellent, high malt content, blended whiskies. Like me, he loves Arran (from the Lochranza Distillery), and my favourite, Kilchoman farm distillery from Islay.
It would be unfair, though space is tight, not to mention his specific recommendations, Dailuaine Mystery Cask by Fragrant Drops, Woodrow’s Pulteney 15-y-o, Pintail Caol Ila Pineau des Charantes finish and the new Torabhaig Sherry Cask finish, Cnoc na Moine, singled out for really good value. This is, as you see, what my wine budget is up against now!
All the gins here are Scottish, vodkas organic, and so on. There are also four own-branded whiskies on the shelves. There is a focus on local products, including in white spirits and liqueurs, emphasising locally-foraged ingredients.
Cork & Cask is quite unusual in that its range of wine is somewhere between 70% and 75% organic, and on their web site they currently list 270 “organic and biodynamic” wines, plus a further 130 “natural wines”. The range of small run bottlings changes frequently, so in reality the numbers are way higher. Wines like those of Jura producer Labet, or even New Zealand’s Hermit Ram, are in and gone in a flash. Who says Edinburgh doesn’t know its natural wine. That said, with around 100 bottles under £15 it’s far from being all posh stuff.
I must also add that as well as being one of the few shops to cater for my Alsace predilections, I have found many of my Austrian natural wine favourites here, and equally a good spread of Portuguese bargains and wines from “the New Germany”.
The locals are of the right demographic that they are interested in natural wines, but are also keen to explore new grape varieties, new regions/countries and new winemaking methods. You just know I’m going to love a place that sells some of the most exciting Alsace producers, the odd wine from Bugey, and even, as I mentioned recently elsewhere, has a section (albeit small) of wines from Lorraine.
Perhaps they do sell more wine of other regions though? India lists Portugal, and Sherry (India and Jamie love Sherry so their enthusiasm rubs off) as current big sellers. This is a shop that has more examples of dry and unfortified Palomino than Pinot Grigio on the shelf. English winery, Westwell, a relatively new addition, is picked out as one that is very popular, which goes even further to show how savvy both buyers and customers are here.
India told me about one group of regular customers who come in after work on a Friday, and who seem to love the lighter, funky, reds. These lads now attend Wild Wine, and the twice-yearly Cork & Cask Wine Fairs (see below), a group of lads who they have seen over time become really interested in the whole natural wine thing.
Another thing about Cork & Cask that might surprise you is their range of fifty-plus ciders and perry, a range looked after by Sandy. That’s a lot. The ethos is the same as for wine, an emphasis on small, low intervention, independent producers like Oliver’s (Ross on Wye), Little Pomona (Hereford) etc. There’s a focus on ciders from England and Scotland (which makes brilliant cider, as I’ve discovered), though also with one or two producers from Spain and France.
Beer is a last but not least here, because beer was what started the whole business, Chris being the beer expert. There’s a stipulation that all the beers stocked are made in the UK, Germany or Belgium. This includes an unrivalled focus on small Scottish brewers, and if you want to find a new release from a small Scottish brewery, this is a place to start. To cater for demand the enormous beer range includes forty non-alcoholic options, and, tellingly, a selection of gluten free beers. The Cork & Cask Insta feed has been a beer education for me.
What do Jamie and India like drinking at home? I always like to find out the kind of thing that makes retailers excited personally. Jamie likes petnats and fruit-led skin contact wines when out, and volcanic wines at home. Special mention goes to grape varieties Mencia, Bastarda and Albariño. India professes a special love for Sicily. She mentions producers Lamoresca, Barracco and Alessandro Viola there, along with Cabernet Franc, but confesses that if she’s out somewhere and doesn’t fancy the wine list, she’s likely to go for a margarita (I’m more for a negroni but I’m with her in spirit). I suspect that they do drink rather more widely though.
Events are always important for a wine shop, and Cork & Cask do the usual run of events, ranging from one to coincide with the Scottish National Whisky Festival (which I think is this weekend), and receptions for up to 900 people, down to free shop tastings, corporate evenings, restaurant collabs (including regularly and ongoing with BYO Mara’s Picklery round the corner) etc, which are mostly all up on the web site, along with a range of monthly discounted selections.
Major among these events are the two Fairs they put on in a church hall near to the shop, a Winter Wine Fair and a SummerFair. This summer’s event had more of a beer and cider focus, but the Winter Fair in 2024 is at St Giles Church on 9 November, but I think may be sold out. It is a remarkable event. What India and Jamie manage to do is to attract a remarkable number of small importers to bring a selection of wines for participants to taste. For £20, including a £5 voucher redeemable in-store, it’s a bargain.
The event has grown. When it began in 2018, they sold around 100 tickets, but now 300 tickets sell like hot cakes. It’s not surprising. Last year’s event (see my three articles of 8, 12 and 16 November 2023) had drinks (at least 200 bottles) poured by (among others) Indigo Wines, Dynamic Vines, Keeling Andrew, Modal Wines, Roland Wines, and Vine Trail. This selection gives the natural wine connoisseur a good idea of some of the delights you’ll find in the shop (though the photos sprinkled through this article should help).
One thing I’ve never talked about before in an article like this is sustainability. Wine shops don’t mention it often enough but Cork & Cask have thought about it a lot, in relation to waste and its disposal, deliveries, packaging and more. With 80% of the range organic or better, the aim is 100%. They also belong to a bottle return scheme for beer bottles and are talking to a Scottish gin brand about a similar scheme for “refills”. That thinking also means nearly all of the wines are from Europe, not further afield, although I am always pleased to find the odd antipodean etc (the aforementioned Hermit Ram was in my last order).
Cork & Cask really does have it all, catering for the knowledge hungry new customer to the demanding obscurist (ie me). A brilliant range sold by amazing people about sums up Cork & Cask, and I am forever grateful, Ruth, for introducing me to India, and Jamie. Michelin Travel Guides say “worth a detour” about some places. I say “worth dragging a small suitcase to and from the station”, which I can tell you is no small distance. Of course they do deliver, and there is a bus, but there aren’t many wine shops which are as fun to browse in and where the staff are as nice when faced with my obscure wine meanderings.
At the end of the day this is a small shop run with a strong ethos of serving the community, but if you are further afield then as a customer you will feel no less a part of that community.
Cork & Cask is at 136 Marchmont Road, Edinburgh EH9 1AQ
Graft Wine held their Edinburgh Autumn Tasting on 15th October, at Hawksmoor, conveniently in the centre of the city. It has been a long time since I tasted Graft’s portfolio and the ten producers on taste showcased a whole bunch of wines I’d never tried before. Graft Wine was a pre-Covid amalgamation between Red Squirrel and The Knotted Vine, both of whom sold some exceptional wines. Over time a lot of new producers have been introduced and the wines on show appear to me to be almost totally absent from retail shelves in Edinburgh.
I would suggest that any wine shop reading this should contemplate what I’ve written. Grab a few of these and you will have some wines that are different to the bottles, albeit amazing wines, that I see in quite a number of stores. I have included a “My Choice” note for each of the wines I’d definitely buy if I spotted them on your shelf, along with my much-debated Wine of the Day. However, there’s a whole host more I’d seriously consider, including either of the two Jura wines that don’t get a “my choice” mention, and all of the Ravensworth wines.
Most of the wines below are at minimum organic and also described as vegan.
The notes below will be brief. If any wines pique your interest, get in touch with Graft through Rob Woodhead (account manager) via robert@graftwine.co.uk , or Jenny Meutelet (Marketing) via hello@graftwine.co.uk .
CASA MONTE PÍO (Rias Baixas, Spain)
This is a small estate in the Salnès Valley (Rias Baixas) established in 1979 and run by Pablo Martinez. Albariño and Mencia are the varieties here. We had two of the former on show, Raixera 2023, raised in stainless steel, and the Monte Pío cuvée itself, made in wood. We get a clean and fresh wine of precision contrasting with a rounder wine with juicy fruit. The wood is a third new, and so the Monte Pío might benefit from further age. Whether by auto suggestion (salnès meaning salt), both wines display a nice salinity typical of much of Rias Baixas.
However, very good as those two white wines are, the wine that captured my imagination was actually the red. Benquerido 2021 is made from 100% Mencia. With relatively low alcohol (11.5%), this had a mineral freshness but smooth fruit. So many Mencia wines are over-extracted and too powerful these days, but this was lovely. I would buy this, for sure, so it gets a “My Choice” award. A gem!
CORVERS-KAUTER (Rheingau, Germany)
The name derives from the two families who have been making wine around Rudesheim, now with vineyards at Oestrich and Winkel, for a hundred years. Dr Matthias and Brigitte Corvers have 12 hectares on steep slopes above the Rhîne, farming organically and making vegan-friendly Riesling and Pinot Noir (mostly), with some very rare Röter Riesling.
Secco Rosé 2023 is a cheapish sparkling wine made from 90% Pinot Noir with a little Cabernet Sauvignon. It has CO2 added so it has a bit of a sekt vibe, but it’s soft, fun, and should be cheap.
Of two Rieslings shown R3 2023 (Rheingau Riesling Remastered) is off clay, loess and quartz across all three villages already mentioned. At 12.5% abv it is dry but has rounded fruit and a softness. Plump Riesling but still fresh. Schwerelos Kabinett 2023 is also 100% Riesling and at 11% abv not too shy for a Kabi, and is livelier than R3 with tension and a touch of minerality. This one gets a “My Choice”.
That said, their Rheingau Pinot Noir 2022 is a pale, cherry-scented wine with a touch of texture, tannin and smooth fruit. Quite accomplished in a field of increasingly fine German “Pinot”.
DOMAINE DES CARLINES (Jura, France)
We have a new name and a welcome addition to those Jura domaines available in the UK. I subscribe to Wink Lorch’s mantra of try anything and give every wine, no matter how they are produced, a fair crack of the whip.
Patrick Ligeron acquired vines at Menétru-le-Vignoble, just below Château-Châlon in 2015, and I think Covid got in the way of my coming across these, though I have seen the label to the first wine somewhere before. Eleven hectares are farmed organically, and the wines are also described as vegan. There’s the whole range of Jura varieties, including 3 ha of Savagnin in the Château-Châlon appellation itself, but here Graft presented just three grapes in four wines.
La Vouivre 2021 is a blend of 70% Chardonnay and 30% Savagnin from four plots, which sees 12-15 months in used Burgundy barrels before blending for a further three months. All these are unfined and unfiltered. The Chardonnay element is just so nice, but the blended proportions are spot on too. Lovely mouthfeel, a well-conceived blend. Despite being the cheapest, by a whisker, of the wines on show, this is another “My Choice” bottle.
The next two wines separate the two varieties. La Trémoulette 2019 (Chardonnay) comes from one of the plots used for the above blend. It sees a very similar élèvage, with good depth of fruit and a certain plumpness (14% abv). En Beaumont 2021 is 100% Savagnin from within the Château-Châlon AOC. It’s a tiny half-hectare plot with 40-y-o hillside vines on grey marl. The barrels are topped-up (ouillé). Smooth Savagnin with a bit of grip and texture. The most expensive wine here, it should age well.
Last, but by no means least, is the 2022 Poulsard. Destemmed and macerated at six degrees for ten days, fermentation lasted thirteen days with daily pump-overs. Aged in large 500-litre oak for eight months, it was then blended into stainless steel where it rested for three months before bottling. Pale, but with bite. I’m a sucker for a characterful Poulsard, so this also gets a “My Choice” sticker.
DOMAINE THIBERT (Burgundy, France)
The Thibert family has been in and around Fuissé since 1668. Christophe Thibert came back in 1991 to work the vines his parents had planted in 1967. His sister joined him in 1999. They make a range of local appellation wines, all of the below being 100% Chardonnay, with a freshness typical of the region, and the nuanced terroir from where the wines derive.
Macon-Fuissé 2019 is our entry point. The grapes are on volcanic soils with some clay-limestone. This is mostly aged in stainless steel, 10% in oak, for a little under a year. It is clean and fruity in a medium to lighter style. For an extra £3-£4 you get the Saint-Véran 2018, off Triassic clays with mineral deposits, and Bajocian limestone. Slightly more mineral, this also has an extra level of salinity.
The village Pouilly-Vinzelles « Les Longeays » 2018 sees eleven months in barrel and then a similar spell in stainless steel. It has a bit more weight and signs of nascent complexity, more so than the previous two wines. The weight may be in part due to the clay composition of the soils.
Top wine here is the Pouilly-Fuissé 2018 “Les Cras”. I have to hold my hand up here. I was first to taste this (and almost all the wines on show) and I failed to spot a corked bottle. In my defence it was faint and building. Still, judging the new bottle, I think this wine definitely needs age as it was quite tight. Also, rounder and fatter than the other three, but also much more expensive, as Fuissé has become. I’m sure it will become very fine.
HOLDER (Western Cape & Stellenbosch, South Africa)
Reg Holder worked at Denheim until he decided to go it alone in 2017 in collaboration with viticulturist Etienne Terreblanche. They first created the Pinotage tasted below, adding the Chenin in 2020. Their reputation has soared and these wines are often amongst the best in the country. The Wabi Sabi range was created as a kind of entry level selection, inexpensive, yet the top wines are hardly what one would call expensive and they represent excellent value to my mind.
Wabi Sabi gives us a dry farmed Chenin Blanc (2024) from Western Cape and a Cinsault-Grenache blend (2023) from Swartland. Both well made, to my mind they are obvious restaurant choices. The labels are a bit dull, not wines to draw the eye on a shelf. A lot of producers of similarly inexpensive wines are quite savvy about the labels, as I’m sure you know.
For me, the estate wines are a good step up. Dorper Chenin Blanc 2022 (“My Choice”) comes from two sites in the Bottelary Hills. Whole bunch pressed, fermentation is with the lees in used French oak, some barrels being fermented at lower temperatures. Ageing is nine months on lees, just 2,400 bottles produced.
Dorper Pinotage 2022 does live up to its reputation. Not a variety I’ve been much excited by in the past, this is grippy and characterful, and very good. The fruit comes from two granite sites, one in the Helderberg Mountains and the other up in the Simonsberg. Open-top fermenters with regular punch-downs, then aged twelve months in used French oak of various sizes. 2,800 bottles made.
LAS PEDRERAS (Sierra de Gredos, Spain)
Gredos, west of Madrid, has become a star wine region in little more than twenty-or-so years thanks to a couple of very famous producers. The sweet spot here is Grenache, although this high-altitude vineyard (rising to 1,200 masl) is not a one-trick pony. Bárbara Requero and her husband, Guzmán Sánchez began with 3 ha in the 2021 vintage, so the wines below are only from their second harvest. The results are impressive, definitely a couple to watch.
Burbujas de Arquitón 2022 is dry-farmed, organic Garnacha using vines over 70 years old grown at just over 900 masl in the village of Navatalgordo. Using the ancestral method, they make a delicious sparkling Rosé with 18 months lees ageing. Garnacha can make very good sparkling wine, and trust me, this is very nice. Unlike many petnats, it boasts 13% alcohol, but don’t let that put you off. It’s still very fresh.
Los Linarejos 2022 is 94% Albillo Real with 6% Palomino Fino. The vines at Cebreros are 100 years old. The grapes undergo a short maceration before pressing. Ageing is seven months in oak, then a tiny quantity of Sherry is added. This is dry with extract and minerality, and, I would say, superb (if potentially pricey).
Arquitón Rosé 2022 is Garnacha from Navatalgordo and Burgohondo aged only six months in a mix of 500l and 225l casks. Just 2,100 bottles were made. It has a grapefruit freshness and seems to combine both an impressive structure with sheer enjoyability.
Los Arroyuelos 2022 is a bigger (14%)Garnacha, from close to the winery. 70-year-old vines are planted between 900 and 1,170 masl on granite and sand. Each of three parcels is fermented separately (some destemmed bunches, some whole clusters), with ageing in a mix of used French oak and stainless steel. I loved the wine’s “meaty” nature and it has that amazing bright colour of fine Garnacha/Grenache.
All of the wines from Las Pedreras would get my vote. It will be interesting to see how the critics view them in a few years.
LÉO CHARRUAU (Loire, France)
Léo manages 6.5 ha of his family’s Domaine du Valbrun at Parnay, south of the Loire near Saumur. He farms organically, using an array of wood, amphora and concrete vats, combining tradition with the desire to innovate and experiment. Four of his wines were on taste.
First up a petnat called Bullula, a non-vintage Rosé made from Cabernet Franc. Picked, fermented, then six months in bottle on lees with 16g/l residual sugar. Light, fresh and simple but certainly tasty. There’s a nice savoury bite on the finish to contrast with the reddish fruit.
The white wine is a 2022 Chenin Blanc, from 80-year-old vines in the Clos du Moulin. Fermented in large oak (500- and 600-litre casks), it ages for around a year in these vessels before bottling with minimal added sulphur. It is clean, with apple freshness, greengage on the palate and a hint of white peach.
The first of the Cabernet Franc reds is Bois Pivain Saumur-Champigny 2023. The vines, on clay, silica and tuffeau sit among alternate rows sown with wild flowers. Fermentation takes three weeks with gentle pumping over. Ageing is in stainless steel for eight months. Minimal sulphur. It has a classic Loire Cabernet Franc nose, mostly deeper red fruit with some tannin and a tart finish. An easy-going red which you can cool down in summer (though 13% abv).
Les Pouges Saumur-Champigny 2022 is what I presume is a flagship red. Soils are similar to the above, as is the winemaking. I’m not sure what makes this a slightly darker, deeper, red wine and sweeter fruit on the nose comes through. Nice length, young but tasty/sappy now and with potential.
MAISON ALTISOLIS Burgundy, France)
Vincent Quenard may be a name familiar to some readers, but in a different context. Savoie has a few winemakers with this surname, and Vincent indeed left that region to study at Beaune. He decided to stay and began Altisolis in 2023. He doesn’t yet own vines but he has a tiny cellar in Savigny-lès-Beaune, making a tiny amount of low-intervention wines with grapes from the southern end of the Côte de Beaune.
His Aligoté, like his other two wines here, uses grapes harvested in 2022. I said tiny production and there were just 900 bottles of this. It is fresh but not too acidic. Of course, as someone who likes this variety, I’ve tasted finer, and more complex (for what is considered a simple variety by the old folks), but this is still pretty good.
Maranges 2022 shows how far this small appellation based on three villages at the very farthest south of the Côte has come since its creation in 1989. Soils mix clay and limestone. Whole clusters are given a three-week maceration and then a year in old Burgundy barrels. It’s simple, but nice and juicy. It’s a shame Burgundy is so expensive now. I’d be happy to pay £30 for this but its trade price is not much less than that. A shame as it’s a very tasty wine.
Santenay 2022 comes from a lieu-dit called Les Saunières which sits next to one of Santenay’s 1er Crus. Another tiny 900-bottle cuvée, this has a little extra weight and is slightly more serious. Santenay was once “poor man’s Burgundy”, back in the 1980s. Now its stature has grown, especially in the hands of producers like Andrew and Emma Nielsen (Le Grappin). This is worth its price in Burgundy terms, and here I will say that at least it will still be cheaper than the villages like Volnay and Pommard, to the north in the Côte de Beaune.
MIRA DO Ó/SOU (Dão, Alentejo and Vinho Verde)
Nuno Mira do Ó makes well known wines all over Portugal. His Druida range aims to reflect the druidic past of the country. Sou is a separate project with Quinta de Santiago in Vinho Verde country. Druida Branco 2022 is 100% Encruzado fermented in oak (20% new), aged on lees for ten months. It’s a clean and fresh white Dão with zippy acids, yet that new oak element gives a nice bit of weight and structure.
Vidente Tinto 2022 comes from 30-y-o vines at São João de Lourosa, at 500 masl on the right bank of the Dão River. A blend of five red varieties, it ferments slowly in stainless steel at 28 Degrees with minimal extraction. Aged ten months in oak, but goes through malo in stainless steel. Very nice. It’s just that the next two wines are (IMHO) even better, even though the white is not cheap.
Sou Alvarinho 2021 is 100% Alvarinho from Quinta de Santiago’s 7.5ha of vines on the alluvial terraces at Monção. Quite a complex upbringing in different sized vats, some with malo, some not, then nine months on lees. The result is clean and precise, but that does not describe a sensational white wine. “My Choice”.
The red is hardly less good. Sou Dissidente 2021 is a blend of red and white grapes, Alvarinho, Alvarelhão, Vinhão, Pedral, Borraçal and Caínho. The grapes are fermented in tanks, 40% whole bunches with stems, aged 11 months in a mix of tank and old French oak. It has a lovely brick colour, a vibrant red with a savoury edge. It also gets a “My Choice”. The white pips it as perhaps the better wine, just, but this red is considerably cheaper by about £9 (trade price, so even more so retail).
RAVENSWORTH (NSW, Australia)
Bryan and Jocelyn Martin work with Bryan’s brother David to farm around Murrumbateman, starting out in 2001. Murrumbateman is close to Canberra, though it is within New South Wales, not the ACT. Bryan worked at Clonakilla and has brought that degree of excellence with him. This quote sums up his philosophy: “While we haven’t set up a tent in the natural wines campsite, we are very interested in using no chemicals or additives in the process, a gentle touch, just letting our fruit, along with the microflora, do their job…”
Ravensworth do make a rather good Shiraz/Viognier blend in the fashion of that great Clonakilla version, but they also produce a number of what the Australians call “alternative varieties” (and I shall be coming back to the subject of alt varieties in Australia at some point towards the end of the year). So, in an Australian context, we have some more than just interesting wines here. This is a fine producer, definitely on my list for a visit guys, when I’m next visiting family within striking distance (I shall be tapping the Graft folks for an intro).
Fiano & Trebbiano 2022 blends a grape that has become super-fashionable in Australia, even though little is produced, with one that is unfashionable there, as it is in most of its native Tuscany. The split is 70% Fiano from the Hilltops Region (NSW), 30% Trebbiano grown in the Swan Valley (WA). The grapes all had a little skin contact, none more than twelve hours, before fermenting in a mix of concrete, oak and ceramic vessels. The wine spent six months on lees before blending and bottling. Very juicy, fresh and balanced.
Ravensworth Pinot Gris 2022 is up next. Pinot Gris has done so well in Australia that it is no longer considered an Alt Variety (at least by those who run the Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show). The grapes are from Long Rail Gulley in Murrumbateman and Freeman Vineyard in Prunevale (Hilltops). The fruit sees four weeks on skins so the wine is a pale pink, smoky on the nose, definitely showing the extraction on the palate. Nice acids though, and nice bite. I’d definitely grab one for myself…
But…Hilltops Nebbiolo 2021, here we have something of great interest. I’m quite a fan of Aussie Neb, but I’d not tasted this, or if I have, I don’t remember. Whole berries are fermented in oak for six months, then ageing in foudres lasts another two years. It has a lovely floral scent, the fruit being plump but it’s not a big wine despite 13.5% abv. It has an elegance, even at this youthful stage. This could be my “Wine of the Day”, so lovely is it. It’s certainly the wine I’d have liked longer to assess at home. Australian Nebbiolo (aside from a few cheaper versions) is always worth trying, although this won’t be cheap.
That leaves little room for the Shiraz + Viognier 2021, which I guess is the Ravensworth Classic. Vines are 25-y-o, planted at 650 masl on decomposed granite and red clay. Spontaneous fermentation in 10hl tanks, three-to-six weeks on skins. Ageing is in used and new 228 litre French barrique for one year, then another year in 27hl foudre. It’s an impressive wine, and one with a soul. It should age at least a decade and it’s cheaper than Clonakilla. Probably.
So, a great tasting with some very good wines, a few of which are truly exceptional. Actually, come to think of it, more than a few. Definitely you should consider Graft for a bit of something different, that others don’t have on the shelf or wine list. I was very happy indeed that I was able to make this tasting, and to sample this importer’s wines for the first time since the Covid lockdowns.
For the second part of September’s wines, we have all wines. No cider or perry, I’m afraid. What you do get are six wines from places other than those in Part 1, although there are a couple of albeit very different French ones here. We begin with yet another wine from a favourite Moravian winemaker, then blast through a Mosel red blend, Bugey Chardonnay, a Saint-Pourçain white, a meaty Piemontese red and, finally for September, a rather good Penedès white. Once again, these are the most interesting wines from last month, so all come highly recommended. But check out the price on these. They all represent excellent value, especially that last bottle.
“Lemonade” 2021, Petr Koráb (Moravia, Czechia)
The wizard of Boleradice has crafted here yet another of his amazing sparkling wines. Lemonade ranks among his most exciting, certainly at the moment (Dark Horse, his more recent red petnat is perhaps its closest rival, both being equal favourites right now). Welschriesling does remarkably well in Southern Moravia, and this is the variety Petr has chosen here.
This is first vinified in robinia casks before being transferred to bottle before fermentation has finished, so it takes on a soft and gentle sparkle. The name is so apt. You get lemon citrus freshness with yellow fruit softness, all carried on that gentle effervescence. It’s just a simple wine without complications, but how many times does such a description fail to do a wine justice?
It would be hard to suggest a more fun wine for a party or an impromptu celebration. Actually, I remember Petr popping one of these open in his cellar late into the night, when we visited him back in 2022. Petr Koráb, the petnat king. The man has built a new cellar so I wouldn’t be surprised if we see an even more diverse array of bottlings emerging in the future. So far, everything he makes is worth grabbing. Aside from his “more serious” cuvées, the others, especially the petnats, can just be around for one vintage only.
Imported by Basket Press Wines. Prost Wines may still have some left, £22.
Aquarius [2023], Landwein der Mosel, Jan-Philipp Bleeke (Mosel, Germany)
JPB is yet another example of the lure that winemaking has on people in the wine trade, taking the wine shop to wine producer route that seems a well-trodden path today. He gained experience with, among others, another Jan, Jan Mattias Klein, of Staffelter Hof, in whose Mosel cellars he borrowed space initially when he started out with his own wines. He has since moved and works under the banner of JPB Winemaking, and is now being mentored by the equally capable Thorsten Melsheimer.
I have written about this red blend before, but this 2023 version (no vintage as such because Jan-Philipp chooses to designate his wines as Landwein) is as good as any of his wines I’ve tasted. It comes from a couple of hectares he farms at Traben-Trabach, near the home of the Mosel’s greatest natural winemaker, Rudolf Trossen.
Jan-Philipp is very much a natural winemaker, but his philosophy goes way beyond that in terms of ecology and politics. The politics is firmly based in ideas of community and mutual support.
This current release of Aquarius blends Dornfelder with some Regent, the latter being an inter-specific hybrid crossing, bred in 1967 for fungal resistance. The parents of Regent are a Silvaner x Müller Thurgau cross and Chambourcin (a French-American hybrid of uncertain parentage). Regent is a variety which has long shown disease resistance in a UK setting. Some writers will look down their noses at it, but it has improved its standing since natural wine producers began to use it, for obvious reasons in a wet climate.
Both varieties are grown on blue and grey slate slopes. The grapes receive a ten-day maceration followed by five months ageing in older wood. It’s a totally natural wine with zero added sulphur, very much part of the JPB philosophy. It majors on fruitiness with brambles and bags of sappy dark fruit acidity. It has a luscious mouthfeel. In some ways it seems even juicier than the bottle I drank in March 2023 of the previous vintage. Only 1,278 bottles produced.
This was £25.50 from Cork & Cask in Edinburgh, imported by Sevslo. I’d previously purchased this at Sevslo’s sister wine shop in Glasgow, Made from Grapes.
Patchwork Chardonnay 2022, La Cuverie-Revonnas (Bugey, France)
I first tasted the range of wines being made by Aurélien Beyeklian at Real Wine 2024, and he’s a relatively new producer in Bugey. His cellar is located at Gravelles, in the Revermont, which is in the northern sector of this split appellation. The wines here are said to more resemble Jura, whereas those of the Southern sector are said to be more like Savoie wines. Although this is a lazy distinction, perhaps, based on geography and some of the grape varieties (Poulsard is sadly disappearing from the north but we are seeing a few more Mondeuse in the south), maybe this Chardonnay would fool many into identifying it blind as a Jura wine.
Aurélien is converting his vineyards from organics to biodynamics, but is also a devotee of permaculture. His background is not in wine at all, having worked around the world for the International Red Cross, but he has apprenticed at Bret Brothers in Macon.
At Real Wine I loved his Poulsard and his Bugey-Cerdon sparkling wine, as well as this Chardonnay, which was the only one available to purchase in Les Caves’s on-site shop. We have a whole bunch pressed Chardonnay fermented in stainless steel and matured in old oak. It underwent malo, which gives a certain softness, and no sulphur was added.
This is Chardonnay in very much a lighter style, and in fact the abv is just 11.5%. Refreshing and elegant, but there is also a degree of sophistication. There isn’t a lot of fat on the bone, but any leanness you find merely means you prefer a fat Chardonnay. Think of this as Chardonnay unplugged. For me, it is very appealing. There’s a nice touch of grapefruit and lemon.
I really like this, and can recommend any of Aurélien’s wines. £26 from Les Caves de Pyrene.
Pourçain « Instan T » 2022, Les Terres d’Ocre (Loire, France)
I once visited the co-operative at St-Pourçain-sur-Sioule, largely because I was passing through and had quite enjoyed their wines, sold at the time (and probably still sold) by Yapp Brothers, who I think have recently left their iconic “Old Brewery” premises in Mere for something less soulful but probably more practical in Somerset. The co-operative visit was enjoyable, but the town and surroundings, so far up in the northern reaches of the Loire Region, on that river’s tributary, the Allier, that I’m guessing few will have passed through like I did, were even better.
Florent Barichard is one of the few individual winemakers to bottle their own wines up here. He won his spurs making wine in New Zealand and South Africa, but on coming home his aunt and uncle, Valérie and Eric Nesson, split their farm so that Florent could make wine locally. He has around five hectares planted to Chardonnay, Tressallier, Pinot Noir and Gamay, all grown either on granite at Meillard, or on sand at Châtel-de-Neuve.
This white wine is comprised 80% Chardonnay and 20% Tressallier, made in a mix of concrete tank and oak. Tressallier is a very old variety, some grown in the Allier and some being found in the Yonne (around Chablis, where it can be called Sacy). Some suggest the wines made from Tressallier/Sacy were served at the Capetian Court in the Middle Ages, and to the Avignon Popes.
Well, it’s not often that I delve into speculative history, but I do have a soft spot for grape varieties which were once much more widely known and grown than in today’s shrivelled viticultural world. It is estimated that of the tiny 650 hectares of grapes planted in Saint-Pourçain, around 100 ha are Tressallier.
The question is, does 20% Tressallier have an impact on this wine? You’d think so. The bouquet blends lemon citrus with a touch of peach and honey, very pure. It’s aromatic, balanced by a good medium weight on the palate (12.5% abv). Okay, this is a cheapish wine with no pretentions towards greatness, yet it is very well made, has its own personality, and is really nice, with decent length persisting longer than you might expect.
Solent Cellar sold me this, and it cost just £18. I’m always looking for interesting wines under £20. They are not always easy to find, but this is one.
Piemonte is full of flashy, expensive, red wines, usually made from Nebbiolo, but we should not forget that before the region became saturated with international stars, feted by those who moved onto Barolo after collecting Burgundy for years, there are a decreasing number of old-time artisans making special wines from other varieties.
Emilio Oliveri and Maria Luisa Barizzone have farmed grapes at Tagliolo Monferrato since the 1960s and this elderly couple, who are now in their eighties, farm just as they did fifty years ago. The vines here were planted by Maria-Luisa’s father in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, so they are seriously old as well. This couple have only made one concession to age, and that is they have cut back their holding to two hectares (from 4 ha), but otherwise they do all the work themselves. This is artisan winemaking at its most real, and natural winemaking too. The vines pre-date synthetic vineyard chemicals, so the soils are “clean”.
Lamilla is an aged Dolcetto. Fermented in concrete, where 20-30 mg/l of sulphur is added (depending on vintage), the must is then racked into stainless steel where it spends one year on lees. Then it is bottled. It is released when deemed ready, and sold as a table wine with no DO.
A tasting note here is pretty much redundant. It is rich and smooth, relatively high in alcohol (14%) without it overwhelming the palate, I could go on with the clichés of concentrated and dark-fruited. It is neither polished, nor rustic. It just moves in a different time and space. Massively recommended, as is their Barbera (a wine which shows just how good that variety is in the region when given pride of place).
£29 from Cork & Cask (Edinburgh), who also list their “La Borgatta” Barbera for £24. Both are imported by Modal Wines.
Oníric Blanc 2022, Celler Entre Vinyes (Penedès, Catalonia/Spain)
Celler Entre Vinyes is run by Maria Barrena and Pep Tort, who began making wine just over a decade ago, back in 2012. They took on some very old vines in the Foix National Park in Baix Penedès, and in 2017 they took over an old chicken farm near the town of L’Arboç. Now they have 6 hectares under vine.
I recently drank the couple’s skin contact wine, Sotaterra, back in July on the recommendation of fellow blogger Alan March, but I had completely forgotten how much I liked a Cava made by the same people at a tasting back in September 2019 (“Five Go Mad in Islington”).
This wine is 100% biodynamically-farmed Xarel-lo. It underwent a spontaneous fermentation using indigenous yeasts, and was aged in stainless steel, the only addition being a low dose of sulphur. If at first it seems a simple wine, you soon marvel at its lovely, refreshing, salinity. With time to open out, softer fruits come to the fore by way of juicy peach, not at all tart grapefruit, and melon.
This producer is making some exceptionally tasty wines, and for me it’s not going too far to call this one “thrilling”. And what a price? Hate to say this, but you might not be shocked were it £10 more expensive. As it is, £17.50 suggests some boot filling should be considered. Imported by Modal Wines, my bottle (and the Sotaterra I mentioned) came from Smith & Gertrude (Portobello branch). I would respectfully suggest a few more retailers get in on the act here!
We have a baker’s dozen of wines for September, and I shall split that two ways, seven wines here in Part One, the six remaining to follow in Part Two. Below, we begin the usual eclectic mix with a classic single vineyard Wiener Gemischter Satz, jumping to a Bergerac “Moelleux”, a Herefordshire Perry, Pinot Noir from Lorraine, a Slovakian white blend, and an Alsace Petnat, before finishing with a very classy Cider from Scotland. I’ve just noticed that the six wines which will appear in Part Two all come from different places to these drinks, so we are really doing that “wide world of wine” thing justice.
Wieninger is possibly the biggest name amongst the winemakers of Vienna, the operation having been run by Fritz since 1987. The Wieninger reputation internationally is based on classic wines made from classic French varieties, but in Vienna they are very well known for a range of traditional gemischter satz. These range from inexpensive and generic to very classy single site iterations of the style. These latter bottles are as much wines of stature as the classic wines I mentioned, and are just as capable of ageing.
There are many opportunities to try a Wiener Gemischter Satz in the city, and there are now several very good producers. These include small, artisan, cellars like that of the inspirational Jutta Ambrositsch (whom Fritz mentored), but, the last point being relevant, it was Fritz Wieninger who pretty much singlehandedly revived this traditional appellation.
Although the Wieninger holding is large, at 50ha, it is all farmed biodynamically (Respekt certified). Wieninger now manage (but keep entirely separately) the producer Hajszan Neumann. They are based below the Nussberg, but Wieninger’s own cellar is in Stammersdorf, just below the Bisamberg, on the other side of the Danube.
Rosengartel is a hemmed-in plot of vines on the slopes of Vienna’s Nussberg which consistently renders fine wines. The “1OTW” classification effectively translates as 1er Cru. Fritz Wieninger and his team farm biodynamically, and the wines produced from this plot are often long lived. In essence, we think of these field blends as wines to drink soon, but Wieninger always proves that assertion to be wholly incorrect. This 2017 is a wine which has aged magnificently so far.
We have nine co-planted and co-fermented varieties. The wine looks remarkably like the colour of a fine Chablis. The bouquet has elements of both herbs and flowers (particularly honeysuckle) with some lemon citrus and orange blossom as it tails away. The palate is dry, mineral, but soft rather than hard-edged (the soils here in this central section of the Nussberg are Muschelkalk).
This is a very fine bottle, complex, but not super complicated making it a versatile food matcher. Very highly recommended if you can find it. This was purchased at the domaine on a visit in 2018, when we were also taken to see Rosengartel, a slice of the hill I hadn’t previously come across. I think it might cost between £40-£50/bottle now. I forget what this cost me but I do have a photo of a magnum in the tasting room, which cost just €54 back then.
Source des Verdots Moelleux 2019, Côtes de Bergerac, Domaine des Verdots (Bergerac, France)
Bergerac languished from lack of interest in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Sometimes we saw its red wines, usually pale Bordeaux imitations. There was a certain popularity in the UK for Bergerac-grown Sauvignon Blanc towards the middle and end of that period, thanks to the Ryman family (of the stationery chain) and their Château de la Jaubertie. But that was about it. The region has not really taken off since, although there has been a revival on a tiny scale of the sweet wines that were traditional, usually under the once moribund Monbazillac appellation.
Monbazillac was, and still is, a sweet wine, similar to Sauternes, perhaps with a little more Muscadelle in the mix, and a whole lot less potential for botrytis. Wines of various degrees of sweetness were made in the wider region, and when I first visited in the mid-80s, just getting interested in wine, you would easily find white wines labelled both moelleux and demi-sec.
Bergerac was the first French wine region I visited, at least after I was legally able to drink wine, so I was very interested to have been invited to a tasting hosted by Maison Wessman who own the Domaine that made this wine. This was one of two bottles given to me on leaving, so I didn’t pay for it (unusual enough that I should mention that).
We have a blend of Semillon and Muscadelle made in a style once traditional here. Labelled “moelleux”, to my palate it was less sweet than a similarly made Loire wine thus labelled, but then it tasted a little sweeter than your average demi-sec. I don’t think it matters. It’s not dry. I think it’s a shame this style has fallen out of favour as it makes a nice aperitif, in a similar way to a Muscat de Beaumes de Venise, drunk as such in France but which the English seemed, at the height of its popularity in the 80s/90s, to have considered a dessert wine.
As well as an aperitif it does work with food, either quite rich food of the type you’d serve a Sauternes with, or with spicy (but not too spicy) food. Sauternes can be a challenge with food, unless you consume a lot of foie gras, but this is less concentrated and perhaps therefore less of a battle between food and wine. The abv is still 13% though, so perhaps not one for a mid-morning slice of cake.
Golden yellow in colour, the bouquet had notes of honey and apricot. The palate had stewed yellow stone fruits like peach, nectarine and apricot. The finish lingers reasonably long. It’s a well-made wine, obviously not having the concentration of a top Sauternes but I think that gives it an advantage in some circumstances. Occasionally you really just want something uncomplicated, smooth, that slips down easily.
The producer is looking for an importer. That’s why the tasting. Westbury Communications organised it. I thought all the wines were good and should sell if taken on. But this one is a style few will buy nowadays. I think they are wrong. If you get the chance to try anything like this, give it a go and see what you think.
Hendre Huffcap “Pét Nat Perry” 2023, Little Pomona (Herefordshire, UK)
Cider has become very popular once again. On the back of the success of the commercial ciders we are seeing many smaller artisan producers gaining a reputation. One of those is Little Pomona, based at Brook House Farm in Bromyard. Susanna and James Forbes launched Little Pomona in 2017 after finding “their dream orchard”, 120 trees with four cider varieties of apple in Thornbury, moving to Bromyard in 2019. Their rise to fame as one of the country’s top producers has been swift.
Perry is like cider, but made from pears. In some ways it is a niche product, which has nowhere near the level of production, nor exposure, as apple cider. However, it is slowly gaining the interest of those drawn to cider, many of whom are natural wine fans who perhaps see cider as a super-refreshing (and often cheaper) alternative to petnat. Another similarity to the natural wine scene is this producer’s desire to experiment, and here is one result, a perry made using the methods for a petnat, and equally much of the philosophy of natural wine.
It is made using a single pear variety, Hendre Huffcap, grown by Guy Thomson at Lyde Farm near Hereford. The first thing you notice, after the fine bead, is its fragrance. A hazy lemon colour reveals a soft and almost creamy texture on the palate, combined with firm, almost slate-like, mineral acidity. The label suggests a yuzu note, and I’m a sucker for Yuzu fruit (I just saw that the revived Body Shop has a yuzu-scented shower gel, but I digress there). But let’s not forget that this is made from pears, and you can taste creamy pear, for sure.
Most will say, quite rightly, that cider and perry lack the complexity of wine. But wine isn’t always complex, and cider (as we shall see below) and perry are not always “simple”. This is delicious and has a lot going for it. So far, it is the best perry I’ve ever tried, though I’m not an expert.
Price? Just £14.50 from Aeble Cider in Anstruther, Fife. That, I would say, is a bargain. Little Pomona has several mixed case options on their web site.
“Pulsations” Pinot Noir des Joncyns 2022, Du Vin aux Liens (Lorraine, France)
To date, Vanessa Letort has been bottling wines from Alsace and The Loire for her Du Vin aux Liens label. She has been moving her operations over the Vosges mountains, to Lorraine, and this is where this cuvée comes from. It is a collaboration with her partner, Farid Yahimi, and a friend, Naoufel Zaim. It comes from seventeen-year-old vines on clay-limestone at Domaine de la Légèreté. This is where the three have purchased a hectare of vines at Bulligny and a further 3.5 hectares at Lucey.
The very keen-eyed reader might notice that Bulligny is close to where Maison Crochet is based, a Lorraine producer (in what was the Côtes de Toul, but the new wave here prefers Vin de France on their labels). I have thoroughly enjoyed the Crochet wines, and Maison Crochet have been very helpful to Vanessa et al in establishing the domaine.
In this bottle we have 100% Pinot Noir, whole bunch fermented with a one-day maceration before very gentle, slow, pressing. Aged 18 months on its lees, this fully follows a natural wine philosophy, including zero added sulphur. The nose and palate combine raspberry, strawberry, all fine with the red fruits, with water melon and pink grapefruit. There’s definitely pink grapefruit on the finish. If you think that’s weird, it doesn’t taste weird.
There is definitely a resemblance to a natural wine Pinot from Alsace, for certain. It mainlines glouglou drinkability (I’d say smashable but someone beat me to that today). It’s a palish, lighter, red wine that is smooth fruited and very refreshing. The alcohol clocks in at 12.5% but the gentleness of the wine makes it seem less.
Vanessa’s former partner, Yannick Mekert, is getting a lot of attention right now, with a new UK importer (Tutto Wines) and a chapter in Camilla Gjerde’s new book, I noticed. From those I trust, I have heard that is very well deserved, but I also hope Vanessa has great success in Lorraine. Another obscure wine region to seek out is never to be ignored. This is a tasty Pinot to whet the appetite alongside the wines of Maison Crochet.
I bought this from Cork & Cask in Edinburgh’s Marchmont, for £26. They joked that they now have a Lorraine Section on their shelves (they also have some Crochet). The importer is Sevslo in Glasgow.
Magula is one of the handful of estates at the forefront of Slovakian natural wine, yet this is a fourth-generation family estate farming biodynamically at Suchá nad Parnou in Western Slovakia, northeast of Bratislava. I’ve written about Magula quite a few times, and this wine, the “orange wolf”, more than once. I like it a lot. Harvested quite early, in mid-September, it is a blend of 50% Grüner Veltliner, 30% Welschriesling and 20% Gewurztraminer. Actually, 0.5% of this wine consists of Devín and some other aromatic varieties.
Spontaneous fermentation takes place in open vat with (in 2021) fourteen days on skins. It is, of course, the pinkish Gewurztraminer skins that give the wine most of its colour, although Devín is a red variety. That colour, to me, appears somewhere between orange and salmon pink, but definitely with an almost gold-like glint in the right light. Ageing is in a mix of used oak barrel, and amphora and stoneware. This cuvée is never sulphured. Bottled after just over a year ageing in October 2022, just 3,206 bottles were made.
The wine is ever so slightly cloudy before standing (lees). The bouquet is pure orange blossom and apricot with a touch of sweet and sour. The palate has good salinity and acidity. Perhaps white peach flavours persist most. There is a gentle mineral texture. The wine lingers on the palate and has a lovely soulfulness, which I just love. All Magula’s wines are worth seeking out. This orange wine might be my favourite, after this bottle at least.
Imported by Basket Press Wines Wines. On their web site it is sadly currently out of stock, but check for new deliveries, or check out the other Magula cuvées.
“Gaz de Schistes” [2022], Anna, André and Yann Durrmann (Alsace, France)
I regularly grab a few Durrmann wines ever since I visited them pre-Covid. Luckily, they now have a UK importer, because though I liked their natural wine cuvées back then, the quality here has definitely got even better. This is down to André’s son, Yann, fully taking over and focussing on taking his father’s ecological efforts to another level, as well as increasing the number of sulphur-free cuvées here (labelled “Cuvée Nature”).
The family now farms around nine hectares in thirty sites around Andlau, which if you read Part One of my previous article on my favourite wine regions to be a tourist in, you will know is right at the centre of natural wine in Alsace (though the epicentre of natural wine creeps ever northward in this exciting region).
This is an orange petnat, a wine born of skin contact Pinot Blanc and direct pressed Pinot Gris and more Pinot Blanc, all taken from Schist terroir. The colour is a kind of burnt orange. There’s no cloudiness as this was disgorged. The nose is somewhere between apricot and quince. The palate is dry, mineral and savoury with herbs plus a note of apricot and apple. The apricot has that ever so slightly bitter edge of dried apricot, the apple coming through in the acids.
If 2022 was a difficult vintage in northern Alsace, this was a great success and it went spectacularly well with a sweet potato katsu curry oddly enough (I wondered whether I was being a bit too experimental, but it worked).
It cost £27 from Cork & Cask, who now seem to get a drop of Durrmann wines from importer Wines Under the Bonnet every year. This is out of stock but they do have instead a petnat called Toqué PG (Pinot Gris), a bit of a nod to the past pun there! That cuvée is only £24. It is also a sulphur-free “Cuvée Nature”.
Traditional Method Cider Brut Vintage 2020, The Naughton Cider Company (Fife, Scotland)
Peter Crawford has a backgound in Champagne, but he harvests his apples principally from the family farm on the banks of the Tay in Fife, almost opposite Dundee. Fife is actually a wonderful source for apples, and indeed many other fruits which I am lucky enough to have access to. The fruit there is superb and so are Peter’s ciders. In fact, I hope to pay him a visit next year to see how he does it.
This cuvée is made from fifty varieties of apple, possibly more. It is “vinified” (well, you know what I mean) 35% in ex-Champagne barrels, the rest in stainless steel, where it spends ten months before bottling on its lees, effectively the “traditional method” used to make Champagne. This is almost a natural cider, so no chemicals are used in the orchard or the cuverie, no sugar is added (chaptalisation), and the cider isn’t filtered. Peter does use a minimal addition of sulphur though. I only say “almost” natural because I think (?) they do need to use a cultured yeast to start the fermentation.
As with Grower Champagne, you get a good level of back-label information, so I can tell you that this was bottled in August 2021 and then disgorged in July 2023. This means that it had nearly two years on its lees, so not as “aged” as the 2018 cider I wrote about in my article on Tim Philipps recently, but nevertheless nicely aged. More proof that it works!
This really is a very elegant and refined bottle. It has tiny bubbles, actually the tiniest I can remember seeing in a cider, and a crisp acidity, unusually filigree and rapier-like for (again) a cider. I wonder whether blind you might wonder whether this is a “no-malo” Champagne for the first moments when it hits the palate? The bouquet probably gives it away as it is all fresh apples, perhaps with a hint of lemon citrus. The palate has pure salinity, toasty apple peel, but also is clean and thirst quenching.
The bottle looks more like Champagne than any other cider I have seen, but this is unrepentantly a cider, if a very fine one. That informative back label suggests it should be drunk 2023-2030. I would certainly say that this has everything to enable it to age, and I would like to get some more to try out that suggestion, or at least to give it another three-or-four years. Only 1,550 bottles were made, though.
I bought this, once again, at Aeble Cider in Anstruther, where it cost £25. That is more expensive than most artisan ciders, although Aeble has ciders from affordable right up past £25 if you want to try them, including the famous Swiss Cidrerie du Vulcain. Naughton’s “Overture” cuvée comes in slightly cheaper at £21.
In the first part of this article, I introduced six of my favourite wine regions with my tourist hat on. Six wine regions I love to visit for reasons other than, or perhaps rather in addition to, the wine. Those were around Arbois (Jura), Vienna’s Nussberg, Alsace, especially Andlau/Mittelbergheim, the Mosel around Bernkastel, the Wachau in Austria and Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula.
For Part Two I’m going to take you around Austria’s Neusiedlersee, to the mountain slopes of Aosta, to the very precipitous vineyards of Lavaux, to the vineyards between Nagano and the Japanese Alps, to Piemonte’s Monferrato Hills, and to the deepest Aveyron. As with Part One, these are in no particular order. Most I have visited more than once, some many times. I’ve only made one trip to these particular Japanese vineyards, but a return there does feature on my list of top three places outside Europe I want to go back to.
As I said in Part One, this is just a bit of fun. I don’t pretend to have visited every beautiful vineyard in the world, so this is totally subjective. So do chip in with your own favourites. However, I might just provide the nudge to a few readers to head somewhere that they’ve always quite fancied a trip to. I hope so.
NEUSIEDLERSEE (Burgenland, by bike and ferry)
If, as I stated in Part 1, The Wachau was where I cut my teeth on Austrian wine, it is the wines of Burgenland, from the villages around the Neusiedlersee, that I drink most today, although the wines of Styria/Steiermark would doubtless push Burgenland a little more were they not so expensive. But also in Part 1 I emphasised that I am writing here about visiting a wine region as a tourist. It just happens that in this case I love the place as much as the wines.
This is a very good thing. To base every living moment of any family trip that just so happens to involve a vineyard landscape (who’d have thought) on the tasting, consumption and purchasing of wine would be shooting myself in the foot. To enable me to go on wine trips with my family, more relevant in the past when our children were young, there had to be something in it for them. As Part 1 demonstrates, if there is walking, cycling, museums and galleries and great food, then everyone is happy.
Now, there’s plenty to do around Europe’s shallowest lake, not least being able to hire a small boat with an engine to go on it (although drought conditions at the time of my last trip in 2022 ruled that out, the lake being no more than about a metre deep in most places, even in a good year). I have hired boats when staying in Rust, down at the marina and it is both relaxing and great fun pottering about on the lake and within the alleyways separated by bullrushes which ring its edges.
Rust is a beautiful town, storks nesting on the rooftops, good food, pretty architecture (you almost expect to see Mozart walking across the town square). There are plenty of wine producers to visit too, either in town or at Oggau, of course, just a short drive or cycle up the road (though if dining at Gut Oggau’s restaurant it’s maybe an idea to use a taxi).
Rust also has a bicycle hire shop on the main square (the Rathaus Platz). On our last visit (2022) to Johann Andreas Schneeburger, he hadn’t changed one bit, but his bike hire had. Now it was pretty much all electric bikes. If, as we did, you want real exercise, then you won’t get asked for your passport, nor a deposit (at least in our case). His dialect is hard to understand, but I’m pretty sure he said not to bother to return the pedal cycles, though we did.
Cycling options from Rust are many. Hungary is one, the border being a short distance south of Morbisch am See. I Guess Brits should take their passports nowadays, though the old Iron Curtain guard post probably still remains unoccupied. But Morbisch is the point from which you catch the flat-bottomed ferry over the lake to Illmitz. That has its own charm, and wine producers, but the ferry trip (you can take the bikes) and the cycling around Illmitz will introduce you to the bird life of the lake, which is plentiful, this being a major bird sanctuary (so there are plenty of hides). It’s also flat cycling, for those who need to know. Just check return departures before you embark on the ferry.
You get to Rust from Vienna by Bus (some require a change in Eisenstadt, some don’t, but as an aside, the Schloss Esterhazy in Eisenstadt is well worth a visit). By train from Vienna Hauptbahnhof, you can access the opposite (eastern) side of the lake via Neusiedl am See. There’s a handy bike hire shed right next to the station there. This is where to go from to visit producers around the north and east of the lake, especially in the village of Gols (around 11km on a bike), with a raft of natural wine stars including the Renners, Claus Preisinger, and the Heinrichs. The lakeside here is no less attractive than on the west side, and in fact you can often get right down to the water’s edge.
There are some beach areas over this way, but there is also a marina at Weiden am See, with both an outdoor swimming pool and a restaurant. In fact, there are several restaurants at the Weiden marina complex, but the one I know is called “Mole West”, and describes itself perfectly as “a casual spot for lakeside dining and drinks”.
I’ve never stayed around the Neusiedlersee lakeside for more than a few days at a time, it always having been combined with time in Vienna, or on my last trip there, Moravia. But there’s definitely more than enough to keep you occupied for a week.
AOSTA (basically mountains)
Well, not only mountains, but they do play a big part. The Val d’Aosta, or Vallée d’Aoste, it being an Italian region where French is still sometimes spoken, sits astride the Dora Baltea River. In the west it is hemmed in by Mont Blanc, whose road tunnel enters the valley on an Autostrade which whips you eastwards, into Northern Piemonte, almost within the blink of an eye. The region’s northern wall of mountains is breached by the Grand St-Bernard Pass, reached from Martigny at the start of the Swiss Valais (Rhône), which is the route in I’ve always taken. To the south, winding roads head up into the beautiful Gran Paradiso National Park.
At the centre of the region is the town of Aosta itself. Aosta is pretty small, with a population of around 35,000, but it has a long history, one which in parts is well represented by a number of Roman remains, including a Triumphal Arch (Arco di Augusto), a Roman Theatre, and a fortified Roman Gate (Porta Pretoria). If you want to do a bit of wine shopping and find somewhere to eat, it is well worth a wander (there’s more to see than I’ve listed here). The Roman theatre, with its mountain backdrop, is especially impressive.
The valley itself has several attractions, with plenty of castles of different eras, and a good number of wine producers. The co-operatives here are perfectly capable of making decent wine, and one, at Donnaz/Donnas, makes some rather good Nebbiolo. That said, the artisan producers make the best wines, wines which because this is Italy’s smallest wine region, rarely get onto export markets (Ottin and Lo Triolet being exceptions you can find here in the UK).
My initial reasons for visiting Aosta, the region, were not directly wine related. That I have discovered how good the wines here can be is largely thanks to one man, now retired. Bruno, and his wife Bruna (coincidentally) ran an auberge (yes, French name, Italian owners) at Bonne, a small hamlet above the village of Valgrisenche in the valley of the same name (accessed from Arvier, source of the wonderfully named red wine, Enfer d’Arvier, on the valley floor).
Bruno had started out as a sommelier in Milan and really knew his wine, so I trusted his local recommendations. On later visits he’d sell me aged local gems from his cellar at silly prices. I miss that couple. I also miss the menu-free restaurant with second helpings, the Grappa ai Mirtilli and the sight of men with crampons and ice axes arriving just in time for dinner.
The mountains are made for walking and there’s plenty of walking here. If I recommend one walk, it would be to drive from Bonne further up the valley, to the end of the reservoir (where you should spot a sunken village). Park, and walk the path to the Refuge of Mario Bezzi (2284m). You may find nature has been unkind, because on my last visit the profusion of butterflies was no longer evident, nor the small glacier we had to traverse. If you are lucky, however, you might hear first, and then hopefully spot, the marmots which we have always enjoyed seeing. Not to mention food at the refuge, which is quite large compared to most.
One final suggestion if you are up here. Valgrisenche has some really nice crafts for sale. And also you can buy real Fontina. This cow’s milk cheese is produced, by name, in many countries and often by highly commercial processes. Here, you will find a different cheese capable of going head-to-head with other great Alpine cheeses, like Beaufort and Abondance. Oddly enough, I had never been able to find a really comparable Fontina until recently, in a shop called The Cheese Lady in my County Town, Haddington. Which is a long way from Aosta.
Roman Gate, Aosta
LAVAUX (walking, tasting, and staring at the view)
I do like Switzerland. A long time ago, before I became Scottish, I would joke about starting a web site called makemeswiss.com. Switzerland has many more wine regions, and in fact many more very tasty wines, than most people imagine, because they are denied to us. Sort of. It’s not that importers shun them, some at least being adventurous enough to stock some. Alpine Wines, based in Yorkshire but shipping nationally, actually specialises in (inter alia) Swiss wines, run by a nice Swiss lady called Joelle Nebbe-Mornod. The issue is that the wines are often, though not always, relatively expensive. Couple that with a lack of consumer awareness and they can be a hard sell in a wine shop.
Even the regions most wouldn’t think of visiting have their charms. Geneva’s vines, largely to the west of the city, are worth a visit for pretty wine villages and some gently rolling hills around Dardagny and Satigny. Others are more spectacular, and perhaps none more so (although the winemakers of the Valais might disagree) than the steeply terraced slopes of Lavaux. So steeply terraced, plunging down into Lac Léman, that they have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site.
Lavaux, in the Canton of Vaud, stretches from Lausanne in the west, where the region begins at the village of Lutry. Things get more interesting at Epesses, Rivaz and St Saphorin, but the whole stretch as far as Montreux makes for one spectacular vista. Some of the vineyards here are designated “Grand Cru”, but as with most wine regions, producer is key. If you have little knowledge of the region there are a couple of ways to gain that knowledge. One, perhaps difficult now, is to seek out the excellent book “The Landscape of Swiss Wine” by the late Sue Style (Bergli Books, 2019). The other is to taste at the Lavaux Vinorama near Rivaz.
But let’s step back a bit. Montreux can be accessed from Geneva by bâteaux, but that is laborious and you still have to get up to the vines. You can get a train from Geneva. The route is beautiful, but to get to Rivaz you need to get a Brig-bound train to Vevey and then a local train back to Rivaz, leaving you a ten-minute walk to the Vinorama.
Personally, I would take a car if you have access to one. Vinorama looks very much like a concrete bunker, though it claims to have been built with sensitivity to the environment. It sits on the north side of the Route du Lac just before Rivaz (if arriving from Lausanne), and there are two car parks. You can watch a film in the basement, but the main floor is devoted to the wines. I think at last count they had two-hundred-and-fifty on sale, which is impressive, and you can do a number of different tastings with snacks if you wish. You have to pay, but at least on my visits the snacks have been good. They also organise, inter alia, vineyard/cellar tours.
If you are tasting or buying, then many of the wines here are made from Chasselas. Often derided by the old folks who write about wine, they are wrong. Some of the wines you will taste have genuine character, although cheap (for Switzerland) Chasselas is nothing to write home about. But it’s not all Chasselas. If you are in any way a fan of Led Zeppelin you might want to try Plant Robert. No, it has nothing whatsoever to do with Robert Plant, but I can’t help thinking of that band of my youth when I drink some.
Of course, I’m not just recommending a trip here to visit Vinorama. These are vineyards to walk in, and in good Swiss style there are a host of well-marked vineyard paths with accurate distances marked on signposts. You can choose to walk for twenty minutes around Vinorama, or you can walk longer, from village to village. One advantage of getting the train is that you could walk to Montreux, get an early dinner, and then back to Geneva. Montreux is about three hours on foot from Rivaz. The walking here can be gentle, or you can drop, and then climb again, 250 metres. It can be very steep. But try to visit on a sunny day. The lake and the vines are far more unforgettable on foot than when zipping through on the A9 Autoroute.
NAGANO (Vines with history and Culture, sake and chestnuts)
When I say “Nagano” I am talking about a wine region to the northwest of Tokyo which sits in the hills between the city and the beginning of the Japan Alps. If Yamanashi is the first of Japan’s wine regions people may think of, and which is likely to be the source of any bottle of Japanese wine you may be lucky enough to find in the UK, then as Jancis et al state in the World Atlas of Wine, “Nagano has been catching up”.
There is something undeniably both attractive and exciting about the sight of vineyards as you look out of the small train that heads up into the hills from Nagano to the end of the line at Yudanaka (on the Nagano-Dentetsu Line. Yudanaka is around 1h 20m from Nagano, and Obuse, see below, is about half-way, just 40 mins).
This is especially so if the bunches of grapes are wearing their waxed paper hats which protect them from rain. Actually, the secret of these vineyard districts is a relative lack of rain, the region being protected from monsoons rather more than Yamanashi, but harvest in November does follow the rains. It’s also pretty sunny here, though in late summer when we visited it was very mixed. Wet in the mountains but sunny in Obuse.
First, the mountains, as we are, I will remind you, in tourist mode here. You can take a local bus up into some remarkable forest. I won’t go into detail as you can get all the relevant info from the tourist information desk at Yudanaka Station, but there is a UNESCO Biosphere up there. The ancient forest is right out of a Studio Ghibli animation (think Princess Mononoke). We walked along a route where every fifty-or-so-metres there was a large chime with a hammer…to let any bears know you are coming. Bear Spray is generally recommended for mountain walking in Japan, but take advice on whether you need it. We didn’t take any.
We stayed at a ryokan (called Koishiya) at Shibu Onsen, a short drive (thanks to the Ryokan’s owner) to the Snow Monkey Sanctuary, beloved of so many nature documentaries. The monkeys are attracted to the hot springs and you can visit and walk among them (but don’t look them in the eye and don’t carry food). There’s a visitor centre where you can wait to see whether the monkeys turn up, but they live up the mountain and do as they wish, so watching a large troupe with their babies bathing in the steaming pools is not guaranteed. We waited a good 45 minutes one morning but they did come, and the visitor centre staff have cameras to track them.
Shibu Onsen is a twenty-minute walk from Yudanaka, which is where we begin our vineyard journey by getting the train back down to nearby Obuse. Obuse is most famous as the place where Hokusai worked in his later years, and this lovely small market town boasts a very good museum to this Japanese master, which I’d go so far as to call unmissable. It also boasts opportunities to sample a local speciality, chestnuts, and in particular chestnut noodles. Simple but so good.
On the periphery of the town are two equally unmissable temples. One is in a woodland setting which is mysterious and Ghibli-esque, enhanced by its thatched roof and mossy pathway. In its current form it still dates from the 1400s. The other has one of Hokusai’s largest works on its ceiling, among other attractions.
For me, the main attraction in Obuse is Domaine Sogga (sometimes called Obuse Winery). This is the home of one of Japan’s finest artisan winemakers. In 2005 the domaine went organic and concentrated only on vinifera varieties (although many of the wines made in Japan from hybrid varieties are worth drinking). The only chemical additions here are permitted levels of copper on the vines and sulphur in the winery, both being as little used as possible.
The varieties here range from Albariño and Petit Manseng to single site Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot, Merlot, Tannat and Barbera. Read more about this domaine in Anthony Rose’s “Sake and the Wines of Japan” (Infinite Ideas Classic Wine Library, 2018, pp294ff, now available via the Academie du Vin Library).
You might wonder how you can get out to the periphery of Obuse. You certainly need some transport. We hired bikes (I bet you guessed). Actually, we found the bike shop but the guy spoke no English. We enlisted the assistance of a very helpful young woman in the tourist office, which was more or less over the road. She organised everything, and the bike shop man even drew us a map to get to the temples and Domaine Sogga. I think there might be cycle hire at the station too, though that option means you have to lug them around all day. And I’d definitely allow a day for Obuse. One read of the introductory paragraph on the town in the Rough Guide to Japan should be enough to hook you. I’ve not even mentioned the Masuichi Sake Brewery, a very important place for the tourist to check out.
If you do visit and decide to stay up in Shibu Onsen, itself a very pretty location, do not miss going to an onsen (tattoos permitting, although if you are inked there might be the possibility of hiring a private onsen by the hour, as we did, soaking under the stars). Also be aware that the mountains here are part of the large Shiga-Kogen ski area and there can be snow between December and April. Some of the chair lifts run for walkers in the summer.
Nagano Vines awaiting the rains
MONFERRATO HILLS (Basically the views and the food)
For those, likely most of my readers, who know where the Monferrato Hills are, you might ask why not Barolo and the Langhe? For me, it’s simple. The Barolo villages are spectacularly beautiful, but they are also touristy. Okay, it’s all relative. They are not touristy like Chiantishire can be, and I think when I first visited Piemonte back in the very late 1980s they saw almost no British tourists. But nowadays that has changed, and the pressure of visitors turning up at wineries is no less than in any other region where a hard day’s work needs to come first over an Englishman’s expectation of a comprehensive tasting.
On all but one of my visits to Piemonte I have stayed a little outside of Nizza, or Nizza Monferrato to give its full name. Although Nizza has shot to a degree of fame in recent years on account of its DOCG for the Barbera variety (one of the few places this underrated variety is not second string to Nebbiolo), one wouldn’t say that these gentle hills around the town are among the most spectacular, nor beautiful, in the region. They are generally quiet though, and here you are perfectly located to venture out to visit the wider region’s finest attractions and beyond.
So, if you were based at an agriturismo here, with perhaps a decent on-site restaurant and a pool, what might you do over a relaxing week, other than eat wonderful food in a region I consider to have some of the finest gastronomy in Europe?
Obviously, Barolo. Today, if you are looking for affordable Nebbiolo, then Barbaresco might be a better bet. For genuine bargains maybe head up to Roero, and indeed to beyond, what the wine merchants now tend to call “Alto Piemonte”, which means any DOC up to the Aosta border. However, Barolo’s fame lies not just for its wines, but for the places: Serralunga d’Alba, La Morra, Barolo and Castiglione Falletto to name a few.
Most of the above villages have somewhere to indulge in a long lunch and then a walk in the vines (though be warned these walks inevitably end with an uphill stretch). If you want those famous views of the snow-capped peaks of the Alps, then the hilltop villages of the Langhe may be the place to take your telephoto lens…on a good day.
Then we have the towns. Alba is the region’s gastronomic capital, though if you want to dine here (expensively) in truffle season booking way in advance can be sensible. Asti is somewhat in Alba’s shadow, though it does have a rather good covered market on the edge of town. Bra is quite a trek from Nizza, but it is the home to the Slowfood Movement, and it boasts a very good market (check times, the main market is held on a Friday but smaller markets take place on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays). Although the market at Bra sells a wide range of victuals, cheese is a speciality. There is plenty of information on the internet.
Another possibility is to head south, where for me there are three attractions. First, Acqui Terme. Acqui is perhaps not the place to make a special detour to on most days of the week, though it has its attractions like most old towns in Italy. However, it also has a very good market (Tuesdays and Fridays in the morning through most of the year). The town suddenly becomes extremely busy on market days, a good sign, but it is way more difficult to find somewhere to park if you arrive late.
Acqui is also a gateway to the Ligurian Mountains. These hills are wild and rugged, and for me these forested slopes and small villages are very attractive. If you like mountain walking there are numerous options, although there are no metal chimes and hammers to warn the wild boar of your approach.
If you take the road from Acqui to Varazza, an attractive route which winds through several villages including Sasssello, which seems to be a centre for amaretti biscuits, you can detour via the SP334 to Albisola Marina. We were recommended an unprepossessing but very good seafood restaurant here some years ago. Annoyingly, I can’t remember what it was called, but the small seaside town (next to Albisola Superiore) has plenty of seafood eating options, and it also has some beaches (public and somewhat smarter private/pay for ones) if you happen to need a sun tan or to dip your feet in the Med.
Acqui has its own vinous specialities, Brachetto especially. Piemonte’s so-called lesser varieties can best be sampled outside of the more famous DOCG vineyards, and the likes of Grignolino, Freisa, Ruché and the aforesaid Brachetto really should be sought out, certainly by anyone interested enough to be reading this. But also remember that if you venture via my route into Liguria, you will have dropped down into the wine region of Riviera Ligure di Ponente, where you should seek out Vermentino/Pigato, Malvasia and the red Rossese di Dolceacqua. The wines of Cinqueterre taste strangely perfect with the seafood of the Western Ligurian Coast.
Langhe to the Alps with a bit of the old Nebbia (photo credit Anna Beer)
AVEYRON (La France Profonde)
It’s perhaps fitting to end this two-part piece back where we started Part One, in rural France. France was, of course, where I began my obsession with the beautiful landscapes that are vineyards, and it was a lovely old book by author Michael Busselle called The Wine Lover’s Guide to France (Pavilion, 1988) which in fact drew me to a great many of France’s regions. It came out, fortuitously, the first year I visited Arbois, and the year before my first trip to the Aveyron.
The vineyards which are broadly to the north and northwest of Rodez also have another significance for me. They were pretty much the catalyst for me beginning to write a book, which was to be called “The Lost Vineyards of France”. The typed manuscript lies somewhere in a cupboard, I’m not sure where. The project faltered for many reasons, but nowadays the regions I included are all no longer lost, and some have been very much rediscovered, for which I can sadly take little credit…except perhaps for my constant and repetitious plugging of Bugey.
Aveyron has three major wine districts, now all AOP, although “major” is very much subjective and in context, but there are others one might certainly call minor (Coteaux de Glanes, anyone?). These are Estaing, Entraygues-Le Fel and the possibly better known Marcillac.
These are regions that supplied wines locally, and then when coal mining became a major industry here, slaked the thirst of the miners. Post-war rural depopulation almost killed viticulture here. Their renaissance has largely been on the back of the wave of natural wine that swept France at the end of the 20th Century, and the fact that hillside vineyards here were available as abandoned plots for very little money. Life here is very rural indeed, so a certain lifestyle element came into their revival too.
I’m not going to talk about the wines here very much. Even in the 1980s there were one or two producers that bottled a hectare or two of grapes in Entraygues and Estaing, plus small local cooperatives, when these wines were classified under the old VDQS regime. Much of the wine seen outside of the wider region in the 1990s came from Philippe Teulier of Domaine du Cross, whose Marcillac wines were very early on imported into the UK by Les Caves de Pyrene. I used to be a regular purchaser of his “Lo Sang del Païs”, both from Les Caves, and before that, from Adnams. Today, the most lauded artisan producer in Marcillac is Nicolas Carmarans, who once ran that famous Parisian bastion of natural wine, the Café de la Nouvelle-Marie.
But perhaps we should get back into tourist mode. If you are staying in or near Rodez there are several excursions I would recommend. I think these are trips that get you deep into what may be (still) some of France’s poorest regions, but are also, without any doubt, among her most beautiful. Let’s begin with one or two longer drives before we finish in the heart of viticultural Aveyron, at a village that offers the lover of art and history a real treat.
Beyond Aveyron to the east is the Cévennes and, if you wish, the Viaduc de Millau carrying the A75 over the Tarn, which if you find modern bridges even the slightest bit interesting will cause a flutter. Also worth seeking out if heading towards the Southern Cévennes is the old Templar staging post village of La Couvertoirade. It has a uniqueness that is worth an hour of your time. It’s actually close to the Autoroute, just north of Le Caylar.
In the opposite direction, west, you can easily reach Cahors for lunch, assuming you leave after breakfast (just under two hours by car), although the hilltop village of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, which overlooks the Lot Valley, is well worth a stop en-route, at its most beautiful when the red poppies are in bloom among the riverside fields below.
My choice, if you have time for just one longer day out, would be to perhaps head north, to Salers in the Cantal. To reach it you pass through desolate limestone “Causse” country, where except for the passing of the seasonal transhumance, little happens. The land here is well watered, but the dozens of rivers are unnavigable, their best use put to turning water wheels, so that a town like Laguiole could become famous for its knives. These are now made elsewhere in France (the best in Thiers, where they have, like wine, an IGP), but, as they are not protected by copyright, also in China. If you pick some up in somewhere like TKMax then they may actually be pretty decent but might be from the latter manufactuary. Such is the fame of Laguiole knives that they are much faked.
Salers, like Saint-Cirq, is a member of the Plus Beaux Villages de France Association and its old grey volcanic stones have many tales to tell. Nearby is the extinct volcano, the Puy Marie, which you can climb with much less difficulty than most mountains due to steps having been cut on its most gentle slope. On a good day you can see a very long way to a distant horizon.
Rodez itself has its charm, in the centre around its gothic cathedral, but its once concentrated vignoble has been subsumed into the modern suburbs. From Rodez you can drive a circuit that will take you to find vines, hidden as they may be. Drive northeast to Espalion. Here, divert northwest up the Lot Valley to Estaing with its castle on a bend in the river. A little further up the D920, via the Lot Gorges, is Entraygues from where you must, continuing along the Lot, wind your way on the tiny D107 until you reach the D901. Here, you are almost upon Conques.
Conques is a strong contender for my favourite village in France. This beautiful village, full of turreted medieval dwellings, has at its centre the abbey church of Sainte-Foy (Saint-Faith), named after a young woman martyred in the first years of the 4th Century. The monastery church and cloister are immensely interesting, but the fame, and wealth, of the place rests on the dubious acquisition (or theft) of the relics of the said saint from the poor monks of Agen, from whence Conques just happened to nicely slot into the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostella in Spain.
Conques has a museum of sacred objects but the “must see” item, housed separately when I was last there, is the Majesté de Sainte-Foy, described as one of the five most important medieval artifacts in France. The so-called “Majesty” is a life-size statue of the young saint in gold and silver, seated on a gold throne, all set with byzantine and roman intaglios, cameos and precious stones. Without this statue the treasures of Conques Abbey would be more than worth a detour, but seeing the magnificent Majesté is something completely different.
The driving back to Rodez is relatively easy, about 45 minutes via the D901, and the road passes through Marcillac-Vallon (to give its full name). You might actually find somewhere to buy local wine here…possibly.
There is so much more to see here than I have space to test your patience by listing, but one final thought. This may still be a remote and very rural part of France, yet it can be very busy at the height of summer. As an example, Saint-Cirq-Lapopie boasts few more than 200 inhabitants, yet can get close to half a million visitors per year. Most probably in August. Many on coaches.
Conques
I hope these two articles have proved interesting. I am quite lucky to have travelled widely through many European wine regions, plus a few more overseas. My enthusiasm for wine began before I’d ever visited a vineyard, but the attraction of the vineyard landscape, which struck a chord with something within me, certainly enhanced my appreciation of wine as I began to travel to stay in them and absorb some of their culture. These two articles cover just a dozen wine regions, but the number that I have enjoyed spending time in is so much greater. The list is so long that I have had great difficulty in choosing just a dozen regions to feature but I hope my special enthusiasm for this particular selection may have been at least a little inspiring.
As summer fades fast into Autumn, and perhaps for those of us not harvesting grapes, the memory of some 2024 vineyard trips along with it, you might, like me, be turning your attention to next year. Even with one big trip left for me this year, I am doing just that. With vineyard dreams in mind, I thought it might be fun to write about the wine regions I enjoy most. By this I mean effectively as a tourist, not for their wines but for the overall experience.
This article was actually inspired by Jamie Goode. I saw a video he’d taken driving along a part of the Mosel I have cycled along and I was reminded just how thrilling doing stuff like that among the vines can be. It’s funny, but I saw the other day that someone had written an article in the Daily Telegraph which on the face of it looked similar, but thankfully that one bears little resemblance to mine.
My initial shortlist was whittled down to sixteen wine regions, which I have further reduced to a more manageable twelve. This means I think we need this in two parts. I don’t plan to write much, if anything, about the wines. It’s really about experiencing the place. The fact that I love walking and cycling…and cheese, and eating might come into play. Hopefully I can encapsulate what I like most in a few short paragraphs, and perhaps you might be tempted to follow in my footsteps, if you haven’t done so already.
I must begin by saying that I haven’t visited everywhere. I’d love to go and see both the Okanagan Valley and Niagara in Canada, parts of California, Madeira and the Azores, not to mention the vines of Victoria Torres Pécis on La Palma in the Canary Isles. South Africa too!
There are also many places which didn’t make the cut, foremost among them being Alto-Adige, Irouléguy, Tuscany, the Alto Douro, Moravia and Collioure/Banyuls. Of those, the rolling foothills of the Pyrenees around Saint Etienne-de-Baïgorry and Saint Jean-Pied-de-Port, which form the vineyards of Irouléguy, were possibly the hardest to leave out. Perhaps not an obvious choice, but they are so beautiful. Others, like almost any of the diffuse parts that make up Burgundy, didn’t even get a look-in despite these epitomising the viticultural rural idyll for me for so many of my younger years.
So, I have arrived at a dozen wine regions. Who knows, my choice might change by the time I reach Part 2, but the six regions featured here, and the six more that follow in Part 2, are in no specific order. Remember, these are my favourites. This is totally subjective. Feel free to chip in with your own in the comments.
JURA (Around Arbois)
Although I claimed that these wine regions are in no particular order, I had to start with this one. Most readers will know that I have history with the Jura, and Arbois in particular. I first drove in to smell the wood smoke in the 1980s and pretty much made some sort of stop in Arbois, whether to stay a week, a few days, or merely to pass through for lunch and wine buying, every year up until Covid. There is an article on this site called Tourist Jura (published 29/07/2020). The restaurants have changed, significantly, but most of the rest hasn’t. It remains the most read article year in, year out.
Why Arbois in particular? Well, first it is a real town, not especially smart, but among the more mundane shops are some gems, like Les Jardins de St Vincent (natural wine), Hirsinger (pastries and chocolates) and all the wine shops attached to producers (like the shop of Stéphane and Bénédicte Tissot on the Place de la Liberté).
Then there is the walking, which my article talks about at length. Whether it is walking to Montigny-les-Arsures, to Pupillin, to Les Planches, or exploring the ruins and seeking the mouflons up, around La Châtelaine, these walks, along with those in the next entry, form my favourite hiking in France.
After a day pounding the paths around Arbois, the chance to eat some poulet au Vin Jaune et aux morilles and a hunk of well-aged Comté is pretty hard to beat. So hard to beat that only a large schnitzel in Vienna or a plate of momos in Nepal rival it. Equally, do walk the short Arbois town circuit, half of which takes you down some very attractive back routes as it snakes over and by the river.
Some of these hikes are through the forest, and the scents of the different trees makes you understand the meaning of forest bathing, but the walk, mentioned in that article, which will take you through the vines to Montigny-les-Arsures, passes perhaps the finest vineyard of the northern part of the region, the terraces below the Tour de Curon. There are a number of producers in Montigny, but none perhaps more famous than Domaine A&M Tissot. Stéphane and Bénédicte’s winery is just down the lane on the left hand side of the church.
The extension to this walk takes you back along the road to Arbois (not busy) and detours left just after the hamlet of Vauxelles, and is well worth the effort. You begin through fields to a farm and then detour right. The path comes down at Mesnay, from where you can walk back to Arbois (find the left turn that will return you alongside the Cuissance). My article (see above) tells you which map to find. For me, Arbois and its environs is hard to beat, especially with that accompanying smell of wood smoke.
There is something about the Jura that I find hard to describe. It’s a combination of the scenery, the food culture and the sensory (I happen to adore the smell of wood smoke and the sound of running water). I’ve spent so much time there that it has seeped into my soul, something I feel inside as much as a beautiful and calming landscape that I can see.
I do know one thing, however. My enthusiasm has encouraged other friends to visit, and I find it hard to think of any who have not, like me, become life-long enthusiasts. Barring some Parisian friends who, being Parisians, wonder what we see in such a “rural backwater”. If it has anything to be said against it, it is merely that the politics here do not always match what we imagine might be the ethos of this natural wine paradise.
Arbois, first from the Hermitage, then from the cirque above Les Planches
ALSACE (Andlau and Mittelbergheim)
I’ve been lucky enough to visit Alsace quite a number of times and I have stayed in several different places, from the medieval town of Eguisheim up to the forests of the far north. Some afford good locations for visiting Colmar or Strasbourg, and even Baden in Germany, and most afford great walking, but the place I love more than any other lies in the vicinity of the neighbouring villages of Andlau and Mittelbergheim.
I have said it many times that Alsace is, for me, the most dynamic and exciting French region for natural wines at the moment. If that is true, then the area around these two villages could be termed natural wine central. I could list all the great winemakers working here, but that would go on for a long while, too long for an article which professes to be about place, not wine. However, unlike many natural wine domaines in much of France, many here have tasting rooms, and will welcome visitors with an appropriate appointment. As your typical Alsace vigneron makes a host of different cuvées, you may also find they have wine to sell, if like me you want to bring wine home. With a generally poor selection of Alsace wines available in the UK (exceptions noted), this is even more of a bonus.
That said, the added attraction to wine and the visual beauty of the landscape here, and what is your average geranium-bedecked Alsace village, is some more exciting walking. The Vosges are beautiful mountains to walk in, but if you are staying in one of these villages the added attraction lies in some places to walk to, and between. These are the ruined castles which hide in the forest.
There are many possibilities, but walking up the Kastelberg Grand Cru from Andlau to the ruins of the Château de Spesbourg, snaking along forested tracks to the Château d’Andlau, and then back via Mittelbergheim (taking a picnic to eat along the way) is as good a recommendation as any I could give you. Eguisheim has some nice hilly walks to the west of the town, and if you want to walk in the vines, then perhaps the walks around Riquewihr, maybe from there to the fortified church at Hunawihr, will appeal. But the walks around Andlau and Mittelbergheim strike a chord with me.
The Vosges are unquestionably one of the most “walkable” of Europe’s mountain ranges. They may not have the height and grandeur of some, but with well-marked forest trails and a castle ruin seemingly on almost every hill, they are more than worth exploring. This is even before we discuss the great food available, just the kind of food you need after a day up in the hills.
Looking down on Andlau from the Kastelberg
VIENNA (the Nussberg)
I like Vienna a lot. Superficially, it reeks of its conservative Hapsburg past, but beneath the surface it is something else. It is a city of great food, and I mean “great”, whether traditional or modern (accompanied with natural wine, of course). It is a city of challenging art, and also, not that this is really significant, a city whose politics, despite the Imperial grandeur, is quite different to the rest of the country.
Most readers will be aware that Vienna has its own wine region. In fact, it is more than one area of vines, but that which I want to tell you about is the hill of vines above the suburban village of Grinzing, called the Nussberg. Every time I have visited Vienna, I have walked this hill, and I can’t envisage going to Vienna and not doing so.
Your day out will involve a short journey on the U-Bahn (U4) to Heiligenstadt Station, followed by a bus (the 38A, but do check, it leaves from outside the station) in the direction of Kahlenberg and Leopoldsberg. The stop you want is for the Gnadeskapelle, where you can cross the road to a nice café within the chapel grounds. But right by where you got off the bus is a path through the woods. After a while you will exit the woodland path onto a hill of vines.
In summer the vineyards are dotted with pop-up Heuriger, bars serving light meals with local wines, including the speciality here being the co-fermented field blends called Wiener Gemischter Satz. It’s a wine that is as much a part of Viennese culture as it is an alcoholic beverage.
If you have a good map (such as the Freytag & Berndt Vienna City Map at 1:25,000) you can pick your way down, via the vineyard paths, making sure to take in the views of Vienna afforded from up here, to the wonderful inn, Mayer am Pfarplatz (marked on the map just north of the main road into Heiligenstadt). Beethoven wrote his Eroica Symphony in a room whilst lodging here, but the inn’s main attraction is its attractive old, vine-strewn, outdoor courtyard.
In summer do not miss trying some Himbeersturm. Like Sturm, the fermenting wine served as a refreshment at harvest time, this is a fermenting raspberry drink, few of which can be more refreshing. At harvest time true Sturm is served. It may rot your guts if you drink too much, but this low alcohol, spritzy, still fermenting wine, served in pot glasses like a British half-pint, is equally part of life. The city’s suburbs that adjoin vineyards are full of Heuriger and Buschenschanks that serve it around harvest. Heiligenstadt station is just a few bus stops away.
You can read a bit more about this walk in my article Heuriger, Heurigen, Buschenschanks and popups: A Walk in the Woods and Vines (28/08/2018). You may find it useful for detail. We have done this walk even in winter, and though it is undoubtedly cold, the Nussberg in the snow does have a certain magic too.
Winter on the Nussberg, above the city
MOSEL (Around Bernkastel)
Germany is blessed with a good number of idyllic vineyard locations, and most of her traditional wine regions are located on attractive, often precipitous, slopes with picture postcard villages, bedecked in flowers, by the side of a majestic river. Surely the epitome of all of these must be the Middle Mosel. That stretch between Piesport and Enkirch downstream is the bit that appeals to me, largely because this is a spectacular part of the Mosel Cycle Trail.
If I’m not walking in the vines, then I’m happiest cycling through them. Generally, this cycle path sticks to the flat of the valley floor, though mostly avoiding the road, but there are opportunities to go uphill if you are either fit or have hired an electric bicycle. There’s a good bike shop just a little further on from the bridge over the river from Bernkastel into Kues, the suburb on the left bank of the Mosel opposite Bernkastel. A very leisurely morning cycle will take you to Traben, via Graach, Zeltingen, Kindel, Wolf and Trarbach, with a return on the opposite bank via Kröv, Kinheim, Urzig and Wehlen (don’t forget to look out for the famous sundial).
If you have time, assuming you have not taken too great an advantage of the numerous riverside opportunities to drink beer, do explore Lieser (just next to Bernkastel), which houses the forbidding Schloss (Thomas Haag’s wines are not the least bit forbidding, on the contrary, they are some of the Mosel’s greatest bottles) and Sybille Kuntz, who is no less worth a visit. I happen to love the wines of the Mosel, with a special affection for the filigree acidity and fruit of the Kabinetts. The fact that this region is spectacularly beautiful, and that it is completely geared up for cyclists, is more than an added bonus.
Bernkastel itself is almost the perfect chocolate box representation of a German wine town. Maybe it might be too kitsch for some, but there are plenty of places to eat and drink here, including (if it is still there) a very good Indian restaurant, called the Taj Mahal (Hebegasse 1). Opposite this you will find what is probably my favourite wine shop in Germany, now called the Rieslinghaus (Hebegasse 11). They changed the name a few years ago, from Weinhaus Porn, for some reason. If you like the wines of the Mittelmosel you will almost certainly need help carrying your purchases back to the car park. The owners also run a hotel.
This stretch of the Mosel is just outside Bernkastel looking towards Wehlen
WACHAU (more time on a bike)
I said at the top of this article that these are wine regions I love to visit, and I implied that it is the region rather than its wines that I am praising. The Wachau, specifically the valley of the River Danube as it stretches west from the town of Krems, was certainly where I cut my teeth on Austrian wine. Today I will still heartily recommend producers such as Weingut Knoll, Hirtzberger and the long-time biodynamic estate of Nikolaihof, but it is true that these wines probably don’t form a large part of the Austrian wines I drink today.
However, the river through this wine region is both beautiful and also steeped in history (with the perched castle of Dürnstein acting as the prison for Richard the Lionheart after he was captured on the way back from the Third Crusade being a major tourist attraction for the rivercraft tours here). However, as with the Mosel above, this stretch of the river is yet another opportunity to get on a bike.
The Wachau is an easy train ride from Vienna. If you alight at Krems there’s a cycle hire shop around a five-minute walk from the railway station. I tend to book bikes in advance, but I doubt you’d have any problems just rocking up. If you cycle west, through the old suburb of Stein, you are soon into the vineyards. The Wachau Cycle Path follows the left (north) bank of the Danube past Unterloiben and Oberloiben before the first hill of vines ends at the perched fortress of Dürnstein. Some of the route lies on small roads and goes through the villages, such as Weissenkirchen, but there is generally little traffic, except at harvest time.
How far to go is really the question. My own recommendation would be to stop for lunch at Spitz if you can make it that far. If the weather is nice, you can eat outside at the Gasthof Prankl, then leave your bikes and walk up to the castle perched steeply above it for some great views of the river with vines in the foreground. Spitz also has a very good wine shop. Hubert Fohringer is down on the river, near the quay. It sells mostly classic Wachau wines, but has a comprehensive selection.
An alternative would be to try out one of the inns run by the wine estates. Weingut Knoll runs the Restaurant Loibnerhof at Unterloiben, where you can sit outside if the weather permits, and enjoy the wines of this magnificent estate.
Intrepid cyclists could choose to make a two-day trip of it by cycling on to overnight near Melk, the imposing Benedictine abbey that looks over the river about twenty kilometres further than Spitz. That would allow for lunch at both of my recommendations. The abbey was founded in 1089, although the abbey today showcases the splendour of the Baroque era, from the early eighteenth century. Oddly, the abbey became a centre for Freemasonry at this time, and apparently many of the monks were also Freemasons.
The Wachau in many ways represents Austria’s vinous past. Many of the fans of its wines might be too old to cycle to Melk. Nevertheless, it is a beautiful wine region and those who like our wines without synthetic additions will still love the scenery, the food, and I think the best of the wines as well.
The Danube from the castle ruins above Spitz
MORNINGTON PENINSULA (vineyard gastronomy)
Unlike South Africa’s vineyards, reputedly spectacular but which I’ve never visited, I have spent time in a good many Australian wine regions, from the more obscure (like Shoalhaven Coast or Mudgee) to the “tourist-friendly” (Hunter and Yarra Valleys, for example). Australian Wine regions are often very different to those we know in Europe.
The vineyards whose wines we see the most of here in the UK can be flat, or what one might describe as mildly hilly, and they can be quite spread out, blocks of vines interspersed with blocks of grass or rock. Not all of them look very pretty, especially when they are hard pruned rows of vines regimented and widely spaced to allow for machine harvesting, but even without the odd kangaroo skipping through the vines, they undoubtedly have their charm.
In many ways Mornington Peninsula doesn’t fit that picture (indeed, nor do many of the regions which have emerged since the 1990s). Much of the land on this twenty-mile-long outcrop south of Melbourne is rich stud country, Melbourne of course being Australia’s horseracing mecca, but there are hills, and a lack of the wide horizons some may think monotonous. During the 1970s what had been a few wine producers in the previous century grew to a critical mass, largely based on the peninsula having a maritime climate that gives far greater vintage variation than was common in Australia at the time.
That vintage variation helped make it a perfect climate for growing Pinot Noir, and Chardonnay on the edge. Not quite as on the edge as Tasmania, even further south, but still at times more marginal than many. Those two grape varieties made the region famous, but at the same time Mornington Peninsula was also one of the centres for the “Alternative Varieties” movement.
I’ve just finished (and will review) Max Allen’s latest book, Alternative Reality, which charts the rise of grape varieties other than Shiraz, Cabernet and Chardonnay in Australia’s vineyards through the story of the Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show (AAVWS). Although on a number of trips to the region I have visited a good few Pinot specialists, one of the main reasons for my first visit was to have lunch at a producer noted for a very different variety.
Although the Trophy for Best White Wine in the first AAVWS was won by a different Victorian winery, Redbank (at Milawa), it was T’Gallant, on the Peninsula, that was making waves back then. I think this was 2007, but the first ten acres of Pinot Gris was only planted on this former apple orchard (close to the now famous Pinot/Chardonnay estate, Ten Minutes by Tractor) in 2003.
But if I’m getting sidetracked by the wines, what you really want to know is why visit Mornington Peninsula? Well, it’s close to Melbourne, but then so is the Yarra Valley. The Yarra has some great restaurants, but Mornington offers such a wide choice in such a concentrated area that it is impossible to choose, even if you can decide between wood-fired pizza or full-on gourmet. Hardly a wine estate on the peninsula doesn’t offer both a cellar door and a restaurant.
The peninsula itself offers a chance for some beach R&R as well. The coast facing the Bass Strait can be wild, with what look to me like some dangerously rocky surf beaches, but inside Port Phillip Bay it is usually calmer, as the aptly named Sorrento perhaps suggests. Sorrento is also the point from which you can take a ferry across Port Phillip Bay to Queenscliff. A short drive from Geelong, this is an entry point to another wine region which has achieved a degree of fame this century.
If you have a willing designated driver, it’s an alternative (if longer) route back to Melbourne, although first time visitors might prefer to spend the time exploring the wineries of Mornington. There are so many that have now achieved a fine reputation, and the fact that there are so many within quite a small area makes it relatively easy to knock up several in a day.
Overnighting on the peninsula is a good idea if you have time, but as it swarms with Melbournites on most weekends and holidays, accommodation can be hard to find and expensive. We have friends who had a weekender down there, but they sold it and bought upstate. It brought a whole lot more wonderful wine regions for us to explore (Heathcote, Bendigo, Macedon Ranges, the latter home to one of my favourite Aussie producers, woefully neglected in the UK, Bindi), but whenever I’m in Melbourne with access to a car, I shall always grab a day down on the Mornington Peninsula.
Polperro Estate in the centre of the vineyards on Mornington Peninsula
As a bonus in Part One, I haven’t written about this place because it’s not a “wine region”, just a single estate, but if you are driving through the Kathmandu Valley, just outside Kathmandu, you might be able to find Pataleban. The edge of the wide world of wine.
I’m not sure when I first began visiting Winemakers Club under the Holborn Viaduct arches on London’s Farringdon Street, but I know it was very early on in its existence. It was very familiar to me because even longer ago it was one of Oddbins’ Fine Wine stores. Yes, hard to believe but back then Oddbins in its original incarnation was pretty much the place for enthusiasts of new flavours in wine, much as the old Virgin Megastore on Oxford Street was for lovers of vinyl.
The two are not as incongruously linked as it might seem. Vinyl was at the peak of its first time popularity, the Megastore a mecca for music lovers searching for new music in the late 1970s, and in the early 80s wine was becoming democratised, “Claret” and Burgundy being joined by Australia, South Africa, Chile and North America on the tables of a new, younger, generation.
I once worked just off Fleet Street, and then later over Holborn Underground Station. It was a time when the Press ruled Fleet Street, and places like El Vino’s and The Cheshire Cheese were full of the smog of cigarette smoke and the smell of whisky. Today, Fleet Street is half building site and half corporate. The newspapers have gone and so by-and-large have most of the big law firms who replaced them, many moved down to Docklands. Farringdon Street, which heads north from Fleet Street at its junction with Ludgate Hill, now has the enormous headquarters building of Goldman Sachs right opposite Winemakers Club. I don’t know what the mega-salaried occupants of that modern fortress of finance make of the natural wine heaven over the road?
When I get down to London, which is now only four or five times a year, more often than not I make a visit to Winemakers for a bite to eat and a glass or two. It helps that I’m usually staying very close by. It’s a perfect location to meet a friend or two. I was there on Monday evening, arriving at King’s Cross too late to make the afternoon tasting they had on, but I did manage to catch one or two people I know who had lingered after the tables were clear. I did manage to try one wine from Newcomer Wines, Peter Honneger being one of those lingerers.
Thomas Niedermayr farms at Hof Gandberg in the village of Eppan, just outside Bolzano in Alto-Adige (NE Italy). Vines have their place on a mixed farm where every possible course of action is aimed towards a sustainable ecology amid the peaks of the Dolomites. Paschwai is, I think, one of two wines which Newcomer has begun to ship from the Niedermayr family.
The grape variety is the rarely seen, disease-resistant hybrid, Souvignier Gris. As the notes on Newcomer’s web site say, it is “fresh and fruity, with notes of honey and melon”. Even though we were drinking from the last quarter of the bottle, the wine was immediately attractive and I’d love to try it at home. Newcomer Wines retails this for £36.
Winemakers Club is many things. They put on tastings for the trade, hold events for the public and are a wine bar offering a selection of tasty small plates such as cheese and salami, pâté, rillettes, and, since my last visit, a couple of vegan options. They are a wine shop, and they also import themselves, and it was a couple of those wines we drank on Monday.
Lise and Bertrand Jousset farm around eleven hectares at Montlouis on the Loire. The wine we drank was a Chenin Blanc from a single site of seven hectares, Clos aux Renards. The vines grow on interesting blue clay infused with silex (flint). It has been described by some as one of the greatest Chenin Blanc vineyards in France. I was recommended this by an acquaintance only a day before and it was a brilliant shout. We have old vines (c80yo) grown and vinified as a natural wine with just minimum added sulphur. Natural winemaking here includes no mechanisation either, just horse power and human hands.
This is a very complex wine and subtle too. The bouquet is soft, redolent of lemon, pear and that unmistakable Chenin Blanc giveaway, honey. If minerals dominate the palate, they are more “soft and chalky” than angular like the flint in the vineyard. Salinity and herbal notes come in as well. It’s a wine many would call “different”, and it is, but one to savour. I recommend it with cheese. A wine to drink in a relaxed state, not too cold, and certainly not in a rush. This is expensive, but we benefited as it was on “by-the-glass” (at £16). I think retail it may be around £60/bottle. Winemakers sells four other Jousset wines, ranging from £28 to £47.
Next, we grabbed a bottle from an old favourite. I first met the young couple, Julia and Adam, behind Hegyikalό around eight years ago, at a Winemakers Club tasting, of course. They produce wine at Eger in Hungary’s northeast (though still west of Tokaj), nestled at the eastern end of the Mátra Hills. Again, their vines are part of a small mixed farm. Julia has a doctorate and Adam, at least at the time I first met him, headed up the Viticultural Research Institute at Eger University.
Their gentle natural wines bear only a nod, on occasion, to the “Bulls Blood” that made this region famous in the 1960s and 70s. That nod comes through most in their full-bodied Kékfrankos, Hungary’s rendition of the Austrian Blaufränkisch, and only then in its 14% alcohol.
When I am drinking an Austrian Blaufränkisch I readily admit that I’m looking most often for that restrained minerality off mostly limestone that you get most particularly off the Leithaberg Hills which ring the northern edge of the Neusiedlersee, in Burgenland. Here we have a different rendition of the grape, but one that if you don’t mind the alcohol is very attractive.
That attraction, for me, lies in its fleshy fruit. This combines with a line of freshness of the type typical of red wines off volcanic soils. Yes, I think it does have a certain “bloodlike” intensity, and also something “ferrous”, the old iron filings note. The bouquet is easy to miss in a wine of such initial power, but sit back and look for the hints of tea, roses and green pepper. That subtlety is not something that a quick sniff and sip at a tasting table is likely to elicit.
We (three of us) ate a lot as well. The quality of the food at Winemakers Club has always been high, but the offering has broadened. It in no way has pretentions to be a restaurant, but there is ample tasty fare to lessen the effects of a bottle or two with friends. As I said on an Insta post, whilst I don’t pretend to be on top of every place in London’s natural wine scene (and certainly I would dearly love to visit Sune in Hackney), Winemakers Club is the London venue for natural wine and friendly conversation closest to my heart. John, and an always engaged, team will give you a warm welcome in the relaxing darkness of The Vaults, underneath Holborn Viaduct.
Winemakers Club is at 41a Farringdon Street, London EC4A 4AN (tel 020 7236 2936)
thewinemakersclub.co.uk @winemakersclub
They are closed on Sundays but open every other day from 11am to 11pm.
Their wines are all imported direct and they are a great place to find some top producers, from Olivier and Serge Horiot in Champagne to Tom Shobbrook in Australia, along with some genuinely fine and rare table and fortified wines. Check out the times when you can sit in and consume bottles at their retail prices (before 4pm), or equally, check out their always interesting changing selection of wines by the glass.
They also sell their wines for nationwide delivery online at thewinemakersclub.shop
The third and final part of August’s wines brings to the table five possibly less august bottles than we drank in Part 2, but then it’s all relative, isn’t it. In order to bring you these articles I have to drink as widely as I can. It’s just as well I’d do that anyway, whether I write about them or not. As a result, Part 3 reads, possibly more than ever, like some random bunch of wines. Oh, and cider. It nevertheless all tasted really good, I promise!
First up is a cider of special interest. Next a Chianti that I drank often in the 2000s but haven’t had for a long time. Then comes a Loire sparkler that I haven’t drunk for at least as long, a rather good Czech Pinot Noir from a name I’ve neglected since I first tasted his wines, and a superb new white Bordeaux made by a very talented outsider.
“Perfect Strangers” Artisan Cider 2018, Charlie Herring Wines (Hampshire, England)
Regular readers will have seen that I visited Tim Phillips in early August (hence my article of 23 August 2024). Whilst there I managed to leave with a small number of bottles, one of which was this vintage cider, made from the fruit of Tim’s orchard which sits just outside his walled vineyard, near Lymington. Note the vintage.
It is a widely held belief among the older school of drinks writer that cider, like petnat, Rosé and Fino Sherry, should be consumed as close to the date they were bottled as possible. Those of us who write about wine who are either physically or mentally under the age of fifty (the latter for me, of course) know this to be patently untrue, at least among the versions we all drink. Tim made this cider to prove a point, that vintage cider is well capable of ageing beautifully.
It is common with very old vintages of wine to recount what the world was like back when it was made. Things like “no internet, no smart phones”, or just “no colour television”. Here, I think it is enough to say this was made “pre-Covid”, equally a different world. It does seem like a long time ago.
Aged on lees after picking the fruit (a mix of eaters and cookers in this one, rather than pure cider varieties), this was only disgorged in May this year. The colour is an orange/pink on account of the addition of 3% of Tim’s South African Shiraz. Usually, Tim has added the wine at bottling but this time he added it into the barrel, and this has, I think, helped it integrate so that I don’t think you really know wine has been added, except for the colour. But in the “sum greater than its parts” sense, it undoubtedly adds to the whole.
The bubbles are extremely fine, Champagne-like. The bouquet is very pure apple zest, the palate is zippy and fresh, and very appley. But perhaps what the age brings is the spice you can taste, and real depth. Cider, when freshly made, can taste of springtime, lively and even skitty. This cuvée has the feel of early autumn. It works really well with food, in the same way that those more “gourmet” Champagnes do, the ones we serve with quail out of a Riedel Riesling glass, or a Zalto Universal, rather than a Zalto Champagne.
In many ways, this is a remarkable cider. Approachable, but something to interest those of us wine lovers who are open to new flavours and textures. Not quite as “unicorn” as Tim’s wines, but this is still so scarce I can’t see any around. But try asking Les Caves de Pyrene, or The Solent Cellar (in Lymington). If you can find any, it is remarkable value for around £18 (I think).
As I said in my introduction, I used to drink the wines of this property quite often back in the day. I think I first found it on a Tuscan trip in the late 1990s, and it began appearing in the UK as its reputation rose through the 2000s. The estate was built up by Giuseppe Castiglioni and then taken over by his son, Sebastiano Cossia Castiglioni in the early 2000s. Today the estate, in Greve in Chianti, is in the hands of Sebastiano’s sister, Mita, and has 40-hectares under vine producing somewhat more than 250,000 bottles a year, of which this Classico now accounts for around 180,000 bottles. This may sound a lot compared to the thousand or so units that individual artisans whose wines often grace these articles make, but a significant production doesn’t have to mean lesser quality. Take Dom Pérignon.
If Querciabella is most famous for its white blend of Chardonnay and Pinot Blanc called “Batàr” (now what does that sound like?), then the wine most of us will find on a retail shelf is its Chianti Classico. This wine used to have some Cabernet Sauvignon added, but this was reduced over the years, so that today the Classico is 100% Sangiovese. It comes from three plots which are tended with care to allow for “natural winemaking with minimal intervention”.
Ageing is around 14 months in mostly fine-grained oak of 225-litres (some 500-litre tonneaux and even larger oak is also used) before a selection is made of the best barrels set aside for this wine. Chianti Classico is no mere “entry level” wine at Querciabella. It rests a few more months in bottle before release.
The packaging is smart. The Querciabella labels have always appealed to me. The bouquet here is dominated by elegant cherry fruit with a noticeable pepper spice note. The palate has more crunchy cherry, a bit darker now, with depth and hints of nascent complexity. It does come in at 14% abv, but don’t let that put you off. It is nicely balanced.
It is only at the start of its drinking window. One suggested (importer) drinking window gave 2023 to 2030 for this 2019 vintage. The producer suggests it will be “mature” five years from the vintage (ie 2024), and then continue to improve for a decade. I would say that the producer’s nuance matches my expectation after drinking this. I’d certainly leave it a few years but if you do open one now, you should be impressed. My pendulum has swung back to Piemonte of late but a Tuscan wine always comes along to remind me to allow it to swing back a little.
Imported by Lay & Wheeler, this can be had for between £25 if you are very lucky, and £30. Solent Cellar sold me their last bottle, I’m afraid.
Triple Zéro NV, Domaine La Taille aux Loups (Loire, France)
Jacky Blot worked out of two locations, Domaine de la Butte near Bourgueil for mostly red wines, and Domaine La Taille aux Loups at Husseau, just east of Montlouis, along the left bank of the Loire, where Chenin Blanc reigns. I’ve visited the domaine at Husseau, though a very long time ago, and that of fellow Montlouis producer, François Chidaine, also based in the same village. Both men in their own way put Montlouis on the map, an appellation forever in the shadow of Vouvray, over the river. Jacky passed away last year, and his son, Jean-Philippe is now in charge. By all accounts the domaines are in more than safe hands as J-P has been hands-on winemaker for the past decade.
Triple Zéro is a different take on sparkling Montlouis. The more often encountered AOP wine is effectively a Crémant, bottle-fermented like its sibling, Vouvray. This particular wine, being 100% Chenin Blanc like the Crémants, is made, like a petnat, by the Ancestral Method, but like a Crémant it is disgorged of its sediment before release. The name comes from having had zero chaptalisation, zero liqueur de tirage added and zero dosage, so no sugars added at any stage. The dry minerality we have here is also accentuated by the wine not going through its malolactic.
The result here is a bone-dry wine. Some may think it too dry whilst others will adore that aspect of its flavour profile. You get a clear wine in the glass, very bright, with crisp apple and pear aromas. The palate is similar. The importer uses the word “precise” and it is. It has a certain steeliness, and is certainly very dry, but there’s more than just that. There is a creaminess too, which plumps out the body. It is in no way a one-dimensional wine. In fact, the initial feeling of simplicity changes, giving a more complex array of flavours and scents as it opens. This makes it very versatile as a food match.
As with many sparkling wines, this will be better in a few years, but it is drinking nicely now if you want to appreciate it in its full “zero-zero(-zero)” magnificence. It is a little tight on opening, but it does unfurl. In some ways, assuming you like a very dry sparkler, I would recommend this over any other sparkling wine from Montlouis and Vouvray, much as there are a few other fantastic cuvées I could name.
Triple Zéro was a gift from a wine-loving neighbour when we moved house, but it is quite widely available, perhaps most easily, by coincidence, from Lay & Wheeler again. It is also stocked by Justerinis. Expect to pay between £25 and £30 retail.
Pinot Noir “Výběr Z Ročníku” 2020, Jaroslav Springer (Moravia, Czechia)
Many years ago, around 2015 onwards, myself and a friend used to organise lunches at Rochelle Canteen in London, where people brought along “oddities”, strange bottles from strange places. It was at this time that I got to taste the first of very many Czech wines. Whether it was a wine from Milan Nestarec, because I bought his “Forks and Knives” from Newcomer Wines when they were in Shoreditch Box Park, five minutes from the restaurant, or whether it was a Springer Pinot Noir, I’m not sure, but those two certainly started my fruitful Czech wine journey.
I think what happened is that I got to drink a few of Jaroslav’s wines (most then appearing under the Stapleton & Springer label), and so when I later discovered many more of the natural wines on offer from Moravia, I sort of left them by the wayside. It was actually at a more recent tasting in Edinburgh that my nose and palate pricked up at this lovely and impressive wine, so I added a bottle into my next order from the importer. What I can tell you is that I shall definitely avoid neglecting this producer again.
If you read about the Springer winery, you will see that they are generally considered one of the best producers of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay in the Czech Republic, but that geographical restriction doesn’t really do them justice. Jaroslav’s son, Tomás, is now on-board with the winemaking, and this cuvée was made with Craig and Benjamin Stapleton, although they are not listed on the label.
This is a natural wine, as with all the wines I am buying from Czechia, but I would challenge anyone who didn’t know to spot that. There is a certain classical quality to it, but it is not restrained by viticultural or winemaking practices. What we have here is pretty much the equivalent in concept of the “village wine” you find in Burgundy. So, it doesn’t have “Cru” pretensions, but its quality at this level is the real test.
The bouquet is raspberry and strawberry fruit and the palate has red fruits underpinned with a little earthiness. The finish is good and quite long, with a lick of liquorice. By further explanation of the earthiness, the fruits are good and ripe, and also very smooth, but there is a savoury quality that remarkably doesn’t jar with the fruit. It has grip too, but is not especially “grippy”. In the same way as your senses prick up if you find a very good village Burgundy, that happened here.
At this price it’s not amongst the cheapest from the Czech Republic, yet I was nevertheless impressed and would spray this around as a gift if it were but a little cheaper. Especially as what remained in the bottle was even better on the second night, so it should age further. It’s still good value for what you get, around £30 via importer Basket Press Wines.
Blaye Côtes de Bordeaux Blanc 2020, Matthieu Cosse (Bordeaux, France)
White Bordeaux doesn’t pass my lips too often, no reflection on the wine, but more the fact that few wine retailers I frequent actually sell any. That may have changed since the most famous producer of natural wines in Cahors began making wines in the Bordeaux sub-regions of Blaye and Fronsac. It’s a joint project with a good friend of Matthieu’s, Jérôme Ossard, a Bordeaux veteran grape hunter of twenty-five years.
I tasted three of these wines last winter, and at the time I felt that the excellent reds still needed time, but that the white, which we have here, was the best of them all on the day. As a result, this was the first to translate to my cellar.
It is a blend of mostly Sauvignon Blanc with a little Muscadelle, selected from a two-hectare plot. As one would expect from Matthieu, only completely healthy fruit was chosen. The idea behind the project was to make exceptional wines at an affordable price, which at the hands of many winemakers would simply be marketing noise, but here I think it very much is not.
The glass shouts out very fresh Sauvignon Blanc at first, with fresh grapefruit on the nose. The palate comes in with greater depth, almost a surprise after the bouquet. There’s a creaminess and some beeswax. It’s that mix of freshness with a little weight which makes this more than an aperitif wine, but one allowing a degree of versatility with food. My own match would be white fish with a creamy but not heavy sauce, or maybe the garlic butter you get on haddock at a restaurant near me.
This bottle came from Cork & Cask (Edinburgh), who will ship UK-wide, and it cost £24. The importer is, as with Matthieu’s Cosse-Maisonneuve wines from Cahors, Dynamic Vines.
David Crossley's Wide World of Wine 