Groslot (or officially grolleau noir) is not in high esteem. But cared for like this it can give dangerously drinkable wines. This one is a real “glou-glou” and has been a house-wine in my house lately.
Domaine Les Grandes Vignes has been in the lower Loire since the 17th Century. Today they have a low-intervention philosophy, and biodynamic certification. The wine is fermented in old barrel, no sulphur added, unfined and unfiltered. It’s low in alcohol (11%), and only around 4 g/L acidity.
100% Groslot 2018(Dom. Les Grandes Vignes)
Dark, blueish hint. Blueberry and dark cherry on the nose, some herbs and a hint of woodlands. Really delicious in the mouth; fine young tannins, and refreshing acidity, clean aftertaste where the berries dominate.
Here is a short post from a wonderful Italian lakeside resort. Bardolino is located on the east side of lake Garda, not far from Verona in the Veneto province. There are many nice, fresh and juicy rosés and light red wines.
These hills are where the Gorgo Wine Estate was established in 1973. It belongs to the village of Custoza, and the company also makes organic certified biancos bearing that name.
This Bardolino wine is made from corvina 55%, rondinella 25&, and the rest divided between molinara, merlot and cabernet sauvignon grapes. It’s made with controlled temperature fermentation in stainless steel, and was pumped over for up to ten days.
Bardolino 2018(Gorgo)
Light ruby red. Aroma of clean red fruit; cherry, some herbs. It’s dry in the mouth, with a pleasant smooth mouth-feel, and with a slightly bitter aftertaste. Simple, harmonious, easy to drink. Just nice!
Price: Low
Food: Light meat, salads, soups, and some pasta and rice dishes
During the Real Wine fair some food providers were present at the Tobacco Dock to serve the tasters during their breaks. Among them were the DuckSoup wine bar of Soho, Burro e Salvia, pasta place in Shoreditch, Flying Frenchman with their sausages and outdoor raised pork and chicken. The hotel wine bar La Cour de Rémi also came over from Calais to serve delicious flavours from Normandie.
Around town there were several “take-overs”, such as Morgan McGlone of Belles Hot Chicken in Australia cooking Nashville style at Brawn. The Bastarda company took over Leroy in Shoreditch, with wine assistance of Ben Walgate of Tillingham, East Sussex. To mention only a couple.
Claes, Magnus and Nayana of Söl, Norway
To my surprise, the trio behind Restaurant Söl of Stavanger, right in my own Norwegian backyard, were cooking at Terroirs, the most emblematic natural wine bar of all. Obviously I had to visit them and see what they were up to.
Restaurant SÖL opened in Stavanger on the southwest coast of Norway in 2018. The driving forces behind the restaurant are Nayana Engh, Claes Helbak and Magnus Haugland Paaske, all of them with experience from Norwegian and foreign restaurants.
Their main focus is fresh, local, sustainably grown vegetables combined with natural wines and drinks produced by small artisans – to be enjoyed in a relaxed atmosphere. SÖL can be said to be a part of the “new” Nordic wave, which means food inspired by traditional dishes, but with a modern twist and a wink to the world.
Claes
That night the wines were paired in collaboration with Terroirs’ master sommelier Kevin Barbry. And Kevin was the one who served me the first wine while waiting in the bar. This was Mayga Watt 2018, a pétillant gamay from Gaillac in the Sud-Ouest region of France: A pink, crisp and juicy pétillant wine, with smell of strawberry and white pepper.
The first thing that was brought to the table was sourdough bread, and delicious organic butter from Røros, a lovely small town in mid-Norway. Grilled squash, fermented tomato, milk curd and ramson capers came next, elegantly paired with Attention Chenin Méchant 2017 (Nicolas Réau). This is a wine from Anjou the Loire valley. Originally Réau planned for a pianist career. Key words here are 15 year old plants, indigenous yeasts, direct press, no fining, light filtering, low sulphur, and ageing on lees in used oak. The result is a yellow, peach and mature apple smelling wine with good volume, luscious mouthfeel and a rounded acidity.
Next was panfried cod, dulse (the sea growth from which the restaurant takes its name), spring greens and brown butter sabayon. White flowers were garnish on top of this plate. Partners in life and crime Nayana and Claes had picked them by a local lake (Stokkavatnet, for those familiar with it) the night before they set off to England. Dinavolino 2017 (Denavolo), an elegant orange multivarietal wine from Emilia-Romagna, Italy, matched the tasty yet delicate dish without problems. The wine: Light amber; peel sensations, white peach and flowers; slightly tannic, wonderfully fresh.
Nayana
Next was Jersey Royals potatoes, broad beans, sugar snaps, beef jus and lovage, with herbs from the Rogaland region, the trio’s homeplace. It was accompanied by Le Vin Est Une Fête 2018(Elian da Ros), again from the Sud-Ouest of France. The main grape here is abouriou, typical of Marmande. The wine was cherry red, medium deep, smelled primarily of red fruits, and had very light, fine-grained tannins. The dish is complicated, with peas and other tender greens in a powerful sauce. The combination with a very lightly macerated red. It would have been interesting to see whether an orange wine, like the previous one, could have build a bridge between the strong and the tender.
Rhubarb compote (from the organic farm at Ullandhaug, Rogaland), toasted ice cream, rhubarb sorbet and crispy rhubarb. Lovely and fresh! There were two options for drinks, and I chose Éric Bordelet‘s pear cider Pays de la Loire (France). The cider was composed from many varieties of pear, grown on schist. With 12 grams residual sugar it gave a somewhat off-dry mouthfeel, a complex, cidery (what a surprise!), sweetish aroma, a touch of tannin. The marriage wasn’t made in heaven, though the bubbles helped. I was wondering what could have been done differently. I must admit I thought the wind should have been sweeter. With ice cream a PX sherry automatically comes to mind, but it would have been much too powerful here. After having returned to Norway I visited their place and had the same dish. Then Claes served it with an apple cider, this time bone dry, with a penetrating acidity and fresh bubbles. Maybe not perfect, but maybe the closest possible.
To conclude: Fønix Blue, a cheese from Stavanger Ysteri (Norway) and rye bread. With this we could chose to include La Cosa (The Thing) 2017(Alfredo Maestro), from the Ribera del Duero area of Spain. What a wine! Dark amber, or mahogany; complex aroma with rhubarb and plum, and very sweet. I had to come back to this wine the day after, at Alfredo’s table at the fair, maybe to see if this was really true (!).
Remember this is a wine blog, not primarily about food. But once in a while it’s necessary to say a few words about wine-food combinations, and I have given some opinions here. What could be said, as a conclusion, and apart from the fact that it was a big surprise to see these people her is the following. The trio behind Söl are cooking with great passion and creativity, and from good, healthy ingredients. They are also proud to come out among their “audience” and present it, what the ingredients are and how the dishes are made. The drinks are picked carefully among the most natural and sustainable there is.
Back at Sentralen yesterday, we not only had a simple meal and two delicious wines by the glass. It’s Oslo’s annual jazz festival this week, and the festival uses the building as a “festival office” for the 4th year. There are good vibes in the whole building. So after the meal we found our way through a festival crowd and took went up to 3rd floor to enjoy another gig.
The food was pizza this time, a spicy and tasty vegan version, and a more “wine friendly” white pizza. One of the wines was Arianna Occhipinti’s red SP68.
Arianna at the Real Wine fair 2017
Occhipinti is located in the Vittoria region of Sicilia, and SP68 is the main road in the area. Arianna has now 25 hectares certified-organic vineyards, only local varieties, and practices biodynamic.
This wine is made from frappato 70%, that gives acidity and elegance, and nero d’Avola, that is there more for body and colour. It has been a favourite for many years, and it was nice to try the fresh vintage 2018.
Arianna says that the secret to make more elegant wines in the area is not irrigating, harvesting late and not using fertilizers. The freshness comes from the subsoils. Contrary to this, a wine made from young or chemically grown vines would most often take its nutrition from the topsoil and would as a result have a warm, cooked character. The SP68 wines are vinified and aged in small concrete tanks, with no oak and no punchdowns.
The two varietals are native to Sicily and are grown on red sand soils over limestone rock, with vines averaging 15 years old on four different sites. The vines are organically farmed and hand-harvested. The fruit is mainly destemmed (4% stem inclusion in the upcoming 2017 vintage) and co-fermented with native yeasts in concrete tanks and with a two-week skin maceration. The wine is aged in concrete tanks for 8 months and bottled unfiltered.
SP 68 Rosso 2018 (Arianna Occhipinti)
Dark, young red, blueish hint. Fresh, fruity, aromas of blueberry, cherry, some herbs. Juicy, luscious in the mouth, with young tannins, and a fresh acidity.
This Loire pét nat was served at restaurant Söl, Stavanger, Norway. It was a starter, outside the set menu, and a fresh and inviting start of their five course meal.
British Toby Bainbridge and his wife Julie are found near Angers, in the western Loire.
In a modest winery they make three different wines. This cuvée is a pink lightly-bubbled méthode ancestrale (lightly sparkling) wine made with the local grolleau noir grape. The second fermentation is in bottle and sulphur additions are very low.
La Danseuse means “The Dancer” in French. One of his importers tells that it can also refer to “the barrel of wine that a vigneron would put aside for his mistress”. In the past, we should add.
Part of the story is that Denmark was the first export country. Toby went with a friend. Noma, one of the world’s top restaurants, was the first stop. And the wine has been found there ever since.
La Danceuse at Söl
Cuvée La Danceuse 2017(Bainbridge)
Salmon pink. Discrete smell of raspberries and red currants. Delicate red berries in the mouth, fresh acidity and a refreshing carbonic feel, and a long and dry finish.
This is a wine that you just read about in the article from the orange wine tasting at London’s Real Wine fair.
Momento Mori means something like ‘Remember that you have to die’ in Latin. Dane Johns from New Zealand is the man behind this winery, that makes use of grape from growers in Heathscote, Victoria. He thinks that many Italian grape varieties are well adapted to this area, and the grapes for this particular wine are vermentino, fiano, moscato giallo, and malvasia – fermented separately, then blended.
We are always talking about small batches, wild yeast, no new oak, no fining, no filtration, and no additions. This one spent one and a half months on skins.
Staring At The Sun 2018(Momento Mori)
Light yellow colour. Aromatic, smells of white flowers, citrus, spice, some ginger. Just a touch of tannin, very delicate, yet very flavourful, and a lovely acidity that makes it last. This is a proof that aromatic grapes like moscato can be really successful with extended skin-contact.
