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Month: September 2022

Wine of the Week

Johan’s Farmlands

This was the cheapest and, for me, the most rewarding in a local wine club tasting of Oregon pinots. The wines were generally attractive, though expensive, and far from the stereotype that says pinot from overseas are heavy, dull and oaky.

Johan Vineyards is located in the Van Duzer Corridor AVA of Oregon. The corridor stretches east to west towards the Pacific Ocean, which gives cool temperatures and winds from the Pacific. The calcareous sedimentary soils with granite contrast with the more normal iron-rich volcanic soils in the north Willamette Valley.

Credit: Johan Vineyards

Johan is Dag Johan Sundby, a Norwegian who came to Denver, Colorado, to study economy. Sundby wasn’t particularly interested in wine at the time. But when he received an offer to invest in a vineyard in Oregon and went there, it was love at first sight. So he and his co-investor had no doubts. This was in 2004. He was supposed to go back to Denver to fulfill his plans. But in 2007 his partner got sick. He moved to Oregon, hired a winemaker and took over the entire winery.

There have been many ups and downs, and a lot of responsibility. It is not a job, but a way of life. In 2009, Sundby built a house on the farm and since then he has lived in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. The original farm was just a garage and one planted vineyard. The rest came later. In the beginning he grew three grape varieties which he mostly supplied to other producers, but today, on his 70 hectares of vineyards, he grows 14 different ones from which he makes wine himself. All the vineyards are grown biodynamically, and the farm was certified in 2010.

This wine comes from all estate-grown fruit. Vine age averages 10 years. It is native yeast fermented in stainless steel and aged for 9 months in neutral oak barrels.

Farmlands Pinot Noir 2019 (Johan Vineyards)

Cherry red. Aroma of red fruits (raspberry, cherry), flowers and an earthy touch. Medium-bodied, fine and elegant texture, super pinot fruit and good acidity.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Ploughman’s Pinot

Alexander Pflüger is third-generation owner and winemaker of Weingut Pflüger in the Pfalz. The name Pflüger means he who ploughs, and implies that the family has a long tradition as farmers. They were pioneers in organic farming in Germany, and the vineyards were certified in 1989. In the early 2000s, they switched to biodynamic. Today, Weingut Pflüger is the producer in Germany with the largest Demeter-certified vineyard.

It’s an all pinot, spontaneously fermented and raised in steel.

Pflüger Buntsandstein Pinot Noir

Buntsandstein Pinot Noir 2020 (Pflüger)

Cherry red with blueish hint. Aroma of red berries (raspberry), plums, anise, an earthy touch. Juicy, fresh, medium-bodied, with fresh acidity.

Price: Low

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Wine of the Week

More Biokult

We presented a “cultic” pét nat from this producer last year. (Read here.) We continue with a white one, or more accurately: orange. It’s a group of producers from Burgenland, Austria that have got together, and get some help from Meinklang with the winemaking.

The grapes are grüner veltliner 65%, welschriesling 25% and muscat 10%. They were grown in clay and limestone soils, picked by hand and spontaneously fermented with 7-8 days of skin maceration. Maturation was done in steel, and the wine was bottled unfiltered.

Weisse Blumen 2021 (Biokult)

Light orange. Aromatic with white flowers, white peach, a touch orange peel. Fresh taste, nice rounded acidity, lightly structured, salty finish.

Price: Low

Food: Apéritif, salads, fish (red and white), light meat, pig

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Wine of the Week

Elegant Pirouette

Les Vins Pirouettes is a label created by Christian Binner. The idea is to give selected growers the opportunity to launch their ecologic wines under an established umbrella. Here it is Raphaël who offers his elegant crémant zéro dosage. (You can find more from the project if you search these pages. Here is another, also by Raphaël.)

This week’s wine is a Crémant d’Alsace from 2018, made from riesling 60% and pinot gris 40% planted 1970 in chalky soil. It’s spontaneusly fermented, spent 24 months on lees and was bottled without added sugar.

Le Crémant de Raphaël 2018 (Les Vins Pirouettes/ C. Binner)

Light yellow, small bubbles. Aromatic, yellow apples, lime, bisques. Fresh, dry, good acidity, quite long.

Price: Medium

Food: Apéritif, salads, white fish, shellfish, lightly spiced food…

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Wine of the Week

Fruity Forcallà from Fontanars

The forcallà grape (or forcayat, officially forcallat) originates from Castilla-La Mancha, but nowadays most of it is found in Valencia and Murcia. (Here I have mentioned another, by the way.) The grape was common in the Levante before phylloxera. But when the farmers replanted after the plague it was largely replaced by monastrell, because it had more colour and alcohol. However, in this Mediterranean climate with high summer temperatures forcallat’s lower alcohol is now seen as a virtue, with its potential to give light, elegant and floral red wines.

Rafael Cambra is located in Fontanars dels Alforins, Valencia, where he works to recover grapes and styles. He believes in minimal intervention, and the wine is certified organic. This forcallat is from a single pie franco (ungrafted) vineyard more than fifty years old, on sandy soils. Fermentation took place with indigenous yeast in 2,000-litre stainless steel tanks with 10% stems and gentle pumping-over. Ageing for eight months in used French barrels of five hundred liters, then concrete for three months.

La Forcallà de Antonia 2020 (R. Cambra)

Cherry red. Aroma of red and dark fruits (raspberry, dark cherry), plums, spice, pepper. Full in the mouth, soft tannins, intense flavours and fruit all the way.

Price: Medium

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