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Month: October 2022

Wine of the Week

A two pinots Champagne

The Olivier Horiot domaine is located in Les Riceys, a commune in Côte des Bar. We are in the southern part of Champagne, and it’s an area that has once belonged to Bourgogne. Here in the Aube département the vineyards are more scarce than in central parts of Champagne, and interspersed with forests, waters and farms.

The Horiot family continues to produce wonderful natural wines from biodynamic viticulture, and has by the way also done a great job to recover the region’s indigenous grape varieties, like arbane.

Credit: O. Horiot

Maybe inspired by nearby Bourgogne, the domain separats its different terroirs into distinct cuvées. The result is champagnes with strong individual character.

The name Métisse refers to the fact that this cuvée is made from several different terroirs in the village of Les Riceys. It’s a non vintage, made from pinot noir and pinot blanc. It has a minimal addition of sulphites and undergoes neither fining nor filtering.

Métisse Pinots Noirs et Blancs Extra Brut (O. Horiot)

Pale yellow, small, delicate bubbles. Aromas of apples, pears, citrus, flowers, brioche and spicy notes. It’s fresh and lively on the palate, with a fine-tuned interplay between the autolysis and the fruit. Completely dry, good length.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Smooth wine ‘de Soif’

Domaine du Bel Air is a producer of fine, age-worthy wines from cabernet franc. Jour de Soif (Day of Thirst) is their entry-level wine, made from younger vines of 20 years.

The Gauthier family is found in Benais, in the Bourgueil appellation since 1600. Today Pierre Gauthier and his son Rodolphe run the estate. It covers more some 18 hectares. Pierre Gauthier begins his winemaking work with a real philosophy. In 2000, the farm converted into organic viticulture.

The wine is a 100% cabernet franc. Manual harvest. The grapes are destemmed and then sorted on the table before being put into vats. Maceration was gentle and lasted 8 days with pumping over and a temperature not exceeding 25% to preserve as much fruit as possible. Ageing was 6 months on fine lees.

Jour de Soif 2020 (Dom. du Bel Air)

Purple colour. Aroma of dark and red fruits (blueberry, cranberry), flowers. Mouthfilling with smooth tannin, medium acidity and long fruity aftertaste. Quaffable.

Price: Low

Food: Thirstquenching, but can also be drunk with light meat, Caesar and other salads and charcuterie

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Wine of the Week

Tasty from the Pinhão

This summer at Porto’s Simplesmente… Vinho fair I met Miguel Morais and Filipa Silva of Quinta da Costa do Pinhão. I tasted their splendid range of wines, all from the Favaios area, by the Pinhão river, a subsidiary of the Douro.

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Miguel and Filipa this summer in Porto

Among them was this red, that is now available in my local shop. It comes from a scistous vineyard at 300-450 meters elevation, between 35 and 45 years old. The composition is touriga nacional 40%, touriga franca 30% and tinta roriz 30%. The grapes were foot-trodden and fermented in traditional lagares. It was aged 12 months in French barrels.

Gradual 2017 (Quinta da Costa do Pinhão)

Dark cherry red. Aroma of red and dark fruits (cherry, blackberry, plum), black pepper, herbs, licorice and some animal tones. In the mouth it’s quite full, with integrated wood, good acidity, still some tannins, and with a hint of tobacco along with the fruits. A tasty Douro, still with ageing capacity.

Price: Medium

Food: I had it with leg of lamb, but goes with a variety of tasty meat, casseroles and more

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Wine of the Week

Georgian qvevri saperavi

Saperavi is an old indigenous teinturier grape, a variety where the pulp and grape juice are colored. It’s a hardy variety, known for its ability to handle extremely cold weather, and is popular for cultivation in high altitude and inland areas such as Kakheti. But from my experience, even if the wine can be black as ink, it’s often juicy and surprisingly accessible.

The Georgian Vine and Wine Company, that also goes by the name Shilda Winery, was founded in 2014. The property covers five hectares and is owned by the Chkhartishvili family. Winemaker is Temur Kortava. Rustaveli is named after the Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli.

The wine is produced from the Saperavi grape and is fermented in large clay pots (qvevri) before 5 months of further storage in qvevri. Kakheti is the region in the far east of the country, where 70% of the vines are grown and 80% of all wine in Georgia is produced. The region has varied topography and large limestone deposits. Kakheti is the hotbed of qvevri winemaking.

Saperavi Qvevri 2020 (Rustaveli)

It has a deep, dark colour. The aroma shows hints of blueberries, wild berries, with herbs, flowers and spices. It is fruity and juicy on the palate, follows the nose with a cool herbal note, with a slight dryness.

Price: Medium

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Articles

Visit at Ismael’s

On my way to Valladolid I stopped in the small Segovian settlement of Nieva. This is one of the southernmost villages within the Rueda area, and probably the one with highest altitude. Ismael Gozalo’s family has been involved in the small coop Viñedos de Nieva, and Ismael himself was one of the founders of Ossian. He sold his part there to concentrate on his own project, but kept the high-altitude pre-phylloxera verdejo vineyards. (Add to this the bodega of the Herrero family, also formerly with the coop, and you see that 4 notable wineries isn’t bad for a settlement of less than 300 people.)

Ismael was waiting outside the MicroBio bodega talking to one of the neighbours when I arrived. The bodega is located right beside the village church, and an old Dominican convent forms part of the bodega.

The wine Frágil is made in damajuanas

He has been called a “verdejo alchemist”, for his creative ways to deal with this grape. Everything has root in tradition, it has to be said. I was there when I tracked down the roots of the area’s tradition for sherry-like wines. Here you can read the one article among three, the one that deals with Ismael’s EvoluciÓn.

EvoluciÓn is stored longer under flor than the dorados of the other producers’ wines. Therefore, one might call it pálido rather than dorado. Surely it is that it is also made after inspiration from the historical wines from Rueda. Because of a longer time under flor it is lighter than the others in colour. It is aromatic, with hints of ripe apples and plum and a yeasty flor characteristic. It is a very fresh wine with good concentration, vital acidity and a sweetish fruit sensation. Dry in the mouth, and good length.

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