Category: Wine of the Week

Rosé is the colour of summer

Published 24. June 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Summer is coming, and we want a fresh rosé. Apostolos Thymiopoulos can offer this. Though it’s not what you maybe would expect at this time of year: Here is an oak-matured rosé with some backbone.

Apostolos was the first to vinify the family vineyards, in 2005. He believes in sustainable viticulture and minimum intervention during the whole winemaking process. With this philosophy Apostolos produces ten different expressions of xinomavro, to express every aspect of its potential.

We are in the Naoussa appellation of Macedonia, northern Greece. The Thymiopoulos winery is located in Trilofos, a village at the foot of the Vermio mountain. The parcels for this wine are non-irrigated, young vines of xinomavro, around the village of Fytia at 450-650 metres. The soils are schist and granite.

The Naoussa region has a warm continental climate, tempered by the cooling winds coming either from Vermio mountain or from the sea.

Lower temperatures due to high altitude, and big differences in temperatures during ripening season give freshness to the wines.

The grapes were hand-picked, destemmed, macerated for 12 hours, and fermentated with wild yeasts in stainless-steel tanks for 5 to 6 months. Then followed a 4 months maturation in 500-litre, second-use oak barrels.

Rosé de Xinomavro 2020 (Thymiopoulos)

Light red. Aroma of strawberry, currant, rosehip and herbs (thyme). Juicy and rounded, with some backbone, and also a nice acidity.

Price: Medium/low

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Wine of the Week

Fanny Sabre in Pommard

Published 17. June 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Fanny Sabre has in short time, and at a young age, become a respected producer in Bourgogne. After her father passed away in 2000, she and her mother have run the family domain in a magnificent way. (Read about another wine here, also with an introduction.)

Today she manages the 5-hectare domain from her cellar in the heart of Pommard. And the grapes for this week’s wine are sourced from plots in that commune. We enjoyed the wine at “the wine office”, Vinkontoret, in Stavanger, Norway.

Like for all her reds she has here used 100% whole clusters and matured the wine in mainly 400 liters and mostly used and partly some new barrels.

Pommard 2016 (Fanny Sabre)

Light cherry red. Aroma of red (cherry) and dark berries, touch underwood. Juicy in the mouth with fine-grained tannins, concentration in flavours, good acidity and length. Very delicate. Will keep.

Price: Medium/high

Food: Game, fowl, other light meat

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Wine of the Week

Vital orange wine

Published 10. June 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

The Lorentz family property is located in Ribeauvillé, Alsace. Georg Lorentz, sixth generation, is currently in charge – while his youngest daughter is studying to be a winemaker. The property has 33 hectares of eco-certified vineyards in the commune Bergheim (that lies within the Colmar-Ribeauvillé arondissement), among them two grand crus.

This wine is made from 54% sylvaner, 40% gewürtztraminer and 6% pinot gris. Hand-picked grapes are spontaneously fermented with skin contact. The wine is matured in steel tank. Unfiltered, without added sulphur.

Qui l’Eût Cru 2021 (Gustave Lorentz)

Orange, somewhat turbid. Nose of flowers (rose petals), mandarin, acacia honey and almonds. It has an energetic acidity, quite full in the mouth, balanced, and good length. Very vital.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Mengoba old vine godello

Published 3. June 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Grégory Pérez was educated in Bordeaux, and came to Bierzo, where he has his roots, in the early 2000’s.

His steep vineyards are situated by the river Cúa in Espanillo, ranging 600 to 850 meters above sea level. Pérez only grows local varietals that are fermented with native yeasts, and the work is strictly organic. He plows and aerates the clay and decomposed slate soils to enhance the health and biodiversity of the earth, he strongly limits the use of fertilizers, and he never uses herbicides.

Gregory Pérez samples a godello in his cellar

The grapes for this wine is exclusively godello, that have grown on calcareous-clay in Valtuille and Villafranca vineyards, stony soils in Carracedo – and on slate in Espanillo (the latter around the bodega). The age is 25 years, trained in goblet. They were harvested manually, pressed with whole clusters and fermented in 4,000L foudres. Then followed 7 months in foudres on fine lees with weekly stirring. Very light fining and filtering.

Mengoba Godello Viejo Sobre Lías 2020 (Grégory Pérez)

Light yellow. Mature pear, yellow apple, hay and herbs on the nose. Good volume in the mouth, with mature fruit, a pleasant acidity and a salty touch in the finish.

Price: Low

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Wine of the Week

The energy of Kedungu

Published 27. May 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This was my first opportunity to visit restaurant Angr of Stavanger, Norway. It’s a restaurant that serves natural wines with nicely elaborated food with interesting tastes. Their by-the-glass list is not very extensive, but they will open bottles outside the menu too.

We had whites from Swartland (Mother Rock) and Beaujolais (J.P. Brun) and reds from Crozes-Hérmitage (Les 4 Vents), and for the second time Swartland (Badenhorst).

Then we had this fabulous, energetic wine also from Swartland, South Africa. Jurgen Gouws of Intellego tells that after a great surfing experience in Bali he ended up naming the wine after a special spot, and thus transferring the surfing energy to the wine.

It was whole bunch fermented under semi-carbonic conditions for 8 days in stainless steel tanks and aged in old barrels of different sizes.

It’s made from Rhône grapes syrah 50%, cinsaut (he spells it without an -l-) 20% and mourvèdre 30%, dry farmed bush wines.

Kedungu 2019 (Intellego)

Ruby red. Scented, aroma of wild fruits (cranberry) and plums, with a hint of black olives. Juicy in the mouth, light tannin, fruity, and finishes off dry.

Price: Medium

Food: We had it with smoked salmon and tortillas, but should go well with a variety of salads, white fish and light meat.

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Wine of the Week

Vital verdejo

Published 20. May 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Here is a wine that I tasted, and bought, in the Bendito wine bar of Madrid. (Read here.) It is made by Esmeralda García. Her family comes from Santiuste de San Juan Bautista, a small village with 500 inhabitants that is part of the DO Rueda. And the wines is made there.

She works five hectares of verdejo that have been in her family for centuries. These pre-phylloxera vines have grown on their original rootstocks for up to 210 years, according to Esmeralda’s own estimates. She uses organic methods, manual harvests, direct pressing of the grapes, and fermentation with native yeasts in 600-litre chestnut barrels.

Las Miñañas is a single-vineyard verdejo sourced from a plot of that age, at 840 meters above sea level. Fermentation and ageing in chestnut before 8 months on lees in amphorae.

Label inspired by the sandy, pebbly soil

Las Miñañas 2020 (E. García)

Light lemon yellow, slightly turbid. Fragrant, aromas of citrus (lemon, grapefruit) and flowers, with chalky mineral notes. Vital in the mouth with lovely acidity and grapefruity finish.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Ganko 2018

Published 13. May 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This was one of the rioja wines that stood out in a local wine club tasting. It’s made by Bordeaux-born Olivier Rivière, who took a job in Rioja in 2004, after having studied enology in Montagne Saint-Émilion and worked briefly for several wineries. Among them were Domaine Leroy in Vosne-Romanée, where he learnt about their biodynamic methods. He decided to stay in Rioja and began looking for specific vineyards grown organically, with the goal to buy grapes and make his own wine.

Ganko is a 50/50 blend of mazuelo and garnacha The grapes are grown in the village of Cárdenas in the Alto Najerilla. Here in 600 meters altitude the old vines grow on sandy soils. It’s a rugged zone with only small plots. The wine is fermented with whole bunches in a 3.000-liter oak foudre and matured in used barrels.

Perhaps you wonder what the word ganko means? It’s Japanese for stubborn, a nickname given to Olivier by a Japanese importer. Olivier liked it and gave the name to this wine.

Ganko 2018 (Olivier Rivière)

Dark cherry red. Aroma of wild berries (blackberry), flowers and herbs (thyme). Fine-grained tannins, a cool, fresh acidity and a long and dry finish. Complex and elegant.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

A fresh Alella Gran Reserva

Published 6. May 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Here is an ecologic cava from the varieties pansa blanca (local name for xarel.lo), macabeu and parellada. The Alta Alella winery is run by the Pujol-Busquets family in the Serralada de Marina Natural Park, just north of the city of Barcelona. Mireia, daughter of founders Josep Maria and Cristina Pujol-Busquets, is currently wine-maker.

Alta Alella’s wines are made from their own grapes. The soils are low in pH, which compensates for the warm Mediterranean climate and give acidity to the wines. They are based on the decomposed granite called sauló, with a sandy texture and good drainage.

All work in the vineyard is manual. After a gentle pressing each of the varieties for this wine ferment separately. Then there is a second fermentation in bottle following the traditional Champenoise method. Unfermented must is used to provide the sugar for the secondary fermentation in bottle, and SO₂ is added only after disgorging. The ageing on lees is 30 months (thus the youngest of their cavas). It is disgorged before release, with the disgorgement date noted on the label.

None of Alta Alella’s wines receives dosage.

Mirgin Gran Reserva 2017 (Alta Alella)

Light straw. Fruity, green apple, lemon peel, chalk and some brioche autolycic quality. Full in the mouth, mellow mousse, good acidity, dry, saline, long.

Price: Low/ medium

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Wine of the Week

Trentino’s leading light

Published 29. April 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

I have recently had two opportunities to taste Foradori’s range. The first was at restaurant Smalhans of Oslo, with Theo Foradori and their Norwegian importer Non Dos in mid-March. Then at Barcelona’s Vella Terra fair in the beginning of April (look for a forthcoming article), when I for the first time met Theo’s mother, the beautiful Elisabetta.

Foradori makes some magnificent white wines at the foot of the Dolomites mountains. (Read about one of them here.) But they also do a terrific job with their reds. Not least is it interesting to go through the many faces of the grape teroldego. Elisabetta is like a queen of teroldego; when she took over the winery at a young age she brought in new and better clones, switched to biodynamics, replaced barrels with clay vessels and botti and elevated the grape to a level yet unseen.

The grape grows only in Trentino, and thrives best in Campo Rotaliano, where Foradori have all their vineyards. They make two single-plot wines, Morei and Sgarzon, with exactly the same vinification. The wines demonstrate how different teroldego can be in different soils.

Here we shall speak about maybe the producer’s most simple red. It is as well made as all the others. I mean simple as in light, delicious, easy to drink; and I never miss an opportunity to taste – and drink it. Lezèr is a light red, almost rosé wine that comes from various light macerations in amphora, wood, steel and cement, and then aged four months in concrete vats. It started out in vineyards some 30 years old.

Lezèr means in local dialect. Some claim that the name teroldego comes from “oro del Tirolo” – in other words “the gold from Tyrol”.

Lezèr 2021 (Foradori)

Light ruby with blueish hint. Red berries (raspberry), plums, flowers. Luscious in the mouth, fine-grained tannins, integrated acidity.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Authentic Verdejo, aged

Published 22. April 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

I am travelling Rueda in search of the historic wines of the area. Vidal Soblechero has this, and I will come back to it in a future post. Now I want to bring your attention to something that sadly is scarce, organically made verdejo from single plots, old bush vines – and this producer even disposes of beautifully aged wines of that sort.

It’s always a pleasure to see Alicia and her brother Vidal Vidal Soblechero (no misspelling here!) and their falcons in La Seca, DO Rueda area. I really wonder why this estate is not more famous. From the young Clavidor to their single plot wines, the reds and their historic dorado wine, this is nothing but perfect.

We were driving through Finca Varrastrojuelos, a vineyard that also gives a very special viura. The highest part is a two hectare piece where the Finca El Alto wine is sourced. This part of the plot has around one-hundred years old verdejo on partly decomposed limestone. Here are many pebbles in the surface. Strong winds are frequent, but less dangerous than in other plots. In the middle of the plot is planted a fig tree. The idea is that the ripeness of the figs shall advise on the time to harvest the grapes.

The wine is fermented and aged for 10 months in two 300 liter oak barrels. 730 bottles produced.

Pago de Villavendimia Finca El Alto 2013 (Vidal Soblechero)

Clear yellow. Mature apples, white pepper, a touch of exotic fruit. Glyceric in the mouth, a hint of caramel, long taste with integrated acidity. A true, authentic aged verdejo still in its prime.

Price: Medium

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