Category: Wine of the Week

Not at all ‘Swart’ from Swartland

Published 28. May 2021 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Here is another “house wine”, when I want a little more power, or “skin”, than a normal white. Swartland, Blackland in the Afrikaans language, because the predominant rhinoceros bush turns dark after the rains. But it’s not only the landscape that is special here; the spirit of the winegrowers is a veritable force.

Mother Rock Wines was established in 2014 by Johan Meyer. I have written about the project before (like here), and I still predict that the producer will rise in fame and his wines accordingly rise. The news are that Johan and his partner Anri moved into their new property Plattenklip (northwestern Swartland) in 2019, and produced their first vintage in 2020 in their own winery. They have now planted new vineyards on exciting sites, so we know that there will be new interesting wines from them.

This wine comes from a single vineyard in Paardeberg planted in 1980, on granite-rich soil. Only chenin blanc, pure chenin. Whole bunches were pressed into steel tanks where the fermention starts naturally. It’s mostly aged in steel, but has seen a small amount of old oak. Unfiltered and without added sulphuur.

Force Celeste 2020 (Mother Rock)

Light yellow. Aromas of citrus, yellow apples, peach, a light touch of peel. Good weight in the mouth, creamy lees-character, but with a very fine acidity that cuts elegantly through, and contributes to a long, salty finish.

Price: Low

Food: Tapas and charcuterie, red fish, fried white fish, light meat…

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Wine of the Week

Kultik from Burgenland

Published 21. May 2021 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Biokult is a small group of organic certified vineyards in Burgenland, Austria. The members share a special dedication and commitment to promote biodiversity and important forms of sustainability. They grow their own grapes, while it is Angela Michlits from producer Meinklang nearby, who is responsible for the vinification. Meinklang may be more famous for the big audience, but in bars for artisan wines Biokult is rapidly building a …yes, cult is maybe an appropriate word, for their biologic wines.

This wine is made from equal parts zweigelt, pinot noir, blaufrãnkisch and st. laurent. The soil here is sandy clay in a vineyard planted plot by plot between 1990 and 2010. The grapes were hand-picked and underwent spontaneous fermention and saw 12 hours maceration on skins. It’s a low-sulphur wine (maximum 40 mg total SO2).

Pét Nat 2020 (Biokult)

Light pink, slightly pétillant. Fresh and simple wine, with aromas of strawberry and rhubarb. Juicy, berry-flavoured in the mouth, with a fresh acidity. Glou-glou.

Price: Low

Food: Apéritif, shellfish, salads…

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Wine of the Week

Stefan Vetter’s straight Sylvaner

Published 14. May 2021 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Stefan Vetter is one of the rising stars no the German wine scene. He is classically trained at Geisenheim and has worked for Austrian producer Nittnauer, and has experience from several places in the world. His own adventure started in 2010, when he read in the newspaper that an old parcel was for sale.

Most of his vineyards are terraced and located in Gambach and Iphofen (where the winery is, i.e. his grandparents’ house) on the banks of the Main river, Franken. The wines have the appellation Deutsche Wein though, that gives more freedom. The soil here is limestone and red sandstone, and farming is biodynamic. The main goal is to reflect the small scaled terroir trough their main grape variety sylvaner. (Besides this they also grow some müller-thurgau, riesling and pinot noir.)

This wine is spontaneously fermented, matured in both steel and old oak. It’s unfined, unfiltered, and has very low sulphur (around 10 mg/L total).

Like last week’s wine this was served at Lapin, the new wine bar in eastern Stavanger, Norway.

Claes at Lapin serves Vetter’s entry-level sylvaner

Sylvaner 2019 (S. Vetter)

Light yellow with greenish hints. The aroma was a bit reductive and changed with air, yellow fruits, yet stone, slightly volatile. Quite soft in the mouth, but concentrated and long, with good acidity and stony minerality.

Price: Medium

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Wine bars and restaurants and Wine of the Week

Deliric delights at Lapin, Stavanger

Published 7. May 2021 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

The domaine No Control is based in Volvic, a small town in the Puy-de-Dôme département of Auvergne. Winemaker Vincent Marie is committed to natural wine, and with great passion he tries to get the best out of each of their single plots.

Gamay is perfect to express these volcanic soils, in Vincent’s opinion. And completely without artificial help to change flavour the wines show a great diversity. (Other than the gamay cuvées some pinot noir, syrah and chardonnay is also used.

The cuvées are named after music pieces. As for this one it is taken from rock band Bad Religion’s Delirium of disorder. No Control is by the way another song from the same band, and the same period (late 80’s). The wine is made with partly carbonic maceration, some matured in fiberglass, some in big, old oak vats. No additions.

Claes Helbak, one of the people behind Söl restaurant and here: Lapin wine bar

We tasted it during the opening weekend of the new Stavanger wine bar. Lapin is run by the people behind restaurant Söl (see several places around this blog, f.ex. here or here, from their takeover in London). It’s located in am old eastern working class district that now bustles with energy. The bar has wooden benches and some chairs. At this point it looked somewhat temporary. But it has a knowledgeable staff and all the potential to become a great place for sipping natural wine.

Délire du Désordre 2019 (No Control)

Dark cherry red. Aroma of red berries (cherry), a bit earthy. In the mouth, high intensity in fruit flavours, juicy, a bit tannin and natural acidity. It’s a simple and fun wine.

Price: Medium

Food: We had it with charcuterie, with which it was perfect, but should go with many types of light meat, young and hard cheese…

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Wine of the Week

Feel free!

Published 30. April 2021 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Claus Preisinger works 19 hectares and some sixty parcels biodynamically, between the vast Austrian Neusiedlersee and the Hungarian border. He makes a variety of beautiful wines. This is in a way a “glou-glou”, an easy drinking wine, but can also be used on the table. The wine is made from zweigelt and st. laurent in stainless steel, with spontaneous fermentation, and aged in large foudres.

The bottle and the label hints to the vintage lemonade bottles from a hundred years back. Puszta in Hungarian means “plains”, remembering that on the time of these bottles this was still part of Hungary. Libre is Cuban -sorry: Spanish- for “free”. Why not?

Enjoy the wine, life – feel free!

Puszta Libre! 2020 (Claus Preisinger)

Dark cherry red. Aroma of blackberry, cranberry, flowers and a touch of lickorice. Luscious and juicy in the mouth, with smooth tannins.

Price: Low

Food: Excellent on its own, but can be used with light meat, white fish, salads, hard cheeses, and try also with not too pungent blue cheeses. Best drunk slightly chilled.

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Wine of the Week

Handcrafted grüner at DuckSoup

Published 23. April 2021 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This is a wine that I have thought about a long time. I include it here, “for the records”, maybe. Because the last thing I did before the pandemia rules were introduced in my country, was visiting the Rawfair, that after all didn’t take place.

One of my favourite London wine bars is DuckSoup, of Soho, near two leading jazz clubs, Ronnie Scott’s and the Pizza Express. This week’s wine was enjoyed there, one day or two before entering a very surprising quarantine indeed.

Martin & Anna Arndorfer work very naturally, and stress the importance of the soil. They say they do not feel bound by tradition, but still they emphasize the influence of the vineyard as crucial to their philosophy. And there they maintain the natural ecosystem. Most wines are unfiltered, and sulphur and chemicals are avoided, though they have never certified anything.

This wine is from their Strasser vineyard of 1976, with sandy and clayey soil. Biodynamically farmed, only a total of 20 mg/L sulphur, short maturation in steel, unfiltered.

Handcrafted Grüner Veltliner 2018 (Arndorfer)

Light yellow colour. Fresh, vibrant, with yellow fruits, herbs, almost spicy. Juicy, luscious and light in the mouth, with enough acidity, and finishes dry.

Price: Low

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Wine of the Week

Brand new Grand Cru

Published 16. April 2021 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This was one of the wines that stood out in a private blindfold Alsace tasting, with unusually many wrong guesses about which ones were rieslings. However this one couldn’t go wrong, with its steely acidity and inspiring energy.

The name Brand, meaning land of fire, is a reminder that this part of the hill once was eroded by fire. The legend goes that the sun fought a dragon here. It hid in a dark cavern under the vineyard, thus being responsible for the characteristic “warmth” of this grand cru. Only riesling is planted, a total of 2.4 hectares, and now around 70 years of age.

Overlooking the Brand (credit: Dom. Zind-Humbrecht)

The Brand is located just above the village of Turckheim, itself in the outskirts of the bigger town Colmar. Here we find several small granite hills. It is not far from the Munster valley, so which means that despite its south, south-east facing, it also sees the wind running down the valley. As indicated above, the granite warms up quickly (not necessarily because of that dragon, to be honest) and secures that heat from the sun go deep in the soil. The roots grow deep, and feed from the clay and minerals from the granite decomposition. Yields are naturally low here. Due to the ripeness of the grapes in 2019, the fermentation was particularly slow for this wine, but it went on and on, and eventually the wine was bone dry after a 12 months fermentation.

Some keywords: Biodynamically farmed, handpicked, spontaneous fermentation, 16 months on lees and a total of 18 months on big old barrels.

Brand Grand Cru 2019 (Zind Humbrecht)

Bright gold colour. The nose is discreet at first, but opens up with air. It shows citric notes (mature lime, towards clementine), but also a stony wet minerality associated with granite. On the palate it is powerful and acidic, but also with some warmth behind there. It has a persistent aftertaste, already in balance and harmony, and a saline finish. This said, the wine is young and will reveal a lot more complexity over time. But it it’s now you must buy if you want to enjoy it in a few years.

Price: Medium/high

Food: We had prepared rather down-to-earth, Alsatian inspired food like pig cutlets and bratwurst, and red cheese (like the local Munster), but it tackles a lot of tasty dishes, both light meat and tasty fish. At this point food is almost essential, as we have mentioned, it’s very young.

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Wine of the Week

Guímaro’s A Ponte: A bridge to the future

Published 9. April 2021 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

A Ponte comes from a crazily steep amphitheater-shaped vineyard, on top of the hill above the more famous Meixemán vineyard. We are in Ribeira Sacra of Galicia, Spain, and Guímaro is one of the best representatives of the new wave of producers. Pedro Manuel Rodríguez Pérez started the project in 1991, but relied on many generations of his family’s work.

The vineyard sits on granitic, slate and sandy soils. Pedro and his father planted in 2010 equal parts of mencía, caíño tinto, merenzao, brancellao and sousón, all indegenous from Ribeira Sacra and around (Galicia and northern Portugal). The wine is made similar to the other Guímaro reds: The grapes are handpicked, macerated for 35 days (here a bit shorter than normal), then alcoholic fermentation is carried out at a controlled temperature of 25ºC. After malolactic fermentation follows an ageing for 12 months in used French oak barrels, before a light clarification.

Normally Pedro has worked with almost exclusively mencía grapes for his reds. But we have seen that the climate is changing, and to meet the future he decided to plant the five varieties in almost equal parts. Mencía is there, but the other varieties are known for retaining the acidity even with more ripeness.

A Ponte 2017 (Guímaro)

Dark cherry colour. Dark and red berries on the nose (blackberry, morello, plums), and some herbs. Medium-bodied and well-structured, good acidity for a warm year, long. An expressive and individual wine without oakiness, and a good candidate for medium-term ageing (+/- 5 years). With good airing it can also be enjoyed now, and why not in company with a good roast.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Good Hope on a Good Friday

Published 2. April 2021 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

The Winery of Good Hope is found in Stellenbosch, in South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope. They claim to avoid “the flashy stuff” of industry and make quality wine with a conscience. They are located on the slopes of the Helderberg Mountain, and make wines using traditional, natural viticultural and winemaking methods. They are alto certificated for environmental, ethical, and social-conscious practices.

For the Full Berry Fermentation Pinotage they work with two vineyards, one in Northern Stellenbosch and the other in southeastern Swartland. The former is sandy with decomposed quartz and granite soils, and contributes to a certain texture. The latter sits on weathered, granite derived soils, that is mostly responsible for the fruitiness.

Some keywords: Handpicked grapes, whole berries in vat, spontaneous fermentation in steel, unfiltered.

Full Berry Fermentation Pinotage 2019 (The Winery of Good Hope)

Dark cherry. Fruity, with blueberry and red berries cherry, plum), herbs, some licorice. Young and juicy, a charming wine at a very good price.

Price: Low

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Wine of the Week

Thymiopoulos improves with thyme

Published 26. March 2021 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

The Thymiopoulos family has a long history in agriculture and grape-growing in Trilofos, under the Vermio mountain south of Thessaloniki. Apostolos Thymiopoulos was however the first to vinify the family vineyards, and he produced his first wine in 2005.

Apostolos Thyiopoulos (credit: the winery)

Thymiopoulos practises organic viticulture and believes in minimum intervention during the whole process. Various biodynamic practices are also used, thus being able to preserve biodiversity. The wild flowers stimulates both over- and underground fauna, thus strenghtening the soils and with it, the vines.

He concentrates exclusively on xinomavro, the emblematic variety of the Naoussa region. From this variety he makes at the moment ten different wines, from sparkling via rosé to reds. I have tasted five, and can recommend all of them. They are excellent value, such as the Young Vines 2019. Xinomavro gives naturally acid and tannic wines, well-suited for ageing. And Apostolos would also say it gives an ethereal quality.

Our selected wine, the Xinomavro Nature, has no additions of sulphur. It comes from a single vineyard planted 53 years ago, 200 meters high on a slope, at the edge of the village. The soil here is pure limestone. The climate is tempered by the winds from the Mediterranean and downhill from the mountain. So despite the low altitude the temperatures are also relatevely low. The 2019 vintage had 50% destemmed grapes, fermented with indigenous yeasts and was macerated for 30 days. It was matured for 6 months in 500-litre French oak barrels of second use.

Xinomavro Nature 2019 (Thymiopoulos)

Ruby red. At first quite discrete aroma of red berries and a touch of spices (cardemom, pepper), sightly warm. Much more open after three hours in the glass, and more aromatic herbs like thyme appear. Evident tannins, good acidity and long, mineral aftertaste.

Price: Low/Medium

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