Category: Wine of the Week

Wine bars and restaurants and Wine of the Week

A meaty red at Matritum

Published 28. June 2019 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Matritum, an old name for Madrid, is maybe not an especially well-known wine bar and restaurant. It’s located in the neighbourhood of La Latina, where I often stay when in the Spanish capital, and I have never been disappointed.

The Matritum kitchen proposes delightful dishes such as home-made foie-gras micuit, and seafood and meat dishes inspired from all corners of Spain. “Anchoas del Cantábrico con ‘pa amb tomàquet'” thus means traces of both Cantabria and Catalunya/Baleares.

The wine list has close to 400 references, many of them served by the glass. They are both local, they cover the most of the important Spanish wine areas, some less known, and also international. It seems that they have a special love for the wines of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, all of them also served by the glass.

So over the years I have had a great many different wines here, and so this choice would maybe seen casual. Anyway, this time I had three wines, one of them a garnacha from Viña Zorzal. Okay, we are in Madrid, and beautiful garnachas are made right in the backyard. But let’s not forget that the grape has a long history in Navarra. It’s even possible that it once originated there.

Zorzal started in 1989, when Antonio Sanz, after a life in wine, fulfilled his dream of producing his own wines in Navarra. Today it’s his sons who carry on what he started, and created Viña Zorzal, as we know it today.

The wine is made from garnacha of 35 near old vines grown in stony soils 520 meters above sea level in Fitero, single vineyard. Early harvest, spontaneous fermentation with wild yeast in 3500-litre wooden vats, soft winemaking. 9 months ageing used French used barriques.

Leave a Comment

Wine of the Week

Carbonic Cabrónicus

Published 21. June 2019 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This bottle was bought from natural wine bar La Casa del Perro in Málaga (a report to follow). Out from the fridge it didn’t take long before it reached optimum serving temperature on a hot summer day.

Producer Cauzón, or Ramón Saavedra, can be found in several articles on this blog (such as here, after a visit, and here, in a report from a fair earlier this year).

In 1997 Ramón left a successful career as a Michelin star chef, to start making wines without additions up to 1.200 meters above sea level in his home town Graena. This is rather a small settlement in the Sierra Nevada mountains, some 30 minutes east of Granada city.

Cabrónicus is made from tempranillo grapes grown on red clay soil. The name is derived from the use of carbonic maceration, that went on for three weeks in whole bunches.

Cabrónicus 2017 (Bod. Cauzón)

Pale red. Smells of red berries (raspberry), pomegranate, and a slight touch of white pepper. Juicy and delicate, with fine, discrete tannins, and a long, integrated acidity. A very fresh, clean and appealing natural wine.

Price: Medium

Food: At the wine bar we had it with as different dishes as carpaccio of beef and guacamole with nachos, but it goes well with everything from light meat, white fish, and a variety of salads

Leave a Comment

Wine of the Week

Another beautiful Cambon

Published 14. June 2019 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This château was acquired by Marcel Lapierre (Dom. Lapierre) and Jean Claude Chanudet (Dom. Chamonard) in the mid-90s. After Marcel passed away a few years ago it’s Marie, his widow, who runs the estate. (I met her at a London fair. Have a look here.)

The vineyards for this wine is located between Morgon and Fleurie. Cambon places itself towards the “natural” side of Beaujolais; unfined, unfiltered, and barely sulphured… a pure expression of the gamay grape. The fermentation was spontaneous in steel tank, then ageing on big oak vats on lees.

Château Cambon Beaujolais 2018 (Ch. Cambon)

Deep red with purple hints. Cool aroma of flowers and cherries, with some meaty notes. Fresh and juicy, a touch of cherry comes back, and there is a long, natural acidity here. Elegant, beautiful.

Price: Low

Food: Light meat, pasta, tasty white fish, salads

Leave a Comment

Wine of the Week

Smooth Sylvaner

Published 7. June 2019 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Fernand Engel’s office is located in Rorshwihr, but the domaine’s 160 hectares of vineyards are spread over 8 villages in Alsace. Here they can play with many different microclimates.

This wine is made from 100% sylvaner, almost 50 years old vines, handharvested. It’s spontaneously fermented and kept for 8 months on lees.

Renaissance Sylvaner Vieilles Vignes 2017 (Dom. Fernand Engel et Fils)

Light yellow with greenish hint.
Introvert at first, but the aroma opens with air and shows mature fruits, herbs and a nutty touch. Smooth, somewhat glyceric in the mouth (some 5g residual sugar), some citrus, herbs and crushed stone, and a good length.

Price: Medium

Food: Light meat, tasty fish and shellfish, vegetables, try with Asian

Leave a Comment

Wine of the Week

Asinoi: We are donkeys

Published 31. May 2019 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Let’s not forget the inexpensive, but oh so good! everyday wines. For me a trustworthy “workhorse” (pun intended) has for ten years been the Asinoi, meaning ‘we are donkeys’, by many around here simply called “the Donkey wine”, because of its label.

In a market like the one in my country -Norway that is- many barberas were sweet, oaky, and not much fun. This one was different, more slender, elegant, fruity, natural, and a lot better with food too. So no wonder it soon found many followers.

Donkeys at Carussin

The producer is Carussin, Bruna Ferro and Luigi Garberoglio with their family, and the farm is located in San Marzano Oliveto, south of Asti in Piemonte.

The producer has many interesting wines, but to be honest I’m not sure if this particular one is found to any extent outside Norway, where their importer Non Dos is a good customer and collaborator.

The farming is biodynamic. The grapes are hand-picked, and fermentation is spontaneous. Only a tiny amount of sulphur is added before bottling. All ageing is carried out in steel, and sometimes cement.

Asinoi Barbera d’Asti 2017 (Carussin-Bruna Ferro)

Ruby red. Fruity aroma of cherries, other red berries and herbs. Mellow, juicy in the mouth, low in tannin, but with a clear and fine-tuned acidity.

Price: Low

Food: Pasta, pizza, light meat, white fish (!), vegetables, and a variety of cheeses. I must admit (although it’s against my principles, I think) that I’ve had this wine without food at all, and with a lot of joy.

Leave a Comment

Wine of the Week

Subtle Swartland orange wine

Published 24. May 2019 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This wine I tasted recently in London. Simon Woolf has a new book about orange wines in the market, and he presented it at a seminar during the Real Wine fair. (More about the book later.)

The wine in the glass while Simon talks in the background

Jurgen Gouws has both learned from and been a colleague of Craig Hawkins of Testalonga in South-Africa’s Swartland (read about last week’s wine here). He “owns neither vineyards nor winery, but has built a cult following for his delicate, subtle cuvées”, one can read in Woolf’s book. All are dry-farmed (in a country with serious draught problems).

The chenin blanc grapes for this wine were grown on granite and macerated for two weeks on the skins. But it’s only contact to add some texture. The skin-contact makes it an orange wine, according to Woolf’s definition, although the colour is yellow.

Elementis 2018 (Intellego)

Leave a Comment

Wine bars and restaurants and Wine of the Week

Stay Brave at Elliot’s

Published 17. May 2019 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Finally I got the chance to visit Elliot’s wine bar in Borough Market, on the south side of the Thames. The occasion was not only that I was in London for the Real Wine fair, but also that I visited the new big sax shop at nearby Blackfriars. In the wine bar I had three wines, among them Testalonga‘s Stay Brave.

Elliot’s opened in 2011 and has from the beginning offered a simple menu based on good ingredients in season. They deal directly with fishermen and farmers, all of them with a focus on sustainability. They cook over a wood fired grill, and the wine list is exclusively comprised of natural wines from small artisan growers.

I had two small plates, first courgette, broad bean & herb salad, then beef tartare with green peppercorn, parsley and smoked Wensleydale (Yorkshire cow’s milk cheese). And several of the waiters have the knowledge to guide you through the wines.

I started with a Catalan white, Nar i Tornar 2017 (Vinya Ferrer), mainly garnacha blanca and some macabeu, a tasty and slightly cloudy non SO2 wine. It showed a slight mouse taint, but was nevertheless good. It was followed by a Côtes du Rhône 2017 (Dom. Aphillantes), an un-oaked grenache-carignan-mourvèdre blend; young, dark fruit, spice (but not the sweet oak style), and luscious, drinkable at the same time that it also has some light fine-grained tannin.

From the “last pour” section (not on the list and changes according to what has been opened) I had a wonderful wine from Testalonga. This is Craig Hawkins’ project in Swartland, South-Africa, and one of my favourites right now (I have two opened chenins of his in my fridge at the time of writing).

Stay Brave 2018 is pure chenin blanc. The names in the producer’s Baby Bandito series come from the encouragements you give a child, and the colourful labels are inspired by street artist. It’s made in steel, with 11 days of skin-contact and bottled un-filtered. It’s a low alcohol (10,5) and high acidity (6,5-7g) wine.

Stay Brave 2018 (Testalonga Wines)

Yellow. Smells of fresh green apples, citrus (lemon), white flowers and ginger. Very fresh, fruity, quite concentrated, mineral and super elegant.

Price: Medium

Food: Worked well with my herbaceous, green plate. Can go with white fish, grilled fish, light meat, Asian and a variety of cheeses

Leave a Comment

Wine of the Week

French Fusion

Published 10. May 2019 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

I am back in Brighton for the Real Wine fair that is coming up, starting on Sunday. And I am back at Plateau, the natural wine temple close to the city hall. (See one of several write-ups here.)

This time one of the wines is the Fusion 2017, a varietal gamay made by Vincent Marie of Domaine No Control, in Auvergne, some 150 km west of Lyon.

He explains on the website that the wine is named after a music style that he likes very much, in this case it’s the mixing of hip-hop and energetic rock. The wine is pure gamay, but it’s a fusion between gamay from Auvergne and gamay from Beaujolais, and also between two types of vinification.

The parcel is south-facing, and the vines between 15 and 110 years old. The wine is made using whole bunches in two vats of fiberglass. In the first vat the grapes were trodden to make som space in the vat, then maceration of whole bunches. In the second there was carbonic maceration. Then the two were blended, and macerated for three weeks – without any additions.

Fusion 2017 (Vincent Marie, Dom. No Control)

Light cherry red. Fruity, violets, red fruits (raspberry, cherry) and blueberry on the nose. Juicy, kind of soft, but has also some fine-grained tannins.

Price: Medium

Food: Light meat, charcuterie, salads, bacalao and grilled fish

Leave a Comment

Wine of the Week

From the Friulian frontier

Published 3. May 2019 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Castello di Rubbia has been highlighted before. Here you can read more about their Friulian wines and their estate near the Slovenian border.

Just a brief introduction: They are found in Carso, called Kras on the other side. Their village is San Michele di Carso, where they dispose of the 13 hectares historic Ušje vineyard, with its rocky terrain of limestone and red soil. The winery enjoys long macerations and fermentations with indigenous yeasts.

This wine is made from around 20 years old vitovska vines. Manual harvest is carried out quite late, towards the end of September. The grapes are de-stemmed and fermented with natural yeasts in steel vessels and macerated on the skins for around 20 days. While fining is done naturally over a period of 1 to 1 and a half years, the wine also undergo malolactic fermentation. After three years it’s then bottled without filtration.

Vitovska 2013 (Castello di Rubbia)

Dark yellow/golden. Intense aroma of white flowers, herbs or hay, dried fruits, and a touch of honey. Full on the palate, good concentration, and a stony minerality.

Price: Medium

Food: Very versatile, and can go well with light meat, rice dishes, omelettes, salads and vegetables, charcuterie, Asian, seafood…

Leave a Comment

Wine of the Week

Aragonese macabeo against the stream

Published 27. April 2019 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

I had two wines from Bodegas Frontonio at a tasting this week. They are found in Valdejalón, a non-DO area within a triangle formed by Campo de Borja, Calatauyd and Cariñena – and not far from Zaragoza, capital of Aragón. It comprises the area around Jalón, a tributary to the Ebro river.

(Credit: B. Frontonio)

The people behind the Frontonio project are Fernando Mora (one of Spain’s new Masters of Wine, who started to make his own wine in 2008) and his friends Francisco Latasa and Mario López.

On their website they refer to a local legend from the Roman times, when the head of patron saint Frontonio was thrown into the Ebro near Zaragoza, but later found upstream along the banks of the Jalón in Épila, the village where they are located. They compare this tale to their own story, suggesting that these “garage wines”, made in very small quantities (now 6.000 bottles), are something of a miracle and a result of going against the stream.

Miracle or not, the wines are excellent. Today they have several lines, such as an entry-level range and some single vinyard wines. Microcósmico are their village wines, blended from two or more vineyards. The garnacha has the power and the earthiness of the region, but it’s also very fresh and inviting. This macabeo is made from old vines on a rocky soil. The whole area is chalky with a layer of clay to retain the humidity from the sparse rainfall. There is both continental and mediterranean influence, as the winds shift between coming north-west or south-east in the Ebro depression, but generally speaking this is a hot and dry land. The macabeo is made from 65 year old plants, spontaneously fermented, partly in oak, but mostly in concrete.

Microcósmico Macabeo 2017 (Bodegas Frontonio)

Light yellow with a greenish hint. Aroma of white flowers and citrus, backed by ginger and a touch of smoke. Great concentration on the palate, an acidity that adds to the structure and a long, dry finish.

Price: Medium

Food: Grilled fish, bacalao, tasty seafood, light meat, salads and vegetables (must be delicious with local ‘piquillo’ peppers in olive oil), a variety of cheeses

Leave a Comment