This week’s selected wine is from nobody else than natural wine guru Jean-Pierre Robinot.
As the story goes, Robinot fell in love with wine at a young age, moved to Paris, met some of the pioneers of natural wine and opened L’Ange Vin, one of the first bars dedicated to that kind of drinks.
Soon he decided to make natural wines himself, and moved back to Chahaignes, where he grew up, in the north of Loire.
The rest is history, as they say. He offers one wine better than the other; easy-to-drink and serious at the same time, they keep for weeks after opening, they express their origins magnificently, and they are highly original.
Jean-Pierre owns around 8 hectares of vines in the two appellations Jasnières and the Coteaux du Loir, soils red clay, limestone and silex. And the fermentations, they can last for months, years, in the ancient underground caves.
L’Ange Vin Nocturne 2015 (Jean-Pierre Robinot)
Light cherry red. Typical aromas of violet and black pepper, red berries (cranberry). Fresh, juicy and pleasant on the palate, with fine-grained tannins, and long, chalky minerality. So elegant, so full of energy and vitality.
Price: High
Food: Fish and fowl, lamb and swine, game. and a variety of cheeses
I am just home from Verona. I love the city for its architecture with granite buildings, its atmosphere, the river Adige that snakes through, and in my opinion it’s unfairly overshadowed by nearby Venezia.
This week’s wine could be many, because it was a rewarding week. But they will appear in future articles. This one was served at the Osteria La Mandorla, only two blocks from the city’s outdoor opera Arena. Mandorla, aka Vini Zampieri, is a small, colourful, historic bar with a good selection of organic and natural wines, a knowledgeable staff, and cool jazz and rock soundtrack. With the wines they serve tasty bites like toasted focaccia, characuterie, and their wonderful arancini (rice balls).
I had a Monte dall’Ora Valpolicella, a Mosconi Soave and a Sternau Campania falanghina, but I chose the first wine of the evening, a “sui leviti” (sur lie) Prosecco from the province of Treviso. (See also last week’s choice.)
Luca Pietropoli serves the Prosecco, the arancini in the foreground
The history of Gregoletto starts in 1600, when the family signs a contract with the Abbey of Follina for cultivation of some vineyards, still managed by them. We are in the hills between the three small towns, Conegliano, Valdobbiadene and Vittorio Veneto. The two latter have soils consisting of clay, and a cooler climate than Conegliano, especially the northern ridges. South oriented vineyards near Pieve di Soligo have a warmer climate and soils consisting of limestone and clay.
The vineyards are situated in the subzone of Premaor in the commune of Miane, between the three aforementioned towns. They also buy grapes from a handful of grape growers with whom they have had close relationship for a long time. Only grapes grown on hillsides are used for all wines. Compost is rarely used, and herbicides are never applied in any plots.
The harvest is done by hand, the grapes gently pressed in pneumatic presses, and fermented by indigenous yeast in steel tanks. It remained on the lees for another three months after which it is bottled. The refermentation of this wine takes place in the bottle (not in the conventional tank).
The wine is not disgorged, but remains for on its lees until it’s served, just like in the old days.
Prosecco Frizzante Sui Leviti(Gregoletto)
Light straw colour, somewhat cloudy, fine and persistent bubbles. Subtle nose of green apples, with some bread crumbs. Completely dry, and with a fine acidity.
I am in Veneto. Yesterday I had a wonderful day in Gambellara, Vicenza province, which I will come back to.
This week’s wine is from the most important producer in that area. Well, Zonin is a big player indeed. But for an organic, down to earth approach Angiolino Maule has taught and inspired other growers that are just beginning. He also created the VinNatur organization and runs the Villa Favorita fair that brings together producers of the same sort from Italy and abroad.
Francesco Maule in front of a Masieri barrel
Gambellara is mainly white wine country, with volcanic soil. But there are some splendid reds made too.
There is also a white Masieri, but here we concentrate on the red version. It’s made mainly from merlot, some tai rosso (tocai/cannoneau/grenache), and around 5% is cabernet sauvignon, all fermented with indigenous yeasts in steel tanks.
The vineyards are young, and the cultivation is Guyot. The fermentation is spontaneous with indigenous yeasts, with a 13 days maceration. Minimum sulphur, no filtration.
Masieri Rosso 2017 (Angiolino Maule – La Biancara)
Dark cherry, violet hints. Aroma of cherry and blackberry, herbs, spices. Lightly structured, luscious and delicate, fruit all the way. Just lovely! (2017 is 13,5% alc.)
It was in the evening of the Haro Station Wine Experience. Lunch was over and I was walking around in the streets of the Barrio de la Estación, where many of the leading bodegas establish themselves after the railroad came to town and a new area started, with Rioja as a leading brand and Haro as its capital.
I decided to step into the mythical bodega and there stood María José López de Heredia opening a mysterious bottle. I didn’t know exactly what it was when she poured it. But indeed I understood that it was a white Tondonia and that I had stepped back in time.
María José opens the white ’64
López de Heredia’s wines must be one of the most legendary in Spain, and well-known for being made the same way since the winery’s foundation 130 years ago.
Only grapes from their own vineyards are used, for this wine one from their most emblematic Viña Tondonia, a 100 hectares pago not far from the bodega. The soil is clay with a high limestone content. It’s a large vineyard with varying plantings and grape varieties, but average age is around 50 years. The cultivation is organic.
To get the fermentation going they simply wait. And if it looks like it’s going to be difficult one can only open the windows, as in Haro there are often big differences in night and day temperatures.
Art nouveau, a building style in fashion at the turn of the century
The wine is made from 85% viura, 15% malvasía and has 12% alc. It stayed 6 months in wooden deposits, then 9 years in old barriques of American oak, treated in the bodega’s own cooperage. It was racked manually 18 times, then clarified with egg whites. It was then bottled from the barrels in July 1973 without filtering.
Viña Tondonia Blanco 1964(R. López de Heredia)
Golden colour towards amber. Notes of dried fruits, toasted almonds, citrus and a touch of honey (without the sweetness, if that makes sense). It’s almost like walking in an old sherry bodega. Glyceric and rich, with a smooth texture. Low alcohol, high natural acidity, and a salty finish. But even if there are other barrel-aged whites this is almost in a category of its own.
Price: High (if you can find it at an auction)
Lastly, the bodega is always referred to as a very traditionalist bodega, and rightly so. Here is how they define their form of traditionalism:
I’m in the Spanish capital again, and a visit to the Angelita Madrid seems very appropriate. Having not booked a table on a weekend’s night will most often mean that the only option is a place in the bar. Which is nice. This time I was sitting next to Federico, a young Argentinian who runs the splendid Acid Café coffeeshop in the museums area (Prado).
I will come back to Angelita and their extensive list of artisan and natural wines by both glass and bottle. This week’s wine is an orange wine from Zamora, that I hadn’t tasted before. The winery is found in Villamor de los Escuderos, south of Zamora town, not far from Salamanca.
The wine is made from godello 50% from centenary vineyards, and albillo real from new plantings. The soils are stones and sand over clay. Height above sea level is 800-900 m.
The producer says that this is a modern variant of the ancestral “embabujado” technique, that is, wine made with all its components. The grapes were partially destemmed before fermentation that finished it in oak barrels. It has not been clarified and it has been bottled after a light filtering to remove turbid. Total So2 is less than 6 mg/l.
Berretes 2014(Microbodega Rodríguez Morán)
Light orange. Aroma of white flowers, orange peel, a touch of honey, chalk. Lightly structured with good natural acidity.
This week’s wine was served at Sentralen wine bar and restaurant in Oslo’s city centre. The huge building used to be a bank, but is now containing cultural scenes and various meeting places, such as Sentralen, with its two chambers. It’s an informal place, but several well-established chefs are in the management, so the quality is high – and the prices very cempetitive too. The wine list has focus on artisan producers and organic and natural wine.
Avocado with jalapeño mayonnaise, smoked tomato and almonds
Christian Tschida is fourth generation and cultivates 10 hectares of old vines in Burgenland, near the Neusiedler See. The vineyards have sandy gravel, schist and limestone, and the big lake is securing a moderating influence. The wines are generally in contact with oxygen for a long time, up to 5 years in old wood. He uses a vertical basket press that he likens to an old manual screw press, with its very light pressure. The grapes are foot-trodden, and the fermentations done outside in the shade, then moved inside to age in barrels. They are never racked, and bottled by hand to leave a little redisual carbon dioxide.
While the previous vintage of red “Heaven on Earth” was made with cabernet sauvignon and zweigelt, the 2014 is a pure cabernet franc. The grapes were destemmed, and the juice fermented with indigenous yeasts, as usual. This wine spend one year in 500 to 1.500 liter barrels, and was bottled without additions of sulfur, and according to Tschida’s principles, not fined or filtered.
Himmel auf Erden 2014 (Christian Tschida)
Cherry red colour. Pure cherry fruit, some green pepper. Luscious, juicy, slightly carbonic, and with a good, natural acidity.
Price: Medium
Food: I had it with quite difficult ingredients (smoked and spicy), as you can see above. It should also tackle a wide variety of food, from light meat and bacalao, to salads and cheeses
Eulogio Pomares has been the winemaker at Bodegas Zárate since the 2000 harvest. He has started to make some wines for himself too, in tiny quantities under the label Grandes Vinos Desiguales, and some are quite sensational.
The soils are granitic, and the grapes for this wine come from parcels that Eulogio has replanted and using biodynamic principles and without rootstocks. Only native yeasts are used, the wine stays in 1,200 litre chestnut foudres and stayed 8 months, where it also undergoes malo-lactic fermentation.
This one was fermented and aged in big 1200 liters vats of chestnut. The vines are seventy year old, and they are located in Castrelo-Cambados, in the central part of Salnés, probably the most important sub-region of DO Rías Baixas.
An informative back label
We have seen several styles of albariño over the years. Some of us are a bit tired of the commercial, aromatic versions. Too heavily oaked wines were plentiful at a time, and always out of question. Later there were many lees-aged wines; a good idea, but this too can make the wines more similar to each other. I like the ones on the wild side, made without corrections. Here is yet another interpretation, a chestnut and lees aged single vineyard wine from old vines.
Carralcoba Albariño 2016(Eulogio Pomares/ Grandes Vinos Desiguales)
Straw yellow. Apple, lemon, pear and white flowers on the nose. It has a fantastic concentration, is full, with a lemony acidity and with an extraordinary length. It has a touch of oxidative character, but it’s held in check, and is balanced incredibly. Close to perfection.
Price: Medium
Food: The best seafood you can think of, creatively elaborated
Our wine of the week 25th March was an Italian wine from the border zone of Carso. Here is a neighbour, from a Friuli-Slovenia tasting earlier this week. In fact Marjan Simčič’s winery is no more than 100 meters from the border. Another producer from our tasting was Radikon, only 11 km away, surprisingly enough to the east, because the borderline does a bend.
Furthermore Simčič’s vineyards are found in the Brda hills, on both sides of the border.
We are in a crossroads between the Mediterranean and the Alps. The Goriška Brda soil was under water in ancient times, and it’s today a soil rich in minerals.
Here the Simčič family cultivates the grapes the most natural way possible. They respect the vine’s natural capacity and are satisfied with a low crop, with the grapes on the vine as long as possible. The cellar practices are also deeply respectful of what comes in from nature.
Jožef Simčič was a pioneer in Brda. He bought his first pieces of land in 1860. Mirjan is now fifth generation.
They follow tradition and allow their grapes to mature, to produce a balanced aroma and a richer taste. No chemical fertilizers or insecticides are used.
The Selekcija is the second range of wines (the most expensive wines are called Opoka, only produced in special harvests). The Selekcija wines are selected from the oldest vines and matured slowly (2 to 4 years) in casks and wooden barrels of different sizes. None of these undergo filtration.
The ribolla grape is in Italian mostly called ribolla gialla, and in Slovenia also rebula, and other similar spellings. Typically it gives deep coloured but light bodied wines with high acidity and floral notes. It’s not unusual that it develops nutty flavours with some ageing.
We tasted three interesting wines from the winery this wine club evening. Here I chose the “selected” ribolla.
Ribolla Selecktija 2014(Marjan Simčič)
Yellow colour. Aroma of mature apples, bread, herbs and white pepper. Rich and full on the palate, evident but rounded tannins from skin-contact, and a natural and integrated acidity.
No, Juan García is not a footballer in the Spanish second division. It’s a local hero grape variety with some potential for stardom on a national level.
The grape is most likely to be found in western Castilla, towards the border with Portugal, and it’s maybe at its best in Arribes del Duero. There are not many varietals made though. It was traditionally used to strengthen wines from garnacha and other soft-skinned grapes. Arribes is one of the oldest wine growing regions in Spain, with roots back to the Phoenicians. But it wasn’t untill the 1990’s that they started to create a DO region, that today covers only 600 hectares of vineyard.
The bodega is located in Fornillos de Fermoselle, between Salamanca and Zamora. From here you can look over the border to the Portuguese side of the Duero/Douro river. La Setera means she who handles muschrooms (after seta = mushroom). But the winery is equally famous for making artisanal cheese from the local goat and cow’s milk. They have also started to make beer. Patxi and his wife Sarah have six hectares of own vineyards in Fermoselle and the neighbouring Pinilla. It’s almost exclusively old vines, with Spanish and Portuguese grape varieties such as tempranillo, touriga nacional, bruñal, rufete, alongside red verdeja (sic!). They also do some experiments with amphora, resulting in a juan garcía-mencía-bruñal-bastardo-rufete wine called Tinaja Crianza, aged first in clay, then oak.
The tinto joven is made as a joven in steel tanks, to accentuate the fruitiness, and it’s 100% juan garcía. This is really small-scale with only 2.000 bottles made of the young entry-level wine.
Francisco José “Patxi” Martínez in his small artisanal bodega
Juan García Tinto Joven 2016(La Setera)
Dark cherry red with violet rim. Wild berries, elderberry, pepper, stony minerals. It’s very fresh, textural, with evident tannins, carbonic traces and a light bitterness in the finish. You could maybe call it a bit rustic, but I love it.
Price: Medium
Food: A variety of meat, such as game, salads and cheeses
Here is another tasty Jura playing with oxidation, this time from Domaine Rolet.
Rolet is found in the historic town of Arbois, Louis Pasteur’s homeplace. The domaine was created in 1942, and with 58 hectares it’s now the second largest producer in Jura. The founder’s four children are now running the domaine.
Key words have always been traditional organic farming, ploughing, hand-harvesting (in those steep slopes), ripe grapes, fine-tuned use of wood, and controlled oxidation to obtain what winemaker Guy Rolet calls “a little hazelnut nose”. In fact some have called Jura’s white wines something between a burgundy and a manzanilla sherry.
This wine was fermented and aged in wood barrels for between one and two years.
Côtes du Jura Le Dent de Charnet 2016(Dom. Rolet)
Deep yellow. Intense aroma, nutty, buttery, with lime and some salty tones. Full and rich with a good tannic grip, and decent acidity.
Normally this oaky character could have been too much, but it’s something with the lightly, controlled oxidized style and the power that makes this work. Furthermore it’s better after some days in the fridge.
Price: Medium
Food: Grilled seafood, cheeses like the local comté, salads, light meat
