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Wine Chords Posts

Wine of the Week

True wild NZ sauvignon

“Typical” sauvignons are by many regarded as the easiest of all to detect in a blind tasting. However, there are many factors that can contribute to the grape’s aromas, and many are still under investigation. Undoubtedly, added yeast is among the techniques. But there are also producers here with what we would call a natural approach, with Sébastien Riffault in Sancerre as possibly the most famous.

A tasting in our private wine club showed quite varied aspects of New Zealand’s wines, among the sauvignons too. There were two splendid wines from Greywacke Vineyards, a late harvest riesling and our wine of the week, the Wild Sauvignon, this one too made only with the yeasts from the grape and the environment.

Kevin Judd was co-founding winemaker when Cloudy Bay embarked on their success story in the mid-80’s. But Judd went on to fulfill his own project in 2009, after having planned it for a long time, including acquisition of vineyards in Marlborough. The name Greywacke was registered back in 1993, and named after the type of rounded stones found everywhere in the country.

Essential in the winemaking is mature grapes from quality sites in the central Wairau Plains and the Southern Valleys, cultivated with low yields and strong canopy management.

 

Bilderesultat for greywacke wild sauvignon 2014

The grapes were mostly harvested by hand, then pressed lighly. The juice was spontaneously fermented in old French oak, stayed there for around 6 months, where some 2/3 underwent malo-lactic fermentation. It then stayed on yeast lees in inox for another 5 months, and the wine was only lightly filtered before bottling.

 

Wild Sauvignon 2014 (Greywacke)

Straw yellow, grey, not shiny. Aromas of oranges, almonds, flowers, herbs (thyme), and a slight touch of toast and vanillin. In the mouth it shows a rich and creamy texture, nice concentration, with a balancing acidity that contributes to a lingering finish.

Price: Medium

Food: White fish, grilled seafood, sushi, creamy cheeses

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Wine bars and restaurants and Wine of the Week

A Lazio delight in London

This week’s wine was enjoyed at Soho’s DuckSoup restaurant (in the same block as Ronnie Scott’s famous jazz bar), that has a focus on natural wine and simple but tasty dishes inspired from anywhere. Music lovers will find a home here too, as they have a collection of vinyl records for varied tastes.

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The DuckSoup cookbook displayed

Anyway, the wine is a elegant and fruity red carbonic maceration wine from Gradoli, Lazio in central Italy.

Gianmarco Antonuzzi and Clémentine Bouveron dispose of around 14 hectares, oak and chestnut, and olive trees as well as vineyards. We are near the volcanic Lake Bolsena in the north of the Lazio region, 600 meters above sea level.

While the sites and microclimates of their 20 parcels vary, all are found on volcanic soil.

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Some of the vines are ungrafted. This is a real artisanal project, carried out with a lot of patience, according to biodynamic principles, and without additions of any sort.

Le Primeur is a varietal aleatico that underwent a carbonic maceration for three weeks. Comes in magnums – or by the glass at DuckSoup.

Le Primeur 2015 (Le Coste)

Quite light in colour. Pure fresh fruit, flowers, red berries and stone fruit. Vivid and energetic, slightly carbonic in the mouth, simply delicious.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Thévenet Crémant

Here is a crispy and lively Crémant de Bourgogne, from 20 years old chardonnay grapes organically grown 80 above sea level in the commune of Serrieres.

The grapes were hand-harvested. This wine underwent a malolactic fermentation, and the wine had a period of 15 months of secondary fermentation and ageing in bottle, that gives it some depth.

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Crémant de Bourgogne blanc de blancs n/v (Jean-Claude Thévenet)

Straw yellow. Green apple, lime, a touch of bread and yeast. Crispy, almost dry (towards the drier end of brut) and a nice acidity in the aftertaste.

Price: Medium

Food: Aperitif, fish, shellfish, sushi, light meat

 

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Wine of the Week

A long time bargain favourite

Here is a long time bargain favourite, Pilastri’s Rosso Piceno, in other words a red wine from the Marche region near the Adriatic coast of Italy. It’s made from 70% sangiovese and 30% montepulciano, organically farmed and aged in steel.

Saladini Pilastri Rosso Piceno 2014

Rosso Piceno 2014 (Saladini Pilastri)

Quite dark, purple tones. Aroma of cherries, herbs and a little spiciness. Fresh and fruity all the way, with a dry mouthfeel and a youthful acidity.

Price: Low

Food: Pasta, chicken, salads

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Wine of the Week

A great, mineral Muscadet

Muscadet by the Loire is maybe underestimated. At least it’s undoubtedly good value. Even this wine, handmade, low-sulphur, natural and with loads of character, is very good value. It’s a wine that evokes memories of summer, flowers and sunshine.

This one is made by Jo Landron, that started to make wines with his father back in 1979 and has since walked the steps via “normal” organic to biodynamic farming.

This wine is from 40 years old melon de bourgogne vines, fermentation in cement with indigenous yeasts, the malolactic was blocked to retain the freshness, and the wine was bottled unfiltered.

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La Fief du Breil 2013 (Jo Landron)

Straw-coloured. Bread and yeast aromas from ageing on lees, wet stone. Full, round on the palate, chalky minerality and just enough acidity to match.

Price: Medium

Food: Tasty fish, salads, creamy cheeses

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Wine of the Week

Summer is rosé, and rosé is Provence

And the first 100% organic village for agriculture is Correns, in the inland from the Azur coast between Nice and Marseille.

Much has been said about this property and its affinity to artists throughout the years. Briefly: In 1970 jazz pianist Jacques Loussier used it as a recording studio. (Parts of Pink Floyd’s The Wall are recorded here.) Today it’s owned by actors Jolie & Pitt, and the wine is made by Perrin, the family behind many outstanding wines like Beaucastel.

Covering 500 hectares of land in the Côte de Provence, the wine château is only a small part of this, together with olive groves, woods and wildlife. The vineyards are located around 350 meters above sea level, partly terraced, on clay and limestone soils. The temperature varies a great deal between day and night, given a nice freshness to most of the wines.

This rosé is made mainly from the cinsault grape, with some grenache, syrah and rolle. Rolle? Well, this is quite complicated: Rolle is a synonym for a local grape named rollo. It’s also a synonym for the better known Italian vermentino. It can even be that the two are related…

Most of the grapes are lightly pressed directly. But some of the syrah are made according to the “saignée” method, which means that part of the juice is removed from the must to concentrate phenolics and other components. (Needless to say, it’s not an ideal practice with “naturalists”.) The fermentation was mostly in stainless steel, with a small part (around 5%) in oak, with some batonnage.

miraval rose

Miraval Rosé 2015 (Ch. Miraval)

Pale pink. Delicate aromas of citrus, raspberries and white flowers, and a touch of pepper. Quite fresh on the palate, some volume too and a nice concentration that makes it persistent, with a dryness and a touch of a salty minerality in the finish. I find that many of the rosés in the area have too much alcohol for the body and concentration. This one not.

Price: Low

Food: Salads, fowl, fish and seafood

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Wine of the Week

Heinrich’s Zweigelt of Burgenland

I tasted this at the Territoriet (The Territory) wine bar in Oslo a few weeks ago. It was a perfect red wine for a warm, humid, but not sunny day in Oslo.

Heinrich grows the grapes after biodynamic principles, though the wine has no certification. It is a 100% zweigelt, underwent a spontaneous fermentation in steel and big oak vats, and had two weeks maceration.

2014 is also in the market, and both are good.

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Zweigelt 2013 (Heinrich)

Cherry red. Aromatic, with mature red berries, some green pepper. Quite warm and round in the mouth, but also with light and elegant tannins and a crisp, refreshing acidity.

Price: Low

 

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Articles

José Miguel Márquez, a real artisan in the big players’ land

I drive from Córdoba to Montilla listening to the second half of the European Championship football match between Spain and Italy, where Spain loses just before I reach the narrow path to the bodega. -Oh, there is a match today, asks José Miguel Márquez, as if he couldn’t care less.

After a quick look at the very simple facilities, and a glimpse of the vineyards at the very southern end of town, we soon end in the discussion about natural wines, as opposed to “so-called natural wines”.

He is the actual leader of the organization Productores de Vinos Naturales (PVN), with prominent members like Barranco Oscuro, Samuel Cano (Vinos Patio), Viña Enebro and Bodegas Cauzón among their ranks. And José Miguel takes pride in the fact that this Spanish organization does not allow addition of sulphur whatsoever, while the sister organizations in the other southern European countries do.

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He admits that there is some amount of indignation among the producers. -It’s the task of the importers and the journalists, he says, to communicate what he and his peers are convinced is the right path to follow.

-It’s very difficult to make wines without corrections, says José Miguel. But that is what we must strive to do. We investigate, we are running a great risk, but we are convinced that we have to.

For him it’s about showing the dedication, to have naturalness in your mind or not. -Some has a non-added-SO2-line in their portfolio, but they don’t show the real enthusiasm about it. You cannot be a vegetarian, except for Sundays…

Obviously Montilla is one of the big fortified wines of Spain, with huge bodegas and well-trimmed organizations, public relations departments and so on. On the question if Bodega Marenas get something out of this nearness to the big players in the area and their “industry”:

-Well, first: I do not belong to the D.O. Monilla-Moriles. Of course I am here, and I know many of the bodegueros, but there is not very much contact, really. On the other hand, noone bothers me. They do their thing, I do what I am convinced needs to be done, and I have my network, which is another. This said, Marenas is also paying its tribute to some of the old traditions of the area, such as a PX Bajo Velo, a wine aged under flor (a layer of naturally grown yeast), and Asoleo, a moscatel made from grapes dried in the sun before pressing.

The pago Cerro Encinas comprises 6 hectars of predominantly sandy and clayey soils with a high content of carbonates and limestone predominantly, but some albariza too (the same as the famous chalky soil of Sherry country). We are 350 meters above sea level, and though nearby Córdoba has Europe’s highest maximum temperatures there is a gentle breeze blowing through the vineyards, so the climate can be characterized as a blend of continental and mediterranean. The bodega opened in 1999, and as bodeguero José Miguel is first generation. The previous one I met when I entered the place, that is José Miguel’s father on a tractor. There is no “bodega” in the sense of an organization, it’s only me.

This is the “bottling line”:

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José Miguel places another bottle on the europallet. When it’s full he must take the bottles down again, I suppose, because they obviously need to have a label attached to them. And who is going to do that…

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While we talk he opens some bottles. One is a fresh 2015 from the white montepilas grape, that is a very rare variety, but older in the region than the famous pedro ximénez. Then there is a monastrell, also from the recent vintage: dark, spicy, fruity and luscious in the mouth.

Then there is a wine called Casilla las Flores 2015, from pinot noir. This one is light, like a rosé. It’s just lightly pressed, and not macerated. It’s flowery in the aroma, and the fruit is fresh and close to nature.

-I look for simplicity, says José Miguel. I ask if he sometimes changes the way he makes the wines. -Some times I change a little. It could be of obvious reasons, because of the climate, you have to respond to the vintage, f.ex. when it’s time to harvest. Looking back, I used to macerate more, I thought more on complexity. But nobody understand this anymore. Now I search for simplicity, but without losing the quality.

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Back to Córdoba. Restaurant Amaltea is a cozy restaurant near the Roman bridge, where they serve small dishes, eco-friendly and with vegetarian/vegan options, in a tapas-, sharing style if you want. I was alone, so I ordered a couple of small plates of excellent vegetables and seafood. They have two of José Miguel’s wines by the glass, and I had both:

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Montepilas 2015

Light brown-orange in colour, slightly cloudy. Good freshness in aroma, mature apple. Grapey and luscious in the mouth.

Cerro Encinas 2015

This is the monastrell (with a new label). Dark with violet rim. The aroma shows both a controlled oxidized style (in a good manner), but immediate fruit as well, with wild berries and spices. On the palate it has just enough tannin, and it’s very much alive with just enough acidity too.

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Articles

Sedella, in the Málaga hills

There is a lot to discover in the interior of Andalucía. Just like last year I have been holidaying in the area. And as there is much more than sand under the sun, a perfect occasion for visiting wineries. This year I saw some people that I already knew, and met some new people and tasted some new wines.

I had read about Lauren Rosillo and his red wines from the village of Sedella in the malagan Axarquía hills. So on a summer Sunday I wrote him an email (that can’t hurt anyone, I thought), and yes!, he answered almost directly. He is not there that much, as he is busy working as an oenologist for Riojan family company Martínez Bujanda, and all their activities around Spain. But that Monday morning he happened to be there on a short trip, so I popped in on my way to Córdoba.

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From the long and winding road I recognize the architect-drawn bodega building in some of the curves, so I’m no longer in doubt that I am on the right track. Lauren greets me. We are the only two people on that hill now.

To explore the bodega was done rather quickly. In one room there were a couple of steel tanks, in another a couple of concrete eggs, one tinaja (clay amphora) and two or three oak barrels, and apart from that there isn’t much more to report on.

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We are 700 meters over sea level, and there is a refreshing breeze coming up from the Mediterranean. To the east we find the Sierra de Tejeda mountains, and to the north La Maroma, a 2.066 meters high peak. In winter it can be down to minus 5 or 6 here, which is well reflected in the wines. The soil in this 1,8 hectar vineyard is slate, and the local romé and the nacional garnacha (known as grenache in France) were the grapes that were planted here around 1940. The vineyard management is organic, and both draft animals and ancient ploughs can be seen here at times.

20160627_121557 Silver coins are used to preserve the wine

Strangely enough, Lauren was born in Villarobledo (Albacete), a town that was once a real nucleous for production of tinajas, and which I have reported on earlier. (See this article about master tinajero Padilla.) The clay tinaja Lauren uses, however, is made in Úbeda, not far away in the Jaén province, in his own words “to honor the Andalusian tradition”.

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Only two wines are made: Laderas de Sedella and Sedella, respectively. Ladera (meaning hillside) is sourced from the steep vineyard towards the south. This wine is aged in concrete, and never sees any oak. The Sedella is from the vineyard on the other side of the winery, facing north-west. This wine is aged for 14-18 months in second hand oak.

Lauren calls them “mediterranean mountain wines”, Mountain Wine being an old expression for some of the dessert wines in the region, and also a branded name for collegue Telmo Rodríguez and his moscatel wines made in association with nearby Bodegas Almijara.

20160627_125412 Lauren Rosillo on the terrace facing the “laderas”

The alcoholic fermentation is always carried out in tank, and only natural yeast is used, the malolactic in concrete eggs. After malo he uses a little sulphur. In Lauren’s opinion it is at this stage that the use of sulphur is most important, as there are microbes that can do some “damage” here.

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We tasted the actual vintage. The Laderas de Sedella 2013, made from grapes romé, garnacha, and a touch of the white moscatel, had 13% alcohol, quite moderate (or: low) to be this far south. The wine is dark with a violet rim, with aromas of plums and cherry, wild berries. It’s rich, but with a lovely acidity, in the mouth, – and with a mineral aftertaste. Next vintage will carry the denomination Ánfora, by the way.

The Sedella 2013 is made from older vines in a north-facing vineyard. It is a touch darker with a violet rim, balsamic on the nose, very fruity, with darker fruits, notes of herbs, some lickorice, and just a hint of oak. On the palate it’s full, with some tannins, and a lovely acidity. The aftertaste is persistent. It’s a very appealing wine for medium term ageing.

Lauren calls the latter the “premium” wine. I understand what he means, and the Sedella is undoubtedly the more ambitious. Still I appreciate the difference: Laderas is the south-faced, clay aged wine, while the Sedella is the north-faced old barrel aged wine. Both very different, and both very good!

The first vintage was 2008. Lauren wanted to fetch an older vintage of the Sedella. We agreed to try the 2010, that had still some violet/purple, wild berries, plums. Rich, still that appealing fruit and acidity. Will keep.

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Wine of the Week

Matassa’s Cuvée Alexandria

There are some posts from Southern Spain these days, and the bulk is yet to come. So a French wine is this week’s pick.

Tom Lubbe, originally from New Zealand, makes wine in the French part of Catalonia, in the hills of the Coteaux du Fenouillèdes, to be precise. The altitude is 450 meters, quite high for this region, and the soils are granitic. Biodynamics are practised, and the winemaking is as natural as possible.

Nowadays his grapes are picked early, and musts from aromatic grapes like muscat are often given a long contact with skins and stems – here 30 days.

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Matassa Cuvée Alexandria 2015 (Dom. Matassa)

Orange-brown, slightly cloudy. Smells of orange peel, apricot and aromatic white flowers. Medium full and concentrated, yet light (in the meaning uplifting), light tannins, quite refreshing, and with a salty, mineral aftertaste. Delicious.

Price: medium

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