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Tag: biodynamic

Wine of the Week

Saravá’s Skin Contact

Published 12. July 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

I have met Miguel Viseu and his wife Leli Dalla Costa several times at the Simplesmente Vinho fair. And I have also seen Miguel at Aphros, where he is winemaker. I tasted their whole range of inspiring wines earlier this year, and got the chance to re-taste two of them when they appeared in my local market. The label of this one reads only Saravá, but it’s the skin contact version, curtimenta in Portuguese, as opposed to the “normal” white loureiro.

The grapes are loureiro 70% and trajadura 30%, grown in the Lima valley. It had 5 months maceration on skins, mostly destemmed, with a short ageing in chestnut and clay.

Brazilian exclamation

Saravá 2022 (Galactic Wines)

Yellow colour. Aroma of citrus zest, white flowers and a mineral touch. Juicy looks the mouth, with a fresh acidity and a saline finish. A vibrant and balanced wine with careful skin contact.

Price: Medium

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Wine bars and restaurants and Wine of the Week

A Douro at Bar Douro

Published 5. July 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Last Thursday I popped into the Bar Douro (London Bridge) and had a few Portuguese wines. One of them was Folias de Baco‘s irresistible pét nat.

But first, Bar Douro opened in 2016 with the aim of bringing a piece of the authentic Portugal to London. Four years later another opened in the City. Max, the owner, is in fact in the family of Churchill’s port, and he spent his childhood days in Portugal. The whole staff takes pride in its passion for the country.

Michael, general manager, in front of a blue and white tiled wall

I have met and visited winemaker Tiago Sampaio several times. He is located near Alijó, one of the coolest places in the Douro. It’s him who runs Folias de Baco, and the family also have a wine bar of that name in Porto. Search the blog for more.

This wine is made with the old method, in French “méthode ancestrale”, means it is bottled with some amount of residual sugar left in the wine, so it can continue fermenting and producing carbon dioxide (which creates the bubbles). The yeasts give the natural cloudiness.

Wine waiter Oliver pours our pet nat

Uivo Pt Nat Branco 2022 (Folias de Baco)

Pale yellow colour, cloudy with discrete bubbles. Aroma of white flowers, peach and grapefruit. Medium bodied, lively and energetic, with a fresh acidity and a saline touch.

Price: Low

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Wine of the Week

Classy Californian at Tempo

Published 28. June 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This wine concluded a jazz club meeting with tasting at my local wine bar, called Tempo, after the famous bicycles that were once produced in the building.

Scar of the Sea is ru by Mikey and Gina Giugni in San Luis Obispo, California. They work with farmers who practise low-intervention in an attempt to make the viticulture as sustainable as possible. As they say, they want their wines “to tell a story of where they come from, the people who farm them, and reflect each vintage under the California sun.”

You have by now understood that they work organic, and ferment with native yeast. The wines see only a minimum of sulphur additions, and they are not fined or filtrated.

The Bassi Vineyard Pinot Noir is produced from around 25 year old vines on the hillsides of Avila Valley by the coast. It’s in transition to biodynamic certification. It was The fruit was fermented with 70% whole-cluster. The wine was pressed once dry in a wooden basket press then aged for 10 months in old French oak.

Bassi Vineyard Pinot Noir 2022 (Scar of the Sea)

Ruby red. Fruity scent, aroma of raspberry and strawberry, white flowers and herbs. Fine tannins, good body and concentration, fresh acidity. A Californian with class.

Price: High

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Wine of the Week

Our Mann at Elliott’s

Published 21. June 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Back in London and a busy Borough Market at lunchtime. Elliott’s was opened in 2011 by Brett Redman, from Australia, with the aim of serving only produce sold at the market. It has long been one of my favourites, and you can read a couple of posts here and here.

Andi Mann is based in Eckelsheim, Rheinhessen. He makes lively, energetic wines, organic with some biodynamic methods. The soil is limestone (to which the name Calx alludes), and the age of the vines is around 40 years.

This wine is based on grauburgunder, whose official name is pinot gris. Many of you will know that this variety is not completely “white”. It has red spots, so as a skin-contact wine it will take on a red or reddish colour, depending on the length of contact. (Read about another wine of that kind here.)

Half of the grapes were directly pressed, the other half had fermentation on skins for 2 weeks. The juice was then fermented and stored in large German oak barrels for 1 year. It was bottled without filtration or addition of sulphur.

Calx Grauburgunder 2022 (Andi Mann)

Beautiful blushing colour. Aroma of citrus peel, flowers and ripe peach. Delicate tannins, quite full and juicy, with a fresh acidity. Dangerously quaffable.

Price: Medium

Food: We had it with lightly spiced chicken and beef carpaggio, but it should go with a variety of fish and light meat.

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Wine of the Week

Riffing with Mr. Riffault

Published 24. May 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

I am fully aware that Sébastien Riffault has been in the spotlight for things other than his wines lately. Let’s keep this aside for a while. The quality of his wines can hardly be doubted. Okay, there are people who don’t like the mature style. Some even say they are not typical of Sancerre. Remember that many people believe that the early-harvested commercial yeasted cat’s pee in a gooseberry bush is the real thing. Riffault is, in my opinion, very Sancerre, but clearly a different take.

The sauvignon blanc was planted on limestone and clay some 35 years ago. Akmèniné means “made of stone” in Lithuanian (the nationality of his wife). The grapes were harvested by hand in mid-October, directly pressed without skin contact, 30 percent of the grapes having botrytis. It was then fermented in large old barrels, then aged on the lees. No sulphur added, not fined or filtrated.

Akmèniné 2019 (S. Riffault)

Pale amber. Aroma of mature apples, mango, herbs and yeast. Good volume and concentration, rich, tasty, with ripe fruit and adequate acidity.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Burja’s beauty

Published 5. April 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This beautiful Slovenian white was presented a few years ago. Read some background information here.

In short: Burja is located in the Vipava valley about 40 km east of the Italian border. Primož Lavrenčič has a holistic approach and farms organically and according to biodynamic principles.

The grape composition here is laški rizling (Italian riesling or Welschriesling) 30%, malvazija (d’Istria) 30%, rebula (ribolla gialla) 30%, others 10%. 7 days skin-maceration in steel, 10 months ageing in barrel.

Bela 2020 (Burja Estate)

Deep golden. Aroma of mature fruits, orange peel peach, herbs, white pepper. Full on the palate, a touch of nuts and a natural, integrated acidity, salty in the finish.

Price: Medium

Food: Light meat, pig, veal, grilled and white fish, tasty salads

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Wine of the Week

Genuine gorgollasso

Published 12. January 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

On the last day in Mallorca, 3rd January, I visited Carlos Rodríguez Furthmann in the small town of Selva. He is a veteran vigneron, but he does not own any vineyards, and for this project he buys all the grapes. This creates freedom, but in reality he says he continues to work with only the same few farmers.

The wine is made from gorgollassa, a red indigenous grape variety that Carlos calls his favourite. Elegant and subtle are two adjectives that he uses to describe it. One part of the wine was aged in 500-litre French oak barrels, another in a Mallorcan clay amphora and the remaining in stainless steel. Spontaneous fermentation. Nothing was added to the wine apart from a low dose of sulphites. It was not clarified or filtered. 

Gargo 2019 (Selva Vins)

Ruby red. Red fruits (cherry, raspberry), herbs, blackthorn (endrina), a bit earthy. Light and fresh in the mouth, smooth tannins, a slight bitterness in the finish, everything well-balanced.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Mademoiselle M

Published 3. November 2023 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Mademoiselle M is a sauvignon blanc from Kimmeridgian limestone soils (marl with oyster sediments), located in the appellation of Pouilly-Fumé. It’s made without added sulphites, aged in used oak vats for 18 months.

Alexandre Bain owns 11 ha in Tracy-sur-Loire. Like his friend and collegue Sebastien Riffault across the river in Sancerre, Alexandre harvests later than most in his region, which gives the wines a darker colour. To retain the maximum acidity in his grapes, Alexandre trains his vines low. Harvest is done by hand, and yields are small.

Mademoiselle M 2015 (Alexandre Bain)

Dark golden, slightly turbid. Aroma of mature apples, flowers, a touch of honey and a flinty minerality. Quite full on the palate, glyceric, concentrated flavours. Rich for a sauvignon blanc. Probably at its peak right now.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Pretty Pannobile

Published 13. October 2023 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Here is a prime wine from one of the founders of the Pannobile group.

The wine originates from vineyards located on the slopes of the Leitha mountains. Zweigelt and blaufränkisch planted in limestone and slate soils and grown organically with biodynamic techniques and without using chemical products. Harvest is carried out manually. Once the grapes have been selected by hand, spontaneous fermentation with native yeasts begins and a three-week maceration in the skins in wooden tanks. Then it’s pressed and the wine obtained matures for 21 months in used 500-liter oak barrels.

Pannobile 2018 (Heinrich)

Dark cherry red. Aromas of dark fruit (morello, blueberry), lightly spiced and some earth. Tasty, silky, a sweet and sour sensation and a long taste. Lively, balanced.

Price: Medium

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