Chateau Maris started out in 1997, with an aim to make good wines working in harmony with nature. They soon discovered that biodynamics was the best for their vineyards.
It’s now a 32 hectares estate comprised of small vineyards on the hillside above the village of La Liviniere of Minervois, Languedoc.
This wine is a varietal syrah made with no added sulphites. Maceration went for one month with gentle pumping
over and ‘pigeage’ (punching down).
Savoir Vieillir 2017(Ch. Maris)
Dense, dark red, almost opaque. Fruit-driven, with young berries (blueberry, blackberry), hints of spices. Luscious, juicy mouthfeel, a touch of young tannin, cool fruit, but also a touch of warm alcohol (14,5%).
Here is another varietal cinsault. This variety can be said to be in fashion today. The reason is probably that many vintners have seen its virtues as much more than a grape for blending. Today it’s used many places, in particular have we seen many interesting wines from South Africa. Here is one from southern France, where we used to meet it most often in the past.
(Credit: Mas Onésime)
Mas Onésime is located in La Liquière, one of the tiny villages in is hillside of the Faugères appellation. The domaine consists of 12 hectares within the village.
Vigneron Olivier Villanueva talks about the many colours of the schists in Faugères, “from ochre and grey to orange with deep blue veins”. This sub-oil is among the oldest, and consists of gravelly schists that date, in his own words “back to the beginning of time”.
Most of the vines at the Mas are fifty years old, in steep vineyards with breathtaking views.
The grapes are harvested by hand, sorted, de-stemmed and brought to the cellar immediately after being picked. The grapes are placed in vats, without pumping and using only a natural gravity. Olivier strives to make authentic wines, with techniques as natural as possible.
This wine is only cinsault, hand harvested, sorted and fully destemmed. The yield was 25 hl/ha. It had 14 days of maceration in stainless steel tank, and also ageing in a tank for 14 days.
Le Cinsault 2016 (Mas Onésime)
Ruby red. Aroma of red berries (raspberry, plums), thyme and a touch of white pepper, juicy, luscious, supple in the mouth, with only a slight tannin and a pleasant natural acidity.
Price: Medium/low
Food: Light meat, try also lamb with provençal herbs, ratatouille, salads, grilled fish
Jean-Pierre and Chantal Frick cultivate 12 hectares of vineyards in and around Pfaffenheim, Alsace. Since 1970 the domaine has been organically cultivated, and certified biodynamic since 1981. In fact Jean-Pierre has since long been a guiding light for others who want a sustainable approach to vinegrowing.
Since the beginning of the 80’s they have abandoned the use of additions, clarification and filtration, except for a small amount of sulphur before bottling for wines with residual sugar.
The Steinert vineyard was planted in the 1970’s on limestone, fossil ground and gravel. The fermentation was spontaneous, and the maceration lasted for around one week. Then the wine was aged in big vats of French oak.
Steinert Grand Cru Gewürztraminer Macération 2016(Dom. Pierre Frick)
Light golden colour. Aromatic, hints of fennel, spices, roses and some tropics like mango and litchis. Quite fat in the mouth, intense, full-flavoured, bone dry, long, and just enough power and acidity to keep the 15% alcohol in check.
Calce is a village on the edge of the Agly valley, Roussillon. From there many gifted winemakers has made it to the headlines, from Gérard Gauby, via Olivier Pithon to Tom Lubbe, and so on…
Jean-Philippe Padié deserves a place in that gallery. He was probably the first in the village to end the family’s tradition of delivering to the cooperative and start bottling himself.
Padié studied agronomy in Montpellier. He has also had training periods at reknowned producer Mas Amiel, and also at Gauby, before he started in the family business in 2003.
The wine was made from three grapes; grenache blanc 50%, macabeo 40%, and grenache gris 10%. It was fermented spontaneously in used barrels, and bottled unfiltered.
Fleur de Cailloux 2016 (Dom. Padié)
Light yellow, slightly cloudy. Waxy, mature and floury apples, apricot, dried fruits, aromatic herbs. Medium body, integrated acidity, long and fruity finish.
Domaine de la Graveirette is located in the Southern Rhône valley, to the east of Châteauneuf du Pape, where they also make wine of that appellation. Julien Mus started the project in 2005, after finishing his studies in Burgundy. The 25 hectares of vineyards are farmed organic, and the wines now certified biodynamic. They have a freshness well above average in this part of France, and they are lovely drinking, though not at all simple.
The Ju de Vie is a favourite, with all its character and lusciousness. The 2016 is made from grenache 35%, merlot 30%, marselan 25% and mourvèdre 10%, grown in sandy soils with the typical round pebbles. It was aged for 8 months in concrete tanks, and only given a tiny amount of sulphur.
We have talked about Domaine Matassa several times. Read here about one of their white wines, and here is something from another project that New Zealand born winemaker Tom Lubbe is involved in.
The white Coume de l’Olla is a lovely, citrusy skin-contact wine. Today we had the red wine with the same name at a restaurant.
It’s made from grapes biodynamically farmed in the Calce region, on the northeast side of the Pyrenees. They are grenache 70%, grenache gris 20%, and macabeo 10%. The must was spontaneously fermented and aged in cement tanks.
Coume de l’Olla 2015(Dom. Matassa)
Light ruby. Aromatic, smells of red fruits, both sweet and sour (plum, cherry, cranberry), floral overtones and hints to truffles and mature cheeses too. Quite soft, fleshy, but just enough tannin to bind it together, a fresh, natural acidity and some spice in the finish.
Price: Medium
Food: Light meat, salads and much more. At an Italian restaurant we tried it today with four different dishes, and it performed brilliantly with vitello tonnato (veal in tuna mayonnaise) and pasta with a creamy sauce and mushrooms.
Sébastien Riffault has been mentioned in this blog many times, so it’s about time we highlight one of his wines. These are full of personality. Riffault’s sauvignons are maybe not you would think of when hearing the word Sancerre. But this is maybe Sancerre like in the old days, before all the corrections became the norm.
Sébastien cultivates twelve hectares of vineyard in Sury-en-Vaux. He also plants trees to contribute to the diversity. He can harvest several times, but in general grapes can hang on the vines for a long time -Mid-October is normal- so they achieve full ripening. As a result of the late harvest, some of the grapes are affected by botrytis. Unlike most other Sancerres, Sébastien’s wines also undergo malolactic fermentation.
To honor his Lithuanian wife Jurate, Sébastien have given the wines Lithuanian names that are expressions for the soil. Auksinis thus means “of gold” and is 2 hectares planted around 1975 on Portland limestone.
Everything is cultivates according to biodynamic principles, and the whole vineyard is certified organic. Sébastien uses horse and plow in many of the vineyards, because it gives better soil quality. In the cellar, nothing is added, neither are they fined nor filtered (except for a tiny amount of sulphur and lightly filtering of one wine).
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
London’s Raw fair is over. This wine fair, founded by Isabelle Légeron (now also with meetings in Berlin and New York), is a two day celebration of individual, organic wines with a wide range of exhibitors. But what unifies them is their desire to express their place in their own unique way. Some have a no sulphur approach, while some are more pragmatic to this question.
This year the fair was back at the Strand, in central London, after two years further east. The venue is open and clean with good light, good for wine tasting. Wine bar and restaurant Noble Rot had their stand, and it was possible to savour food of many sorts.
Most of the artisans came from Europe. The bigger wine producing countries like Italy and France, and to a certain extent Spain, had their fair shares of exhibitors. But smaller wine countries were also represented, maybe most surprisingly Romania and the Czech Republic.
Among the more established producers, especially in this context, were Eric Texier (with expressive wines from Côtes du Rhône), the Catalan trio Mas Martinet-Venus la Universal (from Priorat/ Montsant, with increased focus on fruitiness than before), and mainly sparkling wine producers Mas de Serral- Pepe Raventòs and Recaredo-CellerCredo, Frank Cornelissen (who really has become a top Sicilian producer in every respect), not to mention Friulian neighbours Radikon and Gravner with their textbook skin-contact wines.
An opportunity for vignerons like Fabio Bartolomei to communicate directly with their audience
There were many contenders. Aside of the aforementioned ones here producers that I have appreciated for a long time were from France, Dom. Milan (Provence), Dom.de Clovallon (Languedoc); from Italy, Carussin-Bruna Ferro (Piemonte), Corte Sant’Alda (Veneto), 1701 (Franciacorta); Spain, Vinos Ambiz (Gredos/ Madrid); Portugal, both two participants, Quinta da Palmirinha (Minho) and Casa de Mouraz (Dão); Austria, Meinklang (Burgenland).
But not least is this an occasion to be surprised.
Here follow some memorable moments.
Éric Teixier
Chat Fou 2016(Éric Teixier)
A light entry here: A luscious, inspiring côtes du rhône. Light ruby; red berries, herbal, lightly spiced; juicy, fresh, just a hint of tannins, good acidity. A light, elegant vintage of this wine.
Carles and Montse
Carles Mora Ferrer and his close friend Montse have produced natural wines since 2008; no chemicals, no additives. I chose their cabernet; not pressed, fermented in inox, 20-25 days of maceration. Total sulphites is a mere 4 mg/L.
Cabernet Sauvignon Ánfora 2015(Clot de les Soleres)
Dark cherry, violet hint; red fruits, blackcurrant, green pepper; structured, good acidity.
Mas Martinet has been a favourite for many years, and maybe the most influential among the Priorat “pioneers” from the 1980’s, thanks to both father Josep Lluís’ teachings, daughter Sara’s and son-in-law René’s consulting and general inspiration through their wines. Sara Pérez, current winemaker, was also in the avant-garde when turning to organics in the early 2000’s. Venus is their side project in Montsant. Here I chose their white Venus, a varietal xarel.lo, fermented 20% with skins and elevated in big barrels. No added sulphite.
Venus Blanc 2014(Venus la Universal)
Yellow colour; very fresh, citrus, litchi some balsamic; glyceric, creamy and saline. So expressive!
Ivan and Ana Gómez
Bodegas Gratias of Castilla-La Mancha showed some good wines. I chose a field blend of some 20 varieties, many of them in danger of extinction, a crowdfunding project, “gratias to all those people
(‘gratias mecenas’) who believed” in the project, as they say. Fermentation was carried out in small deposits of 5 hectoliters, with whole clusters. The ageing was carried out no the lees, in oak, jars and steel. No clarification or cold stabilization.
¿Y tu de quién eres? 2016(B. Gratias)
Dark cherry colour; red and dark fruits, a hint of spice; juicy and drinkable, but also with a touch of dryness (from the stems).
Thyge of Bodega Frontío
Here were several surprises at one stand: A new, young producer in the remote Arribes, Castilian area bordering Portugal. Furthermore the man behind the bodega is Danish, Thyge Benned Jensen. I’m learning every year, says Thyge, which is good. But much is already very good: Taste his two-weeks skin-contact Naranjito, another surprise for this region. The variety is doña blanca (even though the label indicates something else).
Naranjito 2017 (B. Frontío)
Yellow with orange tones; mature apples, some peel; quite glyceric, with a supple acidity.
Andrea and Petr Nejedlich of Dobrá
Cuvée Kambrium 2014(Dobrá Vinice)
A wine from the Podyji national park in Moravia, Czech Republic, a blend of veltlín, ryzlink and sauvignon, as the back label reads. Light colour; gooseberry, white pepper; both round and light, but with good acidity too.
See also an article about Moravian wines tasted in England here.
Mladen Rožanić, jazz fan with creative Istrian wines
Roxanich of Croatian peninsula Istria makes powerful natural wines.
This is a field blend including syrah, cabernet franc, lambrusco, barbera, borgonja, malvasia nera. Bottling went without filtration, after 9 years of aging in big wooden vats and barrels. I like the reds. But the white ones, most often orange in colour, really has an unequalled quality. You can read more about them and another featured wine here.
Ines U Crvenom (in Red) 2008(Roxanich)
Red, developed colour (towards orange); a volatile feeling, mature red berries, dried fruits and roasted almonds; weighty, packed with fruit, plays with oxidation.
Fernando Paiva and his importer Ricardo Rodrigues of Portuguese Story
Fernando’s wines are marked by the Atlantic influence. His whites are covered several places on this site. This time he showed that the light (light-weight, not light in colour) vinhão can be fascinating when aged too. So that must be the choice.
Quinta da Palmirinha Vinhão 2012 (F. Paiva)
Dark with violet and some red; incredibly fresh, cherry and tint; round, mineral, with integrated acidity. It has an uplifting lightness, a feeling of weightlessness.
Marinella Camerani
Corte Sant’Alda is a well-known Valpolicella producer, mostly in the more classic end of the spectrum. But the wines are thoroughly made, they are good, and they have nothing of the negative characteristics that the area has become known for in many wine circles today. Their classic wines are good. And Marinella presented an intriguing varietal molinara rosé aged in Tuscan amphorae, a vino de tavola with a total of 2 mg sulphur.
Agathe 2016(Corte Sant’Alda)
Salmon pink; flowers, strawberry and a touch of white pepper; no the palate quite smooth, but also with a surprisingly high acidity.
Lorenzo (left) and Andrea Pendin: Thumbs up for another inspiring meeting
L’Armonia of Vicenza (Veneto), Italy was one of the really great finds at this year’s Raw. Among many good wines I chose this wonderful garganega, from older plants (60-80 years). This is both an early harvest and a late harvest (with some botrytis), then blended. The different harvest times are due to Andrea’s friendship with and inspiration from Sébastien Riffault of Loire. (Read more here.)
Perla 2016 (Tenuta l’Armonia)
Complex aroma of mature apples, nuts, flowers, apricot, towards honey; medium full on the palate, and a salty, mineral aftertaste. Integrated, natural acidity.
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
