This week’s wine is a bargain, a delicate Chilean red at an exceptionally low cost. I really don’t understand why it retails this cheap (149 NOK, 10.000 CLP in winery). Maybe that is why it hasn’t got more recognition.
Juan Segura is a family-firm, now in its 5th generation, in the Itata valley, not far from the city of Concepción. They make wines in the same line from cinsault and carignan. This one is from the variety país, from up to 200 years old bush-pruned, dry-farmed vines. The wines are labeled with DO Secano Interior.
Juan Segura País 2021(Empresas H. Segura)
Ruby red. Aromas of red fruits (cherry, raspberry), red apple, herbs (nutmeg). Fresh and vibrant in the mouth, juicy, with a delicate structure, quite long. Serve a bit chilled.
La Bruja de Rozas is Comando G’s entry level wine. It’s a village wine from several plots around Rozas de Puerto Real, in the western part of Madrid province. The vineyards are located around 850-900 meters above sea level, and the vines are 50-80 years old. Cultivation is organical and according to biodynamic principles. The grapes are spontaneously fermented with a large proportion of whole clusters in open vessels. Long and gentle maceration for 30-40 days. Maturation partly in large foudres of 3-6,000 litres, used 500-litre barrels and a small proportion in concrete. Unfined and unfiltered.
La Bruja de Rozas 2020(Comando G)
Ruby red. Aromatic with mature red fruits (raspberry), flowers, spices (cinnamon), smoke and a mineral layer behind. Energetic, with young tannins, fresh acidity. It’s in a way juicy and concentrated at the same time.
Francesc Grimalt is leading figure in the restoration of the callet grape variety. In 2006 he teamed up with Sergi Caballero and founded the 4 Kilos winery. The name is an expression for 4 million pesetas, which was their initial investment to launch the company.
4 Kilos is based in Felanitx, in the inland of Mallorca. On this well-known holiday island the climate is mild Mediterranean, with dry and warm summers and very little rainfall. Francesc and Sergi practice an environmentally-friendly agriculture with a minimum of intervention.
The soils are clay loam containing ferric oxide. After the manual harvest with grapes selected in the vineyard, the juice was fermented in cubs (brick and concrete vats traditional in the area). Here the wine was aged for about 3 months. There was no added sulphites during the process.
Motor Callet 2021(4 Kilos)
Ruby red. Aroma of mature raspberries and orange, and a layer of herbs. Juicy in the mouth, expressive, round and at the same time a fresh drive, some coffee in the back palate.
Wine bar and restaurant Cedrón is located in the the La Latina neighborhood of Madrid, just behind the Plaza de la Cebada, with the famous market. It’s a warm and cosy locale from 1850, with wood, steel and stone. They have a wide variety of wines by the glass, some are natural wines, some just organic, and all are made by small family producers.
The owners are Argentinians, and both wine list and food menu has some influence from this. I ordered vitello tonnato, that is Italian origin, but very popular in Argentina. I completed with two more small dishes, a fresh burrata, and croquetas of cod, that turned out to be quite spicy. A complimentary starter was a humus de remolacha, accompanied by flatbread with herbs.
For the three platters I chose three wines. La Salada Disbarats 2021 is a simple but delicious white made by Toni Carbó, that has collaborated with Mas Candí in Penedès. The wine, from macabeu 80% and xarel.lo, is a light skin-contact white, slender, with aromas of citrus, flowers and a touch of orange peel, and with a saline finish.
La Traca 2020(Risky Grapes) is a juicy, light structure bobal from València. The colour is ruby red, and the aromas are dominated by red berries like raspberry. This red wine accompanied the vitello tonnato, as always cold veal with tuna mayonnaise, a dish with some umami. Sommelier Gustavo, also Argentinian, said that he would normally have chosen a sherry for that dish. Knowing what I now know it would have been easy to agree.
I had quite a bit of luck, as the croquetas were more spicy than expected, and also the last wine was more sweetish than expected. Las Nubes 2021 is made by José Luís Mounier, whom Gustavo called the father of the grape torrontés in Argentina. Light straw coloured, and on the nose it was very perfumed with flowers and honey. This gives a sweetish sensation, not sweetness. The same continued into the taste, not unlike a dry moscatel. I had a suspicion though that this was a wine made with selected yeasts, later confirmed by the producer’s web page. Anyway, the marriage was good, and I am happy to have found a new wonderful wine bar in central Madrid.
This Christmas I visited Bodegas Castaño in Yecla, Murcia, for the first time in more than 20 years. They are in conversion to organic farming. And if I remember right, all wines will soon have the seal, except for some wines where part of the grapes are purchased. One of their slogans is “the art of monastrell”, and through their various lines they showed what can be done with this emblematic grape of the Levante coast.
Daniel Castaño shows an ancient Roman track. Herbs contribute to the wines’ aroma
This week’s pick is one of my favourite monastrell wines. Hécula is an ancient Roman name for the town. The wine is a pure monastrell, and was also featured last year (read here). It can be considered their entry-level monastrell, but it’s not simple. It comes from a 750 meter altitude vineyard on limestone, with an average of 50 year old vines. It’s certified organic, made with spontaneous fermentation and got a few months of oak treatment (mostly French), with malolactic in steel. It’s very Mediterranean and very good.
Four historic labels, the actual to the left
Hécula Organic 2020 (Bod. Castaño)
Dark cherry red. On the nose it shows ripe berries (morello), plum, aromatic herbs (thyme, rosemary) and a hint of coffee. Full in the mouth with mature tannins, an earthy note and a fine acidity.
Price: Low
Food: All kinds of meat, stews, salads with meat (such as Caesar), murcian paella…
I am in Murcia for the holiday season. I have bought a wine cupboard and filled it with a collection of wines delivered from the national chain Vinissimus. This year I bought only one local wine (and it was the same as last year, see here). But from over in La Mancha, not far away in Manchuela, I have three wines from the same producer.
Juan Antonio Ponce works biodynamically in the vineyard, and in the winery he takes a natural approach, using low levels of sulfur dioxide. The bunches are chilled and fermented without de-stemming. Freshness is another priority when working with bobal, with harvests before most of the neighbours to avoid ripe or stewed sensations.
Clos Lojen is 100% bobal from vineyards on limestone-clay soil at 800 meters. It had a short maceration and aging for 3-4 months in used French oak barrels. Buena Pinta is not a bobal. Moravia agria, a native grape from Castilla-La Mancha, accounts for 90%, and the rest is garnacha. Moravia is noted for its acidity and blends well with garnacha. It’s aged for 7 months in used 600-liter French oak barrels and bottled without filtering or clarifying. Pie Franco was maybe the first wine I tried from Juan Antonio, and immediately put him on the throne as the King of Bobal. One can wonder how wines tasted before phylloxera. Without going into further discussion I can only say that there is a timeless air over this wine, fruit of old vines bobal planted in sandy soils where phylloxera did not enter. For me a doubtless classic.
Clos Lojén 2021: Cherry red. Fresh and fruit-driven aroma of cherry and blackberry, herbs and a peppery note. Juicy in the mouth with fine tannins wrapped in fruit, and with fresh acidity. Youthful and serious.
Buena Pinta 2021: Bright ruby red. Perfumed and complex aroma with cherries, plums, flowers, herbs, and balsamic hints. On the palate it is very fresh and vivid, with evident tannins, and a slightly bitter aftertaste. Fascinating, between fragility and strength.
Pie Franco 2021: This is a more powerful wine. Dark cherry red. Aromatic, with black fruits, scrubland and also balsamic notes (eucalyptus) Structured, with mature tannins and mineral notes. A timeless classic.
This year I haven’t tasted as many of the new Beaujolais as usual. It’s the first time I have tried Thivin‘s Nouveau, though I already knew several of their other wines.
Thivin is one of the top domaines in the Côte de Brouilly, Château Thivin is built on an ancient volcano back in the 15th century, thus one of the oldest. Claude and Evelyne, third generation of the Geoffray family, are now managing the estate with their son Claude-Edouard. They encourage biodiversity planting herbs and flowers between the rows of the more than 50 years old vines, plowing regularly and using natural composts to keep their vines healthy.
The vines for this cuvée are trained in goblet. The grapes are handpicked. Semi-carbonic maceration is used for extraction of the fruit, and the vats are handled by gravity to ensure gentle production.
Gamay Noir Vignes d’Ecussol 2022(Thivin)
Red with blueish hint. Very much raspberry, plus some currant, fresh and young, with some structure and a nice acidity.
Domaine du Bel Air is a producer of fine, age-worthy wines from cabernet franc. Jour de Soif (Day of Thirst) is their entry-level wine, made from younger vines of 20 years.
The Gauthier family is found in Benais, in the Bourgueil appellation since 1600. Today Pierre Gauthier and his son Rodolphe run the estate. It covers more some 18 hectares. Pierre Gauthier begins his winemaking work with a real philosophy. In 2000, the farm converted into organic viticulture.
The wine is a 100% cabernet franc. Manual harvest. The grapes are destemmed and then sorted on the table before being put into vats. Maceration was gentle and lasted 8 days with pumping over and a temperature not exceeding 25% to preserve as much fruit as possible. Ageing was 6 months on fine lees.
Jour de Soif2020 (Dom. du Bel Air)
Purple colour. Aroma of dark and red fruits (blueberry, cranberry), flowers. Mouthfilling with smooth tannin, medium acidity and long fruity aftertaste. Quaffable.
Price: Low
Food: Thirstquenching, but can also be drunk with light meat, Caesar and other salads and charcuterie
On my way to Valladolid I stopped in the small Segovian settlement of Nieva. This is one of the southernmost villages within the Rueda area, and probably the one with highest altitude. Ismael Gozalo’s family has been involved in the small coop Viñedos de Nieva, and Ismael himself was one of the founders of Ossian. He sold his part there to concentrate on his own project, but kept the high-altitude pre-phylloxera verdejo vineyards. (Add to this the bodega of the Herrero family, also formerly with the coop, and you see that 4 notable wineries isn’t bad for a settlement of less than 300 people.)
Ismael was waiting outside the MicroBio bodega talking to one of the neighbours when I arrived. The bodega is located right beside the village church, and an old Dominican convent forms part of the bodega.
The wine Frágil is made in damajuanas
He has been called a “verdejo alchemist”, for his creative ways to deal with this grape. Everything has root in tradition, it has to be said. I was there when I tracked down the roots of the area’s tradition for sherry-like wines. Here you can read the one article among three, the one that deals with Ismael’s EvoluciÓn.
EvoluciÓn is stored longer under flor than the dorados of the other producers’ wines. Therefore, one might call it pálido rather than dorado. Surely it is that it is also made after inspiration from the historical wines from Rueda. Because of a longer time under flor it is lighter than the others in colour. It is aromatic, with hints of ripe apples and plum and a yeasty flor characteristic. It is a very fresh wine with good concentration, vital acidity and a sweetish fruit sensation. Dry in the mouth, and good length.
The forcallà grape (or forcayat, officially forcallat) originates from Castilla-La Mancha, but nowadays most of it is found in Valencia and Murcia. (Here I have mentioned another, by the way.) The grape was common in the Levante before phylloxera. But when the farmers replanted after the plague it was largely replaced by monastrell, because it had more colour and alcohol. However, in this Mediterranean climate with high summer temperatures forcallat’s lower alcohol is now seen as a virtue, with its potential to give light, elegant and floral red wines.
Rafael Cambra is located in Fontanars dels Alforins, Valencia, where he works to recover grapes and styles. He believes in minimal intervention, and the wine is certified organic. This forcallat is from a single pie franco (ungrafted) vineyard more than fifty years old, on sandy soils. Fermentation took place with indigenous yeast in 2,000-litre stainless steel tanks with 10% stems and gentle pumping-over. Ageing for eight months in used French barrels of five hundred liters, then concrete for three months.
La Forcallà de Antonia 2020 (R. Cambra)
Cherry red. Aroma of red and dark fruits (raspberry, dark cherry), plums, spice, pepper. Full in the mouth, soft tannins, intense flavours and fruit all the way.
