Category: Wine of the Week

Radikon at Bellies

Published 8. November 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Bellies is probably Norway’s best vegan restaurant, which focuses on natural wine. In connection with their 5 year anniversary, they had invited the iconic producer Saša Radikon from Friuli, for a winemaker’s dinner.

The staff at Bellies had made impressive pairings between their “full bellies” menu and Radikon’s wines. Jakot 2018, made with 3 months skin-contact, was perfect with a sauce rich in umami, where I normally would chose a sherry, just to name one example.

It was an unbelieveable line-up of wines, that included mature wines such as Merlot 2006 and Pignolo 2011. The evening’s revelation for me was the Ribolla 3781 in the 2007 vintage. Pairing-wise it was an easy match for this wine, as it was set up with a plate of mushrooms – and could have managed much more demanding ingrediences. Anyway, it gave the wine an opportunity to shine. And it did.

Here is some background. Radikon’s 12-hectare estate is located in Oslavia in the far north-east of Friuli Venezia, literally on the border with Slovenia. Radikon has a natural approach, where everything is done without the use of artificial or chemical aids. All grapes are harvested manually and fermented in tanks of Slavonian oak. The soil is called ponka, or ponca, very rich in minerals. It has a large proportion of gray and blue marl, occasionally mixed with clay. Deposits from old rivers and seas have produced a high content of lime. Ponka produces wines with both weight and freshness.

3781 is the number of the parcel below the cellar. The wine from here is produced only in the best years. It’s a varietal ribolla gialla, made with 3 months of maceration, then 4 years in oak and 10 years in bottle. It comes in a one liter bottle.

Ribolla 3781 2007 (Radikon)

The colour is golden with copper. Aroma of dried peach and apricot, curry and baked apple – almost like a well-matured cheese. Smooth in the mouth with high glycerin, rich, seamless, with an integrated acidity and great length. It has an autumnal air, still full of energy. This is a unique wine. It’s perfect, legendary.

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Wine of the Week

Dalamára xinomavro

Published 1. November 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This wine was one of many good wines in a xinomavro tasting in my local wine club last Monday. Xinomavro is the most emblematic grape in the northern part of Greece and is characterized by a light colour and crystalline tannins, not very unlike nebbiolo. The prices are generally sympathetic.

Kostis Dalamára is a sixth-generation winemaker in Naoussa, the historic region of Macedonia. When he took over the family estate in 2010 he introduced organic cultivation, spontaneous fermentation and reduced sulfur dioxide levels. The soil in the area is sandy loam to clay, which comes from former limestone and marl rocks.

The grapes for this wine are de-stemmed and fermented in steel tanks, macerates for some 25 days before being moved to 300-500 liter barrels to mature for 6 months in 10% new oak. The rest is 1-14 year old barrels.

Naossa 2021 (Dalamára)

Ruby red. Aroma of mature strawberries, raspberry, sundried tomato and an earthy note. Medium-bodied, with those signature xinomavro tannins and a nice integrated acidity. It’s more fruity than most, somewhere between rusticity and elegance.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Fresh red from amphora

Published 25. October 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This wine was served at Vinmonopolet’s tasting this week. Herdade do Rocim is known as one of the leading producers of vinho de talha, clay-aged wine, in Alentejo, Portugal. They also host a festival for clay-based wines.

Here I chose the red version. Fresh from Amphora 2022 comes in a 1L bottle and is part of the Nat’Cool concept of easy drinking wines initiated by Niepoort.

The grape varieties are moreto 40%, and the rest tinta grossa and trincadeira. The ancestral method of making the wine in talha (large clay pots) is used. Vinification is carried out with no temperature control. Fermentation took place using indigenous yeasts and with no addition or correction. The must saw two months of skin contact inside the amphora.

Fresh from Amphora 2022 (Herdade do Rocim)

Light ruby colour. Aroma of cherry and strawberry, stonefruit, with an earthy note. Juicy in the mouth, fresh, with fine tannins, a touch of salt. Overall it’s light, clean and harmonious.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Beautiful Brouilly

Published 18. October 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Château Thivin dates back to 1877. Today the 6th generation of the Geoffray family runs the estate.

The name of the wine comes from seven plots at Mont Brouilly in Côte de Brouilly, each contributing to the complexity with their various orientations and characteristics.

The soils are dominated by the blue stones of the region, stonier for the highest plots and more clayey for those closer to the foot of the hill.

The wine is made partly with whole bunches and matured in oak tuns for 7 months. Blending is done in the spring.

Côte de Brouilly Les Sept Vignes 2023 (Château Thivin)

Garnet red with bluish hint. Aroma of cherry, blueberry and flowers, with a mineral touch. Round in the mouth with fine tannins, good acidity and a spicy finish.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Charming Douro

Published 11. October 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Tonight at Tempo wine bar in Sandnes, Norway we were served this wine. This is Niepoort’s interpretation of his fascination for Bourgogne. It’s made from local grape varieties, but it’s light coloured and elegant, and clearly in line with the model.

Whole bunches were lightly foot trodden in granite lagares, before a short extraction. The fermentation was initially carried out in lagares and then the process was completed with 15 months ageing in used barriques. The grapes are tinta roriz and touriga franca

Charme 2022 (Niepoort)

Bright ruby colour. Aroma of red fruits (raspberry, strawberry), flowers, graphite, earth. Smooth in the mouth with fine tannins, aromatic herbs and slight caramel nuances, and a long aftertaste provided by the acidity. It’s an elegant wine, but due to a slight wood presence even better in a couple of years from now.

Price: High

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Wine of the Week

Fabulous Foillard

Published 4. October 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This wine was from the same Morgon theme tasting as last week’s wine. Jean Foillard is a favourite on these pages. See fx here.

Côte du Py is a prestigious slope in the outskirts of the village of Villié-Morgon, that gives name to the Morgon cru. The soil is decomposed schist, rich in ferrour oxide and called morgons.

Domaine Jean Foillard is a family-run winery founded in the 1980s by Jean Foillard, who took over the estate from his father. Foillard was one of the so-called gang of four, vintners that were inspired by the teachings of natural wine guru Jules Chauvet. The majority of the 14 hectares of vines on the estate are found in the Côte du Py.

The wine is made with natural viticulture and vinification techniques, without the use of herbicides or pesticides, and with minimal sulphur additions. Some keywords: Hand-harvest, whole cluster maceration and fermentation with indigenous yeasts. The wine was raised a good half year in used oak barrels.

Morgon Côte du Py 2022 (Jean Foillard)

Deep cold cherry colour. Intense aroma of cherry, with chalk and earth. Though concentrated it also has a layer of fresh raspberry and flowers on top. Quite powerful in the mouth, with young tannins, fresh fruit, an integrated acidity. Fabulous wine that currently is good with food, but will probably benefit from 5-6 more years.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Morgon Monday

Published 27. September 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Last Monday my local wine club served a dozen of Morgon wines. Most of them originate from the various climats that make up the appellation. This one is from a small climat called Douby, next to the famous Côte de Py.

Domaine Louis-Claude Desvignes is located in the town Villié-Morgon, that gives name to the Morgon appellation in Beaujolais. Today it’s run by eighth generation, the siblings Claude-Emmanuelle and Louis-Benoît Desvignes. They work their soils in the most natural way possible. No synthetic products are used in the vineyards, and the work in the cellar is carried out with as little intervention as possible.

Their Morgons are made without aging in wood. Instead they spend some time in concrete vats. The macerations depends of the wine. In preparing the tasting I also tried their Morgon Voûte Saint-Vincent. That one is macerated only for ten days and aimed at earlier consumption, while other bottlings see longer macerations.

This wine comes from an 80 year old 1 hectare vineyard in Douby. Here at this place called Château Gaillard the soil is sand and granite. The harvest is manual and the vinification traditional with 10% of the grapes destemmed. Fermentation lasts 10 days, then the wine is aged in cement vats for 7 months.

Morgon Château Gaillard 2021 (Louis Claude Desvignes)

Deep cold cherry colour. Intense aroma of cherry and flowers, with chalk and earth. Quite powerful in the mouth with fresh fruit, an integrated acidity and young fine-grained tannins. I think the 21s in the tasting had benefitted from one year more than the 22s. Still this one is probably at its best after 4-5 more years.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Dry PX

Published 20. September 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Ximénez-Spínola is a rare bird in the fauna jerezana, in that they are focusing on a single grape, the pedro ximénez, or simply PX.

This week’s wine is a dry take on what’s normally, in this region, elaborated as a sweet wine. It’s made from grapes that are overripe, the producer counts 21 additional days to the conventional harvest. The grapes are harvested by hand, then pressed softly,. The wine is placed with its skins in French oak barrels of between 225 and 300 liters, adding 30 liters to each barrel every day – hence the name, that means slow fermentation – so that the yeasts can finish off all the sugars daily and leave the wine completely dry. The musts are aged on lees with a gentle batonage for six months in the barrel.

Fermentación Lenta 2019 (Ximénez-Spínola)

Light golden with greenish hint, high viscosity. Aroma of dried plums, wax, hint of caramel. Full in the mouth, glyceric, with figs, ripe fruit and a sweet touch like caramel, but rounds off dry. A unique wine with lots of personality.

Price: Medium/high

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Wine of the Week

Lumière, a brilliant white

Published 13. September 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This is the second article in a series of three, about unfortified wines from the sherry district. This white table wine is just brilliant. It’s a palomino without additions, not even any influence of flor. It’s a sublime expression of grape and place.

Alejandro Muchada and his partner David Léclapart make incredible terroir-driven wines full of saline minerality, and always with a lovely texture. From three plots of a total of 3.6 hectares in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, Alejandro works according to biodynamic principles, and in the cellar he shows a hands-off philosophy..

The grapes for this wine is taken from Viña La Platera Vieja in Miraflores Baja, that is a 1.2 hectares plot. The soil is calcareous albariza, with a hard rock albariza type called “tosca cerrada”, under clayey limestone. The orientation is west and the vines are more than 60 years old.

The grapes were hand-harvested, directly pressed for 3-4 hours, spontaneously fermented and matured for 12 months on lees in used barrels. Bottled without filtering.

Lumière 2021 (Muchada-Léclapart)

Yellow colour, slightly cloudy. Aroma of yellow apples, flowers, almonds, black olives and citrus and a touch of salt. Concentrated, medium-bodied, fruity in the mouth with almonds, smooth texture, mineral. Finishes very long. It has this extra nerve that is hard to define, but makes it a great wine. As the name might imply: Brilliant.

Price: High

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Wine of the Week

Palatable Pasto

Published 6. September 2024 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Vino de pasto is a table wine, here as opposed to a fortified sherry. The word is probably from the same root as pasture.

But first a brief history. The Pérez family have been winemakers for several generations. In 2002 Luis, a professor of oenology and former winemaker at Domecq, set up his bodega just outside Jerez, together with his children. Most significantly, his son Willy has made his name as a brilliant winemaker that takes the sherry trade in new and interesting directions.

One of their main objective is exploring the historic pagos (vineyards) of Jerez. This wine La Escribana is made of palomino fino grapes grown on Cerro de Obispo, a hill in the pago Macharnudo, on albariza (limestone) soil. This south-east facing plot, approximately 100 metres above sea level, is pruned in the local vara y pulgar pruning method (means stick and thumb, and has some similarity to Guyot). Picking is done twice; early for acidity, then later for more maturity. After a 5-6 hours asoleo (drying) and cold fermentation in steel, it undergoes 12 months of ageing on the lees with a little flor, in 80 years old sherry butts.

This review is the first of a “triangle” of unfortified wines from the sherry area.

La Escribana 2022 (Luis Pérez)

Light yellow. Notes of citrus (lemon peel), green apples, flowers, chalk, and a light yeast character. Full in the mouth, fresh, good acidity, some grapefruity bitterness and a marked saltiness.

Price: Medium

Food: We had it with bacalao, but should go to a variety of tasty fish and light meat dishes, as well as various tapas.

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