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Leave a CommentCategory: Wine of the Week
Rémi Jaillet, from a family of wine growers in Loire, is now one of the rising stars in Languedoc-Roussillon. The largest wine area here (almost half of the AOC production) is Corbières in the Aude département. Corbières is a varied area in terms of soil and climate, but it’s predominantly red wine land, and carignan is the most common grape variety.
Here Rémi has 7 hectars of vineyards that he tends organically. The Clos Espinous comes mostly from more than 80 year old carignan vines. This makes up for around 60% of the cuvée, while granache and syrah stand for the rest. The must underwent spontaneous fermentation, and the wine was matured for 9 months in used oak before release.
Clos Espinous 2014 (Rémi Jaillet)
Dark red with blueish hue. Quite concentrated, slightly earthy aroma with hints of mature dark berries (morellos, blackberry), and some spiciness. In the mouth it’s full, but refreshing too. Maybe a bit on the rustic side, and reductive at opening, so airing is recommended.
Price: Low
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Rafa Bernabé makes highly original wines in the Alicante province of Spain, and -as I have showed in earlier posts such as this one– is a Spanish authority on the use of clay vessels in winemaking.
Made from the Mediterranean grape monastrell (mourvèdre). Spontaneous fermentation.
Tragolargo 2013 (Bernabé Navarro)
Dark, deep red. Dark fruits, blackcurrant, blackberry, garden flowers. Luscious, yeasty, fresh, nicely acid, and with a slightly “funky” natural wine aftertaste. The 14% of alcohol was barely noticed.
Price: Low
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A recent tasting of Brunello and Rosso di Montalcino showed a great variety of styles, from the classic wines of Banfi, the structured Fonterenzas, the “wild” Il Paradiso di Manfredo, some top end, and some old…
This was one of the best, but definitely not the most expensive. Located by the Sant’Angelo hill in the extreme south of Montalcino, Col d’Orcia has delivered good value organic wines on the fruity side for many years now. This is a special reserve that originates in a special vineyard in a (as the name suggests) “windy ridge” overlooking the river Orcia.
Grapes from the different parts were kept separate, the alcoholic fermentation was carried out in stainless steel and the malolactic in concrete. Then followed four years in big oak barrels.
Poggio al Vento Riserva 2007 (Col d’Orcia)
Dark, deep colour with hints of development. Fruity, quite cool with cherries and morello, some spice and balsamic notes. Full, lots of soft tannins, a matching acidity, and a long and lightly spicy aftertaste. Delicious now and, for me, the next 5 years or so. Good airing recommended.
Price: High (not for a brunello riserva, but generally speaking)
Food: Wild boar and a lot more
Leave a CommentHere is a really lovely orange wine, and it’s not produced in one of the countries that we would call “classic”. But not far away either, because both sides of the Italian-Slovenian border share many winemaking principles, such as the “classic” ones of organic cultivation, prolonged skin contact for white wines, and maturing in clay vessels.
This wine has been a favourite for several years, and when I met Vasja Čotar at RAWfair a couple of years ago I took the opportunity to taste through most of the range, wines made from vitovska, friulano, teran, and some merlot, cabernet and such – and a very interesting passito from refosco too. The Čotar family has been in the forefront of organic winemaking in Slovenia since they started in 1974, in the small town of Gorjansko in the hills of the Karst region, close to the border against Friuli. All of them express the limestone ground with its red, iron-rich topsoil, where the cool winds from the coast some 5 kilometers away have a temperating effect on the climate. There are also quite harsh winter winds struggling to have an impact on the wines.
Vasja Čotar at RAWfair, London
The 2006 from malvasija istriana underwent an 8 days fermentation with skins in open vats, matured in big wooden vessels (2000 liters). Needless to say, no added yeast, enzyme, sulphites…
The whites bear Vasja’s fingerprints
Malvazija 2006 (Čotar)
Deep yellow, towards orange. Aroma of mature apple, citrus, dried apricots, and a hint of sweet spices. Full on the palate, grapey and quite smooth, but with a touch of tannin, and with a saline farewell.
Price: Medium
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There is a huge clay vessel at the entrance of the Escoda-Sanahuja winery in Conca de Barberà, that gives us a hint of what to expect. I have reported on Joan Ramón Escoda and his wines several times, so I will make this short. Let me just say that I simply love this wine. Made from all chenin blanc, fermented spontaneously, matured in 720 liters amphorae, un-fined and un-sulphured. Light and full of taste at the same time, delicious on its own or with almost any food. It’s one of those wines that I really feel have a story to tell, but where the plot is somehow hidden in some mysterious cloud too, one of the wines that make me want to quote long passages from some favourite novel, and where title of the so far un-written tale The bearable lightness of being is especially apt.
I would have called it an orange wine, as it smells like “long skin contact”, but the colour is quite light; yellow, just on the verge of going over to orange. Smells of red berries, flowers, yellow tomatoes… Concentrated yet light, grapey, long and dry, with a hint of salty minerality.
Price: Medium
Food: Delicious on its own, for meditation… But try it to almost any kind of food, from the shells of the sea to the partridge of the forest, or the thrush that bathes in the puddle (that I believe is the translation of bassot)….
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Positive news from Rioja: Another terroir-oriented company, this time David Sampedro and DSJ Vineyards, a man and a company with projects in several Spanish DO’s such as Rioja, Navarra, Valencia and Rías Baixas. Common for these wines are indigenous varieties, organic farming, little intervention along the way and wines that express their terroir.
This one is a 100% graciano from the high Elvillar area in Rioja Alavesa. In this project he is now working to get a biodynamic certification. The company is also called Bodegas Bhilar, from the Basque word for Elvillar. The Lágrimas is the only varietal in the portfolio, made with purchased grapes.
Lágrimas de Graciano 2014 (Bodegas Bhilar/ DSG Vineyards)
Dark red with a violet tinge. Fruity with aromas of red berries, some blackcurrant, aromatic herbs, a hint of lickorice too. Luscious with a slight tannin grip.
Price: Low
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This time our Wine of the Week was sampled in the Cork wine bar of Bilbao. But the wine itself is from the middle of the country. Spain, that is.
This is from a project of Dani Landi and Fernando García’s, Comando G. The G stands for garnacha, here grown in three small parcels on granite 850 meters above sea level in Rozas de Puerto Real (Madrid),
The Bruja, by the way, is taken from a children’s program from the 80’s, when the winemakers grew up, called ‘the Crystal Ball’, as Dani told me when I visited them last year..
La Bruja Avería 2014 (Comando G)
Light red. Aromas of dark red fruit, cherries, herbs, and a slight touch of coffee. Light in appearance, yet quite concentrated, and good acidity that gives it a lot of freshness.
Price: Medium
Food: Tonight I had it with a pintxo of beef tenderloin on a bed of mushrooms, with a delicate syrup. But this versatile wine will go to a variety of fish and light meat too.
Leave a CommentFernando Paiva has been one of the pioneers of biodynamic farming in Portugal, making whites from loureiro, arinto, and azal grapes for white, and reds from vinhão. He is based in Sousa, a sub-region of Vinho Verde (literally “green wine”, the Minho region’s wine name) with less than average rainfall and no direct influence from the Atlantic. At the same time the climate is more moderate compared to the extreme cold nights and winters and summer heat of the inland, so we could consider it a transition area. Azal is one of the grapes that benefit from this, as it’s more difficult to ripen, compared to, say alvarinho.
Life at the quinta
Our wine is a 100% loureiro, a grape that thrieves in the whole region. The must had a spontaneous fermentation, spent almost a year on fine lees, and additions of SO2 is very scarce. It’s rich and smooth-textured compared with more well-known loureiros, but the high acidity (almost 10 g/L) makes it very appealing.
Simple and delicious fare
Quinta da Palmirinha 2014 (Fernando Paiva)
Quite deep yellow with a greenish hue. Aromas of yellow apple, lime, herbs, nuts and a hint of smoke. Inspiring and fresh acidity, that makes it last in the mouth.
Price: Low
Food: Fish, shellfish, white meat
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