Wine Chords

A two pinots Champagne

Published 28. October 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

The Olivier Horiot domaine is located in Les Riceys, a commune in Côte des Bar. We are in the southern part of Champagne, and it’s an area that has once belonged to Bourgogne. Here in the Aube département the vineyards are more scarce than in central parts of Champagne, and interspersed with forests, waters and farms.

The Horiot family continues to produce wonderful natural wines from biodynamic viticulture, and has by the way also done a great job to recover the region’s indigenous grape varieties, like arbane.

Maybe inspired by nearby Bourgogne, the domain separats its different terroirs into distinct cuvées. The result is champagnes with strong individual character.

The name Métisse refers to the fact that this cuvée is made from several different terroirs in the village of Les Riceys. It’s a non vintage, made from pinot noir and pinot blanc. It has a minimal addition of sulphites and undergoes neither fining nor filtering.

Métisse Pinots Noirs et Blancs Extra Brut (O. Horiot)

Pale yellow, small, delicate bubbles. Aromas of apples, pears, citrus, flowers, brioche and spicy notes. It’s fresh and lively on the palate, with a fine-tuned interplay between the autolysis and the fruit. Completely dry, good length.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Smooth wine ‘de Soif’

Published 21. October 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

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 Soif 2020 (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

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Tasty from the Pinhão

Published 14. October 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This summer at Porto’s Simplesmente… Vinho fair I met Miguel Morais and Filipa Silva of Quinta da Costa do Pinhão. I tasted their splendid range of wines, all from the Favaios area, by the Pinhão river, a subsidiary of the Douro.

Among them was this red, that is now available in my local shop. It comes from a scistous vineyard at 300-450 meters elevation, between 35 and 45 years old. The composition is touriga nacional 40%, touriga franca 30% and tinta roriz 30%. The grapes were foot-trodden and fermented in traditional lagares. It was aged 12 months in French barrels.

Gradual 2017 (Quinta da Costa do Pinhão)

Dark cherry red. Aroma of red and dark fruits (cherry, blackberry, plum), black pepper, herbs, licorice and some animal tones. In the mouth it’s quite full, with integrated wood, good acidity, still some tannins, and with a hint of tobacco along with the fruits. A tasty Douro, still with ageing capacity.

Price: Medium

Food: I had it with leg of lamb, but goes with a variety of tasty meat, casseroles and more

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Wine of the Week

Georgian qvevri saperavi

Published 7. October 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Saperavi is an old indigenous teinturier grape, a variety where the pulp and grape juice are colored. It’s a hardy variety, known for its ability to handle extremely cold weather, and is popular for cultivation in high altitude and inland areas such as Kakheti. But from my experience, even if the wine can be black as ink, it’s often juicy and surprisingly accessible.

The Georgian Vine and Wine Company, that also goes by the name Shilda Winery, was founded in 2014. The property covers five hectares and is owned by the Chkhartishvili family. Winemaker is Temur Kortava. Rustaveli is named after the Georgian poet Shota Rustaveli.

The wine is produced from the Saperavi grape and is fermented in large clay pots (qvevri) before 5 months of further storage in qvevri. Kakheti is the region in the far east of the country, where 70% of the vines are grown and 80% of all wine in Georgia is produced. The region has varied topography and large limestone deposits. Kakheti is the hotbed of qvevri winemaking.

Saperavi Qvevri 2020 (Rustaveli)

It has a deep, dark colour. The aroma shows hints of blueberries, wild berries, with herbs, flowers and spices. It is fruity and juicy on the palate, follows the nose with a cool herbal note, with a slight dryness.

Price: Medium

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Articles

Visit at Ismael’s

Published 3. October 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

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.

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.

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Wine of the Week

Johan’s Farmlands

Published 30. September 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This was the cheapest and, for me, the most rewarding in a local wine club tasting of Oregon pinots. The wines were generally attractive, though expensive, and far from the stereotype that says pinot from overseas are heavy, dull and oaky.

Johan Vineyards is located in the Van Duzer Corridor AVA of Oregon. The corridor stretches east to west towards the Pacific Ocean, which gives cool temperatures and winds from the Pacific. The calcareous sedimentary soils with granite contrast with the more normal iron-rich volcanic soils in the north Willamette Valley.

Johan is Dag Johan Sundby, a Norwegian who came to Denver, Colorado, to study economy. Sundby wasn’t particularly interested in wine at the time. But when he received an offer to invest in a vineyard in Oregon and went there, it was love at first sight. So he and his co-investor had no doubts. This was in 2004. He was supposed to go back to Denver to fulfill his plans. But in 2007 his partner got sick. He moved to Oregon, hired a winemaker and took over the entire winery.

There have been many ups and downs, and a lot of responsibility. It is not a job, but a way of life. In 2009, Sundby built a house on the farm and since then he has lived in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. The original farm was just a garage and one planted vineyard. The rest came later. In the beginning he grew three grape varieties which he mostly supplied to other producers, but today, on his 70 hectares of vineyards, he grows 14 different ones from which he makes wine himself. All the vineyards are grown biodynamically, and the farm was certified in 2010.

This wine comes from all estate-grown fruit. Vine age averages 10 years. It is native yeast fermented in stainless steel and aged for 9 months in neutral oak barrels.

Farmlands Pinot Noir 2019 (Johan Vineyards)

Cherry red. Aroma of red fruits (raspberry, cherry), flowers and an earthy touch. Medium-bodied, fine and elegant texture, super pinot fruit and good acidity.

Price: Medium

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Ploughman’s Pinot

Published 23. September 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Alexander Pflüger is third-generation owner and winemaker of Weingut Pflüger in the Pfalz. The name Pflüger means he who ploughs, and implies that the family has a long tradition as farmers. They were pioneers in organic farming in Germany, and the vineyards were certified in 1989. In the early 2000s, they switched to biodynamic. Today, Weingut Pflüger is the producer in Germany with the largest Demeter-certified vineyard.

It’s an all pinot, spontaneously fermented and raised in steel.

Buntsandstein Pinot Noir 2020 (Pflüger)

Cherry red with blueish hint. Aroma of red berries (raspberry), plums, anise, an earthy touch. Juicy, fresh, medium-bodied, with fresh acidity.

Price: Low

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Wine of the Week

More Biokult

Published 16. September 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

We presented a “cultic” pét nat from this producer last year. (Read here.) We continue with a white one, or more accurately: orange. It’s a group of producers from Burgenland, Austria that have got together, and get some help from Meinklang with the winemaking.

The grapes are grüner veltliner 65%, welschriesling 25% and muscat 10%. They were grown in clay and limestone soils, picked by hand and spontaneously fermented with 7-8 days of skin maceration. Maturation was done in steel, and the wine was bottled unfiltered.

Weisse Blumen 2021 (Biokult)

Light orange. Aromatic with white flowers, white peach, a touch orange peel. Fresh taste, nice rounded acidity, lightly structured, salty finish.

Price: Low

Food: Apéritif, salads, fish (red and white), light meat, pig

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Wine of the Week

Elegant Pirouette

Published 9. September 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Les Vins Pirouettes is a label created by Christian Binner. The idea is to give selected growers the opportunity to launch their ecologic wines under an established umbrella. Here it is Raphaël who offers his elegant crémant zéro dosage. (You can find more from the project if you search these pages. Here is another, also by Raphaël.)

This week’s wine is a Crémant d’Alsace from 2018, made from riesling 60% and pinot gris 40% planted 1970 in chalky soil. It’s spontaneusly fermented, spent 24 months on lees and was bottled without added sugar.

Le Crémant de Raphaël 2018 (Les Vins Pirouettes/ C. Binner)

Light yellow, small bubbles. Aromatic, yellow apples, lime, bisques. Fresh, dry, good acidity, quite long.

Price: Medium

Food: Apéritif, salads, white fish, shellfish, lightly spiced food…

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Wine of the Week

Fruity Forcallà from Fontanars

Published 2. September 2022 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

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.

Price: Medium

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