Back at Sentralen yesterday, we not only had a simple meal and two delicious wines by the glass. It’s Oslo’s annual jazz festival this week, and the festival uses the building as a “festival office” for the 4th year. There are good vibes in the whole building. So after the meal we found our way through a festival crowd and took went up to 3rd floor to enjoy another gig.
The food was pizza this time, a spicy and tasty vegan version, and a more “wine friendly” white pizza. One of the wines was Arianna Occhipinti’s red SP68.
Arianna at the Real Wine fair 2017
Occhipinti is located in the Vittoria region of Sicilia, and SP68 is the main road in the area. Arianna has now 25 hectares certified-organic vineyards, only local varieties, and practices biodynamic.
This wine is made from frappato 70%, that gives acidity and elegance, and nero d’Avola, that is there more for body and colour. It has been a favourite for many years, and it was nice to try the fresh vintage 2018.
Arianna says that the secret to make more elegant wines in the area is not irrigating, harvesting late and not using fertilizers. The freshness comes from the subsoils. Contrary to this, a wine made from young or chemically grown vines would most often take its nutrition from the topsoil and would as a result have a warm, cooked character. The SP68 wines are vinified and aged in small concrete tanks, with no oak and no punchdowns.
The two varietals are native to Sicily and are grown on red sand soils over limestone rock, with vines averaging 15 years old on four different sites. The vines are organically farmed and hand-harvested. The fruit is mainly destemmed (4% stem inclusion in the upcoming 2017 vintage) and co-fermented with native yeasts in concrete tanks and with a two-week skin maceration. The wine is aged in concrete tanks for 8 months and bottled unfiltered.
SP 68 Rosso 2018 (Arianna Occhipinti)
Dark, young red, blueish hint. Fresh, fruity, aromas of blueberry, cherry, some herbs. Juicy, luscious in the mouth, with young tannins, and a fresh acidity.
This Loire pét nat was served at restaurant Söl, Stavanger, Norway. It was a starter, outside the set menu, and a fresh and inviting start of their five course meal.
British Toby Bainbridge and his wife Julie are found near Angers, in the western Loire.
In a modest winery they make three different wines. This cuvée is a pink lightly-bubbled méthode ancestrale (lightly sparkling) wine made with the local grolleau noir grape. The second fermentation is in bottle and sulphur additions are very low.
La Danseuse means “The Dancer” in French. One of his importers tells that it can also refer to “the barrel of wine that a vigneron would put aside for his mistress”. In the past, we should add.
Part of the story is that Denmark was the first export country. Toby went with a friend. Noma, one of the world’s top restaurants, was the first stop. And the wine has been found there ever since.
La Danceuse at Söl
Cuvée La Danceuse 2017(Bainbridge)
Salmon pink. Discrete smell of raspberries and red currants. Delicate red berries in the mouth, fresh acidity and a refreshing carbonic feel, and a long and dry finish.
This is a wine that you just read about in the article from the orange wine tasting at London’s Real Wine fair.
Momento Mori means something like ‘Remember that you have to die’ in Latin. Dane Johns from New Zealand is the man behind this winery, that makes use of grape from growers in Heathscote, Victoria. He thinks that many Italian grape varieties are well adapted to this area, and the grapes for this particular wine are vermentino, fiano, moscato giallo, and malvasia – fermented separately, then blended.
We are always talking about small batches, wild yeast, no new oak, no fining, no filtration, and no additions. This one spent one and a half months on skins.
Staring At The Sun 2018(Momento Mori)
Light yellow colour. Aromatic, smells of white flowers, citrus, spice, some ginger. Just a touch of tannin, very delicate, yet very flavourful, and a lovely acidity that makes it last. This is a proof that aromatic grapes like moscato can be really successful with extended skin-contact.
At the Real Wine fair there were several seminars and guided tastings given by both winemakers and writers. Among the scheduled speakers were Heidi Nam Knudsen and Jon Passmore, who practise an alternative wine education focusing on vineyard practices and winemaking techniques. The topic at the fair was “Retasting Wine: How we can become more informed drinkers.”
Alex Thorp conducted a “German Growers’ Masterclass”. Derek Morrison and Mike Hopkins of the Bring Your Own podcast interviewed a bunch of growers, among them Portuguese artisan Pedro Marques. Speaking of Portugal, Jamie Goode did just that together with Ines Salpico in the program “An Exploration of Portugal’s Wine Revolution.”
While I talked to some of these people on their way in and out of the seminar room, the only seminar I had booked beforehand was Simon J. Woolf’s presentation of his book Amber Revolution through a tasting of five wines from the so-called New World.
His seminar was informative, and there was a two-way communication. Simon answered questions from the audience with great virtuosity, and his short comments about each wine demonstrated how well-chosen the wines were.
Simon’s definition of an orange wine is a wine made with skin-contact that exceeds the “normal” 3-4 hours. In other words, it’s about the technique, more than the colour itself. He compares it to a white wine: -What colour is a white wine? White – as this paper?
Light examples from the tasting were Staring at the Sun 2018(Momento Mori) and Elementis 2018 (Intellego). The first one, a citrussy, lightly spicy wine from Victoria, Australia, was quite light yellow, though it had been 6 weeks on skins. This because winemaker Dane Johns holds back on extraction. Elementis from Swartland, South Africa I know from several vintages; always fresh, appealing, this time very lemony, with green apple. Jurgen Gouws shares his colleague’s philosophy of minimal extraction.
Other than this there was the Pinot Gris 2016(A & D. Beckham), a pink, red-tinged wine from the grape that we know is not white at all. It’s also known from Radikon, one of the natural and orange wine pioneers. This Oregon pinot gris was fresh, but warmer notes appeared after a while, and it was surprisingly smooth, the colour taken into account (also not usual for the variety). Vinu Jancu 2017(La Garagista), an amber, beeswax, onion and plum smelling wine from the unlikely state of Vermont and the rare grape called la crescent and Chilion 2016(Ruth Lewandowski), a lighter cortese with grapes from Santa Barbara, California, but made in Utah, finished the US American trio. It should be said that it’s Evan Lewandowski that is behind this project, but he named the winery after the Book of Ruth.
Regarding a question about what wines work with extended skin-contact, he points out that thick-skinned varieties go well. Aromatic varieties too, can perfom very well, such as moscato and gewürztraminer.
Simon J. Woolf has every reason to be happy with the book release
Amber Revolution
I have written a more extensive review of Simon’s book in the Norwegian language for the Vinforum magazine. You can read it on my magazine page. Here is a summary:
Simon J. Woolf has written what is referred to as the world’s first book on orange wine. Woolf started his writing career in 2011 with the blog The Morning Claret for which he is still editor. He is also a regular contributor to journals such as Decanter. He is no well-known author though, and this is his first book. So there were no publishers who wanted to go for the project. That’s why he started a crowdfunding through his website, and nearly 400 people contributed to the “Kickstarter” campaign.
Woolf currently lives in Amsterdam. And it can almost seem ironic that it took someone in close contact with the Netherlands, with the historical “Oranje” dynasty, to get the idea to write about orange wines.
The book is partly an introduction to the orange wine world, partly a cultural and history lesson. Woolf writes well and demonstrates early on that he is both the passion and the insight needed. It is fascinating to take part in this journey, from his first, emotional contact with the drink in Sandi Skerks cellar in Friuli. But then he takes us further back in time and goes chronologically from the ancient Georgia, that we know as the orange wine’s cradle, via pioneers in today’s Friuli and Slovenia (with Joško Gravner as the main character) and beyond.
There is also a section on recommended producers from many different countries. Finally, the financial contributors are listed. Among them there are some wineries, although I find no reason to assume that it has affected the journalistic selection. The fact columns contain information about food for orange wine, grapes that respond well to the technique, misconceptions about orange wine, how qvevri are made, etc. Taking these columns out the main story also helps to make the text flow better .
Ryan Opaz, who lives in Porto, is one of the founders of the Catavino site, where Woolf also contributes. Opaz has provided images that depict both landscapes and people in an exemplary manner. The book itself is also made of paper with a certain texture, which responds to the wines the book is about.
Woolf says he could use different names for the same phenomenon, such as skin-macerated wines and amber wines. After a discussion with himself, he has ended up calling it orange wines. His definition is based on the technique, not the colour. An orange wine does not therefore need to be orange, but it has had extended skin contact. It can be yellow, dark mahogany, or even reddish or pink in cases where the grape has a lot of pigment, such as pinot grigio.
Here we have arrived at a point that I assume he has thought about himself, the title of the book. After choosing orange wine as the preferred term, he ends up using amber in the title. The Portuguese carnation revolution emerges in my consciousness when reading the title, and compared with this the term “orange wine” could perhaps have added another dimension. And even though the events of the 1990s and up to the present seem like a revolution, in the long term it will probably be more correct to call what we now experience a “revival,” or maybe a revitalization of a tradition. But none of this “troubles” me; Amber Revolution is a saleable title. And the subtitle, “how the world learned to love orange wines”, puts it all in place.
I will not reveal too much of the content. But I think the sections about Friuli and Slovenia, the multicultural and multilingual area at the intersection of East, West and South – and the political backdrop that is hoisted – is a particularly good section of the book. Here the story of the world wars becomes a necessary part. The families of the leading producers were finding themselves on a veritable battlefield with changing actors, not least Italy, Austria-Hungary and Yugoslavia.
There are many who will enjoy this book. It is a niche book, but it at the same time exceeds the niche, and I would think that the vast majority of people interested in wine will find it fascinating, entertaining and enriching.
Amber Revolution – how the world learned to love orange wine
By Simon J. Woolf, foreword by Doug Wregg (director of import company Les Caves de Pyrène,), photo: Ryan Opaz
Fernando Paiva has been one of the pioneers of biodynamic farming in Portugal, with his stylish and inviting Vinho Verde wines. I have written about them several times, like here. Following this year’s Simplesmente… Vinho fair I got the chance to meet him at his Quinta da Palmirinha in Lixa, near Amarante, where he lives.
Fernando Paiva tidying up a little as he passes
From the 2017 vintage he uses the unlikely element of chestnut flowers. They grow just outside the door, and he adds them to the press, and they act as an anti-oxydant, so there is no use of added sulphites.
Lixa is in the sub-region of Sousa, where there is less rainfall than further out to the coast, but also moderate compared to the continental inland. So we could say it’s a zone in between. This place is excellent for a grape like azal, that is difficult to ripen, and that makes up half of this wine, together with arinto.
The chestnut grows just outside the winery door
Quinta da Palmirinha Branco 2017
Light straw coloured, tiny bubbles. Floral and fruity, with some citric notes. In the mouth it’s in a way mellow, but with a fine citric touch, dry, with a lovely minerality.
I have known André Pereira for many years, but for some reason his wines have never featured as a “wine of the week”. His wines are all well-made and of splendid value, and you can read about some of them in this post.
André Pereira
The farm Quinta do Montalto has belonged to his family for 5 generations. It comprises 50 hectares of vines, olives and other crops. It’s found in the municipality of Ourém, that is actually belonging to Leiria, but most of the wines are still classified as regional Lisboa.
Even if the 17 is already in the market I chose the 2015 vintage here, because this is the one I enjoyed last. And it’s not always necessary to drink the last edition. One is not better that the other; they are different. This one has lost its young blueberry character, but it’s nevertheless a superb, fruity wine that will last still a couple of years. The 2015 vintage of this wine was made from aragonêz and castelão in equal parts. The fermentation was natural, and it was made in steel. It’s certified organic and vegan.
Vinha da Malhada 2015(Quinta do Montalto)
Red cherry colour with some sign of evolution. Smells of red and dark berries, lightly spicy and some dried fruits start to show. Still fresh and luscious in the mouth, with an integrated acidity.
The Real Wine fair brings together small independent vine growers from all over, to celebrate their talent, and to illustrate the diversity in the world of artisan winemaking. This year the number of participants was around 160. The fair is organised by British importer and distributor Les Caves de Pyrène, with help from many good friends.
In addition there are guest speakers for the seminars, and it’s possible to buy delicious food from the many food stalls set up for the occation. The city is bustling with activity in the days leading up to and during the fair, with many of the producers participating. And there are pop-ups, take-overs or what you like to call it when a restaurant has guest cooks from other restaurants.
“So much wine, so little time…”, a favourite quote about the fair
I will try to cover some of this in three chapters. Here are some of my most interesting findings from the fair itself. In the next article I will talk about Simon J. Woolf’s seminar and his book. Last article will be from wine bar Terroirs, who received visitors from Norway.
Here are just a few of the many good wines I tasted. To prevent the Nile from crossing its banks, the rules of the game are: Pick 5 countries, 3 producers from each, then one special wine. Please search elsewhere on this blog, and you will find that most producers are already mentioned here.
UK
We start at home in the UK. Not far away in East Sussex and Kent we find British organic wine pioneer Will Davenport. From his Davenport Vineyards he offers well-made whites and sparklings. A new producer for me was Ancre Hill Estates, over in Wales, that showed sound winemaking and exciting results. Really expressive, and completely natural, were the wines of Tillingham, near Rye in East Sussex (not far from Hastings). The driving force is Ben Walgate, who also acts as cellar master and winemaker. All his ferments are wild, and he works with steel, oak and clay. He has some really interesting work with Georgian qvevri going on. But now…
PN Rosé 2018(Tillingham Wines): A pét nat of mainly ortega variety (68%), the rest müller thurgau, dornfelder, rondo and pinot noir. The grapes are sourced from a number of growers, so there is also a mixture of soils and elevations. It was fermented in ambient temperatures. No filtration, fining or sulphur additions. The colour is salmon pink, has some natural sediment; a fruity aroma including gooseberry, rhubarb, some yeasty notes; refreshing acidity, easy drinking.
Serena and Ben of Tillingham
Austria
From Austria there were many splendid wines to chose from, and I could have written a long piece of praise only about the three chosen ones. Sepp of Weingut Maria & Sepp Muster were there with delicate orange wines and much more. Claus Preisinger has become a favourite with his stylish grüners, other whites, and his ground-breaking blaufränkisch reds. The “prize” goes to Christian Tschida this time, for his many superb offerings from the hot Neusiedlersee area.
Laissez-Faire 2015(C. Tschida): This is a blend of pinot blanc and riesling (though I think it used to be a varietal riesling). Made in big barrels, no racking, no no…Christian is hinting to the laissez-faire philosophy, isn’t he? The wine is yellow with orange hints, slightly pétillant; very fruity, appley with hints of anise and fennel; super acidity reach the tongue, it’s rich, plays with oxidation. Very interesting, and very enjoyable drinking.
Christian Tschida (right) with Jimmy “just a friend”
Spain
Spain is one of my preferred countries, and very well represented on this blog. It was nice to see Pedro Olivares again, and taste his diverse portfolio of wines from sea level to 1700 meters in Murcia, Jaén and València. It’s always a pleasure to taste the cool wines of Pedro Rodríguez of Adegas Guimaro in Ribeira Sacra. Daniel Jiménez-Landi of Comando G has worked hard for the Gredos (or: Cebreros) region, since he crossed over from the family farm in Toledo. For many years now he brought to the limelight some of the most elegant, mineral and simply inspiring wines that the country has to present. I use this opportunity to express my deepest compassion for all that is lost in the recent terrible fires (vineyards, trees and land).
El Tamboril 2016(Comando G): This wine outside the program is sourced from a 0.2 hectares vineyard of garnacha blanca and garnacha gris on sandy quartz and granite at 1.230 metres. It’s a result of the latest harvest. Whole bunches are pressed into concrete eggs, before 10 months in old French oak. The wine is light yellow; aroma of wild flowers and herbs, mature apples, some ginger; full, concentrated and long, with super acidity. A great modern Spanish white.
Dani (left) with his friend and fellow Gredos vintner Alfredo
Portugal
Portugal has a similar position for me, and I taste some of the wines quite often. Pedro Marques’ expressive, natural Vale da Capucha wines from the north of the Lisboa region are always worth a re-taste. The same can be said about Vasco Croft’s Aphros range from the country’s northernmost region Minho. Herdade do Cebolal on the Alentejo coast, in the southern part of Setúbal, was new to me. Luis had brought several interesting wines from small plots with a variety of soils.
Imerso 2015 (sea version)(Herdade do Cebolal): The main focus of interest this time was a wine that had been aged 10-18 metres under water, in collaboration with a professional diver that knows the coast intimately. We also tasted it alongside an “on land-version”. And it must be said that the underwater wine was softer, more elegant. Maybe the maturation is faster. The colour was cherry red; aroma of plums, with a vegetal component; round in the mouth, quite polished.
The underwater version of Imerso alongside its “on-land” counterpart
Georgia
We now move out of “the old world” and into an even older wine world. Well probably. Anyway, Georgia has long traditions, and a long unbroken tradition of wines made in qvevri, big clay pots. When we also take into account the country’s orange wines it’s no wonder that Georgia has become such a wine pilgrimage destination lately. Iago Bitarishvili from the Kartli region offered some demanding wines. Some were aromatic, some with an intriguing mix of waxy texture and bitter taste. These wines I want to re-taste. Iberieli is a family producer (named Topuridze) located in Guria to the west and Kakheti to the east. Like the two other producers presented here they use the most familiar Georgian grapes like mtsvane, rkatsiteli and saperavi. They have also taken up the tradition of qvevri making. On to something more familiar: I have tasted Pheasant’s Tears’ wines at several occasions. But this was the first time I had met John Wurdeman, the man behind the label.
Tsolikauri-Vani 2018(Pheasant’s Tears): This time I tasted just a few wines. A really interesting wine was the Tsolikauri-Vani. Tsolikauri is a widespread variety in the west. It has a light skin, and John tells it gives fine acidity, good for semi-dry and semi-sweet wines. Vani is a place, and if my memory doesn’t fail me it’s here that the wine comes from. The winery is in Kakheti though. The wine is light in colour, with just a hint of orange; aroma of white flowers, apples, tea, some citrus; it’s quite waxy in the mouth, well-balanced and, needless to say, with a good acidity.
John Wurdeman, with Gela Patalishvili
In next chapter from the Real Wine fair we will follow the orange wine track and also move over to other continents.
This wine I tasted at the Real Wine fair of London quite recently. Gentle Folk are Gareth and Rainbo Belton, who have seven hectars in Basket Ranges of Adelaide Hills. They farm their grapes are organically in the vineyard, and in the cellar all treatments are gentle, and with little or no additions.
Blossoms has traditionally been a merlot-based blend. But this year a change has been made: It has now become a varietal pinot noir from Norton Summit, not far away. This is a new vineyard for them, planted 25 years ago, and organically from the very first day. Whole bunches are gently pressed, before a short maceration.
Blossoms 2018(Gentle Folk Wines)
Light cherry red. It’s full of red fruits (raspberry, strawberry) and flowers. In the mouth it is light, with a crisp acidity, but it has a surprisingly concentration of flavours. It’s honest and clean, bangs no drums, but lightly chilled it’s in perfect harmony on a mild summer’s day.
La Casa del Perro is a hidden gem in the historic centre of Málaga. Here the couple Ana and Fede serves small well-elaborated dishes to be paired with delicious natural wines.
We visited several times during a couple of weeks and enjoyed a great variety of dishes, such as Guacamole with home made nachos, Carpaccio of beef with yellow tomatoes, parmesan and greens, and also a vegan lemon cake made with almond milk.
Ana and Fede
But what initially caught my attention were their wine offerings. Many of these are from the leading producers in natural wine field, especially southern ones, like Barranco Oscuro, Cauzón, Torcuato Huertas and José Miguel Márquez (all of whom are presented on this blog). I met Ana earlier this year at the Barcelona wine fairs, and some of the vintners I had marked as “interesting”, she had contacted, and some already included. La Zafra of Alicante is an example. La Casa del Perro may not have the biggest selection, but it is indeed an eclectic one.
A little background: Ana and Fede opened their restaurant in the historic centre of Málaga in 2004, and moved to the current location some three years ago. The restaurant’s name is a result of a wordplay game started by a friend.
They were both born in this neighbourhood, and both families have lived there for generations. As Ana tells:
-We strive and fight to do what we like, and we are very happy to find ourselves in a neighborhood a bit hidden. We totally disagree with bars and restaurants that receive the passing tourist as if they were cattle. We want the visitor to have a good time and have a desire to come again.
Barranco Oscuro’s Ring! Ring! (Riesling)
Among the many wines we tasted during the visits were some new and interesting ones, such as a varietal parellada called Water Fly (Ca Foracaime, and bottled by Celler Portes Abertes in Terra Alta, Catalunya), a light white with an integrated acidity, and Pura Vida 2018 (Vinos Fondón), a promising dark and juicy garnacha rosé from the Almería part of the Alpujarras. From the more established artisans were Marenas Mediacapa xviii (18) (José Miguel Márquez, Montilla), a clean and delicious, light straw, off dry, some co2 wine, and La Pámpana 2018 (Viña Enebro, Bullas), made partly with carbonic maceration, a cherry red, juicy wine with some co2. Then the Ring! Ring! (Barranco Oscuro): Nothing to do with the old ABBA song, but a wordplay on riesling, a light golden, good acidity wine. There were also several editions of La Traviesa, made by the same producer, with grapes from one their neighbours up in the Alpujarras. (Read here about my recent visit to the producer.)
Lastly I want to draw your attention to four wines that really stand out. Either are they interesting takes on traditional themes, or simply of amazing quality.
NU Rosado /3/2017(La Zafra): This one I mentioned in the beginning, and in an article from the fairs in Barcelona I wrote that the producer was one to watch. This is a monastrell rosé made in four editions, with 0, 3, 5 and 7 months of skin-contact respectively, and only between 2-400 bottles are made of each of them. /3/ signifies that this is the 3 months edition, the second lightest. It’s a light and lively wine, salmon pink colour, and smells of red berries (raspberry, strawberry).
Cabrónicus 2017(Bod. Cauzón): This tempranillo made with carbonic maceration was the pick of the week (read here). It’s made east of Granada city at around 1.000 meters altitude, near Guadix. It’s pale red, super fruity with raspberry, pomegranate, and a touch of white pepper. In the mouth it’s delicious, juicy, fresh and clean, with a long, integrated acidity.
Purulio 2018(T. Huertas): Here is a very personal wine from the same area as the previous one. It’s made from a blend of both tempranillo and French grapes: Dark and dense, and full of blackberry and other dark fruits, along with a touch of coffee and roast, and touch of tannin and a stimulating acidity.
La Veló 2016(José Miguel Márquez): Another Montilla still wine with the Marenas label. This is a tempranillo grown at Cerro Encinas at 350 meters. Dark, almost opaque, some blueberry, but also plums and some tobacco. There is a lot of tannin here, but it doesn’t dominate the fruit.
Ana showing the La Veló in the restaurant’s wine shop
Is there a mirror there at the bottom of the casserole?
It’s not often that I visit the typical tourist spots on the “costa”, although Málaga city is a favourite. But when I became aware that Fuengirola had a natural wine bar I had to pay it a visit. It’s easy to jump on a train from the province capital, and at this time of the year Fuengirola was cosy and relaxed, and I must “admit” that there are nice spots in the town center.
The owners of the Tapeo Andaluz also own an ecologic pizza restaurant next door. The tapeo offers a wide array of dishes and a selection of organic wines, around half of them marked “natural” (meaning no additions, not even SO2). We went there for lunch, my wife had two wines from the organic category, and I had three glasses of “naturals”. Our waiter, Russian born Tatiane, had a good overview of the various wines and dishes.
Tatiane Smirnove
My three wines were from three great names within the natural wine field of Spain: José Miguel Márquez makes table wines from Montilla (dessert wine stronghold of Andalucía). The two others operates in Castilla y León, Diego Losada of La Senda in Bierzo, close to the Galician border, and Alfredo Maestro several places, this wine near his home in Peñafiel (Valladolid).
The first wine is made from the cordobés indigenous variety montepila(s). The vineyard was planted in 1998 in a traditional way, and manually grafted, at José Miguel’s place Cerro Encinas, at 350 meters altitude in Montilla (Córdoba). You could mistake this for an orange wine, but it’s a result of direct pressing. The skins of this grape get dark when ripe, so the colour is natural, with on excess maceration.
Montepilas 2015 (Marenas, José Miguel Márquez) Deep golden, light brown colour. Mature apples, chamomile tea, and a trace of burned/glaced nuts. Good volume, smooth texture, integrated acidity, finishes dry.
I met the Diego Losada in Barcelona this year. (Read more here.) This is really good, and I would be surprised if his wines will not be much more in demand in the future. 1984 is a reference to Orwell’s novel, and 2017 is obviously the vintage.
“1984” 2017 (La Senda) Cherry red, super fruity, with cherries, plums, medium body, and a lovely integrated natural acidity.
This wine is grown in the heart of Ribera del Duero, but Alfredo Maestro choses to label his wines Castilla y León, to be more free. This is a 100% tempranillo, more than 70 years old vines grown 1.050 meters of altitude. It was fermented spontaneously in steel before 12 months in neutral French oak. Bottled unsulphured and unfined.
Tinto Valdecastrillo 2016(Alfredo Maestro) Deep brick red. Dark berries (blackberry), black pepper, some tobacco. Full, good concentration, some dryness and good acidity. Calls for food, like this wonderful acorn-fed pig from the Ronda mountains.
