Wine Chords

A red from the independent organization of Swartland

Published 23. September 2016 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

For the second time in a row our wine of the week is South African. And again it’s from Swartland (literally: the black land, after the indigenous, now endangered ‘rhino bush’ that turns black after rain), an area formerly famous for bushvines and for full-bodied red wines and fortified wines. It’s generally hot and dry, but with many variations on the theme.

The Swartland Independent Producers (SIP) is a group of producers that wish to express a true sense of place in the wines of the Swartland.

The SIP organization has implanted several requirements, such as a minimum of 80% of own bottling, and that an “independent” wine must be 100% of Swartland origin. Interesting for us is the requirement that the wines must be naturally produced. Their view of a natural wine reads: “a wine that has no yeast or yeast supplements added, no acidity manipulation, or tannin additions, no chemical fining, water addition / dilution, and no reverse osmosis or any other application to change the constitution of the wine. Sulphur additions are allowed, but producers are encouraged to make moderate additions.”

Another view we share 100% is this: “As over-oaking tends to ‘mask’ the essence of grape variety and site, no wine may be aged with more than 25% new wood (barrique) as a component.”

Penny and Billy Hughes

The Hughes Family is located in the Malmesbury area in the middle of Swartland. It’s named after the main town, and is also the name of the most prominent type of soil. Argentinian-born Billy Hughes bought some land here in 2000 and is now running the estate together with his wife Penny. In various topsoils on granite bedrock primarily Rhône varieties are planted. The working of the land is in accordance with the organization’s principles. Did I say working? ‘Leave the vines in peace’ is their motto.

Native yeasts are integral to give the site-special aromas and flavours. The wine is always made primarily from shiraz (in this vintage 63%), with variable amounts of mourvèdre, grenache, pinotage, tempranillo, – and once in a while the white viognier, each variety vinified separately, then blended. The wines stay around 8 months in small French barrels, with only small amounts of new oak.

Nativo 2013 (The Hughes Family Wines)

Deep cherry red. Aroma of dark berries, nuances of spices, herbs and coffee. Lots of both fresh and mature fruit in the mouth, nice rounded tannins, a mineral touch, and a fruity accent all the way.

Price: Medium

Food: Meat like beef, lamb and game (and why not with tasty sauces, and possibly also with tropical fruits on the side), stews, and much more

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Wine of the Week

Keep on punching, a Swartland chenin

Published 16. September 2016 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

I tasted this wine yesterday evening at the Remedy in London’s Fitzrovia district. You can read more about the wine bar here. Since then Abel has left the building, but Dany Teixeira, French-Portuguese sommelier is holding the fort, and I gave him almost carte blanche to match wines with my gnocchi and smoked duck.

This Swartland chenin matched both. It’s made by Craig Hawkins, who bought an estate in 2014 together with his wife Carla.

Swartland is experiencing something of a renaissance these days. It has many different climates, but it’s generally warm. That’s one of the reasons that Craig likes it so much, as this is a type of climate he really knows. To make the story short, harvesting early enough is essential here if one wants to keep the acidity, even if the grape’s name is Chenin.

Each of the producer’s wines has an original name, and all come with street art labels. The name of this particular wine refers to what Craig’s friend used to say during their childhood hockey games. And what is the connection to the girl on the label? You tell me if you find out.

The wine is made according to quite strict non-intervention principles. Just a little SO2.

Baby Bandito “Keep on Punching” 2015 (Testalonga)

Light golden. Aromas of citrus, flowers, apple, a touch of orange peel due to a bit extended skin contact. Nice acidity, long aftertaste. A lightweight wine yet full of flavours.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Sublime Bandol rosé

Published 9. September 2016 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This is an old favourite, maybe the best Provence rosé in the classic, clean style known from times past. It’s certainly the most prestigious one, and with a history to match (it can trace its roots at least back to the times of Louis XIV, and later Lucien Tempier who fought for the Bandol region and the mourvèdre grape). But this is not the occation to dig deep in history. And the wine is very much alive, as shown at my visit in Bandol in 2013, before and after, and now again even from the hot 2015 vintage.

Natalie Sotkine (left) and Véronique Peyraud (decendant of L. Tempier) in front of a pink façade

Clearly it’s not only the people that makes this a remarkable wine. The site close to the Mediterranean, but not too close and with favourable facing, and the soils of Bandol also play their part, here mostly clay and limestone.

The grapes for this wine come from parcels of predominantly mourvèdre (some grenache and cinsault) with an average 20 year old vines. The yields are low, so the concentration can be high. The grapes are hand-harvested. Tempier aims for acidity rather than alcohol, so in a normal year the harvest is done by hand around end-August, early-September. Half of the grapes are pressed directly, and the rest follows the saignée method. The wine rests in concrete vats some 8 months before bottling.

2015 Domaine Tempier Bandol Rosé

Bandol Rosé 2015 (Domaine Tempier)

Typical provençal pale salmon pink. The aroma is more complex and earthy though, with hints of peach, red apple and flowers. In the mouth the notes of herbs shine through, and the acidity contributes to give it an uplifting, long aftertaste. This is a rosé to keep if you wish, maybe at its best in a year from now, depending of taste.

Price: Medium

Food: White fish, shellfish, salads, light meat and much more

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Wine of the Week

True wild NZ sauvignon

Published 2. September 2016 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

“Typical” sauvignons are by many regarded as the easiest of all to detect in a blind tasting. However, there are many factors that can contribute to the grape’s aromas, and many are still under investigation. Undoubtedly, added yeast is among the techniques. But there are also producers here with what we would call a natural approach, with Sébastien Riffault in Sancerre as possibly the most famous.

A tasting in our private wine club showed quite varied aspects of New Zealand’s wines, among the sauvignons too. There were two splendid wines from Greywacke Vineyards, a late harvest riesling and our wine of the week, the Wild Sauvignon, this one too made only with the yeasts from the grape and the environment.

Kevin Judd was co-founding winemaker when Cloudy Bay embarked on their success story in the mid-80’s. But Judd went on to fulfill his own project in 2009, after having planned it for a long time, including acquisition of vineyards in Marlborough. The name Greywacke was registered back in 1993, and named after the type of rounded stones found everywhere in the country.

Essential in the winemaking is mature grapes from quality sites in the central Wairau Plains and the Southern Valleys, cultivated with low yields and strong canopy management.

Bilderesultat for greywacke wild sauvignon 2014

The grapes were mostly harvested by hand, then pressed lighly. The juice was spontaneously fermented in old French oak, stayed there for around 6 months, where some 2/3 underwent malo-lactic fermentation. It then stayed on yeast lees in inox for another 5 months, and the wine was only lightly filtered before bottling.

Wild Sauvignon 2014 (Greywacke)

Straw yellow, grey, not shiny. Aromas of oranges, almonds, flowers, herbs (thyme), and a slight touch of toast and vanillin. In the mouth it shows a rich and creamy texture, nice concentration, with a balancing acidity that contributes to a lingering finish.

Price: Medium

Food: White fish, grilled seafood, sushi, creamy cheeses

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Wine bars and restaurants and Wine of the Week

A Lazio delight in London

Published 26. August 2016 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

This week’s wine was enjoyed at Soho’s DuckSoup restaurant (in the same block as Ronnie Scott’s famous jazz bar), that has a focus on natural wine and simple but tasty dishes inspired from anywhere. Music lovers will find a home here too, as they have a collection of vinyl records for varied tastes.

The DuckSoup cookbook displayed

Anyway, the wine is a elegant and fruity red carbonic maceration wine from Gradoli, Lazio in central Italy.

Gianmarco Antonuzzi and Clémentine Bouveron dispose of around 14 hectares, oak and chestnut, and olive trees as well as vineyards. We are near the volcanic Lake Bolsena in the north of the Lazio region, 600 meters above sea level.

While the sites and microclimates of their 20 parcels vary, all are found on volcanic soil.

Some of the vines are ungrafted. This is a real artisanal project, carried out with a lot of patience, according to biodynamic principles, and without additions of any sort.

Le Primeur is a varietal aleatico that underwent a carbonic maceration for three weeks. Comes in magnums – or by the glass at DuckSoup.

Le Primeur 2015 (Le Coste)

Quite light in colour. Pure fresh fruit, flowers, red berries and stone fruit. Vivid and energetic, slightly carbonic in the mouth, simply delicious.

Price: Medium

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Wine of the Week

Thévenet Crémant

Published 19. August 2016 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Here is a crispy and lively Crémant de Bourgogne, from 20 years old chardonnay grapes organically grown 80 above sea level in the commune of Serrieres.

The grapes were hand-harvested. This wine underwent a malolactic fermentation, and the wine had a period of 15 months of secondary fermentation and ageing in bottle, that gives it some depth.

Crémant de Bourgogne blanc de blancs n/v (Jean-Claude Thévenet)

Straw yellow. Green apple, lime, a touch of bread and yeast. Crispy, almost dry (towards the drier end of brut) and a nice acidity in the aftertaste.

Price: Medium

Food: Aperitif, fish, shellfish, sushi, light meat

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Wine of the Week

A long time bargain favourite

Published 5. August 2016 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Here is a long time bargain favourite, Pilastri’s Rosso Piceno, in other words a red wine from the Marche region near the Adriatic coast of Italy. It’s made from 70% sangiovese and 30% montepulciano, organically farmed and aged in steel.

Rosso Piceno 2014 (Saladini Pilastri)

Quite dark, purple tones. Aroma of cherries, herbs and a little spiciness. Fresh and fruity all the way, with a dry mouthfeel and a youthful acidity.

Price: Low

Food: Pasta, chicken, salads

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Wine of the Week

A great, mineral Muscadet

Published 29. July 2016 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

Muscadet by the Loire is maybe underestimated. At least it’s undoubtedly good value. Even this wine, handmade, low-sulphur, natural and with loads of character, is very good value. It’s a wine that evokes memories of summer, flowers and sunshine.

This one is made by Jo Landron, that started to make wines with his father back in 1979 and has since walked the steps via “normal” organic to biodynamic farming.

This wine is from 40 years old melon de bourgogne vines, fermentation in cement with indigenous yeasts, the malolactic was blocked to retain the freshness, and the wine was bottled unfiltered.

La Fief du Breil 2013 (Jo Landron)

Straw-coloured. Bread and yeast aromas from ageing on lees, wet stone. Full, round on the palate, chalky minerality and just enough acidity to match.

Price: Medium

Food: Tasty fish, salads, creamy cheeses

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Wine of the Week

Summer is rosé, and rosé is Provence

Published 22. July 2016 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

And the first 100% organic village for agriculture is Correns, in the inland from the Azur coast between Nice and Marseille.

Much has been said about this property and its affinity to artists throughout the years. Briefly: In 1970 jazz pianist Jacques Loussier used it as a recording studio. (Parts of Pink Floyd’s The Wall are recorded here.) Today it’s owned by actors Jolie & Pitt, and the wine is made by Perrin, the family behind many outstanding wines like Beaucastel.

Covering 500 hectares of land in the Côte de Provence, the wine château is only a small part of this, together with olive groves, woods and wildlife. The vineyards are located around 350 meters above sea level, partly terraced, on clay and limestone soils. The temperature varies a great deal between day and night, given a nice freshness to most of the wines.

This rosé is made mainly from the cinsault grape, with some grenache, syrah and rolle. Rolle? Well, this is quite complicated: Rolle is a synonym for a local grape named rollo. It’s also a synonym for the better known Italian vermentino. It can even be that the two are related…

Most of the grapes are lightly pressed directly. But some of the syrah are made according to the “saignée” method, which means that part of the juice is removed from the must to concentrate phenolics and other components. (Needless to say, it’s not an ideal practice with “naturalists”.) The fermentation was mostly in stainless steel, with a small part (around 5%) in oak, with some batonnage.

Miraval Rosé 2015 (Ch. Miraval)

Pale pink. Delicate aromas of citrus, raspberries and white flowers, and a touch of pepper. Quite fresh on the palate, some volume too and a nice concentration that makes it persistent, with a dryness and a touch of a salty minerality in the finish. I find that many of the rosés in the area have too much alcohol for the body and concentration. This one not.

Price: Low

Food: Salads, fowl, fish and seafood

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Wine of the Week

Heinrich’s Zweigelt of Burgenland

Published 15. July 2016 by Vidar Kenneth Johansen

I tasted this at the Territoriet (The Territory) wine bar in Oslo a few weeks ago. It was a perfect red wine for a warm, humid, but not sunny day in Oslo.

Heinrich grows the grapes after biodynamic principles, though the wine has no certification. It is a 100% zweigelt, underwent a spontaneous fermentation in steel and big oak vats, and had two weeks maceration.

2014 is also in the market, and both are good.

Zweigelt 2013 (Heinrich)

Cherry red. Aromatic, with mature red berries, some green pepper. Quite warm and round in the mouth, but also with light and elegant tannins and a crisp, refreshing acidity.

Price: Low

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