Grape: Cortese, Favorita, Sauvignon Blanc and Vermentino. Field blend (co-plantation).
Vinification: Organic since 1964! Co-fermentation of all the grapes with wild yeasts. Aged on Lee’s for a year in concrete. A tiny amount of sugar added to the bottle to begin a light secondary fermentation: hence the slight effervescence.
Tasting: Very odd white. It shows slight effervescence, the perfect apéro. Nose of tropical pear, wild berries, some fresh grassy action, and a hint of yeasty brioche from the lees. Palate is fresh and tropical with a slight sweetness cut through by the effervescence. COOL WINE.
Vinification: [VERY] Old vines organically grown on volcanic soils. Stainless steel fermented.
Tasting: Stupidly good for the price. Very attractive pears, honeysuckle, and lemon lime cordial on the nose that all translate to the palate: sweetened lime and grapefruit upfront translating to honey on the finish. Clean clean clean acidity hides a bit of residual sugar.
Region: Serbia – Rogljevo, Smedovac and Rajac. The winemakers are French, who chose
this terroir in Serbia specifically for the limestone soils and climate.
Grapes: Riesling, Grasevina.
Vinification: Natural wine (organic, indiginous yeasts), with long elevage on lees
(18 months) in large burgundian barrels.
Tasting: Not as good as the 2013 we had. Much younger, obviously. A bit of sulfuric reduction: the wine needs to breath. Tell the guest to give it a mighty swirl.
The wine is mineral, to be sure. Lime, petrol, minty herbs, but less intense and elegant than the old vintage. Still good, big Riesling texture on the palate, bracing lime acidity, mineral finish. Super clean. Fattouch and Kibbe Nayye.
Vinification: Biodynamic. Wild fermented in old oak, where it stays for 8 – 10 months.
As a child he was fascinated with the descriptions of wine in his mother’s cookery magazines and he spent all of his pocket money on bottles of wine, which he would open just to smell. As soon as he could, at the age of 18, he started sommelier training – alongside learning law – spending his weekends travelling to Piedmont and Chianti to meet winemakers.
Tasting
Fresh herbs (oregano?) up front, with lemon peel, seabreeze saltiness. Nice. Big and wild. On the palate: Bright lemon acidity right away, mouthwatering. Bone dry. Medium weight and slight grip. Less herbal on the palate, more lemon lime and minerals. Long finish. Cool.
Region: Serbia Subregion: Rogljevo, Smedovac and Rajac
Grapes: Riesling, Grasevina
Vinification: Natural wine (organic, indiginous yeasts), with long elevage on lees (18 months) in large burgundian barrels. The winemakers are French, who chose this terroir in Serbia specifically for the limestone soils and climate.
Tasting: WOW! Deep stony, petrol nose with lime, pineapple, minty/eucalyptus herbs, salty seabreeze. Huge texture, rich but with bracing limey acidity. There is also a kind of honey richness floating over the definitively stony and citrusy character of the palate.
What can we learn?
Don’t confuse this for sweet riesling. This is major, complex, full bodied, bone dry wine with astonishing salty minerality and herbs.
Grape: Vital. 85% of all Vital is made by Casal Figueira. It is the only 100% Vital. Old indigenous grape.
The Pedra vineyard at 350 m altitude; 80 year Vital vines in limestone, Serra Montejunto, Lisboa
Vinification: Biodynamics in the vineyard, cold press and spontaneous fermentation in old barrels.
Tasting: A great replacementfor Foradori white. Fresh, seaside white wine. Beautiful lemon, white flowers, fresh green apple and pear, with a hint of vanilla and warmth from the understated oak. High fresh salty acidity. Nice.
Casal Figueira was born from the passion of the late António Augusto Carvalho (1967-2009). Montpellier trained and an ebullient viticulturist, he discovered the grape Vital on the Serra de Montejunto and began a project to not only save this nearly extinct indigenous grape but become the only winemaker to make and bottle 100% Vital.
Marta met António while renting a studio space in the countryside north of Lisbon that was attached to his rented cellar. Marta, an artist at work in her studio, would often watch Antonió working by himself from early in the morning to late in the evening. From the care he gave to the vineyards to his work in the winery, she was amazed at his passion. Marta and Antonió married, and Marta soon became part of the small team of Casal Figueira.
During the 2009 harvest Antonio passed unexpectedly while treading on his Castelão grapes due to heart failure. Marta and their children were left with fermenting wines. Sharing with him the winemaking for over ten years and with the help of many good friends, Marta found it necessary to continue Casal Figueira. She changed the old vine Vital label to bear António’s name in remembrance. Today Marta and two co-workers make up the Casal Figueira team.
Antonio quite literally foun abandoned vines of up to 100 years of age on the side of a mountain, the Serra de Montejunto which you find on the map just north of Lisbon. It rises directly out of the Atlantic, limestone.
Tasting : An unmistakable Greek white nose : white rose, white flowers, lemon, grapefruit zest. Clean as a whistle on the palate with mouthwatering salty acidity. Nice.
What can we learn?
This wine is instructive for two reasons.
First, it is fairly typical of Greek whites: floral, fresh, light, citrusy, made for seaside seafood. Island Assyrtikos and the Robola exhibit more minerality, but mainland Greek whites generally follow this template.
Second, this wine shows us that those who like ‘New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc’ are not as closed minded as one might think.
If we take Sauvignon Blanc (a light, dry, unoaked, very fruit forward white wine) as an archetype, this Greek white would fall under that category. Think about wine categorically when trying to decipher what a non-wine expert is looking for.
Region: Kartli. A southeastern province bordering Armenia. Old wine territory. The capital city of Georgia, Tbilisi, lies in this territory.
Grapes: Chinuri
Vinification: Natural wine in the traditional clay Qvevri underground. Considerably less skin contact than most Georgian ‘white’ or ‘amber’ wines, though it is not a direct press. Spontaneous fermentation.
Qvevri
These are clay pots lines with beeswax, a very ancient vessel for fermentating and aging wine.
Tasting: Funky nose. Overripe bruised pear and apple (more like rotting fermenting fruit but we don’t need to tell people that). Dried herbs also. Minerality. Medium body palate, crisp but not particularly high acidity.
Region: Valle de la Orotava, a valley in the north of the volcanic Island of Tenerife.
Grape: Mostly Listan Blanco with a blend of Gual, Marmajuelo, Baboso Blanco, Albillo Criollo, Vijariego Blanco and Verdello (indigenous varietals).
Vinification: 40% in concrete tanks with skins and 60% in stainless steel, followed by 8 months in concrete tanks and 8 months in old french oaks casks.
Tasting:
Wild canary island white, nothing like Tajinaste. Major minerality on the nose, smoky gunpowder and flinty rocks, somewhat like the Poema but with less lime and mint. This has a savoury marine quality. If there is fruit (there is very little), call it green apple on the palate. There is also a hint of oak on both the palate and nose but in a very restrained and integrated way. Like the slightest dusting of cacao powder.
Cordite-smoky with a strong pungency. Long and exciting, redolent of wild, windswept, lonely stretches of beach: seaweed-strewn, iodine and salt and rust and wet shells on the foam. Very direct. Determined and angular and striding out. It gave me goosebumps.”
– Jancis Robinson MW, jancisrobinson.com
Due to its isolation from continental Europe and the sandiness of the soils, most of the vines are ungrafted. Another unique feature is the training of the vines into braided cordons known as el cordon trenzado. This system made it easy to practice polyculture in within a vineyard so a farmer could harvest grapes and vegetables from the same plot.
‘Trenzado’ : ‘Braided’ vines.
What can we learn?
– Volcanic ash is porous, and it mixes with rocks, creating a hospitable environment for plants to absorb water through their roots. The lava flows fill the ashy soil with nutrients such as magnesium, calcium, sodium, iron, and potassium.
As such, not only are the soils of Tenerife and volcanic locales like it, such as Mount Etna in Sicily and Santorini in Greece, rich in minerals, but the vine has access to those minerals due to the porosity of the ash. These wines always bring non-fruit aromas and flavors to the fore, hence their endless intrigue.
The Valle do Orotova is located in the northern half of the island (Tenerife), in the shadow of the mountain El Teide, Spain’s highest peak. This creates a break that spares the southern half significant rainfall or cool winds and has kept the northern half cool and wet, mercifully free of marauding tourists looking for a full English breakfast. “We’re located in the north and due to the height of Tenerife our weather is very fresh we call it Atlantic” says Jonathan Garcia Lima, founder of the islands finest winery, Suertes de Marqués. “Our idea is to make wines that represent our place so it is important to show our volcanic terroir. We’re always looking for minerality.” His wine’s laser-like focus is the result of old, ungrafted vines that are grown at some of the highest altitudes in Europe, and is evident in both the reds and the mouth-watering whites… flint, gunsmoke and way more acidity than you’d expect from palomino (Listan Blanco’s better-known synonym, and Jerez’s most common grape.
Damas Wine 