Portugeezers: A chat with Jonas Brand

Weingut Brand
Germany, Pfalz, Bockenheim

As the sun arrives, so do the wines from those sunny German brothers, Daniel & Jonas Brand. Arriving with this tranche is a top up of their single-varietal whites from 2019, their 2020 not-nouveau: Brand Rot and the new vintage of Wildrosé. 

We caught up with Jonas recently as he was negotiating his tractor through the wind tunnel that is their Portugieser vineyards. The growing season has been slow in the Pfalz this year; the slowest Jonas has seen, "It scares you as a farmer, you don't know how to act. Some shoots are only at 3cm and others are at 15cm. It makes it really hard to make decisions."

2020 was by contrast, incredibly convenient. The growing season was paced nicely, speedy but not so fast that the brothers were rushed. Jonas feels like their energy going into harvest has really paid off in the wines:  "What I believe is: that spirit you're in on the approach to, and during harvest contributes the most to the wines, and we had an amazing team. If we have good food, good energy, a good vibe, then we're all in a good state of mind, especially my brother & I, it really helps the wines."

Whilst up in the Portugieser vineyards, trying to spray into the wind against powdery & downy mildew, Jonas discussed two of the new arrivals picked from these plots, Wild Rosé 2019 and the Brand Rot 2020:

“Portugieser grows super nicely, it's very healthy- but the deer love it. They love to snack on the shoots, that's the biggest problem in a farming sense. So we get good yields mostly, and the quality is great. But as a varietal, it's really high in PH, so in the cellar it's more complicated. It's hard to make no sulphur natural wines with it, so we have to be careful. 

“Wildrosé is one of my favourite wines of ours, but it's never the easiest to make for this reason. The 2016 & 2017 got mousy pretty fast, and we realised they just need time. It changes so much after half a year, the mouse was completely gone in the 16 & 17 after 6 months. So for this wine we always give it half a year or more once bottled, and it's so fresh and stable.

“Each variety we work in a specific way, so we pick all the Portugieser and process it in one go. They get a very vigorous foot stomp, sit on the skins for two or three days before pressing, and then we split it up in the end: we fill a very large 100 year old barrel, and a couple of smaller 10 year old barrels, for Wildrosé. The juice that's left goes to tank for the Brand Rot. 

“So the Nouveau, or... not-nouveau by the time we release it, has this foot stomped Portugieser, and a little carbonic maceration Cab Franc to make up about 15% of the blend. We have a little plot here, and we love the variety, it gets ripe, but not over-ripe. We use the carbonic to bring that fresh fruity vibe and lose some greener notes, it works really nicely with Portugieser. We'll also keep a few barrels from other vintages of Cab Franc, we taste them as we're making up the blend, and some of those might go in also.

“We bottle in November, and we used to release it like a Nouveau, but it does need time, so now we wait. But it makes sense for us because this is another one to drink in the park, with your friends, with a little chill. It's a much nicer time of year for this wine! 

"I've never seen so much wind in one year! This was my first attempt spraying this year, I was trying to use the gaps where there was no wind. Every day for the last two months has just been wind, wind, wind."

As Jonas abandoned spraying in a gale (his aim is to use tiny doses of copper (1oz p/ha), a tactic not suited to anything other than pretty still conditions) he drove back home, showing us the new plot at the top of the hill where they'll be planting Portugieser on limestone. 

“We have just under 2 hectares of Portugieser, but we love the Wildrosé and the Brand Rot and we really want to make more of them. So we're planting more, and we just bought a new Portugieser vineyard. We're going hard on the Portugieser! These are both wines that everyone deserves to drink, we want to make sure we have enough to go around.”

JUST LANDED

SPARKLING

2019 - Landwein - Pet Nat - Silvaner, Pinot Blanc

WHITE

2019 - Kabinett, Trocken - Stein & Fels - Riesling

2019 - Landwein - Riesling Pur - Riesling

2019 - Landwein - Riesling Pur (Magnum Only) - Riesling

2019 - Landwein - Pinot Blanc Pur - Pinot Blanc

ROSE

2019 - Landwein - Wild Rosé - Portugieser

RED
2020 - Landwein - Brand Red - Portugieser

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Daniel, Jonas & ‘Birkenstock Man’

Back in 'Crac 2020. A chat with Vincent Alexis

Back in ‘Crac. A Chat With Vincent Alexis

If all goes to plan, this time tomorrow we should have begun unloading a small mountain of wine from Chateau Barouillet, including a much needed top-up of the Splash pet nat, the new 2019 Pecharmant, and the 2020 vintages of the deeply-missed Bergecrac Blanc & Rouge.

We caught up with Vincent last week on his first sunny morning after 10 days of consecutive rain, to discuss the imminent arrivals and how the April frost had left things looking for 2021.

Bergecrac Rouge 2020 - Cab Sav, Cab Franc, Merlot, Malbec

"With the drought in 2020, yeasts were very low so we haven't been able to make as much this year. The grapes for Bergecrac Rouge in particular really fell victim to the heat. We've kept it fresh though, doing nice short macerations for everything: the maximum maceration in the 2020 blend is just 7 days.

"There's no extraction, we just do one pump over at the beginning of the fermentation and then that's it- so it's almost more like an infusion. We try to respect the juice & the fruit as much as possible."

Bergecrac Blanc 2020 - Sav Blanc, Sav Gris, Semillon, Chenin

"The whites coped in the heat better than the reds, and Bergecrac Blanc is a little more complex this year. Still nice and fresh, thanks to the Chenin. Everything is vinified separately, but blended together before ageing.

"It's lovely and round up front, but then super clean and fresh at the end. It's really nice this year.
Both the Bergecracs are bottled without any sulphur."

Pecharmant 2019 - Merlot, Cab Sav, Cab Franc
"The 2019 will be quite different to the 2018, it's the first vintage where we did a portion as whole-bunch for Pecharmant. It's just 30% whole-bunch, layered in the tank with the de-stemmed grapes like... like a lasagne!
It gives some freshness, some more fruit to the wine, we're really happy with that.

"We have 6 hectares in Pecharmant, and this cuvee is the blend of all the plots. For 2019 we didn't make any Hecate. The yeasts were quite low so we decided to just make one cuvee from these plots, so now the fruit from that flint heavy terroir is in the blend now too. Hecate will return for the 2020 vintage but it will be quite different... I'm super excited when it's ready to bottle to see what people think."

When we last spoke in late March, you were concerned about the imminent cold-snap as you'd had such an early bud-break. How are things looking after the frost?

"After the first couple of days of frost in April it looked like we had lost a lot, much more-so than in 2017. We were really sad. But now, with the second bud break, things are actually not looking too bad. We're quite happy with how it is growing again, I'd say we're going to have grapes for sure!

"The thing we're now waiting for is the flowering on the vine, which can be complicated after a frost. So we could have lots of grapes, or we could lose everything at flowering. Generally after a frost the flowering can be pretty risky. That should be happening in 2-3 weeks, we're waiting for that and hoping for a good sunny time until then!

"That's the next really important step for the vintage. We're waiting and hoping, we need it to be warmer now, the vines are a little yellow, they need the sun again. But it's 25 degrees outside today for the first time so we're full of hope!"

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Release The Bats! Fledermausen have Landed

2NATURKINDER

Michael & Melanie Voelker
Germany, Franconia, Kitzengen

Things are looking cautiously optimistic over at 2Naturkinder. A good year is well-needed after their 2020, and one could be on the cards. 

After the late frost event of last year, this has been the slowest start to a season since Melanie & Michael Voelker returned to Kitzingen nearly a decade ago.
Buds finally broke towards the end of April, although the lack of rain received thus far does spell another drought for summer.

We're already past the date on which frost wiped out 80% of the 2020 yields (May 12th) and historically, May 15th is the last date of the season a major frost can be expected. Never say never, but our fingers are crossed for the Voelkers this year. 

We've just received a handful of the triumphant 2019's from Melanie & Michael, the year in which they learnt to handle the drought that is becoming a regular fixture in Central Europe.

We caught up with Michael in early April before bud break as he finished hammering their last post into a new 1 hectare vineyard. 1000 posts and 25km of wire required to build a trellising frame for the young plants!

Is there any impact to the vines after a major frost event like you saw last year?

”Potentially, it depends what you did to the vine a little bit. The whole bud break process comes from the plants reserves: it doesn't have leaves yet so the engine isn't really running - no photosynthesis - so it uses that reserve for the fist bud break. When you have frost it needs to do that again, so it depletes even more of its reserves. 

”It's going to be interesting to see, but we do try to not push them too hard. I hope it's going to be alright, there will be an impact for sure. Not all the plants have the nice strong canes that they normally would have had, which makes it tricky to prune. But we'll see if we've reacted well!

”Another thing we've had is not enough rain so far. If it's not gonna be a rainy April then we need to plan for another dry summer. So the next drought is almost certainly ahead. We've started getting used to that. It just means you have to be a bit more moderate with yields which are relatively low here already. It's not our first, so we are learning to adapt. 
It can lead to fermentation problems if you don't manage it well because you can have a lack of amino acids in the juice. That was a huge lesson in 2018 for a lot of European growers when we had the first big drought. “

Could you tell us a little bit about the 2019 Fledermaus Weiss & Fledermaus Rot that have just landed?

”I actually tried the 2016 and 2017 vintages a couple of days ago and they were quite funky! Depending on your definition of funkiness I suppose. They're not really my favourite vintages. 2018 was super clean and precise, like 2015. One of the reasons being that I reduced the quantity and sorted out a few batches that I didn't fully trust, saved them in reserve for the Vater blend which we allow a little sulphur to be added to if needed. I don't want to add any sulphur to Fledermaus.

”So now the Fledermaus is just three batches: our favourite big barrel of Muller Thurgau, a medium sized barrel of Sylvaner and a small tank of Riesling. 2019 is a very similar blend to 2018, Melanie says it's even better but I struggled to compare them!

”The Sylvaner has a little skin-contact overnight before we press. The challenge with Sylvaner is it's a very pectine-heavy flesh, so you have to press long and hard if you do direct. If you give it a little more time you get the natural enzymes populating the must, and then it's a little easier to press. It gives it a different fruitiness to a hard direct press. 

”The red one, like always is a single vineyard Pinot Meunier. 2019 were mostly very healthy grapes, just with a little bit of heat damage so it was a low yield. Just one 1200 litre tank for almost 8000 square metres!

”They were hand de-stemmed on boards like the Jura, and left in boxes for a week of semi carbonic maceration before pressing. That's always just finished in a tank.”

How is the bat conservation project going?

”The bats are if anything, in decline. We still get our guano, it will keep going into the vineyard. But in general they're going down in the area. We just have super small colonies in the area, but tiny families of like 15 different species. But they don't live in big colonies, they're in smaller groups. 

”Where we get our guano from though, you can see a continuous drop in numbers because they're just less food for them. Fewer insects to eat. The whole bat thing; when you support that species you're supporting a whole ecosystem. The bats can only thrive if there's enough caterpillars, the caterpillars can only survive if there's enough butterflies reproducing. They're really an indicator of an ecosystem. It's quite sad really.

”They're certainly around though; a week ago I was terrified, working late down here in the winery. I walked back up to our house and there was a huge bat that surprised me in the office. I tried for 2 hours to help him out but it didn't want to leave. I had to just leave the window open and hope for the best!

”I really do like the guano as a fertiliser, especially for that vineyard where it's incredibly tricky to get compost in. Pinot Meunier & Muller Thurgau need more of a nitrogen supply than other varieties; that was definitely something I learnt as I stopped tilling in 2016.

”Some varieties don't really care about that, there's enough nitrogen they can access. But Pinot Meunier, Muller Thurgau & Domina don't handle that too well. They need more nitrogen supply and that's tricky without tilling. That lack of nitrogen is something that can cause instability, mousiness risks. So they get fed batshit!”

JUST LANDED

WHITE

2019 - Landwein - Vater & Sohn - Muller Thurgau, Silvaner, Bacchus
2018 - Landwein - Fledermaus Weiss - Muller Thurgau, Silvaner, Riesling

SKINS

2018 - Landwein - Weinschwärmer - Pinot Gris, Riesling

ROSE

2019 - Landwein - Black Betty - Domina

RED

2019 - Landwein - Fledermaus Rot - Pinot Meunier
2017 - Landwein - Spatburgunder - Pinot Noir

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New Wines, Ancient Vines

Roberto Henriquez
Chile, Bio-Bio, Nacimiento

Direct from some of the oldest vines on earth, the wines of Roberto Henriquez are a vivid expression of a unique region: the Bio Bio & Itata valleys of southern Chile. We have just received a full range from Roberto and are slowly releasing them as and when they feel well rested.

Working across a number of parcels, Roberto farms Pais from vines upwards of 200 years old and Semillon, Moscatel d’Alejandria & Corinto from vines around 100 years old. Plots are planted on a mix of alluvial soils, volcanic black sand and granite.

Roberto's winemaking is having a positive impact on the face of southern Chile, beyond his zero-input agriculture. Rescuing ancient vineyards that would otherwise be torn up for reforestation with non-native pines, he is plot-by-plot doing his bit to protect carbon-dense indigenous forests and biodiversity.

Bringing these mostly abandoned bush vines back into recovery is a long game. Pruning heavily to take the wild growth back almost to the trunk, Roberto will then try to keep yields as low as possible as new growth begins. Often as low as 5 buds maximum per plant, which is in stark contrast to the way viticulture has moved in Chile: the higher the yield, the better the grower.

Roberto is more interested in bringing balance back to the vineyards, not pushing these plants too far, rather ensuring they have the fertility & energy required to produce just a handful of bunches of good quality fruit.

There's been little encouragement of traditional viticulture in modern Chile. Wine is taxed high, which rules out most growers bottling their own production. The economics of selling the fruit on don't make a huge amount of sense either: a big company might pay up to 20 cents per kilo of fruit, which means a grower with 1 hectare yielding 5000kg of grapes is only able to recoup $1000. That's barely breaking even.

To further complicate things, under Pinochet the Chilean government introduced a policy in 1974 to subsidise 75% of reforestation costs, with ongoing support for plantation management of pines and eucalyptus. It's been a misguided scheme that's done considerably more harm ecologically than good, and continues still.

Keeping the historic winemaking tradition alive is be an uphill battle against questionable government policies and cultural shifts, but for Roberto the battle is more than worthwhile.

New In

WHITE

NEW - 2020 - Itata - Fundo La Union - Semillon

A plot of 100-plus year old Semillon, just 8km from the ocean in Itata. Made in the traditional style, macerating with the skins for the length of fermentation, at low temperatures and with very little pumping over.

NEW 2020 - Itata - Molino del Ciego - Semillon

From a one hectare plot of 100 year old Semillon, planted on granitic soils in the Itata valley, surrounded by wild herbs and native plants. With the skins for the duration of the fermentation, at the low ambient temperatures of a Bio Bio autumn. Maceration is longer than the Fundo.

RED

NEW 2020 - Bio-Bio - Tierra de Pumas - Pais

A historic vineyard of 200 year old Pais vines on red granitic soil, 2km from the Bío Bío river, surrounded by native forest. Roberto's old winery and home are here, with fig trees, apple trees and bee hives. Fermented in large, open 'lagar' made of Rauli wood.

NEW 2019 - Bio-Bio - Santa Cruz de Coya - Pais

Pais at its most accomplished, from a special 200 year old vineyard in Bío Bío tucked into the mountains, on granitic soil. Fermented in concrete.

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Grapefruit from Granite

Rémi Sédès
France, Nantes, Coteaux d’Ancenis

When we spoke with Rémi in January, he was excited to soon be bottling his 2020 Samplemousse, confirming it was tasting 'tres,tres,tres,tres,tres bon'.

2020 had gone- in contrast to the rest of the world- very smoothly in Ancenis. Yeast populations were healthy, fermentations had been fast, and the wines were tasting excellent.

Whilst 2021 started off with great promise, nature had a different plan. Over a series of consecutive sub-zero nights last week, Remi battled to save what he could of the nascent vintage. It's too early for Remi to tell how bad the damage is, whether a second bud break will be viable, but he's already looking at 50% losses. 

Even if he's able to retain half of the buds, things look to be difficult for the rest of the season. The stresses of a major frost to the vine can compromise the amino acids in the juice, leading to fermentation issues and potentially increasing the risk of mousiness compromising the final wine. 

Whether or not we'll see a Samplemousse next year then is to be determined, so we'll be enjoying this one all the more whilst it lasts!

Remi's grapefruit driven rosé is pressed from Gamay grown on micro-granite, yielding that aromatic, pithy citrus. Remi's work with the rosé is as delicate as possible to retain the signature aromatics. It shows.

Now In Stock

ROSE

NEW - 2020 - VDF - Samplemousse - Gamay

"The Samplemousse rosé is a direct pressing of whole bunches at a cold temperature (5-6°c) to keep the freshness of the grapes, the juiciness, and to avoid oxidation of the aromas. The fresher the juice the less oxygen dissolves into the wine. The pressing is gentle and long (about 2 to 3 hours) the juice is moved to tank by gravity to avoid pumping and damaging the aromas.

Fermentation starts naturally but gently since the juice has a temperature of 6°c. This helps express each characteristic of the indigenous yeasts, different populations start working as the wine reaches another temperature through fermentation. The wine finishes its alcoholic and malolactic fermentation, and is slowly decanted to clear itself.
Taking advantage of the cold winter, I bottled at the end of February, keeping the gas from the fermentation to retain freshness and those delicate fermentation aromas.
That's how it happened, the simplest way in the world!"

RED

2018 - Coteaux d’Ancenis -Cuvée Noé- Gamay
2018 - Coteaux d’Ancenis -Trait Gamay- Gamay

A Conversation with Pauline Mourrain

L’Austral - Pauline Mourrain & Laurent Troubat
France, Loire, Saumur Puy-Notre-Dame

Pauline Mourrain & Laurent Troubat have a few vintages under their belt now, having bottled their first as L’Austral in 2016. Following travels in Australia on different farms, and a winery on the south west coast, Pauline studied oenology in Burgundy before finishing her diploma at Domaine Melaric in Saumur Puy-Notre-Dame.

Whilst under the wing of Aymeric & Melanie, Pauline was introduced to the biodynamic pioneer Philippe Gourdon, due to retire and looking for young vignerons to lease his plots to, keeping young blood moving through the region. Philippe had campaigned hard in the 90’s to defend the Puy-Notre-Dame appellation, and despite retiring from winemaking, has remained an active and involved member of their community.

We’ve just received a top up of releases from L’Austral, so caught up with Pauline this week to talk about their new caves, adapting vinifications to climate and the joys of not having to sleep in the winery next harvest.

You sent some pictures of you guys lowering amphora into a cave, is that a new space you’ve moved to recently?

Yes very recent! We just moved from our old winery, to a new cellar dug into the Tuffeau here. It's just 5 minutes from our old one, but we’ve moved house too so we can live above the cellar.

Now we have caves, which we didn't really have before, they're so nice. They're going to be really useful. For fermentations they'll be perfect, everything will be in here. Our old winery did have some caves but they were too deep, the fermentations were always stop and start, it was so difficult for us. 

We had been looking for more vines so we started buying a bit of grapes, but with the new plot that we now own, we have enough- we won't need to be buying any more.
We have 6.5 hectares now, which is perfect for us, it means we can be in the vines, we can look after the vinification. We do this job to be in the vines, we don't want to just be managers. Maybe it will be different when we are 50! 

The new plot has been organic for 15 years, we've got Grolleau, Cab Franc, Chenin, Grolleau Gris- which we’ll use to make some white bubbles. It's nice, we have more varieties now. All between 4 to 80 years old, lots of variation, all on Tuffeau. They're all next to Aymeric & Melanie's vines at Melaric. 

We’ve got a top up of wines from 2017 & 2019 arriving, how were those vintages for you?

For us, 2019 was a bit between '17 and '18. '17 was a classic Loire vintage, and ‘18 was very hot; lots of rain in spring and very hot in summer, so we had grapes that were really ripe, really black fruit in the wines. 2017 we didn't have much rain in the spring, which can lead to tannins feeling harsher when the wine is young, so we had to wait to harvest, it wasn't perfect yet. 18 was very much the opposite, no tannins!

So 2019 was very elegant, like a classic Loire valley wine, but with mature grapes, the fruit is soft at first with really great structure and acidity.  2019 for me, was a very, very nice vintage, I love the 19's, they're really elegant. 

2020 though, was too hot. We picked very early, in the first week of September. When we started, in 2016 we picked our first block on the 5th of October. It's changed a lot.

When Philippe Gourdon used to work these plots he was always de-stemming everything. But with the climate change since we started, he suggested we have a go at doing whole-bunch because the grapes get so mature now. Philippe’s fruit was so much more vegetal, and this was the style too. With everything changing, we have to adapt to keep freshness and fruit.

2017 - AOC Saumur Le Puy-Notre-Dame - Manta

We worked with the plot Phillippe used to call 253 in 2016, but from 2017 changed the vilification and started to make Manta. These are 20 year old vines grown on our ‘tuffeau’ - chalk. 

It's a 50/50 mix of destemmed and whole bunch in the tank, in layers. It's a technique we picked up at Les Foulards Rouge in Roussillon, they were doing it with their Carignan & Syrah, and we loved the wine so much, we decided to try it in 17. It really worked, and we've made it the same way every year since. 

We don't extract a lot, it's more like an infusion, we just make sure to keep the cap wet. It has 15 days before pressing and then it ages in tank. It's juicy, easy drinking but not simple, it has complexity.

2019 - AOC Saumur - Octopus Rouge

When we moved to the new winery and house, it came with two hectares. In 2019 we really wanted to buy the place, but were a bit unsure we could do it, so we bought just the fruit that year, though it's our block now. That’s what we made Octopus with.

It's a 50/50 blend between 30 year old Grolleau and Cab Franc. Grolleau was fermented whole bunch in one tank, the Cab Franc was pressed directly into another. 

That's another trick we learned in the Roussillon, something Jean-Philippe Padié showed us he was doing to preserve freshness. We really like this wine, perfect for spring and summer, the spice in the Grolleau really comes through.

2019 - VDF - Jolie Brise Rosé

This was made with fruit purchased just 2 minutes from us here, from a friend called Thibault Masse, in the second year of organic conversion.
It’s 100% Cab Franc on Tuffeau also. 50% of the Cab Franc was pressed directly, and the other half had about a 3 day maceration to help with structure. It began fermentation in tank, finished in bottle and left about 3g of residual sugar. It’s just lovely, juicy pet nat, the 19 was really good.

There’s such a strong community among the growers in Puy-Notre-Dame, how does that translate into the day to day? 

There is a lot of helping each other, we're all very close, it's easy to work together. We’re never alone, we see Aymeric every day almost! We share the tractor, we share the harvest. We're very happy here. There's no competition, everyone is here to help one another, we share customers, share knowledge.

If people drink a lot of wine from Saumur Puy-Notre-Dame they'll discover how special a region it is. Aymeric is very passionate about that, he really pushes the movement for discovering our location.

Working with Aymeric & Melanie was a real revelation, I learned so much from them, it was just fascinating. I finished my diploma in 2015, and we did our first vintage as L'Austral in 2016. Aymeric said Philippe was stopping, and thought we’d want to take some of the vines. We're not from families with vineyards so we had to jump at the opportunity!
Laurent didn't do a diploma, he just learnt on the job, in the vines. There's so much help round here for us.

Françoise and Philippe, and then Aymeric & Melanie have been so encouraging of the younger generation, do you feel like you & Laurent will be passing that torch on too?

We're trying to do the same, to keep that spark!
With our new plot, we could have 11 hectares of vines, but we decided instead to rent a few hectares to two new young winemakers, Charlotte & Fred. They also interned with Aymeric.

It's important to have new people here, it's vital for the collective community.  It's a real movement from Aymeric. Phillippe believed so much in the Puy-Notre-Dame terroir, he generated so much momentum at the beginning that it's all of our work now to keep that spirit going. 

With your new location, do you have any plans for the future you’ll be able to start getting in place now?

The important thing for us is that in our new caves the temperature is so perfect for the wines, for the fermentations. When you work without chemicals, the temperature is the big thing- to have stable temperatures is very important.

In the vines, there's a possibility in the future to plant some trees around the borders of our plots, to help with the temperature in the vineyards, to keep the birds, improve biodiversity. We've got two blocks without vines, and Aymeric has some horses and sheep now, they're living in those plots at the moment! 

We have a lot of collective things to do around here, all of our vineyards are in the same location really so there's a lot of things to do together. I'm looking forward to getting to know our new plots, to see what works, what we'll need to improve. 

Now that we have the house in the same place, it's really perfect. We were living 5-10 minutes by bike before, which isn't far, but the winery wasn't insulated and we were working a lot by night, so there was a lot of back and forth, back and forth. The first vintage we had our kid, we were sleeping in the winery during harvest!

It's a happy memory, but I'm looking forward to having our home here this time. 

Now In Stock

Sparkling

2019 - VDF - Jolie Brise Rosé - Cab Franc

Red

2019 - AOC Saumur - Octopus Rouge - Grolleau/Cab Franc
2017 - AOC Saumur - Le Puy-Notre-Dame - Manta - Cab Franc

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New Arrivals from Marine Leys

Vignereuse - Marine Leys
France, Gaillac, Andillac

Each year, ever-hotter summers in Gaillac require Marine Leys to begin her harvest earlier and earlier. Despite rising temperatures, Marine continues to maintain a real freshness in her wines, which she credits to her soils, heavier with limestone than others in the area.

She doesn’t over extract, winemaking is gentle and considered, and whilst the limestone soils certainly give the wines their mineral backbone, there’s much to be credited to Marine’s hard work & care in the cave.

Marine farms her 5 hectares organically. Planted mostly with local varieties: Mauzac, Loin de l’Oeil, Braucol, Duras, along with a little Syrah and Gamay, situated on the south east facing slopes of the Cordais plateau in Andillac.

Having made the transition from marine photography to wine whilst living in Turkey, she then studied formally in Beaune, before working with the Plageoles family in Gaillac for three years, which she likes to joke was her ‘finishing school’.

We’ve just received a top-up of Marine’s 2019 pet-nats, a little more of her blend CroiZade, along with new vintages of A la Santé des Mécréants and her 2020 Primeur. The wines have had no sulphur added since 2018.

We caught up with Marine as she was out pruning her vines in the Gaillac sunshine last week, cautiously optimistic at the thought of getting to see some friends at wine fairs in May, the steady snip of her secateurs a calming soundtrack to our conversation.

Afternoon Marine! How are you?
I’m good thank you! Just in the vineyard, it’s a lovely day. Good to be outside!

We’ve got a few bits landing from 3 different vintages, 18, 19, and 20- how were they for you?

2018 was a good year for us here, we had water at the right time, it was that perfect balance of water & sun, we picked early as the phenolic maturity was looking good. 2019 was hot, but not as hot as last year!

In 2019 we had water at the right time as well, so it didn't block maturity, nothing burned- so it was good timing. Still we harvested earlier again- every year we keep harvesting a tiny bit earlier. This year was really early, we picked in August!

We used to pick at the end of September... it's changing so much. Hopefully this year it won't be that early but they keep announcing really hot summers. It's quite shocking.

Your wines still have real freshness, how are you retaining that?

I'm up on a hill, 250m above sea level, which is not that high, but it's pretty high for around here. I actually have more sun than if I was lower, and it does get a lot hotter, it's harder. However, my soils are calcaire- limestone, whereas down the slopes they're heavier in argilo- clay, their wines are rounder. Limestone brings a lot of salinity, and keeps things very fresh and mineral.

Even in the really hot summers, when the alcohol gets high, they still have the freshness. I don't like to do a lot of extraction, I like the wines to be able to live in the fridge without destroying the tannin and being unpleasant to drink. 

2020 was so hot. I had to add a little white to my rosé this year, even though it was pressed directly, it was still red! But I don't want to have to do that with my reds, I like them as single varieties- with the exception of CroiZade. I use the two varieties, and the ratio of the blend can change so if I have more Syrah or more Duras, I can make a big batch of it.

Can you tell us a little about the new vintages we’re receiving?

A la Santé des Mécréants - 2018

For the '18, we picked pretty early, so it's quite fresh compared to the '17. 
Mécréants is from a 60 year old parcel of Duras, I've been saying it's 55 years old for 5 years so... it must be 60 years old now! We picked by hand, as always. It was destemmed and had an 8 day maceration. I don’t want too much extraction, but I had to bring a bit more oxygen as the fermentation was a bit slower at the start. I did a little remontage at the beginning, and we didn't run into any trouble.

Le Primeur Mais Ne Se Rend Pas - 2020

This year it was really easy! Last year it was so stressful doing the Primeur- it didn't ferment as quickly, I didn't even think it was going to be ready on time. This year I picked early and it finished early, so I had 3 weeks to keep it cool, at 5 degrees, which allowed it to clear and rest properly.

We harvested on the 20th August. It was really hot already.  It's a carbonic maceration, but I wanted to have a dry carbo so I drained off the free run juice everyday. With the weight of the grapes, the ones at the bottom are getting mashed a bit, and I didn't want the yeasts to start working yet, so we drain off their juice.

To start the gas we need for carbo, once the tank is full of grapes I pour in a few buckets of my pied du cuve*, for 2-3 hours with the tank closed. Because it's already fermenting, it creates enough CO2 to push out the oxygen, then I can drain off the pied du cuve and let the carbonic begin, just as total solids, no liquid.

I wanted to have a dry carbo so I drained off the free run juice everyday. With the weight of the grapes, the ones at the bottom are getting mashed a bit, and I didn't want the yeasts to start working yet, so we drain off that juice. This way at the beginning it's just the enzymes within the grape are breaking down into alcohol, which brings that specific taste of carbonic, rather than the yeasts converting sugars to alcohol. So it's a true Beaujolais style carbo.

Have you got any new projects on the go this year?

I'm doing two new bubbles from the 2020 vintage, we’ll have a white and a new red, from the Duras. I started a Vin de Voile in 2019 and it’s going well. It’s made from Mauzac, using the same principles as a vin voile from the Jura, but totally different because this variety of ours has such low acidity compared to Jura varieties, so it's much rounder, it's really interesting. So hopefully in 2026/27 that will be ready to go!

Now In Stock

Sparkling

2019 - Broco Lee - Braucol
2019 - Mayga Watt - Gamay

Red

2018 - CroiZade - Syrah, Duras
NEW 2019 - A La Santé Des Mécréants - Duras
NEW 2020 - Le Primeur Mais Ne Se Rend Pas - Gamay

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What's He Building In There?

Les Chants Jumeaux - Mathieu L’Hotelier
France, Loire, Nantes

Making wine in an isolated shed with a loose-straw floor (or a borrowed beach on occasion) Mathieu L’Hotelier has a singular approach that yields wild, delicious results. One of our favourite characters in the Loire, he certainly keeps us on our toes.

After a little rest we are releasing two new cuvees from his 2019 vintage, a field blend and a Chenin Blanc.

Originally from Brittany, Mathieu worked with Marc Pesnot in Saint-Julien-de-Concelles for 4 years before heading east up the river to the village of Montrelais to strike out on his own in 2012. Montrelais used to have 300 hectares of vines planted, and now the village has 2.5. Matt farms most of them, treated with local plants: nettle, comfrey, horsetail and willow.

He chose the region as he wanted his wines to channel the energy of the sea, a sense of being back home. It was his salty, sea-kissed Chenin we first fell in love with in the early days of Under The Bonnet.

Matt is embedded in Nantes’ experimental music community, and his twin passions overlap pretty regularly. On our first visit to see Mathieu in 2015 his tiny winery was illuminated with strings of flashing lights, fibreglass tanks wrapped in foil, and an endless loop of stuttering electronics ‘singing to the wines’ from a rigged amplifier in the corner.

A return visit saw us given a tour of musician/sculptor Pierre Gordeeff’s ‘Built From Scratch Apparatus’ that had been constructed in one of the sheds at Mathieu’s old squat. An intricately tangled mass of cables and mechanised found-objects, capable of absolute cacophony, or more musical rhythms.

Mathieu makes wine like this musique-concrete he loves: he takes what he’s given, works in the moment, improvises based on a combination of intuition and knowledge, and when pressed for information on his processes is a little bewildered as to why anyone would want to know how he got there. ‘The wine speaks for itself’

Recent vintages though have not been kind to Mathieu, with some vintages wiped out by frost, hail, or problems in the cellar. We’re thrilled then that 2019 saw an upturn in luck for Matt, and he’s been able to produce good quantities from a beautiful vintage, confident this year to bottle without any sulphur, as he would always prefer.

Rouge 2019 is a blend of 7 varieties, Gamay is de-stemmed and macerated for 3 weeks, while the rest of the blend (Grolleau, Cab Franc, his hybrid varietals) undergo between 3 days to 3 weeks of whole bunch maceration depending on the varietal- Matt couldn’t pin down which. He presses the reds, and tops up the juice with a fresh harvest of Chenin, and allows it to continue fermentation in fibreglass for 6 months. Bottled in June 2020.

The 2019 Chenin has one of Mathieu’s signature soft, manual fourteen hour presses. It’s a technique he learnt with his friend JC Garnier, extracting the juice gently and adding a hint of that honeyed, toasty oxidative quality to the wine. Aged simply in fibreglass, before bottling in June 2020.

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Pierre Gordeeff’s ‘Built From Scratch Apparatus’

Anjou Glad You Called?

Domaine Les Goelands - Philippe Delmee
France, Loire, Anjou

We’re lucky to work with a brace of amazing growers across that special pocket of the Loire: Anjou. Home-turf for the majority of the Cabernet Franc we import, we’re still surprised at the variations from grower to grower.

Threatening to trip clumsily into ‘dogs who look like their owners’ territory here, but Cab Franc is a grape that really can reflect the personality of its handler. No surprise then that Philippe Delmee’s expressions have a sense of play, with an underlying serious edge.

In addition to the Grolleau and Chenin planted in Faye d’Anjou, Phil’s Cabernet Franc is spread over five hectares of closely knit plots around Faveryae-Machelles; all planted on poor sand and schist soils.

We’ve just received his three different expressions of Cab Franc from this one small region, each bringing another side to the table.

Oppidum Rouge 2018

“The plot for this new single vineyard cuvee is about 5 hectares, it's on the site of an old oppidum- a Roman camp from when they occupied Gaul. It's a mix of de-stemmed cabernet franc and whole bunch cab franc, fermented using semi-carbonic maceration.”

A softer, ripe blackcurrant-packed cuvee. The label is a nod to how they would’ve enjoyed wine at the oppidum. No amphora here!

Ca Faye Douze 2019

“Like always, this is whole-bunch, carbonic Cabernet Franc. There's a little gas this year because I bottled it with around 1 gram of sugar, so there is a brief fermentation in the bottle after. No sulphites added.”

Beautiful this year: fresh, crunchy, and with that friendly little spritz to kick things off. This is perfect bistro wine: bring me a plastic tablecloth, paté and baguette please. Empties very quickly.

Les Vieux de la Vielle 2017

“Part de-stemmed cabernet franc, using semi-carbonic maceration. A mix of whole and broken berries, a very gentle maceration overall. The tank I used for fermentation is a new open-top wooden one, it's in there for 8 days, very short. But it's very good!”

A stylistic shift for Philippe this year, fermented and aged in wood, which he usually reserves for his whites. A deeper, more complex expression than Ca Faye Douze & Oppidum.

We have limited quantities of these at the moment, but if all goes to plan on the roads of Anjou, more will be arriving in the next couple of weeks. Phil doesn’t own a forklift, and having just sent one pallet to us, he’s busy shuttling the next one car load by car load, up the road to his friends at Le Grange Aux Belles to be shipped out soon.

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Vincent Alexis Discusses O'Ranch & Introduces Les Gaules De Bois

Chateau Barouillet - Vincent Alexis
France, Bergerac & Monbazillac in Pomport

Vincent Alexis is the eighth generation winemaker at Chateau Barouillet, responsible for 45 hectares that straddle both sides of the river Dordogne, 120km inland from Bordeaux. He joined his Father in 2010, first taking 6 hectares on as his ‘organic project’.
3 years later, with Vincent at the helm, all 45 hectares were certified organic. Now, ten years since he joined full time, biodynamic certification is on the cards for the whole operation.

Whilst upholding the reputation his dad and the generations before him have established, Vincent maintains an attitude of experimentation and a garage sensibility when it comes to new cuvees, excited into action with the encouragement of his right hand man, Romuald Cousy.

We caught up with Vincent to discuss two new wines that have just landed, and his struggle through the scorched 2020 harvest.

How are you today Vincent?
I’m fine, I’ve just been working out allocations for next year actually. We were not able to make much wine in 2020. But, I’m feeling good, we have good things ahead, and this year you’ve just received O’Ranch, which is my favourite orange wine we’ve made I think!

This is the first year we’ve been able to get some, what can you tell us about this one?
With this one, we really found a way to make our own style of orange wine.
We picked just half a hectare for O’Ranch. We harvest Ondenc and Muscadelle, two local grape varieties, and Chenin Blanc. All three are picked together and macerated together in amphora, for three months of skin contact. All the fermentations, alcoholic and malolactic are done with the skin contact.

We don't do any punchdowns or any pump overs, we let it go! Of course we try it and taste it a lot because we have to find the right moment to dig it out. That's one of the keys I think to have something really aromatic, but with not too much tannin. I don't like my orange wine too tannic. I think we found the right moment in 2019 to dig it out.

Everything is made by hand, the artisanal way. We dig it out all with a bucket! We don't even press it in a real press, we just push the grapes into a little grille, by hand, over a bucket. It's very slow! That way we keep the juice and extract very little tannin.

Another first for us, we’ve just received the Ambitio from your Les Gaules De Bois project - can you tell us about that project and the Ambitio?
This is a project I started in 2018 with Romuald Cousy, who works with me at Barouillet.
We wanted to make the light, easy drinking wines we love to drink, but are hard to produce in our region. We planned to visit other regions, and make wine with their grapes, back at our place. The 2019 became a 50/50 blend of Gamay & Merlot.

We went to Beaujolais, to buy Gamay from Jean Francois Dubourg, an organic winemaker in South Beaujolais. We got there early, about 7 o'clock in the morning, after a 4 hour drive, had picked everything and loaded the van by 11, and it was all in the tank by 4 that afternoon! It had a week of carbonic maceration. We really enjoyed the wine, it was really light, but we thought it could be a bit hard for people to understand, so we decided to make the blend.

Romuald used to have his own vineyards nearby in Duras, which he decided to stop as things became a bit complicated for him. 2019 was his last vintage from those vines. He made some destemmed Merlot, with just one or two punchdowns at the beginning of the ferment, but it was still really full bodied.

The Merlot had been aged for a year in old barrels, and the Gamay for a year in stainless steel. When they came together, it worked really really well, it has a lovely balance.
We added just 10 milligrammes of sulphur per litre before bottling, and that’s all we did with this one!

And the plan is to keep changing where you source the grapes each year?
Yeah we want to keep Les Gaules De Bois small, and to just build on relationships with winemakers. So in 2020 we went to the Alsace to pick Pinot & Riesling, then to Minervois in the South of France to pick Grenache. We’re hopefully making also a rose pet nat, and we’ve made another orange wine with Sauvignon Blanc from Duras, with one year of whole bunch maceration. It’s quite strange, really interesting.

How long has Romuald worked with you at Barouillet?
We met 10 years ago. He came to do work experience whilst he was studying, and then worked with us full time for two years before he started work in his own vineyard. He had his vines from 2016 to 2019, and then came back to Barouillet to be my right hand guy! It’s been amazing to have him helping out, we’ve been able to do so much more exciting stuff. 

Thanks to him, we’ve been able to turn to biodynamics. We’ve been working biodynamic since October, we made our first spraying of preparation 501, that kind of thing. Hopefully, by 2022 all the vineyards will be certified biodynamic. We’re super proud of it, it’s a rush to be there, to have all 45 hectares biodynamic.

You said you’ve been unable to make much wine in 2020, was it the heat for you, like others?Yeah, when we harvested the whites, the weather was okay, not too dry, the soil was not too dry. So the alcohol degree on the whites is correct, but on the red it increased really fast. Not what we were after! We had some Merlot with about 17% potential alcohol! We’ve had to blend in some whites but the red we are able to produce this year will be low. We’ve made a little more white, and orange. In 2019 we made 15 hectolitres of orange wine, which we’ve increased in 2020 to about 21 to 22 hectolitres.

Did you have to pick earlier?
We've tried to but lots of the grapes were not good. They were really tannic and still tasting green, not ripe enough. So we picked things at maturity and had to blend in the white. The Cabernet Sauvignon, which is quite late normally, we were able to pick earlier. We’ve been able to use that to balance the high alcohol of the Merlot.

We didn’t have any rain, from the middle of July to October. Through August, the heat was 40 degrees nearly everyday. It was terrible. Terribly dry, and hot. We had a lot of sunburn on the grapes, lots without even any juice. So yeah, it was really complicated.

I’m the eight generation here, and it’s crazy how early we have to pick now. We started harvest for Splash on August 14th, and harvest continued until October 10th, so we finished very early, for us. My Father used to start picking in November!

We’ve actually torn up some vines that were just not good enough, and are watching some new ones that will hopefully give more yields in the future. We’ve lost about 40% of the harvest. I’m hoping this will be the smallest a vintage ever gets. We were able to just make about 16 hectolitres per hectare which for us, is very small.

But, I’m excited for the future, the new vines are looking good, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how the biodynamic practices express themselves in the wines. I’m really missing the wine fairs this year though. Travelling to meet people, to see you guys. It’s nice to have this extra time in the vineyards, but I really do miss the travel, that chance to try new stuff with the winemakers.

NEW IN STOCK

NEW - 2019 - VDF - Gaules de Bois - Gamay, Merlot

NEW - 2019 - VDF - O'ranch - Ondenc, Muscadelle, Chenin

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