Enclòs de Peralba: making Penedès great again!

We recently started working with Leo Gramona and his cousin Roc, the energetic next generation of well known sparkling wine producer. L’Enclòs de Peralba gives them freedom to experiment outside the family business, and focus on single parcels of local varietals. We caught up with Leo on zoom and tasted the wines, which are now in the UK.

It’s not just about making their own wine, Leo explained, there is a a lack of confidence in the quality of the vineyards in Penedès. Over the past 50 years viticulture has been industrialised in Spain, they want to revive the knowledge of the traditional viticulturalists, by practicing old pruning styles, classifying vineyards, and working with local grapes, to create wines that shine a light on the potential of the area.

The first wine, and the foundation of their quality pyramid, is Vi Fi Blanc. The 2019 is a blend of Garnacha Blanca and Malvasía de Sitges. Garnacha Blanca can reach high alcohol for a white, and has quite thick skins, both of which give a wine structure, it isn’t an aromatic variety. Malvasía de Sitges on the other hand:

“My cousin and I believe in this grape, it has a lot of potential, it’s the future Riesling of our region. It has a lot of natural acidity, and a lot of aromas”.

The wine is a balance between the broad Garnacha and the fresh, sharp and aromatic Malvasia. It has a lovely concentration of white peach and sunny orchard fruits backed up by refreshing acidity.

Low touch winemaking

Leo describes their winemaking as low intervention, they rent a small cellar in the garage of the Gramona family winery! Fermentations are spontaneous using a pied de cuve, the winemaking equivalent of a sourdough starter; they use a small amount of SO2 before crushing and before bottling. They age in a variety of vessels, about half of each wine in oak, some new, and some foudre, they just want a little gentle evolution not the footprint of oak flavours on the wines; the rest in concrete – a mix of eggs and deposits – which is more reductive. This gives them a choice to blend the two style to get the wine that they want. Ageing is between one-two and a half years in tank and bottle.

Next we tasted their Pet-Nat, it’s an Brut style, made by the Ancestral method with no sugar added. Made from Malvasía de Sitges from the young Cal Manuel vineyard in the centre of the Penedes valley. It’s made to be a refreshing, easy drinking glou-glou white.

Vineyard focus

Then we moved to their first parcel wine Les Camades, an extraordinary Garnacha Blanca, with beautiful fruit, blood orange and some petrol, with texture and a fresh finish. Grapes come from 35 years old vines on red iron rich clay soils in the Serra del Montmell at around 450 metres. The vineyard is worked biodynamically by Pere Padilla, they have his name on the label to acknowledge that over 50% of the work of winemaking is in the vineyard.

“Normally Garancha Blanca is more alcoholic, has a bigger volume, but we’re trying to make a light, fresh style regardless of the vintage”.

They make another single parcel Garnacha Blanca called Tres Feixes, it’s an interesting comparison, richer and spicier. The vineyard is a few kilometers from Les Camades with the same microclimate, but the vines are older (planted in 1939) and lower yielding. Leo and Roc think this vineyard has something special. “All the vines are very tall, 1.8metres high, it’s like a forest. It was unattended, and very wild, with lots of natural cover. Because of the age you don’t need to work the soils or take off leaves, the vines have found their balance”.

I asked how they find their vineyards? “Our family has worked in the region for a long time. When you go and do the maturity checks in the vineyards you get to see and know which are interesting. The older guys don’t want to sell the plots, it’s not just a business for them it’s a way of living, and we don’t want to take that away from them. As long as they can work how we want with biodynamics”.

Next we moved to Els Presseguers which is 100% Xarello. It’s fresh, but ripe, with pure concentrated fruit. 2018 was a cool year and Leo thinks it’s one of the best in the region in last 10 years. The vineyard is one of the first they started working with, and is certified biodynamic. The name means peach orchard, the Gelida area is famous for the fruit and has it’s own DO. It’s at 450 metres and is north facing so is relatively cool and the grapes ripen slowly. Also there is a natural spring by the vineyard which keeps the calcerous clay soils damp. Xarello, like Malvasía keeps it’s acidity. Skins are thicker, the parents of Xarello were red grapes so it has a lot of antioxidants. But unlike Malvasía it isn’t aromatic in youth, it needs some lees stirring to give more expression.

“If it was a person Xarello would be very shy. But it opens up with time. It’s a good wine to keep”.

Next we move to El Tòfol the final white made from Macabeo. It doesn’t have as high acidity as Xarello or Malvasía but it’s aromatic, it’s normally used in blends but they wanted to showcase it as a traditional regional variety.

They make a small amount of red including Els – Escorpins which is Grenache with about 5% white Grenache which are co-planted in the vineyard. They crush 50-70% of the grapes and put them in the fermentation container in layers with whole bunch grapes. There is some carbonic fermentation and the stem tannins give the wine a sense of freshness.

The wines show a clarity and purity uncommon in such young winemakers. They want to keep the project manageable and work with the best sites and grapes they can find – if they take on new vineyards they will drop others single parcel wines. Despite their focus on the region the project isn’t DO certified – the pace of change and improvements isn’t fast enough for Leo and Roc. Given their energy and obvious love for the area, we predict they will act as catalysts for a bold new Penedès.

Beyond Burgundy: Sashi Moorman on how he and Rajat Parr are rewriting the story at Evening Land Vineyards.

Whenever someone makes Pinot Noir or Chardonnay with serious intent there are inevitable comparisons with Burgundy. Especially when one of the partners in the project is award winning sommelier turned winemaker and vineyard owner Rajat Parr, whose deep affection and knowledge of the wines of Burgundy is well known. Along with friend Sashi Moorman, owner and winemaker at several renowned US projects. In a 2014 Decanter interview Stephen Brook described Sashi as part of: “The new generation of winemakers, imbued with a bright intelligence and technical competence driven by a passion for wine”.

Raj and Sashi are bringing their formidable knowledge and experience to Oregon based Evening Land Seven Springs vineyard, a property they have worked on together since 2014, and describe as one of the most special sites in the Willamette Valley. So when I spoke to Sashi about his and Raj’s intentions for the project, I got a lot more comprehensive and philosophical answer than I was expecting.

Sashi: “[Raj and I] weren’t interested in owning wineries that were facsimiles of Burgundy”.

Their other joint ventures are California based Sandhi and Domaine de la Côte, which also focus on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. “We believed that Oregon and Sta Rita Hills have distinctive personalities that needed to be showcased and celebrated”.

Sashi credits Raj with this realisation: “Raj has a bit of a crystal ball, he’s good at seeing into the future! Because of his extensive experience in Burgundy, so many visits, and familiarity with the great producers, he had been seeing and sensing a change in Burgundy that had nothing to do with one factor. He could see it and he could taste it.

“What he was witnessing was an inevitable step towards Bordeaux, in terms of pricing, exclusivity, and the Domaines outward stance to the wine industry”.

“Burgundy has become very fancy; it’s become very much like Bordeaux. The wine pricing has become ridiculous”.

“He was also sensing a change in the winemaking. Like in Bordeaux some Domaines became more conservative, they started taking fewer chances in their winemaking because the value of the wine was becoming so high. On top of that, what Raj couldn’t foresee, was global warming”.

“Raj was so perceptive in this way and knew that in Sta Rita Hills and Oregon there was an opportunity to makes wines, not imitations of Burgundy, but with the same culture and aesthetic as the wines that we fell in love with from the 80s and early 90s”.

“That made us focus on being faithful to our terroir. This is why in Oregon we harvest early to keep acidity high, in both the reds and the whites; we employ gentle extraction to make wines that are as elegant as possible. We don’t shy away from wines that might be considered backwards when released. Raj and I grew up with the great wines being austere on release, not the fleshy opulent wines you taste today. Nuits-Saint-Georges or Gevrey-Chambertin weren’t wines you opened when you got your first shipment, it was a wine you put in the cellar. That’s not a term people use about Burgundy today, they open them on release and drink them, because they’re fruity, and don’t have that tension that they used to, that was important for me and Raj”.

Inspiration not imitation

“When Raj and I say ‘we’re not trying to make Burgundy’ it’s a complicated statement. Of course we’d love to be making La Tache, Clos de Beze… who wouldn’t, those are the greatest vineyards in the world. We mean we’re not trying to make it taste the same, but we are trying to follow the same philosophy. In the world of wine Burgundy has the most beautiful aesthetic, there’s no other wine region that has come as close to making the perfect wine. Bordeaux is a blend, there’s a house style, it’s a totally different product. Burgundy due to the history, created a unique opportunity and environment for fully diving into the concept of terroir. This is why winemakers from all over the world travel to Burgundy for inspiration, including us”!

“To say we’re not trying to make Burgundy, isn’t to say we’re not inspired by Burgundy, we are DEEPLY inspired by Burgundy. We just want to take that inspiration and make sure we’re being faithful to our own terroir”.

“We’re working with the same plant material, the same grape, planted on the same rootstocks, farmed in many ways in the same way – the only thing that’s different is the climate and the soils. So when we say we’re not trying to make Burgundy, what we’re saying if everything else is equal, except for the climate and the soil, which falls into the Burgundian philosophy – it’s about making the most of your terroir.

“That’s very important for me and Raj, we want our wines to be considered in the same ilk as good Burgundy. You can’t say that about all Chardonnay from the US, if you drink a Chardonnay from Sonoma or Napa you wouldn’t have that next to a Mersault. Not to say that wine isn’t good, it’s a totally different interpretation of Chardonnay. Raj and I are trying to interpret Chardonnay with the same lens as a vigneron in Burgundy, but we want it to be authentic to our terroir and climate”.

A new era at Seven Springs

When Sashi and Raj took over management of the vineyards at Seven Springs in 2014 they continued working biodynamically but began to produce wines in a different way: “Dominique Lafon and the previous team were making blended cuvees from different parts of the vineyard. Raj and I wanted to step into strict vineyard focussed wines, so for example La Source and Summun come from very specific parts of the vineyard, we don’t blend, we try to be faithful to specific parcels at Seven Springs”.

This November they became part owners of Evening Land Vineyards, which will put in motion a new focus and direction. Sashi explained that him and Raj are ‘fine tuning’ Evening Land, to get it to a place where they really are making something special. They’re approaching this in several different ways: Replanting older vines, that have been affected by phylloxera; introducing some new genetic material and selections they like working with; and continuing to explore the potential for Chardonnay on the site: “In the seven years Raj and I have been working together at Evening Land we’ve learned the potential for Chardonnay in Oregon”.

Right grape, right place

I asked Sashi why he thought Oregon has such a reputation for Pinot and not for Chardonnay.

“The Oregon wine community has been marketing themselves as a Pinot appellation. That’s a very American perspective on the wine industry – red wines are better than white wines, most Americans would say that! I think that’s why so much Pinot Noir was planted, nobody considered Chardonnay to be as important as Pinot Noir”.

“Raj and I always follow our palates, and they told us that the potential for Chardonnay in Oregon was vast”.

And why in his opinion does Chardonnay work so well in Oregon?

“[It’s a] combination of everything, but climate is the most important factor. Even though Willamette Valley is on the same latitude as Burgundy, it has an entirely different climate: Willamette has a very short growing season; bud break is late; and typically harvest is early. It stays cold and wintery until April, and then it suddenly becomes like a Mediterranean climate, it’s hot, with many days over 30 degrees, and doesn’t rain all summer”.

“This short, hot and sunny growing season is excellent for white wine production. You preserve acidity because the growing season is short, and you get maturity in the skins because of the sunlight, and because it’s warm you get good yields. The plants are happy, they really grow”!

“Chardonnay can take bigger yields than Pinot Noir [and maintain quality]”.

However, he sees a challenge in communicating this alternative perspective of Oregon.

“We will plant more Chardonnay. There headwinds, the larger Oregon community isn’t promoting it, so it puts us at odds with the wider regional marketing effort. We’ll have to slowly build the reputation of our Chardonnay”.

That doesn’t mean they’re abandoning Pinot. They’re just taking a slightly different approach, based on the conditions in Oregon.

“Even though we love Oregon Pinot Noir our approach to it is a little different. We take a very light touch to our Pinot Noir production, an infusion fermentation method, no pump-overs or punch downs. [This is] related to the same climatic qualities, the short growing season makes it difficult to get lignified seeds, which is why a lot of Oregon Pinots have high tannin.

“Sta Rita Hills is the opposite, it has an early bud-break and a late harvest, and cold temperatures in the summer (average is 20 degrees), we don’t get a lot of sugar accumulation. This allows us to make wines that are 12.5% at Domaine de la Côte, but with tremendous ripeness of tannin and colour.

“In Oregon you don’t have the opportunity to ripen the tannins, but this isn’t an issue for white grapes, where you worry more about acidity and flavour development in the skins. Because of the climate Oregon is naturally gifted for that, it’s counterintuitive and one of the challenges of communicating to buyers”.

Geology matters?

And what about the other key pillar of terroir, from a Burgundian perspective, soil? Countless producers are digging pits and having their vineyard soils mapped these days.

“That’s something we talk about, but we don’t spend a lot of time on (for Evening Land), there’s nothing idiosyncratic about the soils at Seven Springs compared to our neighbours. Within each plot there are areas of more or less clay which is important e.g. in Summum (less clay more rocks) and La Source Chardonnay. But it isn’t like at Domaine de la Côte, which is planted on diatomaceous shale, which is unique. We talk about that, and it’s part of the storytelling there. Does that mean we make better wine? No, there isn’t a rock that helps you make a better wine than another rock!

“The thing about soil that matters is that it’s directly related to the vigour of the vines, it’s critical to making a serious wine. If the soil is too vigorous and the vine produces too much, the wine is diluted, and if the soil is very poor the vine doesn’t producer truly ripe grapes.

“In the wine business everyone is trying to make their story a little more interesting. If you put your ear to the ground and listen to the noise in the wine industry it’s always changing, it was biodynamics, then rocks, now regenerative farming”.

“The wine industry has always been about storytelling, what I’ve learned is you don’t want to tell your story with the same language everyone else is using. You want a unique voice and narrative, and that takes years to build. It can take a lifetime to find that voice”.

Which begged the question: are they there yet (have they found the voice) for Evening Land?

“I think we’re part way there, right now we produce very distinctive Chardonnays, and I would like to produce more. I would also like to produce more distinctive Pinot Noirs. In my experience the only way to truly produce a distinctive wine, is to plant the vineyard. It’s your greatest opportunity to really understand what the challenges and opportunities are. It’s a slow process, you plant the vines and don’t have the grapes for 3-4 years, you make the wine and wait 4-5 years, you have to be very patient. When you inherit a great vineyard it’s different, you’re a steward to something created in the past, your job is to honour and uphold the tradition.

“In Oregon what’s exciting about being a winemaker, is our history is very young, there’s so much opportunity to discover what can be done in these great winemaking regions. I think we’re still in the discovery phase, I have no idea how long it’ll last, probably another 100 year or more before people really understand these terroirs and how to make the best wines from them”.

Jon Bonné had also picked up on this, in his 2013 book The New California Wine, he says: This marks the arrival of a mature American wine culture, where producers are confident enough not to mimic the Old World or obscure the nuances of terroir with clever cellar work, but rather seek greatness in a uniquely American context.

We’ve recently received a shipment of Evening Land including the intense, flint-laced Seven Springs Chardonnay 2017, plus the beautifully balanced La Source Chardonnay 2018. So don’t take our word for it taste some Oregon Chardonnay for yourself!

The Stellenbosch Revolution?

Stellenbosch is South Africa’s Napa Valley, one of the most historic wine regions, and a centre for tourism. Money poured in when larger companies arrived in the 80s and 90s, many of the smaller grape farmers were pushed aside, but some older vineyards with bush vines survived, seasoning the Cabernet blends.

There’s an area in the south, towards False Bay, which is referred to as Lower Helderberg. It isn’t demarcated, but a few people are starting to rediscover the old-vine heritage and start projects here. Bernhard Bredell, talented young owner/winemaker at Scions of Sinai is one of them. When we spoke to him recently, he explained how Lower Helderberg has different soils, terroir and a distinct microclimate to the wider Stellenbosch region, and he feels strongly that it should be recognised as a stand-alone Ward. “It’s slightly frustrating to be grouped in to the wider Stellenbosch region as they are quite different”.

Bernhard on Lower Helderberg:  “No fancy tasting rooms, no palm trees… just plain old wine farming”!

It’s not just the terroir and cool ocean microclimate that attracted him. Bernhard grew up here, he was born and raised in a rural grape farming family, he helped around the winery and often joined his grandfather pruning in their vineyards. In 2012 the family sold their farm, and his father and grandfather went out of the industry. But Bernhard decided to stay, working at another winery for a few years before heading to France.

Different horizons

He fell into a very good crowd in France: he worked with the Graillot family in Crozes-Hermitage; with Maxime Graillot at his own project Domaine Equis; and then joined Antoine Graillot at Domaine de Fa, based in St Amour and Fleurie in Beaujolais. The passion for the earth and the vine – over fancy winemaking techniques – that he experienced there reminded him of his family farm at home. But he didn’t return to South Africa just yet.

Antoine and Bernhard were talking late at night over a bottle of Chatreuse, and began discussing the drought in South Africa and the schist soils, and the similarities with Priorat in Spain. Antoine knows the owner at Clos Figueras in Gratallops, and so Bernhard went to Priorat to work. There he met a lot of inspirational winemakers, discovered a passion for Grenache Blanc, and has returned on several occasions.

In 2017 Bernhard returned to South Africa, to make wine where he grew up.

No place like home

The Lower Helderberg is around 3.5km from the ocean, where prevailing winds from False Bay moderate the temperatures, especially during November to February. The area is dominated by three hills – Bottelary, Polkadraai and Sinai Hill, as Bernhard explained: “You don’t find many east aspect sites, close to the ocean in South Africa, with good morning sun”.

Bernhard describes it as: “A terroir carved out from granite, similar to Fleurie in Beaujolais”.

The decomposed granite has good drainage and low fertility. Areas high in silica (quartz) fragments absorb light during the day, and reflect it at night, which enhances aromatics, especially in reds.

“Not everyone realises that vineyards and soil type need to talk to each other, not overwrite each other. You can’t harvest a small crop from a very fertile soil type and vice versa”.

The vineyards were farmed organically in the past, but in the 90s farmers chasing higher yields started to use chemicals. Bernhard is focusing on restoring vitality and soil health in a few special plots. He’s always been a soil fanatic: when he had taken over management of these vineyards, he let cover crops grow, and can’t understand why farmers don’t leave them in winter. Pre 1980s – lupins, rye, and oats were grown over winter and ploughed back: “It’s the only way these bush vines survive the summer without irrigation. Farmers stopped doing this in the 90s to bump up the crop, and couldn’t understand why the vines weren’t producing a higher crop. It’s not the bush vine’s fault, it’s your soil’s fault”!

He’s also a geek when it comes to regenerative agriculture: he prepares the soil for the long term, and has seen an improvement in energy and vine vitality in the last 4-5 years. The water retention is better, and earthworms are coming back, he digs with a spade in the vineyards and counts worms with his son at the weekend!

“Small decisions are important”, he explained, “When you look at how pruning used to be done, promoting balance, not expecting the vine to overproduce. Putting organic matter back into the soil. It’s not necessary to uproot vineyards every 25 years”!

“I’m trying to walk the long road with them”.

What about the wines?

We tasted the recently arrived 2020 vintage with Bernhard. He explained that strong winds early in the season were a factor in the style of the wines that year. The leaves were ‘blown open’ which gave the grapes more sun exposure, the skins grew thicker, leading to a higher ratio of skin to juice. The difference is particularly felt in the earlier ripening varieties, like Pinotage and Chenin, where you see higher tannins in 2020. The wind can also affect photosynthesis- he saw lower sugar accumulation in the grapes and lower alcohol on Pinotage and Chenin in 2020. Later varieties like Cinsault and Syrah ripened in a more moderate climate, and Bernhard thinks you see less variation from previous vintages on those.

Senor Tallos 2020 is a blend of Chenin from Sinai Hill and Grenache Blanc from outside the region: “Both varieties thrive in South Africa, they love granite soils”. Bernhard thinks they work well with skin maceration, giving a food-friendly texture and savoury aromas. He gives the Chenin four weeks and the Grenache Blanc three, both on stems. Most of the wine is aged under flor for seven months. It’s savoury and dry, with some ripe fruit, but quite mineral for a skin contact wine; in short it’s very drinkable! The name comes from a play on the word tallo, which is stem in Spanish. He ‘discovered’ Grenache Blanc while working with Silvia Puig in Priorat. Bernhard sketched the label himself as he grew up watching spaghetti westerns, and it reflects the tradition of working with horses on farms in the area.

Granietsteen 2020 is from a single plot of massal selection Chenin Blanc, planted on Sinai Hill by Bernhard’s grandfather in 1978.  The site faces south-east and warms up early in the morning, the roots ‘wake-up’ a bit quicker, and the grapes tend to ripen towards the end of January which is early for Stellenbosch. This means it escapes the heatwaves the area often experiences in mid-late February, and the wine keeps a bright acidity. He harvests the grapes in two parts: 70% is de-stemmed and soaks on skins over four nights before pressing and fermentation; the rest is direct whole-bunch pressed which brings freshness and focus.

Bernhard is looking for a common thread of individuality in his single vineyards wines. For the whites he likes to keep the wine on the skins for at least a day: “I believe a lot of the individual terroir expression gets lodged into the skins, wherever you are, and by doing that you bring out a little bit of personality that focusses on one plot”.

It’s a complex wine – fresh, with some saltiness, and a mouthwatering, intense lemon peel pithiness – revealing something different each time you go back. Ben commented: “Chenin’s there, but  it’s not shouting Chenin Blanc, it’s expressing the spirit of a vineyard, and really shows how Chenin can carry terroir extremely well”.

Bernhard is very optimistic about the potential of this site: “The combination of freshness and aromatic uplift from the granite puts an HD vision onto the variety”, he explained.

Nomadis 2020 is a dry red with a focus on Cinsault – 95% of the blend – where normally Pinotage takes centre stage. Bernhard explains it: “Cinsault is the father, Pinotage is the son. On a light soil Cinsault can be one dimensional, Pinotage adds to the texture in the blend”.

Both grapes are part of the heritage of the area. Bernhard wanted to express the lightness these soils express- silica rich soils can bump up aromatics. The site is also close to the ocean, which brings freshness, fragrance and a brightness.  The nose, with pure red fruit and rose petals, really draws you in. The palate is less expressive at this stage, but it has a nice little grip at the end, crunchy tannins and some complexity from the old vineyards.

Feniks 2020 (pronounced Phoenix) was named after the bird that rose from the ashes. Bernhard explained the two reasons behind this: firstly, the vineyard owner was going to pull the vines, but Bernhard recognised the potential of the site and persuaded him not to, and has been managing and improving it for five years; it’s also about the re-birth for the Pinotage grape from a bad reputation.

Pinotage, like parent Pinot Noir, has a tendency to mutate. The vines from this plot produce small tight bunches, which fit in the palm of your hand, which is unusual. Also, Bernhard explained, Pinotage has thick skins, so the grapes can become quite jammy by the time they are fully ripe.  However, on the low fertility sandy soil in Feniks vineyard, the skins ripen faster, the acidity stays high and the sugars stay moderate, so you keep vitality, aromas and flavours. He handles the grapes gently in the winery, avoiding too much extraction. The wine is richer with more structure than Atlantikas, the other wine produced from this vineyard, but keeps freshness.

Atlantikas 2020  is Bernhard’s maritime Pinotage, also from Feniks vineyard, the closest he has to the Atlantic. It’s labelled ‘alternative red’, a category some of the new wave producers campaigned for to incorporate wines which don’t fit the usual mould for a region or variety, that were continually being rejected by the WO control board.

“Pinotage has a reputation for bigger bolder wines, and SAWIS can’t ‘understand’ it made in this lighter way with soft winemaking”.

The grapes come from a section of the Feniks vineyard with shallower sandy soil, which Bernhard had always thought tasted different. He harvests this section 2-3 weeks earlier than the rest of the vineyard, direct pressing half of the grapes, like you would for a rose, and ferments the other half on skins for a week before blending. Using less skins gives a light and crunchy style, less tannic than many Pinotages. Atlantikas is a charming, a-typical, perfumed wine which redefines South African Pinotage.

Swanessang 2020 is fairly unusual; you don’t see a lot of Syrah in Stellenbosch, but Bernhard’s grandfather planted the vineyard after he retired. The fruit on the bush vines hangs close to the ground, and the silica in the top soil reflects back light and warmth enhancing aromatics in the grapes. The wine shows the floral side of Syrah and reminds Bernhard of wine he tasted working with Graillot in the northern Rhone. The fruit is pure and intense with some violets, it’s savoury and mouth-watering with some liquorice. Bernhard describes it as: “Bringing on a hunger”!

These are an impressive set of wines, particularly from such a young project, and Bernhard’s energy and love of the region is palpable (even over a slightly sketch Zoom call!). We can’t wait to get him over here to taste with you in person, but in the meantime, do get in touch if you’d like to hear more and taste any of the wines.

Single vineyard reds from Suertes del Marques

The elegant, electric whites from Suertes del Marqués often hog the limelight, but they have been making some distinctive new single vineyard reds in recent years. We caught up with owner and winemaker Jonatan García on Zoom to taste them and find out more about their unique characters and ageing potential.

Jonatan’s been fully at the winemaking helm of  Suertes del Marqués since 2018.

Despite the hype around the Canary Islands his aim isn’t to be known for volcanic wines, but  ‘classic’ wines that can be appreciated in the context of the best wines in the world.

The Suertes wines are classified in two levels: Village wines, like 7 Fuentes and Trenzado, made from their own vineyards and bought grapes, vinified separately and blended before bottling; and Single Vineyards from specific sites on the estate which include La Solana, Los Pasitos and Vidonia. As he has got to know, buy and work with new vineyard sites, work in the cellar has become more hands off, to better reflect the unique microclimate, terroir and traditions you find in La Orotava Valley on the north side of Tenerife. 

We started with La Solana. The vineyard is located at the base of the property, at 380-420 metres. It’s east facing and gets the softer morning sun, which means you don’t get super ripe wine from here, and often find a little more of a fresher green character.

Jonatan says La Solana reminds him: “Of a red from the Loire, like a Cabernet Franc”, but with higher tannins.

He’s starting to use more whole bunch in his single vineyard wines to increase the ageing potential, structure and finish. This 100% Listán Negro has a reductive, flinty style, but is also elegant and balanced, with good freshness and acidity.

Reduction in volcanic wines

Reductive notes can be typical to volcanic soils, particularly as Jonatan works with indigenous yeasts. For him it’s part of the character of wines, and is more prominent in some years. In 2019 and 2020, although he isn’t doing anything different in the cellar, the wines seem less reductive. He thinks it is related with balance within the soil. In the past the pH in his vineyards was around 4, low soil pH decreases the availability of some nutrients, and a lack of nitrogen accentuates reduction in the final wines. It’s something Jonatan has been correcting slowly, adding lime to the soils since 2016, which is what growers in the area used to do, and has managed to raise the pH to 4.5. He thinks it needs to be closer to 5-5.5, but it’s a battle, when you use powdered sulphur (against mildew) that combines with the soil and reduces the pH.

The next wine we tasted was  El Esquilón 2016. This was the year they started to change the winemaking. They started to harvest earlier to get lower potential alcohol and higher acidity. They now work with more whole bunches, but with less extraction. Stems aren’t just about freshness, Jonatan explained, they add structure as well. They work softly, foot-treading the grapes with long macerations (for Listán Negro)  of 20-30 days.

“This is a fantastic wine, in a blind tasting I could confuse it with a Nebbiolo. We joke that El Esquilón is a volcanic Nebbiolo!  When you don’t know the origin, it has an earthier nose and the structure. For me it’s a great wine. On the one hand it’s light and on the other it has structure”.

Jonathan

Importance of orientation

El Esquilón vineyard is higher up the slope than La Solana, at 450-550 metres, and planted with 80 year-old Listán Negro vines, plus younger Tintilla. The soils are dominated by volcanic rock, with a combination of clay and sandy loam, depending on the altitude. The plot faces north, and his father planted the rows east-west, Jonatan’s not sure why he did this, most of their vineyards are orientated north-south to get the morning sun. Vineyard orientation is important as it influences ripeness. El Esquilón has the same soil as El Ciruelo, and he uses the same winemaking for both cuvees, but the wines are quite different. El Ciruelo (the wine is labelled Las Suertes from 2019) is more fruity and elegant than El Esquilón. Jonathan says  after two-three years it starts to be more like Pinot whereas El Esquilón is more like Nebbiolo. 

Looking for balance

Suertes are one of the few organic producers in the north of Tenerife, they aren’t certified.  The vineyards have spontaneous cover crops, but after this harvest Jonatan hopes to have time to experiment and plant different things, ideally plants which will add nitrogen to the soils. They can’t do mechanical work on the steep vineyards, so the organic matter from the cover crops helps to aerate the soil. It also helps to preserve water, but it’s a balance because they compete with the vines. Some vintages this has more impact than in others. It isn’t normally necessary to green harvest, they lose bunches due to disease pressure during the long growing cycle on Tenerife. Also they balance the vines when they prune, normally if your yields are too high you’re not pruning properly.

Next we tasted Los Pasitos 2019. It’s made with Baboso Negro planted in 2008, there are only around 20ha on Tenerife, but more growers are planting it. The grape has high acidity, which means most Tenerife growers harvest later when there is higher alcohol and more colour.  He works differently, harvesting at 2-3 degrees lower potential alcohol than others. Jonatan likes fresh reds, and he’s not worried about making lighter coloured wines. The final wine is very fresh, with a floral character, great acidity. It has structure, without excess tannins, and should age for decades.

“If you harvest later Baboso Negro can be like an Amarone”!

Jonathan

Cruz Santa 2019. This is a relaively new wine, 2016 was the first vintage. Vijariego Negro is related to Sumoll from Catalunya, but has mutated after centuries in another terroir.  It has a medium growing cycle, big bunches of oval berries and high acidity. Like with Baboso he harvest at lower potential alcohol than most growers. The 2019 is fresh, floral, a bit like a Galician red.

Vidueño 2019. This is one of Jonatan’s favourites, it’s fresh and elegant, with low alcohol. Vidueño means field blend or a mix of different grapes in Spanish. They co-ferment of more than 20 different grapes including around 10% white (Malvasia Rosada, Negramoll, Vijariego Negro, Baboso Negro, Listán Negro, Tintilla, Castellana Negra, Albillo Criollo, Gual, Verdello…) from 2 experimental plots, plus some grapes from the second harvest at the Malvasía Rosada vineyard.

And how about the 2019 vintage?

It was a small compared with 2018, they had 60% of normal production for the whites. This wasn’t due to disease, normally Listán Blanco is productive, but the vines were tired in 2019. We  They had better yields from the reds, a little less acidity than 2018, but the wines are developing well in the cellar. And from what he’s seen the 19s are more open and you can drink them earlier than the 2018s.

For more about Suertes del Marqués read Indigo on Tour: A history lesson and a great party at Suertes del Marqués and Future classics: Suertes del Marqués doesn’t just want to be labelled as volcanic wine

1000 Small Decisions: Introducing Lady of the Sunshine and Scar of the Sea

There are a lot of synergies between Scar of the Sea and Lady of the Sunshine: owner/ winemakers Mikey and Gina Giugni share a cellar in San Luis Obispo; and as they explained when we spoke recently they share a philosophy on farming and winemaking: “We make real wines, or natural wines if you want to call them that, wines with minimal intervention that are trying to show where they’re from”. But they came to wine via very different places, and work with different terroirs. If winemaking is the sum of myriad small decisions, they make decisions differently, resulting in two exciting but distinct projects.

Mikey: “Winemaking is 100-1000 small decisions; each decision has an impact on how the wine turns out”.

Gina’s story

Gina grew up around vineyards and wine, her parents established Narrow Gate Vineyards in north California, but she found wine on her own: “As a kid you naturally reject what your parents want for you”. Gina worked in a Sonoma tasting room while she studied, and fell in love with wine. She decided to move to Cal Poly and changed her program to Wine and Viticulture. After graduating she travelled, working in Beaujolais, at Burnt Cottage in Central Otago, with Josh Bergstrom in Oregon, and in Napa. She became increasingly interested in biodynamics. While in Napa she saw grapes being meticulously farmed, but picked late when they were super ripe, over-extracted during the winemaking, and manipulated to bring back balance. At this point she decided she should put her theories into practice and make her own wine!

“I thought why don’t we pick the grapes earlier, and use the natural acidity and indigenous yeast”?

Gina started Lady of the Sunshine in 2017, with a few barrels and has been slowly growing to her current production of 1200 cases. The first wine she made under her own rules was Coquelicot Sauvignon Blanc, from a site near Solvang in the Santa Ynez Valley, planted in 90’s on alluvial river soils. “Picking is the most important decision”. Gina is looking at flavour development and picks on the natural acidity of the grapes (not sugar).

We don’t struggle developing flavours or ripeness here, the sunshine here is everlasting. Acid is the limiting factor, it can drop out at the drop of a dime, especially with recent heatwaves.

She calls Coquelicot her breakfast Margarita wine, it’s mouth-watering mix of zesty citrus, tropical fruit with a salty lick and comes in at 12% alcohol, ideal for breakfast!

Finding a home vineyard

Gina moved to the Central coast where she met the owners of Chene vineyard in Edna Valley. The 6.5 acre site is four miles from the ocean. The porous soil looks like limestone, but it’s chalkier, and it breaks apart in layers. Gina took over farming at Chene in 2018, immediately putting her ideas into practice by starting to convert to biodynamics, gaining certification in the summer of 2020.

Gina explained that not many people farm organically in California. She’s redefining what a ‘normal’ vineyard looks like, with the cover crops it looks more like a landscape than a perfectly manicured garden. It’s more work for sure building the compost, but it’s also fun: “We make wine and we also make soil, we collect all our waste and have a giant pile of compost. We put a lot of energy and effort in to, but it’s rewarding, collecting waste, incorporating animals into the farm. Farming this way is really dynamic, a constant challenge, a way of working with nature”.

Both Gina and Mikey are big proponents of certification, they feel it helps to educate consumers and encourages them to ask questions. Mikey: “As the terms organic, biodynamic and sustainable become more popular in the market it’s easy for producers to say what they want, certification is the only thing that upholds authenticity”.

Being just four miles from the Pacific coast the cool microclimate is great for growing Pinot Noir and Chardonnay but the super high humidity from the fogs creates mildew pressure. Gina uses an organic spray made from cinnamon oil which she applies every ten days, more than would be needed for a systemic chemical but it doesn’t kill the good bugs.

“When you strip away artificial fertilisers and sprays, the vineyard becomes more responsive to small changes in climate, you start to notice things, you can really tune into the vineyard”.

The wines

Gina makes two wines from Chene. The beautifully concentrated Chene Vineyard Chardonnay from a one acre block of the California heritage Wente clone. Brought from France in the 60s, Wente has small clusters the size of your fist, with mix of berry sizes. It’s good for biodynamic farming, the loose clusters allow air flow and sunshine to enter the bunches, meaning less chance of botrytis.

Gina foot treads her whites and leaves them to soak overnight: “This give a little kiss of texture and tannin, and adds tension”. The whites are gently pressed into neutral French oak, and ferment outside in a warm environment. She gets bit of reduction from the natural yeast ferment, adding a flinty tone to the wines. Whites are aged on lees until a week before bottling.

There are five and a half acres of high-density (2,000 vines per acre) Pinot Noir planted in Chene, Gina uses about a third of this and sells the rest including some to fellow Indigoer Drake Whitcraft. Gina likes to use the Pinot from the steepest slope of the site which has shallow topsoil. This gives small clusters and concentrated berries. The stems lignify and she now uses 100% wholebunch for her Chene Vineyard Pinot Noir. She describes the tannins in her Pinot as: “More angular, darker than classic Burgundy”. Which she attributes to the hard, shallow topsoil.

Mikey’s story

Mikey also studied at Cal Poly, engineering not winemaking, but he didn’t like working in a cubicle so he got a job in a tasting room, before working on a vineyard and learning on the job. He was interested in sparkling wine and went to Tasmania, and it was here he discovered low-intervention winemaking. When he returned to the US in 2012 he started Scar of the Sea.

While Gina mainly focusses on the terroir within one site Mikey works with vineyards scattered across the region from San Luis Obispo coast down to the Santa Maria Valley, farmed by friends and colleagues he’s made connections with over the years. He’s drawn to older vineyards which are relatively scarce in California. He works closely with three families: The Millers (Bien Nacido and Solomon Hill); the Murphys (Presquile); and Rancho Oniveras farmed by his friend James Oniveros. All are practicing organic as a minimum, given the extra work and costs involved you need a relationship to persuade farmers to work organically. Mikey estimates it costs 800-2000 USD per acre to farm organically, depending on the site, with the biggest cost being weed control.

The wines

Grapes for his Old Vine Chardonnay come from an old section of the iconic Bien Nacido vineyard, Blocks I and O planted in the 70s on own roots.

He splits his Pinots into the classic Burgundian pyramid: ‘Regional’ wine Vino de los Ranchos, a homage to the old ranches like Bien Nacido and Ontiveros which still exist in the Santa Maria Valley. Los Ranchos is a spice driven Burgundian style, light on its feet with refreshing acidity. Seven Leagues is his Appellation wine, from his three favourite vineyards in the Santa Maria Valley – Bien Nacido, Solomon Hills and Presqu’ile. Solomon Hills and Presqu’ile are cooler, more foggy sites with sandy soils. Pinot from there is perfumed and floral, with a lighter texture and structure. In contrast Bien Nacido, with California limestone soils, has more structure and body. He describes Bien Nacido Vineyard Block Q as his Grand Cru, from old old-rooted vines planted 1973. The wine has broader shoulders and more tannin, it’s a classic with restraint and natural acidity, not overblown but with the California sun and vibes.

In his book The New California Wine Jon Bonne noted: The arrival of a mature American wine culture, where producers are confident enough not to mimic the Old World or obscure the nuances of terroir with clever cellar work, but rather seek greatness in a uniquely American context. That is the wonderful reality of the New California.

This is perfectly illustrated in Mikey and Gina’s vibrant, energetic wines, I’ll leave the last word with Mikey.

“We like wines that show the terroir, the flavours of the land. We add a small amount of sulphur to keep the microbe level down, so we’re not showing off bad yeast or microbes, but the purity of the place”.

Find out more about Scar of the Sea and Lady of the Sunshine on the producer pages, or email us if you’d like to taste them.

An update from the Rheingau

Theresa Breuer is a dynamo, she took the reins at her family estate in 2004 aged 18, when her father passed away. She has continued to build on his legacy for quality converting their vineyards – some of the top crus in the Rheingau – to organics. I caught up with Theresa to discuss recent developments at the estate, and the eagerly anticipated 2019 vintage releases.

New projects

While for many of us the past year has meant a change of rhythm, for winemakers the seasons and the work in the vineyard continued as normal. Theresa Breuer and her team have used this year, when she couldn’t do her usual travelling, to focus a bit more at home. She explained that they have been reconfigured their winery in Rudesheim to give more bottle storage and make the layout more efficient. But more exciting still, they’ve working with new vineyards around the village of Lorch. Theresa explained the background:

“Lorch is the furthest village in the area, 16km from Rudesheim, more Mittelrhein than Rheingau. It’s on it’s own, a little fairy-tale area with castles. Everything is remote and calm, but that focusses you when you’re there. We took over 7.5ha of vineyards in 2019, from a family where the next generation didn’t want to continue winemaking. It’s a once in a generation opportunity [to purchase new vineyards] so you say yes!

“The vineyards are on steep slopes spread across five different sites, they’re intense to work but beautiful. Three are going into a new Village Riesling, and we do one Grand Cru. [We have a limited quantity of Lorch Pfaffenwies Grand Cru available] We’re still trying to understand the new area and how we bring this particular unique terroir into the bottle in the best way. It’s different to Rudesheim, in a segment where the river curves again, so the vineyards are south-east facing which prolongs the nights. This is especially interesting during harvest, as we keep a higher acidity level and the ripening is stretched out a little bit longer. But then we also have very intense afternoon sun which brings a lot of fruit intensity and flavour ripeness into the grapes.

“We have a sweet-sour touch there, which you don’t get anywhere else in Rheingau, it’s typical for Mittelrhein”.

“So we’re adding a unique Riesling to our portfolio, from the same soils, but its own area. As we get to know the area we’re already changing a bit the picking time, what we vinify in… It’s a cool time, not everything is set into a frame already, we can be different with things”.

A sense of place

Riesling is renowned for expressing the region and soils on which it’s grown. Theresa was asked to be part of a project called Wurzelwerk (wurzel means roots in German). It’s a collaboration of Riesling makers in Rheingau, Rheinhessen, and Kamptal in Austria. Three wineries make a wine from the others’ grapes, to see the influence of the cellar on the final wines. I asked Theresa how she became involved and what she’s learned from the project.

“It started, when we were all studying together. We’d talk about terroir – we love our sites and are big supporters of Cru wines – but what influence does the cellar and the winemaker play? I take part with our Nonnenberg Cru, a monopole which only we make wine from, so we didn’t know how much is the influence of the vineyard and of the producer. [For Wurzelwerk] the only decision we make is when to pick the grapes, we keep a third and send the rest to the other producers; we all follow the same low intervention ‘recipe’ for the winemaking; everything is the same but at the end we have three different wines.

“We have discovered, the younger the wines are the louder the cellar is”.

“The wines we had all felt like our wines, I wouldn’t have guessed they were from other sites.  But after a while the vineyard is really stepping up, it develops a uniqueness. You can see a Heiligenstein from Austria is not Breuer, but it needs time. Terroir is perhaps something you should talk about after three-four years, because what you experience in an early stage is a huge influence of the cellar”.

2019 – vintage of the century?

The 2019 vintage was challenging in the vineyard, but has received amazing reviews. James Suckling asked: is 2019 Germany’s 100 point vintage? Calling it: “The best vintage I have ever tasted for German Riesling in my four-decade career“. We’re delighted to have a small allocation, does Theresa think 2019 lives up to the hype?

“It was another dry warm year [like 2018], so the vines didn’t have water resources left, it was dry, dry, dry! And we had heat peaks, over 40 degrees at times. We could see parts of the grapes were burned, even though we tried used canopy management to cover them, it was tough, hard to see our vines fighting. In the end the grapes were tiny and extremely concentrated. We had very intense flavours in the grapes, and harvest was later so it was a nice balance of acidity which you keep better with later, cooler harvests. We had high acidity with a lot of concentration, but low yields, half of what we picked in 2018. It was great to see that even though it was a tough year for the vines, the fermentations went smoothly. The wines have a lot of structure, intensity, they’re probably great for ageing.

“It’s a classic Riesling year for flavour and intensity and acidity in the wines. It’s a vintage for Riesling lovers. 2018 is a great door opener if you’re just stating to get to know Riesling, it’s more gentle. But 2019 is the vintage to follow”.

When I visited Theresa in 2018 she explained about the patchwork of parcels of vines they own. Depending on how warm or cool, wet or dry a vintage is different plots thrive. Theresa and her team vinify and keep each plot separately, giving them a palette for their final blending. Had any of the Crus performed particularly well in 2019?

“There’s not one star in 2019. They’re all so concentrated, they all carry their character and typicity very well this year. Berg Rottland is more fruit driven and opens up a little earlier. Schlossberg is the warmest plot and develops an intense ripeness, it’s a little more creamy and rounder, but extremely mineral. 2019 is a year that points out the nerve and soul of the different sites”.

So there you have it a classic Riesling year, but small quantities, grab it while you can!

Meet the Bret Brothers

We caught up with Jean-Philippe and Jean-Guillaume aka the Bret Brothers, owners of Domaine de la Soufrandière and their eponymous negociant in the Mâconnais. It was a week when France was much in the news due to destructive frosts in Chablis, but also as far south as the Rhone. So our first question was how were their vineyards, had the frosts hit them in Mâconnais?

J-P “Yes, it’s difficult to say how much at the moment, between 20-80% damage over the last two nights: the first was minus four degrees with high winds, the next was minus six with no wind. The first night the damage was on the slopes, the second night the damage was at the bottom of the slopes. Fighting frost is difficult, some people use candles, some people use big fans to move the cold air from the bottom of the slopes, the results aren’t great for either. Candles can work when the temperature isn’t too low, but it was so low. The vines we pruned late resisted more than those we pruned at the beginning of the winter.

“For La Soufrandière we counted about 40% of lost buds, we still have 60% so we’re quite lucky, some neighbours have lost more.

“Maybe this is something we need to think about for the future. Everybody knows it’s better to prune late, but because of global warming we often get bud break in March, so we have to find a compromise between pruning late but not too late. We used to say the best time was March, but with climate change we often have 25 degrees. The buds can be quite big and fragile, so when you strip the old canes you can destroy the buds”.

J-G added: “The best time now is between St Vincent’s Day (22 January) to mid-March”.

An education in organics

J-G “We grew up near Paris [their grandparents didn’t work their vineyards] but spent our holidays in the Macon area fishing, picking mushrooms, and we developed a strong connection with nature in the area. But it was a long project to start making wine. We studied in Burgundy and worked in different parts of France and also in California”. JG worked at Newton in Napa and JP at Ridge Lytton Springs.

J-P “We were lucky to intern with some vignerons who are now really famous, at the time they were staring Demeter Biodynamic methods. We still have a connection with Dominique Lafon, I was an intern with him in Mersault from 1998-99. He had been experimenting with organics and biodynamics since 1995, it wasn’t so common then. 25 years ago most people used herbicides, and most people machine harvested in the Mâconnais. We wanted to stop this to get life into the soil.

“If you kill everything in the soil, you don’t have terroir anymore! You’ll have Chardonnay that grows on something mineral, but no connection between that mineral and the plant.

“Organic life is the link between them – worms, bacteria, fungus and insects – if you kill the grass the insects won’t have any food, they’ll die as well. So our priority was to work with a system that preserved life in the soil. We’ve been working with organics and biodynamics since the beginning, and were certified organic in 2006”.

At wine school they were told organic farming didn’t work, wasn’t efficient. J-P: The organic way works, but it needs more humans in the vines, less machines and chemicals.

“We spend more than 80% of our time in the vines”.

J-G “Our first vintage was 2000. We had two family properties around Vinzelles, 4ha from our father’s family and 1.5ha from our mother’s family. This wasn’t enough for both of us to work on so in 2001 we set up the negoce (Bret Brothers), we only buy organic grapes, that we harvest ourselves from 8-9ha in Mâconnais and Beaujolais”.

Winemaking and the question of sulphites

They make multiple cuvees across both projects, but the winemaking is consistent: handpicking, natural yeasts, a low quantity of sulphites (for biodynamic cuvees up to 19mg/l for others up to 50mg/l).

J-P “We’ve put something in the head of people, of vignerons, that to protect your wine you need to add sulphites, but this is like medicine”. They have the same philosophy for their farming. “We have grass among the vines, we don’t fight against the grass we work with it. [In the winery] we work with oxygen, we don’t fight against it. In California where I worked people were afraid of oxygen: the presses were under nitrogen; hoses (spurged with) nitrogen; the tank with argon.

“If the juice never sees oxygen, all the potential molecules which are sensitive to oxygen are still in the wine. This is like a bomb! And to avoid an explosion you add sulphites.

“We don’t add any sulphites during pressing, maybe 10mg under the presses, this means the juice oxidises and becomes brown. We leave it to settle for 12 hours after pressing (débourbage in French) and the oxidised molecules settle at the bottom of the tank. All that could be oxidised has oxidised during this operation”.

Since 2014 they have experimented with using lower levels of sulphites, when they open these bottles they have found the evolution to be good. And they find their wines are generally stable if opened for 2-3 days. J-G says that you need to have a good balance in the vineyard, a good balance on pH vs. maturity means they can work with low levels of sulphites.

A team approach

J-P – “Today we have 10 people working full time at La Soufrandière and Bret Brothers, farming 12 hectares and 9ha through the negoce, that means one person for 1.5 hectares. Our neighbours who farm in a ‘conventional way’ have one person for 10 hectares. We spend time bud rubbing, looking after the canopy to avoid rot. Thanks to that care you can use a very small quantity of sulphites”.

The whole team is involved in the biodynamic process. “For us biodynamics is the quality of the wine, respect for the environment, but also the human dimension. People dream of having big machines like robots to reduce costs, but where is the place of the human?

“I don’t dream of an agriculture of only machines for tomorrow”.

At the end of the Zoom JP took us out to the Les Quarts vineyard, which is next to their house and winery, and showed us the view over the Bresse Plain towards the Jura. En route we met, and waved to, several members of the vineyard and office team, as well as Cheyen the vineyard dog. This is clearly a project built on people and passion, and that really shows through in their exciting vibrant range of wines.

Read more about the wines from Domaine de la Soufrandière.

Read more about the wines from Bret Brothers

Candialle: Chianti with a modern touch

Josephin and Jarkko Peränen are bringing a modern perspective to the traditions of Chianti, making elegant, energetic wines in the heart of the Classico region. We spoke to them to find out more the story behind their project.

Jarkko came into wine by coincidence. He hung out with a lot of Italians while studying in Holland, visited during harvest, and ended up staying on to work with a small producer in Chianti Classico for the next 5 years. His wife Josephin is from a German brewing family, she says she “grew up in the countryside with the smell of brewing steam in her nose”, and knew she wanted to be involved in agriculture in some way. They met in Italy and bought their farm in 2002.

Candialle is an ancient place for growing vines and olives, it was first mentioned in papers from the 14th Century, and officially mapped in a census in 1716. They think the name derives from Latin and means ‘The House of Candio’. It’s located at the southern tip of the “Conca d’Oro” an amphitheatre of vines just below of the village of Panzano in the heart of Chianti. The farm is surrounded by woodlands, 20 of the 48 hectares that they own is wooded, there are also meadows, scrub and olive trees. Josephin explained that there’s a long history of polyculture in Tuscany, people owned a mix of fruit and olive trees, vines and vegetables.

“The area really began to focus on wine in the 1960s. Bigger wine companies moved in, tractors replaced oxen, and production increased. They flattened many of the traditional terraces, and the mixed planting started to disappear”.

The vineyards

When Jarkko and Josephin arrived there were only 2.5 hectares of vines. They started planting more in 2004, and now have 9.6 hectares of mostly Sangiovese, plus a little Malvasia Nera, Canaiolo and Colorino del Valdarno. In the cooler spots they have small plantings of international varieties: Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. They initially worked with the renowned agronomist Remigio Bordini who introduced his own massale selection vines. But now they take cuttings from their own vines, and work with a small organic nursery close by, which propagates with material from local producers. Jarkko has been collecting pieces of a Sangiovese vine he thinks is at least 100 years old, and field grafting buds onto a plot of Merlot. And now they have a small plot of their own Sangiovese clone.

Focus on the soil

They have worked organically from the beginning, and have been certified since 2019. They work regeneratively, which means focusing on soil health: producing their own organic fertilizers, not tilling the soil, and using ground plant cover to support biodiversity. They have animals – two very characterful highland cattle – for compost; collect all their pruning clippings to compost; and marc from the fermentation.

“Everything we take out from the vineyard returns there. Almost like a closed cycle farm.”

The are located on the famous galestro soils – the Italian name for the crumbly clay/schist – which makes the terracotta tiles you see on Tuscan buildings.

Jarkko: “This soil produces strong, rather tannic, and for Sangiovese a deep coloured wine, this is typical from Panzano”. It used to be referred to as the ‘nero de Panzano’ the black wine of Panzano. “In other regions where they have more of the chalky albarese soil the wines tend to be lighter in colour and structure and are more floral. But what made Panzano famous was the more full-bodied wines from the galestro.”

Winemaking

Jarkko describes their winemaking as very simple. They pick by hand into small crates, making their grape selections in the vineyard. They keep the crates in refrigerated shipping containers to cool them so the fermentation starts slowly, and they don’t need to cool the must during fermentation.

They’ve been doing some experiments with stems, but don’t think Sangiovese benefits from having them included as it’s tannic enough already. In the past people might have included some to increase they pH of the wine, but with good farming, and in a warm climate the grapes are ripe enough so they don’t want to increase the pH. The maceration lasts 25-30 days depending on the year, they do some punch downs and pump overs after the first five days, and reduce them towards the end of the fermentation. They press with an old basket press then the different wines are aged in different vessels. Over time they’ve seen different parcels seem to age better in different vessels which is one of the main differences between their wines.

La Misse, which means the ‘little miss’ in local dialect is described as their baby wine. It comes from younger vines and they co-ferment a little Caniolo and Malvasia Nera in the blend. It’s fermented and aged in concrete tanks.

Their Candialle Chianti Classico is made from grapes from particular plots with a late maturing clone from Romagna, which produces full bodied wines with a low pH and lots of colour, which can take the oak ageing.

Mimas, also Sangiovese, aged in 250 litre round ceramic claver, produced by a small company in Genoa. They were the first to use them for commercial winemaking, they have claver number 6 and 7 off the production line! Jarkko describes it as a ‘hyper-modern amphora’ thin walls allow micro-oxygenation like you would get in barrel, but no flavour to fully express the Sangiovese. The wine is labelled IGT because they make such a small quantity, it doesn’t make sense to take it through all the Classico tasting panels.

MN was an experiment made from 100% Malvasia Nero. Normally they co-ferment this with Sangiovese which bring acidity, thy noticed that the pH was low in 2016 and they have made a fresh and supple with feather-light alcohol – just 11% – which they describe as a great lunchtime wine!

New wines from Fedellos and Peixes

The Fedellos/Peixes team are busy pruning their multiple small plots on the precipitous slopes around the Bibei and Sil river valleys. We caught up with Curro Bareño to find out more about their new wines.

The Fedellos do Couto project was started in 2013 by Curro Bareño, Jesús Olivares (pictured above) and Luis Taboada. They focus on small vineyards planted with a myriad of mostly local grape varieties: including Mencía, Mouratón, and Merenzao (aka Bastarda, aka Trousseau); and for whites Dona Blanca, Godello, Albariño and Treixadura. The plots they work with are farmed organically, and worked by hand, it couldn’t be any other way on the vertigo inducing slopes in Ribeira Sacra. Their winemaking is consistent across the ranges – with gentle extraction, and maturation in neutral vessels.

New Fedellos wines

2019 was the last year they had had access to the Cortezada vineyard so they have been scouting new sites. Their solution is As Xaras, a juicy 100% Mencía with fine chalky tannins, which really punches above it’s price point. It’s a blend of fruit from two sites on opposite sides of the River Xares, one of which strictly speaking is part of Valdeorras, close to Rafael Palacios’ vineyards. In fact Curro said they joke that the good fortune of working in Valdeorras is that you can look across to the beautiful Ribeira Sacra! The wine is named after a little white flower, called rock-rose in English, that grows around the valley.

They also have a new ‘village’ white. Testoiro is elegant with a savoury nose, a vibrant limey acidity and a fine chalky texture. It’s made from a blend of grapes, but predominantly Dona Branca, Godello and Colgadeira from two parcels around Soutipedre. The same parcels that contribute to their village red Lomba dos Ares.

Developments at Peixes

There are also changes at their newer Peixes project – initially centred around Viana do Bolo, which is likely to be included in DO Valedeorras in the near future. Although that won’t affect Fedellos who, like several of the leading new producers in Ribeira Sacra (including Envínate), choose to make wine outside the politics and bureaucracy of their DOs. These are some of the highest vineyards in Galicia, at 600-850 metres above sea level. At this altitude the grapes don’t ripen consistently year to year, and many of the sites have been abandoned, or the fruit is used to make the local Orujo grappa.

Jesús and Curro set up a winery in Seadur in an old cave, and have made the last two vintages of Peixes there. New wine Os Bidueiros, comes from 60-80 year old vineyards around Seadur. It’s a blend of mainly Mencía, Sumoll and Garnacha Tintorera. Yes you read right Sumoll – which is more usually found in Catalunya, or on Tenerife where it’s called Vijariego Negro. Os Bidueiros has a distinct perfume from the other Peixes wines, perhaps because Seadur is warmer than Viana do Bolo and the soils are granite. It’s darker, a little more serious, more structured and concentrated.

Recent vintages

So if any wine growing areas can be said to be ‘benefitting’ from climate change Galicia could be one of them, allowing grapes to ripen more reliably in what were once seen as marginal sites. Curro described the 2018 season as difficult in that it was cold and wet in even in June and July. But things improved and a warmer drier end to the summer saved the day. 2019 was more typical for Galicia, i.e. consistently cool and wet! But nothing extreme, this meant a long growing cycle, low pH and good acidity, and a good crop of healthy grapes which bodes well.

Curro thinks the 2018s are some of their best wines yet.

As Luis Gutierrez said in his 2019 Wine Advocate report Spain, Galicia: Ribeiro Renaissance?

There is no stopping for a movement that champions regional wines from organically farmed vineyards, produced in a respectful way with indigenous varieties that express the character of the place, grape and vintage.

Luis Gutierrez, The Wine Advocate, Issue 241, Feb 2019

González Bastías: A labour of love in the Maule Valley

Chile’s grape growing heritage

Growing grapes is part of the culture in rural southern Chile, Daniela explained. Every house has half a hectare of vines, which some still make into a Pipeño wine for their own consumption. These backyard wines are often a mix of grapes, and are drunk light, young and fruity, like a Beaujolais Nouveau. The name came from pipa, the container the wine was traditionally kept in.

Chile has two wine stories, José Luis told us. One of Cabernet Sauvignon and Carmenere, brought over by French ‘refugees from phylloxera’ in the mid 19th Century, and financed by gentleman farmers who made their fortune in the mining industry. The other is of grapes like País, Moscatel, PX and Torrontes, which came over with the Spanish to make communion wine, and reached Chile via Peru.

José Luis is the 5th generation of his family to cultivate vineyards on the south bank of the Maule river, in an area called the dry coastline or ‘rulo‘. Unlike some of the larger landowners in Maule and Bio Bio, his family haven’t grubbed up or re-grafted their 200 year old País bush vines for more ‘popular’ international varietals.

José Luis: I only have wine in my veins.

A chance meeting

Enologist Daniela, the other half of González Bastías, isn’t from the south originally, after her studies she opened a wine bar in Santiago. One day a quiet guy from Maule came in with his wines for her to try. She instantly fell in love with the wines, and the story of this unique winery and its heritage vineyards. And after a couple of meetings she fell in love with the man – Jose Luís Bastías – as well! She moved south to Maule, and they now run the vineyards and the winery together.

They own five hectares of País and other Criolla grapes which José Luis’ family planted in the early 1800’s and have cultivated ever since. The vines grow on their own roots as Phylloxera hasn’t reached Maule. They think these un-grafted vines, with their roots reaching 15-20 metres below the ground through the sand, river sediment and granite, have a longer life than modern grafted vines.

The climate in Maule is perfect for viticulture: protected by the Coastal Range that runs from north to south along the coast from the top of Chile down to Bio Bio; they don’t get frost as they are close to the Maule river; and a cool afternoon breezes from the ocean, which is 40 kilometres away, ensure mildews and moulds are kept at bay. They farm organically to promote soil life, and work in harmony with the natural cycles. Their flock of sheep eat the grass between the vines; the droppings feed the soil; more plants grow which they cut to make compost, which adds organic matter and aerates the soil. A virtuous circle which some people refer to as permaculture.

Daniela: The ancestral way is about observation. Nature responds to this good energy.

• 

• 

A blend of old and new

José Luis’ grandfather taught him how to farm and look after these vines, but José Luis’ and Daniela are also trying new techniques. They have been exploring a method called Simonit&Sirch. The idea is that pruning to the vine’s natural growth shape, minimizing the amount and size of the cuts, and promoting the natural flow of the sap, helps improving the balance, minimizes disease on old wood, and extends the life of the plant.

José Luis: The old vines are like old people, you have to take care of them

They work in a traditional way in the winery, in fact in 2017 they had no electricity during harvest, so it was just as well they don’t employ lots of modern technology! They crush and de-stem the grapes on bamboo racks called zarandas. They ferment the grapes in open cement lagares, with manual punch-downs. Fermentation is spontaneous and lasts 10-14 days, and they don’t make any corrections to the juice. After this they rack the wines into old tinajas (clay amphorae) or traditional Chilean foudre made from native Rauli oak.

This project is truly a labour of love: living and working sustainably; looking after their land, its history and traditions for future generations. They practice agriculture as a part of life and not just a business, but don’t imagine this is a lifestyle project, the wines are alive, fresh and delicious!

Read more about the wines on our producer page.