The new Alsatian’s Natural Creed stateth that farming should be biodynamic and that winemaking boundaries can – and should be – pushed to the maximum minimal. It is not just the irreverent whippersnappers bending the rules – relative veterans of their wine craft such as Jean-Pierre Frick, Bruno Schueller, Patrick Meyer and other members of the ür-gang, happily espouse madness in their methodology and make wines with extraordinary and original flavours. Alsace is now truly a hotbed of natty wine innovation. It is not just the irreverent whippersnappers bending the rules – relative veterans of t ..read more

In a previous life I must have been an orange because I am forever being asked to spout on about that colour. In relation to wine! It is a topic that I enjoy talking about, for it allows me to adopt a “three dimensional” approach to the subject, so to speak – rambling through the highways and byways of philosophy, music, art, culture and memory and fleshing out the journey of how the wines came to be and what significance they may have for us. Talking discursively in this way is like abstract painting, with ideas layered on top of one another. The discourse seems unformulated and digressive i ..read more

The farm Podere Sassi lies in a beautiful location overlooking the surrounding valleys of the southern Sabina. It’s a small biologic agricultural holding that is characterised by a pure, strong and unyielding approach, one devoted to a zero intervention policy that faithfully preserves Nature’s work. There is no place for pesticides and every other intervention that doesn’t fully adhere to their principles. In 2007, Leonardo Sassi took over his grandfather Antonio’s old farm, which had previously specialised in raising Chianina cows, making olive oil and co-operative wine. The farm is in Tara ..read more

Giambattista Tallia and Giusto Occhipinti in the vineyards ©COS Winery What draws us to wine, in an intellectual as well as emotional way, is that we are naturally fascinated by people and the places they come from and the wines they end up making are often a pure reflection of their origins, or their love of a place, or their personal growth. Origin in terms of where one farms and makes the wine shapes one’s decisions. Many vignerons will talk about their terroir and making wines that do honour to that terroir. They will also be conscious of tradition and legacy. This is the first in a series ..read more

Do you remember when every other blog seemed to concern the irresistible rise of orange wines?  Orange was – for a time – the only colour. It dominated discourse. I was invited on many a panel to discuss the phenomenon, peel back the mystery (see what I did there) and wrote copious pithy (see what I did there) articles on the subject. The wines made from the skin-contact process were veritably the flag bearers for the natural wine movement. They were out there. ‘Grammable to the nth degree. Vive the orange/amber revolution! As the category of “o” wines shifted from solely inhabiting the ..read more

I have been flailing around about what to write about recently until I read a thread on a well-known wine educator’s page. It was a classic lemon-sucking post, pooh-poohing the word terroir as being a term used lazily by growers to market the ineffability of their wine. Wine, of course, is (went the argument) 100% about the winemaking, its flavours derive solely from the microbiological and chemical transformations. The rest is whimsy. That was the gist. As joyless as the winter days which bound the earth under bands of iron and let no living thing or creeping herb rejoice or procreate. Terro ..read more

The 18-hectare family run winery and vineyards are situated on the south-eastern edge of the Montalcino appellation in the tiny village of Castelnuovo dell’ Abate. Flavio Fanti is a traditionalist – utilising large Slovenian and French oak for his Brunellos to rest in. Flavio’s Brunellos are a testament to his local micro-region. He cultivates organically with due respect for the land and his beloved appellation. The wines possess structure, power and purity, and without doubt, are built for the long haul. ©La Palazzetta   Grower and cellar-master Flavio fashions his wines himself. In add ..read more

Photo credit: Elisa Guerin   As I raise the glass of wine to my lips, I am listening to a verbal picture being painted by a friend of mine of a young female vigneronne working singlehandedly in an obscure region of sunny Spain, farming regeneratively and growing indigenous varieties that I have never heard of, foot-treading her lovingly hand-picked grapes in an old cement trough, allowing the ferment to go wild and finally bringing the wine to bottle without filtration or adding sulphur. The recital of this list is aural balm, with almost every one of my kind of positive wine trigger word ..read more

© Isle of Harris Distillery Ltd.   The Hearach is the first, historic single malt whisky from the Isle of Harris, as the distilling traditions lost during the Pabbay clearances of the 1840s have been revived. Every drop of this new dram is being distilled by local people to produce a special spirit which has been matured, married, and bottled here in this elemental place, and nowhere else. The Hearach is bottled at 46% abv, non-chill filtered, and free from artificial colouring. The water sourced from Abhainn Cnoc a’ Charrain is one of the soft ..read more

Bangers from Cangas Fran Asencio is the man behind Dominio del Urogallo, a domain of old vines, complex soils and steep slopes, in the cooler climate of an Atlantic-influenced region. He now owns about 14 hectares of vines, which he brought back to health through organic and biodynamic farming and restored structurally by backbreaking manual labour. He is striving to create a forum for the voice of Cangas to speak. This means using the local varieties, fermenting with indigenous yeast and making the wine with as little manipulation and intervention as possible. The climate in Cangas is very p ..read more