Recent Additions To Our Portfolio
As usual there have been many exciting additions to our portfolio with all the new producers making natural wines using sustainable, organic or biodynamic viticulture. Whilst we have listed a couple of the Rieslings for the last few years Domaine Albert Mann is a now new agency in Alsace; these wines possess delicious clarity of fruit. Jean-Pierre Frick, meanwhile, has long worked biodynamically, and vinified with little or no sulphur; his various cuvées provide excellent expression of the various terroirs displaying the qualities of tension and terrific minerality.
We have followed Catherine and Pierre Breton for years and we love to drink their wines when we hit the Parisian wine bars. We are now listing their Vouvrays, a Petillant and a dry version, and their graceful, brilliant, utterly drinkable Bourgueils (& a Chinon).
Patrick Rols, occasionally seen at natural wine festivals, makes a zero-sulphur Entraygues Le Fel white (or Vin de Pays de l’Aveyron), quirkily called Le P’tit Curieux, from Chenin. The wine is apparently off dry with coruscating acidity, uncompromisingly pure and something completely different. Down in Corbières young Maxime Magnon makes totally natural wines. We are shipping a vin de pays made from Carignan and Cinsault. It is velvety – liquid summer pudding incarnate.
Our increasingly impressive Burgundy selection now features more than thirty growers. Jean and Catherine Montanet own vineyards in Vézelay. Minimal intervention gives their cool-fruited reds (one made with a healthy dollop of César) a really pleasurable sensation in the mouth. They also make a Melon de Bourgogne. Yes, indeed. Frédéric Cossard (Domaine de Chassorney) makes wines that are almost ethereal; in an age when so many growers are striving for effect he works with beautiful primary fruit. The wines are refreshing and usually exhilarating. We would also draw your attention to Philippe Pacalet (beautiful pale organic, low sulphur Gevreys and others), Blair Pethel’s Domaine Dublère (silky Pommard and Volnay) and the extraordinary Prieuré-Roch (utterly fantastic wines from Vosne-Romanée and Nuits Saint-Georges). Aurélien Verdet makes silky, eloquent Pinot Noir from strictly low yields. We are taking his biodynamic Bourgogne Hautes Cotes de Nuits.
Our search for the perfect Lambrusco is over. Camillo Donati makes a totally authentic bottle-fermented wine, a serious pleasure. His frizzante Trebbiano is arguably even better. Late last year we received the wines of Massa Vecchia from the Massa Maritima in Tuscany. Fabrizio Niccolaini is one of the founding members of Vini Veri, a small group of Italian growers dedicated to natural wines. Treasure his amber-white from Vermentino aged in chestnut barrels, his thrilling dark rosé (a red by any other name) and an awesome Aleatico from Elba – they are sui generis.
Down – or up - on the slopes of Mount Etna Frank Cornelissen ploughs an extraordinary furrow. His white and reds made from native varieties such as Inzolia, Carricante, Nerello Mascalese and Nerello Cappuccio are wild and turbid. Crazy wine – perfect Caves de Pyrène fodder. One Etna wine is hardly sufficient, so we were doubly delighted to be appointed UK agents for Azienda Benanti, responsible for terrific mineral-edged white wines made from Carricante and red wines from the two Nerellos.
And we’ve diversified into beer. Pevak is an artisan Tuscany brewery, making delicate, hoppy, unfiltered ales. These are great to drink with all manner of food.