I sometimes wonder what my cleaning lady thinks of me and then I realise I might inadvertently be holding onto some minor trauma.
You see, many many years ago, when I was starting my career in Paris, I rented a room from another business school student called Géraldine, who was going to spend the semester in Grenoble. Géraldine and the other housemate Rebecca had a prior agreement with a cleaning lady whom Géraldine knew well to come every couple of weeks. Why not, I thought… but when my contract was up, it turned out that the cleaning lady had been reporting back to Géraldine’s parents that I was a drunkard who kept bottles of wine in the bedroom!
In my defence, my bedroom was only divided from the living room by a curtain and it was the only personal space I had. To give you an idea of the dimensions of this flat: the toilet was so small that Rebecca’s boyfriend couldn’t sit down and have the door closed at the same time – yes, that was awkward a few times – and the kitchen was even smaller than the toilet!
So, I’ll get to the point now. This bottle of Daniele Favaro 20.20 has been sitting on my desk for longer than I can remember, waiting for the stars to align and for me to have a few spare minutes to write this post. (That’s why it occurs to me that maybe my current cleaning lady has been keeping track.)
It’s a dry moscato from Piedmont. A great discovery. You probably haven’t heard of Daniele Favaro because 2020 was his first vintage. He seized the opportunity to take over the management of an abandoned farmhouse with 21 hectares in the village Sessame, in the province of Asti. He currently farms 2 hectares of vineyards actively, making 3500 bottles of wine and using the Carussin winery (a 15-20 min drive away) for the time being. The vineyards are in the process of being certified organic, and Daniele is looking at biodynamics in the future.
This is a moscato fermented with indigenous yeasts; it spent a total of 6 months in amphorae, of which the first four months were on the skins. Bottled without clarification or any other intervention (just very slightly filtered, it seems) with next-to-no SO2.
I drank Ca Lustra’s Moscato Secco at lunch today to have a point of comparison. Daniele’s is richer, more confident. The flavour you get both on nose and in the mouth is that same kind of duality that you get from a really good apricot: of sweetness offset against a slightly acidic tang. The colour is perfectly clear and just a bit golden. Mouth is medium to full bodied with a good energy and generous concentration. And the finish? It’s really, really satisfying. For a first-timer, this is surprisingly well made. Beginner’s luck, I wonder. I look forward to tasting the next vintages when they’re released. A little bird told me that there’s an amphora-aged barbera coming soon (from the 2021 vintage.)
My only niggle is that the price of the 20.20 (23 euros, if you buy direct from Daniele on his website) feels a wee bit too high… but Daniele also makes a cheaper moscato vinified in stainless-steel which I should try before I knock it. In any case, I want to try more from Daniele and see how he and his winery progresses. One to watch!
Let’s go for a walk though the vineyard. It’s something I do every day. As you may know, I married into the La Biancara family. The house where we live backs onto the vineyard that becomes the Sassaia wine. These vineyards are farmed organically (and are certified as such) and we make wine only with grapes (so-called “natural wine”) and occasionally a small dose of SO2, but only when needed.
I’m going to leave the subsoil aside for now and just focus on what we can see. First, as you walk, watch where you’re putting your feet; it’s not always perfectly level. One of the brothers may have been through with the ripper or there may be prunings left on the ground. As you look down, you’ll notice that there’s not just grass, but there are long grasses, short grasses, all kinds of leaves, and there are also flowers. Engage your nose and you’ll smell pollen, some lemon balm, and sometimes mint. There is buzzing too because all the flowers bring insects. The greater variety of flowers means a greater variety of insects. There’s more biodiversity in nature than you could ever believe. In a pit-fall trap set in the vineyards last year, we had 794 individual ants from 14 different ant species! (I feel sorry for the person who had to count them!)
Also, I didn’t know before moving here that, even amongst insects, there is a predator-prey dynamic and the ratio that should ideally be as close to 1:1 as possible.
We have a friend from Florence who is a specialist in mites and he realised that in our vineyard there’s a decent population of phytoseiidae that eat the yellow and red spider mites whose prevalence is causing problems down in Tuscany. Our winter prunings therefore get taken down to wineries predominantly in Montalcino to redress their balance.
Obviously if you spray with herbicides, you’re going to kill the grasses and flowers that would have attracted the insects. If you spray with an insecticide, you have done the equivalent of launching a nuclear bomb at the local population.
You might think that nuking is the answer because it eliminates the enemy. But it’s what happens to your vineyard after the apocalypse that makes me realise that a more sustainable solution is needed. Agronomist Stefano Zaninotti used a metaphor once that was so good it has stayed in my mind ever since:
Imagine an IKEA or really popular supermarket car park. If you go there on a Saturday afternoon, you’re going to have to look hard for a free spot to park, you’re going to have to neatly squeeze yourself into the space that’s available and you probably won’t be able to fling open your car doors to get out. That’s your vineyard with a healthy, thriving insect population.
Now imagine that the car arrives at the supermarket on a quiet Tuesday morning. It has no problem finding a space to park, even if can probably take up two or three spaces is it wants and then can spread out quickly over a wide area. The car in this metaphor could be a pest such as scaphoideus titanus, the American grapevine leafhopper that causes flavescenza dorata. You won’t eliminate it in either situation – some situations you have to learn to live with – but it will cause a lot more damage in your vineyards if it arrives on a Tuesday rather than a Saturday.
Anyway, let’s continue on our walk. You’ll notice that there are the insects that walk and those that fly. You will almost certainly see some bees if the weather is nice. My husband has three beehives from which he tries to make a bit of honey for the family. Sometimes we sow a couple of rows with bee-friendly flowers (often phacelia, as in the photo below) because in the last few years, the flowering of the acacia and the linden trees have coincided with rainfall so sources of nectar for our bees are limited. Climate change is a problem for them too.
If you’re lucky, you might see our resident pheasant scuttling away from us. If I take you over to the other side of the vineyard, that’s where you find the hares. And if we go through the woods on our way back down, you’re very likely to see the footprint of a wild boar and the paths they forge up and down the hillside.
Then there are the birds. Now, I’m the first to admit that my ability to recognise and name them could be much improved. We had a student from Holland come and visit the winery once who could recognise the species of bird just by their song. I wish I had written down all that he had heard; it was really impressive. In my garden, I know there is a robin and a family of tits. In the trees above are the magpies, sometimes four or six of them. Then, if there’s no wind, there’s nearly always a bird of prey hovering in the sky above our heads. There are two or three different types that I see most often. I’ll show you if you come and visit too.
That’s why I choose to support wineries that farm organically, at the very least. I guess the average person stops at the taste of a wine (and taste is important) but for me, it’s fundamental that the grower managing those vines is growing healthy grapes and maintaining harmony in the ecosystem of their vineyards. It might sound like that’s a lot of hard work and upkeep – and yes, it is harder to work organically than conventionally – but remember this, nature would have that balance by herself. It’s human invention which causes the disruption. What the grower needs to do is make responsible, reasonable, conscientious choices. And in an ideal world, the consumer should do the same when choosing what to buy.
We visited Jean-Pierre in Pfaffenheim during a trip to Alsace in the summer of 2021. You may well know that the 2021 was a washout for most of the region, with yields decimated because of mildiou. Not only that, but our visit came only days after JP’s son Thomas decided to split from the family business and break away on a project of his own. The wines were singing but Jean-Pierre was not on his best form. As a result, it didn’t feel right to write up the visit here on the blog.
Tasting line-up during a visit to the domainein August 2021Tasting a few barrel samples too…
We did, however, stock up on as many bottles as we could bring through Switzerland to take home with us and they have since been tucked away in the wine cellar, occasionally calling to me like mythical sirens luring in thirsty sailors. There’s no rush to drink any of the Frick wines – they are built to last – so I do feel rather guilty when I find myself giving into the temptation.
I don’t know what it is about winter – and in particular these three days which are called the giorni della merla and are supposedly the coldest of the year – but it makes me want to drink aged Alsatian white wines. I hankered for a Yann Durrmann riesling back in 2017. Yesterday I reached for a bottle of Jean-Pierre Frick’s Auxerrois 2018.
Needless to say, it’s delicious. Jean-Pierre’s wines are characterised by a vitality that is undeniable, an energy that only a magician could conjure, and a drinkability that is verging on dangerous for my bank balance. It is very slightly cloudy, but the nose is clean and inviting, slightly herbal and medicinal. I love the texture of this wine too; it’s both sumptuous and salty. At first it envelops your mouth with a burst of flavour – ripe grapes, juicy mirabelles, and just a touch of sage – then the salinity comes through causing the middle of my tongue to tingle.
A curiousity if you’re not familiar with these wines: Jean-Pierre made the decision “starting with the 2002 vintage” according to Decanter to bottle all his wines under crown caps. You normally see this type of bottle closure on lightly sparkling wines (col fondo or pet nats, for example) or on bottles of beer. It’s cheap, easy, but a controversial choice for a quality winemaker.
“One bottle in ten does not remain true to the original wine that was put in bottle, because of the cork closure.” That’s the claim on the back label of the bottle. Between TCA cork taint and other sometimes barely perceptible alterations due to imperfections in the natural cork, that number feels about right. It’s fair also to mention that 98% of Cremants and Champagnes are put under crown cap until their degorgement, but, what I haven’t got my head around yet is if the stainless steel crown cap allows for more or less oxygen to reach the wine compared to other more traditional closures. My experience with Stefano Bellotti’s Semplicemente line (three still wines – a white, a red and a pink – also under crown caps) several years ago makes me a little wary of premature oxydation… But, here in this case, there is not even the faintest glimmer of oxydation. The wine is, effectively, in a perfectly pure condition.
Two days ago, a notification pops up on my phone: “2023 confirmed as world’s hottest year on record.” It’s a headline which is saddening rather than surprising. Anyone who poked their head outside in 2023 probably felt the effect of climate change.
Personally, I feel rather helpless in the face of such a huge battle, but, should you want to get a better understanding of who is valiantly fighting the cause, you should see what Nick Breeze is doing with his series of interviews called ClimateGenn (available to stream on YouTube and through the website.)
As we know, each passing year is becoming more and more volatile, with extreme weather events occuring in places where previously there had been no such issues. An industry like viticulture and winemaking, like all forms of agriculture, is fundamentally intertwined with the weather. After the drought of 2022, we had been hoping for a relatively straightforward 2023, but that wasn’t to be the case. This latest vintage will go down as one of the most complicated in Italy in recent memory.
The technical information in this blog post comes from the annual report provided by agronomic consultants Vitenova and the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate (IASC), while the anecdotes come from recent conversations with winemakers.
It’s little surprise that 2023 was the warmest year ever recorded in Italy (IASC) because already the winter of 2022-2023 was the fifth hottest since records started in 1800 and was characterised, by and large, by a continuation of the drought of 2022. (Tuscany is the exception here where the winter saw far more rainfall than usual.) The month of March was very warm – the average temperature was up in the top ten hottest averages for March ever recorded – but then we felt the chill in April with temperatures lower than the average, almost -2°C in Friuli and -1.5°C in the Veneto.
Spraying with a preventative treatment of AQ10 at La Biancara, April 2023.
May was the month in which the rain fell for most of us, and you may remember the heavy flooding on several occasions in Emilia-Romagna. Maybe it’s because I spend most of my time in the Veneto where they’re known for swearing*, but it was in May when I heard some pretty choice swearwords from winemakers all over the country as they realised they needed to step up the fight against downy (and to a lesser extent powdery) mildew.
Flooded vineyards in the Veneto plain, May 2023.
You may remember a post from Corrado Dottori of La Distesa in the Marche, who wrote on Facebook at the end of June 2023 that he’d lost 70-80% of his production, and he’d never seen anything like this in his 25 year career as a winemaker.
Domenico Rinaldis of winery Nasciri in Calabria told me: “it was a very complicated year with all the rain that fell in April, May and the first half of June. We had to fight back with sulphur and copper but in the end, we only lost 25% of the production and then, the grapes we harvested were excellent.”
It was a similar story for Marco Merli in Umbria who also lost 25-30% of his production because of the impact of the rain from budburst until flowering.
Spraying organic prosecco vines, May 2023. — Last week, I spoke to the winemaker photographed here. He sprayed a record 30 times in 2023. That’s not good news.
As an aside, it’s worth noting that despite the abundant rainfall in 2023, there is still a state of severe or extreme drought across 9.3% of Italy (and 10.5% in France.) There’s a hypothesis (again from Drought Central) that the higher temperatures during the summer and autumn meant for higher than expected levels of evaporation, which then caused the intense rainfall in late October and, in turn, the floods and landslides in Tuscany at the beginning of November.
The month of July was possibly the very hottest ever recorded, with temperatures of 47°C in Siciliy and 42°C in Calabria (I confirm, I was there and my gosh, it was hot) and +2,9°C above the average for the Castagneto Carducci weather station near Livorno, Tuscany. In the north, however, while the temperatures were also high, the rain did not let up: with 100 mm above the average in Veneto and Friuli. In the centre of Italy and further south, rainfall was more sporadic; some areas were hit, others not. Marino Colleoni told me over lunch during the Christmas period that over the summer, his vineyards near the panoramic town of Montalcino in Tuscany received the lion’s share of rainfall, whilst in the next valley, it stayed bone dry. But, between the constant rain and two bombardments of hail, his production in 2023 is 80-90% less than usual.
And this is why I choose to talk only about quality grape growing winemakers; this ugly mess of garganega (photographed in Gambellara) was harvested and will have become cheap bulk wine.
There was hail in the Veneto and Friuli too; on 12-13 July and 24-25 July, large swathes of vineyards stretching from Verona to Friuli passing through Treviso were hit. La Biancara was not spared but the damage was mercifully quite light.
Whilst the summer was the 8th hottest since 1800, the autumn was hot too. Up and down the boot, the months of September and October were dry and +0,93°C e +0,85°C respectively hotter than the average. It was a saving grace. Winemakers who chose to wait it out and harvest later were able to reap the benefits of this clement weather. Marco Merli confirmed: “the grapes that survived the downy mildew were almost perfect. They hadn’t suffered any heat stress and thus the fermentations were strong. The situation in the cellar – in terms of reduction and volatile acidities – is nicely under control.”
Garganega at La Biancara on 29 Sept 2023
I asked them too what they learnt in this complicated year. Domenico at Nasciri said “the main lesson we learnt was of the importance of prevention. We learnt that treating preventatively to protect the grapes was very effective in years like this… and not to give up in the face of bad weather!” Marco Merli is more specific: “I need to improve the availability of tractors and manpower in order to be able to go and spray in the very narrow windows of possibility.”
I also sent a message to Thomas Niedermayr to find out how the year went for his eponymous winery in the Alto Adige, and the answer is rather interesting, so much so that it really merits being expounded upon in its own blog post at a later date.
“For us, it was a fantastic year; good weather, even though it rained, it wasn’t too much. The temperatures were above the average so we started harvest earlier than usual but the grapes were really healthy and there was a generous quantity too. It is further confirmation that resistant varieties are the way forward. We didn’t do a single treatment with copper [i.e. against downy mildew] this year but the grapes were good and healthy. It just shows that us winemakers need to adapt to the conditions in which we find ourselves right now.
* Venice is apparently the city where they swear the most in Italy: 19 times a day, against the national average of 8.91 times a day. It’s said that this prevalence for cursing is due to the frequent logistic headaches involved in living or working in this magical but doomed city. (link)
At this time of year, I see people in literary circles writing a round up of the most enjoyable books they’ve read over the past 12 months. I always prefer those to the similar articles that are published a month or so earlier, but which largely serve the purpose of a holiday gift guide. No, I don’t want to know what is going to gather dust on bedside tables up and down the country; tell me what people have actually tried and enjoyed.
I used to be an avid reader. I’m sure the reason I needed to start wearing glasses as a teen was because of the books I’d read, hidden under the duvet after lights-out at boarding school. Fingers were wagged, disapproving looks given, but I just had to get to the end of the action in the fourth Harry Potter book – if you’re not familiar with that one, it’s the first really chunky one in the series – come hell or high water.
How times have changed!
I’d like to take a photo of the stack of books that I devoured this year. Or to set myself the task of reading 12 books in as many months. But this year, Google was the source of most material that I sought to read. Until March, the search function helped allay pregnancy worries; then the internet provided a refresher course on caring for a newborn baby, answering any questions I had, day or night. Not long after, I found myself reading everything I could about bronchiolitis. Later, during our beach holiday, it would be to get any updates on the forest fires in Calabria and those we could see burning on Sicily and the Eolian islands across the water. Then, with a stint in England and the autumn came some form of normality, but still the exhaustion that a parent of young kids experiences once everyone is in bed for the night meant that I too fell asleep before you could say Jack Robinson. As a result, some books were started in good faith but they later languished on my bedside table before being relegated back to the bookshelf.
I daydream about one day having a house in the countryside and in my reverie, there is a wistful, floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall bookshelf. In this fantasy, the room has the most amazing natural light, a comfortable chair or sofa that you could lounge on for hours, and a warm breeze coming in, carrying the scent of jasmine plants outside. I land back in today’s reality with a bump.
It is now 5am on December 13th (one of my kids woke up in the middle of the night and I can’t get back to sleep) and as the score currently stands, Alice Feiring’s memoir “To Fall In Love, Drink This” is the only book I’ve finished this year.
There’s everything you need from a memoir: flawed parents, an adolescent’s search for identity, plus grief, longing, and even a serial killer! All while claiming to be an introvert, it is Alice’s ability to connect on a human level – whether it be with the plumber or her beloved brother – which puts the meat on the bones of this memoir.
The book starts in a place which is entirely foreign to me – a Jewish American family near New York in the late 1950s – but then travels to familiar-sounding vineyards in France, Italy and Georgia and puts me back down again, in the final chapter, in the middle of lockdown, something I – as we all do – remember all too clearly.
Wine is the thread that pulls it all together and facilitates those human connections. Personal narrative alternates periodically with wine talk. It’s a book which can be read by a wine expert or a complete novice. The language – as with all Alice’s writing – is engaging and explanatory without ever verging on patronising. There were moments when I found myself nodding ‘I know this already’ but enjoying the ride; and moments when I found myself with eyes wide open, scribbling down notes of new wines to seek out.
Final consideration: the essay format is perfect for these busy times when even people with the best intentions have short attention spans. I could read a couple of pages or twenty before falling asleep and then put the book down for a month or so when life got too busy without particularly losing track.
To rephrase the title somewhat: if you read anything next year, read this.
And, on a side note, what do you suggest I read next year? It doesn’t necessarily have to be linked to wine. Do you have any recommendations?
Just one week until Christmas! Whilst I fall pretty much equidistant on the scale between Santa and Scrooge, I do like enjoying good food and wine and the so-called Festive Season is a good excuse to push the boat out. As a result, some of the wines I’m suggesting here are more expensive than the ones I normally advocate. So, if after purchasing presents, food and whatnot, the situation is tight, I’ve also added a less painful option for each of the five categories.
BREAKFAST
Whether it’s a relaxing breakfast, indulging in eggs and freshly squeezed orange juice or a frantic affair while children are quite literally bouncing off the walls after Santa’s visit, you’re going to need some bubbles. If I may make a plea: please, opt for a grower Champagne rather than one of the big négotiant brands. There are so many I could pick, but biodynamic producer Champagne Fleury and organic-certified Christophe Lefevre always deliver good value for money. Alternatively, in the Monti Lessini, just north of Soave in the Veneto, you find the grape variety durella, which can be made via the autoclave method into a more racy version of prosecco, but it can also be made via the traditional method into a wine which easily holds its own against a Crémant and the best ones could be mistaken for Champagne when tasted blind. We’ll no doubt be popping open a zéro dosage Epoche 2019 from Daniele Piccinin on Christmas morning.
HAVING TURKEY FOR LUNCH? Someone explain to me again why we go through the hassle of cooking turkey at Christmas? It demands far too much cooking time, takes up all the space in the oven, and does anyone actually like the taste very much? It’s also hard to suggest a good pairing because you need to balance the wine with the strongest flavour on the plate, which often isn’t actually the turkey. But, I like my turkey with a generous helping of stuffing – sage and onion ideally, or thyme and lemon – and in that case, a somewhat forceful skin contact wine is what I would suggest. If you want to splurge, who does skin contact better than Josko Gravner? I recently drank his Ribolla 2015 which would work superbly well. Alternatively, go for a skin-contact timorasso like that of Rocca Rondinaria.
OR EVEN GOOSE? I remember festive celebrations with French families that involved goose. Fattier than turkey, this richness calls for a red wine but a delicate one at that. If you’re going to splurge, you could go far wrong than pop a St Joseph from Pierre Gonon. I recently tried the 2019 which, after two minutes in a carafe, was young but in marvellous form. If you like violets, dried rose petals, dark fruit, menthol, unicorns and rainbows, this is absolutely worth the expenditure. If that’s not entirely your jam, you could opt for a different kind of light-to-medium bodied red, one with high acidity but less of the aromatics… and recently I’ve been thinking a lot about freisa (Piemontese grape variety which shares 85% of its DNA with nebbiolo) so my mind is taking me to the Monferrato area, to wineries such as Migliavacca and Tere Ruse.. but you might find a Langhe Nebbiolo like that of Olek Bondonio easier to find. Both are wines which have grip without force, some more rustic than others but all have an acidity which would work well with goose.
WHAT ABOUT COTECHINO? Italians traditionally eat this fatty pork sausage that needs to be boiled for several hours on New Year’s Eve, rather than December 25th, but you do find it in the Veneto as a staple throughout the winter months. It’s made from the rind and fatty parts of the pig and thus often needs a good horseradish sauce to cut through. I like pairing it with a solid, hefty, red wine like a Bordeaux blend.
Hold your horses – am I really suggesting drinking classic Bordeaux on a natural wine blog? Oh yes, I am. It’s not something I drink everyday but good Bordeaux achieved its fame and star-status for a reason. My go-to is biodynamic producer Christophe Pueyo, based in Saint Emilion. He makes a Grand Cru La Fleur Garderose which would be my top pick to go with cotechino. Merlot-heavy and with a 30% of caberet franc adding spice, it has power, structure and elegance. Failing that, there’s a local producer called Santa Colomba (in Lonigo, Colli Berici, Veneto) who makes a wine called Il Moro, the best Bordeaux-blend coming from these parts. This is predominantly merlot with a side of cabernet sauvignon and the goldilocks amount of oak.
WITH THE CHEESEBOARD AND FOR AFTERS…
Sweet wine consumption is in fast decline; so let’s try to reverse that for a day, and maybe enjoy it so much that it becomes a new year’s resolution to drink more?
If you’re having Christmas pudding, or really anything with raisins and dried fruit, push the boat out with a sweet Madeira. You can find Madeira wines at many different sweetness levels – my personal favourite are those on the drier end of the scale (so I look for words like sercial and verdelho) – but at Christmas, an aged malmsey – like the Blandy’s 15 that my parents brought back from Funchal for me – would do just the trick.
For us, we’ll be drinking a Passito Monte Sorio made by my husband from garganega grapes grown on volcanic soils, which are picked early and hung up to dry for several months. This passito is not sickly sweet (like the namesake wines which are typically served to tourists in Florence with cantucci biscuits) but instead has limited residual sugar, a good acidity to give backbone and aromas of almonds and hazelnuts. It pairs really well with aged cheeses and nutty biscuits.
I was at a dinner last night, the like of which has never happened before and probably will never happen again.
It was an evening dedicated to three natural winemakers: Josko Gravner, who showed the light to Angiolino Maule, who, in turn, taught all he could to Daniele Piccinin. Three generations, if you will, of natural winemaking in the north-eastern corner (not the trendiest part) of Italy. I didn’t learn anything new: I’ve been part of the Maule family for long enough I suppose, I’ve seen all the family photo albums, but now that all this has been said aloud in public, I feel I can relate them to a wider audience without feeling like I’m airing dirty laundry.
Angiolino Maule starts. He talks of a time in the 1970s and 80s when his pizzeria restaurant was booming, when money was literally burning a hole in his backpocket, when he was able to pay the construction company for the restauration of the house that I now live in all in advance. He recounted all that because a decade later, in the 1990s, he was in the middle of an existential crisis. What kind of wine should he make? What did the market want? What did his values say he should make? What was he capable of making?
Many times during his speech, he refers to his wife Rosamaria who is sitting in the audience, as a linchpin even when times got very rough and he wanted to chuck in the towel.
Had he not – by chance – tasted a wine in the Bere Alto wine bar in Vicenza and then gone to meet its maker, a certain Josko Gravner and had the circle of friends (with Stanko Radikon, La Castellada, Dario Princic, Edi Kante…) which formed shortly afterwards, we would not be sitting here today.
I knew too that Angiolino had regular crises – pruning by yourself in the foggy winter really doesn’t help anyone’s mental health – but I hadn’t connected the dots that when this was happening he was 35 years old with two young children. I’m 36 with two young children.
The connection with Josko Gravner, and with that group of friends, was his lifeline and gave him the strength to continue. Next to speak is Mateja Gravner. Always composed and delicately referential, she draws on memories of her father with Angiolino. Josko is such an interesting, multi-faceted person whose professional journey shaped the course of Italian wine… but she couldn’t go into all the details or the food would have gone cold; so I’ll save that for another blog post too.
Last but certainly not least is Daniele Piccinin, a magician working with pinot noir, durella and chardonnay in the Monti Lessini, above Soave. He had been inspired drinking a wine of Angiolino’s, which, at the time, was the only wine running agaist the mainstream in this area. Daniele came to meet Angiolino in a similar way to how Angiolino went to meet Josko. Deciding he wanted to switch from working in restaurants to making wine, Daniele used the La Biancara cellar for his first vintages and learnt all he could from Angiolino. He also recounts how he was there at the founding of the Arke distribution company (originally destined to import French wines into the Italian restaurant channel, which is now run by Francesco Maule, my brother-in-law…) and how he was the link-piece in connecting the natural wine association which was looking for a home for its flagship event with the Villa Favorita venue twenty years ago. It was the perfect way to understand how these three figures intertwined in this complex viticultural tapestry.
Finally, a big thank you to Alberto Mori, chef and owner of Al Callianino for hosting the event. Bringing together these three protagonists had been in the works for close to five years, pushed back time and time again by the pandemic but finally, on what should have been his day-off, Alberto donned his chef attire and crafted a most thoughtful menu to accompany the liquid offering. Alberto takes local and seasonal ingredients, combines them in sometimes rather untraditional ways, and offers balanced, precise dishes, often with a contemporary twist. The parmesan risotto with snails, salsa verde and pestled lard, paired with the Gravner Ribolla 2007 was simply inspired.
Risotto with snails, salsa verde, pork fat and parmesan – the perfect pairing for Ribolla 07.
I enjoyed the Maule Pico 2013 with the corn-base pizza and baccala mantecato from I Tigli (Angiolino’s brother-in-law and a discreet nod of the hat both to the Maule pizzeria heritage and to Alberto Mori’s formative years working at I Tigli.)
But the surprise wine of the evening was an intruder bottle. A magnum of Bianco dei Muni 2008 which a restaurant industry veteran called Paolo Pozza had brought unannounced: chardonnay and durella, one year in barrel (in Angiolino’s cellar), evolved but elegant, with a little CO2 on the palate keeping the taste fresh – it was exquisite!
“Questo vino e’ stato realizzato grazie alle conoscenze di Angiolino Maule.” “This wine was made thanks to the knowledge of Angiolino Maule.”
It’s an undeniable fact that most people associate Piedmont with red wines. It’s also true that at this time of year, as the last leaves fall from the deciduous trees and we feel that chill in the air, we yearn for earthy flavours – mushrooms, truffles, hazelnuts, and of course, nebbiolo – but we forget that macerated whites also pair successfully with those same flavours.
The other day, I found myself reaching for a Monferrato Bianco DOC, made from the local grape variety timorasso.
Dont worry if this is the first time you’ve heard of timorasso; Italy has so many native grapes varieties and it is far from being the most popular one (frequently in the shadow of its immediate neighbour cortese (the main grape in Gavi wines)) but timorasso is having something of a resurgence.
I steal a few words from the expert, Robert Camuto, who wrote a column dedicated to timorasso just a couple of months ago:
These big guns are investing in the Colli Tortenesi, which also goes by Tortona’s historic name Derthona, and encroaching upon the territory of longtime-timorasso-ambassador Walter Massa and the lower-profile, more natural winemaker Enio Ferretti (La Morella.) Time will tell if this is all smoke and mirrors because despite how the numbers sound impressive (from next-to-extinct to “60 wineries, 750 acres, 100,000 cases” – thanks again, Robert) it’s a drop in the ocean compared to other white wines in the north of Italy. (For the sake of comparison: Asolo Prosecco, the prosecco only the cool kids know about – is celebrating a record: 27 million bottles made in 2023, up from 12 million five years ago!)
But, before I start to sound like Eeyore, there definitely is a small resurgence. Back in 2016, I spent a few days planting a vineyard for Stefano Bellotti with timorasso plants. More recently I’ve been talking to other winemakers – like Alessandro Poretti from Valli Unite, in the Colli Tortonesi – and they all say that demand for timorasso is increasing.
The Rocca Rondinaria winery is better known for their reds (mainly dolcetto, being in the Ovada DOC) and few years ago, I included their “Spessarí” in my round-up of Italian wines from the 2014 vintage. Giovanna and Lucesio, the couple behind Rocca Rondinaria, were able to take over an old vineyard near Rocca Grimalda (a 10 minute drive from Ovada) which had been abandoned for 30 or 40 years and they decided to plant it with timorasso.
2020 was the first vintage of this wine which they named Gaga’ – with just 1200 bottles made. In 2022, they increased production to a heady 2240 bottles… not even 200 cases!
I asked Giovanna for some more information about the vinification and got the following response: it did just 2 days of maceration on the skins, and then wild fermentation, without temperature control. I went back to pour another glug into my wine glass. Just two days?!
Take a sip and you realise that this is a powerful wine. It’s high in acid, high in alcohol too (14.5%!) and even though the length of time it spent on the skins was short, it extracted a strong tannin structure. In terms of the aromas, well, they fluctuate between honeyed and herbal with salinity (coming from the limestone soils.) We drank this timorasso with hot-smoked trout, boiled potatoes and a salad composed predominantly of beetroot, fennel and orange, and not only did it have no problems standing its own, it actually worked very well, even if I say so myself.
In short, it won me over – timorasso can count me as a new fan. It’s no pushover but, if you like to play around with food pairings, this is a very versatile wine and would have no problem punching where other white wines from Piedmont or nearby Liguria and Lombardy wouldn’t quite reach the bar. Why not give it a try?
That was the title of a debate held last week at the restaurant Noma in Copenhagen. I was honoured to be one of the speakers at this event, organised by a not-for-profit organisation called MAD (“food” in Danish) which holds talks and events for the hospitality industry.
The moderator at last week’s debate was Aaron Ayscough, whom I’m sure you know because of his book published last year, or his blog Not Drinking Poison. We thought we met in Paris about a decade ago, but it turns out – in another turn of events that reminds you how small the world actually is – that we attended the same primary school. If you’re not familiar with Aaron’s writing, you should sign up to his Substack.
The other speakers were Katie Worobeck, Canadian export now turned micro-winemaker with 3 hectares near Rotalier, Jura (under the name Maison Maenad), Christian Binner (established winemaker in Ammerschwihr, Alsace and on the board of the Syndicat de défense des vins naturels aka “Vin Méthode Nature“) and Alice Feiring. The latter surely needs no introduction.
The audience – a wonderfully engaged and attentive group of 120 people – were given the opportunity to vote at the beginning of the event. 34% in favour of protection; about 50% undecided. At the end of the debate, 54% were in favour so I’m pleased to say that we were able to convince 24 people in the room.
My line of reasoning was very simple. Natural wine does need protection; and by protection, I mean that it needs certification, but first it needs a universally-accepted definition. This certification is not to protect the winemakers; Katie spoke before me, arguing against additional bureaucracy for the vigneron.ne.s so I picked up on that point, turning it to address the consumer – they’re the ones who need the protection. While there is ambiguity about what a natural wine is, anyone can claim to make it and how is a consumer going to know the difference?
Christian spoke about how, when he started making wine, he knew each and every person who bought his wine personally; now it’s not possible because his wine is sold around the world. I built upon that too, saying how a wine drinker might want to buy a natural wine but cannot keep track of all the new wines being made around the world. The natural wine movement has become too large for word-of-mouth; isn’t the green leaf showing organic agriculture beautifully simple at conveying the message?
[Deep breath, quick sip of water, and approach from a different angle.]
Christian Binner and I… a.k.a. Team Protection
The VinNatur Association has a two page charter, outlining the allowed and forbidden practices in the vineyard and the cellar. It was approved by the associate-winemakers in 2016, not without a fair bit of controversy at first.
A charter, or a definition, is worth nothing if it is not enforced. And who to enforce it? [Here I had to be succinct if I was going to stay within my alloted 5 minutes so I left that as a rhetorical question and explained what VinNatur do.] VinNatur tried four different companies and sent them to visit a selection of our winemakers. They got feedback from everyone and chose the best, a company called Valoritalia. They then personally trained their inspectors and they helped draw up the Check Plan which is used during the inspection visits. These visits last no longer than an hour, take place every 2 or 3 years and are of no additional cost to the winemaker.
Why does VinNatur do all this? To defend our little corner from being abused by large, conventional producers who want to pass themselves as being natural. We’ve all seen buzzwords like “skin contact” and “no sulphites” but applied to wines which were not farmed organically and which were vinified by a conventional oenologist but were designed to appeal to the natural wine target audience. No certification is perfect, but the existence of a framework and the threat of being inspected is better than nothing.
I won’t reveal all my arguments and examples here, just in case we do a re-run of the debate in the future (yes, MAD team, I really hope we do!) but I will leave you with my closing argument:
Wine consumption is decreasing around the world, sales are slowing down and winemakers are feeling the pinch and becoming anxious about the future. But the natural wine category is bucking that trend and so it’s logical and understandable that large, conventional winemakers are trying to jump aboard. If we can certify organic wine, and we can certify biodynamic wine, why can’t we certify natural wine?
With Aaron Ayscough, Katie Worobeck and Alice Feiring when we arrived at noma.
December 2023 update : do you want to hear the debate for yourself? Excitingly, the MAD team have made an audio recording available! If you make a donation, through their website, and thereby help them continue to serve the hospitality community with the education and inspiration it needs to make restaurants more socially and environmentally sustainable, you’ll be send a link to download the debate in podcast format.
The last thing one really thinks about doing, when it’s 35+ degrees outside, is taste a line-up of barbera and nebbiolo wines – basically, juggling a baby in one arm and slurping Barolo with the other – but that is the sacrifice I made last month. It happened to be an opportune moment, before harvest starts, for my brother-in-law who wanted to do a critical deep-dive through the optic of his distribution company and team-building with our winery employee whose first love is Piedmont.
I don’t turn down these opportunities because I enjoy blind-tasting – it is always an interesting experience, free of any prejudices, – and because, I mean, who would say no to nebbiolo?
But, I’m going to blame it on the August heatwave because only a few of the wines we tasted did I find particularly impressive. One was like drinking sawdust, another was too constructed and for another wine, my tasting notes reads “strawberry starburst” and let me just say, that’s not something you want to find in a Roero Nebbiolo.
It’s with this backdrop that, the other day, I picked out a wine from Andrea Scovero, third-generation winemaker in the frazione of Bionzo, in Costigliole d’Asti, Piedmont. Andrea is too experienced to be considered part of the new wave of fruit-forward, radical-thinking winemakers but he has actually been making alternative, even subversive, natural wines for 20+ years.
Bastian Contrario [2020] L.30.08.2021 vino rosso from Andrea Scovero
Because it’s a vino da tavola, in Piedmont, the winemaker is not allowed to write the vintage or the variety on the label but I’m deducing from the lot number that it’s a 2020 and Google tells me this is 100% brachetto.
Brachetto falls in there with grape varieties like grignolino and freisa in the category of Overlooked Piedmont reds. Usually made into a semi-sweet, sparkling red, it turns out that brachetto is delicious in this expression as a dry red.
I’m a big fan of chilled summer reds (in the same way that I like warm winter whites…) but this doesn’t fit under that umbrella. No, we’re not in glouglou territory here. It’s 14% ABV and is best drunk at room temperature (let’s say around 20-21 degrees.)
At that temperature, you get the best out of the remarkably expressive, fragrant nose. There’s really ripe raspberries and juicy black plums with little floral element – dusty roses – which, all in all, makes for a surprisingly elegant wine. There is a juiciness on the palate which makes it remarkably low-maintenance, in the most appealing sense of the term. To borrow a term from the French, it’s a vin libre.
This is kind of wine that is perfect right now, in the early autumn. There’s not the earthiness of a real autumnal wine, the kind that pairs with mushrooms and, in an ideal world, truffles. Here the tannins are so delicate as to almost be ephemeral. There is no detectable wood presence that partners so well with cold evenings by a log fire. It’s just a delicious, quaffable red wine.
Incidentally, it also holds up remarkably well after opening; this bottle was sitting on my kitchen counter for the best part of a week before I got a moment to sit down and write the tasting notes. (Just a few days until the schools reopen and some semblance of normal life can recommence!)
As a follow-up to the vino bianco da Francesco the other day, yesterday I made a more satisfying discovery.
We’re still on holiday in Calabria and our daughter has made firm friends with the 7 year old in the house next door; consequently, we’ve made friends with her parents (who both work in finance) and, to a slightly lesser extent, her grandparents.
It’s been fascinating watching the family because the grandmother in particular lives up to every stereotype of a southern Italian nonna. Whereas we eat lunch at 1pm and dinner at 8pm, theirs is at 2pm and 9pm – even though they have a 2 year old boy! The nonna starts cooking at 8 or 9 o’clock so, as we are eating breakfast, delicious smells drift across to our terrace. “Aubergine/eggplant today,” says my husband as I’m inside fiddling around no doubt with something or other, only to correct himself a few minutes later, “no, she’s making a peperonata.”
It’s not just us watching them; the shady spot where the nonno sits to smoke a cigarette and watch the world go by happens to be directly opposite us. His accent is so thick that some words I can’t even make out but last night, as we were finishing dinner (and, as usual, they were yet to sit down) he calls over to us, “I see you like wine. Can I bring you some to try? My wine.”
“Ma certo, con piacere,” we reply.
This frail man walks slowly over to our terrace with an unlabelled, green bottle of wine and three white plastic cups. He sets the plastic cups on the table, despite us gesturing to the wine glass that we’ve been drinking from during dinner.
“No, no, this is a simple wine; not for a glass like that.” We reach a compromise by suggesting he pours his wine into our water tumblers. (He still chooses to drink out of the plastic cup.)
From previous conversations with the nonno, I knew that he was born the year after WW2 ended, had studied mechanical engineering, worked as a teacher for three years in Sardinia and then became a structural inspector. I asked him, therefore, how he came to make wine. “My father and, before him, my grandfather used to make wine. This wine, I make the same way they did.”
One sip of this wine and I believe him.
This is rustic, genuine, and quite different from Francesco the fishmonger’s commercial construction. It is red in colour, but to the taste, it’s simple, very light bodied, with practically no tannins. I asked what grapes went into the wine, and nonno replies “four” but besides zibbibo, he’s not able to remember the names of them.
He tells us that he used to make 5000 litres of wine per year, on average. But in 2009, because of his fading health, he was forced to pull up a significant part of the vineyards because it was too much effort. Both of his sons had moved away for work and no-one from the area wanted to take over. It’s a trope which is often heard in the south of Italy unfortunately.
Anyway, getting back to the wine. It’s not going to win any competitions; there’s a brett contamination that is just a little too persistent to pass unnoticed, but which, admittedly, is not so present to bother the casual drinker. Actually, it gives an element of spice and moodiness or, to put it another way, complexity.
It’s honest and unpretentious; the kind of wine to accompany a meal and which I would happily drink with food. This is vino da tavola in the best possible sense. A product of the contadino tradition that may soon be lost, unless working the land becomes an honourable and more sustainable career option. Only time will tell how many other wines like this will become dinosaurs on the brink of extinction.
I always say I’ll taste anything once and this self-imposed refusal to decline sometimes gets me into some, err, interesting situations.
We’re on holiday in Calabria this week. It’s my first time in this part of Italy – the toe of the Italian boot, as it’s often described – but using that same analogy, the rocky outcrop where we’re spending the week is essentially a bunion near the tip of the toe. I don’t mean that in a negative way; from what I’ve seen so far, it’s a stunningly beautiful place. I’m enjoying stepping outside of my comfort zone too; new places, new people, new sounds, new smells, new flavours…
Esercizi Spirituali per bevitori di vino, by Angelo Peretti
I don’t have time to read much these days but I told myself to make some time on holiday and so I chose Angelo Peretti’s newly released book “Esercizi Spirituali per bevitori di vino.” In the chapter called Apnea, it was a useful reminder to read the following phrase: “Quel che ti chiedo è di lasciarti sorprendere più spesso, e non mi riferisco solo al vino. Serve a ritrovare se stessi… Di bellezza ce n’è dappertutto, a saperla vedere. Se lì per lì non trovassi nulla che ti sorprenda, stupisciti almeno per il fatto che sei vivo. Essere vivi è di per sé stupefacente.”
Loosely translated, it means: “What I’m asking you to do is let yourself be surprised more often, and I’m not just talking about wine. It’s necessary to understand yourself… Beauty is everywhere, if you know where to look. If you can’t see anything that amazes you, let yourself be amazed by the fact that you’re alive. To be alive is amazing in itself.”
I diverge.
This morning, to avoid the worst of the Charon heat wave, I set off into town at 7.30am. In reality, that early start didn’t make much difference because when I arrived at the Pescheria-Gastronomia in Capo Vaticano at 8am, I was quite literally dripping with sweat. There was another reason why I got there early. I’d been tipped off that this fish restaurant unlocks its door when the owner arrives with the morning’s catch and sells to the public before the lunch service starts.
At the fishmonger counter, Francesco cuts a slice of swordfish.
I asked what was good today and was told there was a beautiful tuna fish (I took four fillets) and a hunking great swordfish. A couple of generous handfuls of king prawns and two seabass for good measure and I was smiling ear to ear. While the owner was cleaning the seabass, I took a look at the bottles of wine sitting on shelves that the regular restaurant customers would choose from. Gaglioppo, Magliocca… there was a decent selection. I spotted a Greco, from a winemaker whose name rang a bell and whose label told me they are organic and also a member of Fivi. Worth a try, I thought, and took the bottle to the cash desk.
“Vuoi un vino locale? You want a local wine? My family makes wine too; you should try mine.”
I like propositions like this. Especially in a country like Italy where so many people have a direct connection to the land, even if it means having a couple of vines in your back garden. As a consumer, the unknown, the element of risk, but potentially of a great discovery. I was putting into practice almost immediately what I’d read in Angelo’s book.
“Do you want red, white, frizzante, rosé?” I am asked, roused from my daydream. “White,” I reply, conscious of how much fish I am going to be cooking over the next few days and still thinking about that Greco I wanted to buy.
And so that’s how I ended up with a bottle of vino bianco da Francesco. I have no idea what vintage it is – but I assume 2022 from the lot number L.17523.
He shows me his name Francesco written on the label and tells me that it’s been ten years that his family work this vineyard. A field blend, he replies to my prompt. It’s a 1 litre bottle with a crown cap and an amateur label.
Never judge a book by its cover, I think to myself, and remind myself of the pledge to try anything once. More pertinently, I didn’t know how to tell Francesco that I’d rather stick with my original choice. This man, after all, still had the best part of a swordfish sitting one metre away and I didn’t want to go down in history like the terrorist in London who was fought off with a narwhal tusk.
Well, I’m sorry to tell you reader that this will not go down as the discovery of the century. Vino da Francesco is a generic wine which has been doped with selected yeasts and then obliterated with sulfites. I’m scratching my head to taste the grapes that were pressed to make the wine. This is a shortcoming on my part because I’m used to a certain style of wine and this just doesn’t rock my boat. Maybe I should have tried Francesco’s rosé or red; given how I had tuna and swordfish in my shopping bag, they might have stood their ground against a more forgiving style and more typical wine for this region. That said, drunk very cold, a glass of this vino bianco did slip down paired with a spaghettata of aglio, olio, peperoncino. The rest, I think, I’ll use to cook with.
P.S. Two days later, I said yes to another oenological proposition… which was (fortunately) more satisfying. Read about it here 👇
I got thinking this morning as I was in the car, listening to the radio, about music. More specifically, how some songs have the unique ability to transport you back to a particular moment in time. Whether anguish or excitement, some songs encapsulate and even accentuate the emotion and when, maybe years later, you hear the opening chords, all the feelings you had during that particular break-up or road-trip come flashing back.
Books are different because, while they can trigger similar emotive reactions, they are a distraction from your current situation and they transport you to a new place, away from any grief or hardship. Unlike music, if you were to re-read a favourite book years later, you may enjoy it just as much, but you will most likely interpret it from a new perspective.
The impact of a good wine lies somewhere in between. To the question “what’s the best wine you’ve ever drunk?” we have all heard the response: “it was the bottle we had on the first date with my future spouse.” Like when you browse through Spotify, when you choose a wine, you are deciding what kind of ambiance you want to set. Whilst there’s a sea of mundanity to wade through – in music too – when you take the first sip of a really good wine, it provokes an instant “wow” which elevates the moment and imprints itself in your memory.
It’s easy for wines and wineries to retain that special place once the sentimental connection has been created. A quick photo of the label and the memory has been immortalised.
There is a wine – “Tout Naturellement” from Florian and Mathilde Beck Hartweg – which I choose when I’m stressed or upset because the initial sniff can alleviate that tension simply through its familiarity. Most of the time, however, while I might be able to remember my tasting notes of a given wine, I can’t remember the exact taste of the wine on my tongue in the way that I can recall song lyrics, hum the melody and relive the feelings.
That is probably because, when you return to a wine which once had forged an emotional association, you look at it through a different lens. Maybe the expectations are higher, maybe your taste has changed, maybe the wine has changed. While it may prompt you to remember the first time you tried it, the memories don’t come flooding back as they would with a song on the radio. It’s more like a book. Your perspective is everything.
Tarlant is the Champagne house which has accompanied most of our special occasions. It is a winery Alessandro knew because they are longtime members of the VinNatur Association and which I knew because I count Melanie (and now Daniel) as friends. When I moved in with Alessandro, we popped a bottle of their Brut Nature “Zéro.” We drank Cuvée Louis to celebrate the birth of our first born (a gift from Micheline months earlier, when I told her I was pregnant.)
It was our wedding anniversary recently, and of course, I reached again for a bottle of Tarlant. This time it was a bottle of “Zéro” that I bought during a visit to the winery in the spring of 2016.
Alessandro wasn’t feeling too well so we only drank half a bottle and, as we often do, saved the rest for the next day. The thing is, the next day the baby got sick and he’s been in hospital for three days now so Ale and I have been passing like ships in the night, alternating shifts at his bedside, juggling work and our daughter. As I was rummaging in the fridge this morning for something to take for lunch in the hospital, I spotted that bottle of Tarlant in the door of the fridge, still half-finished.
“Champagne naturel, ouvert et sentimental.” Sounds quite appropriate.
Let’s hope the baby gets discharged from the hospital tomorrow (keep your fingers crossed!) and we can sit down at home all together and enjoy the rest of the bottle. The bubbles may have lost their effervescence, and we too will be more exhausted than usual, but I’m sure the taste of the wine will be even sweeter because of the wait. It will then, of course, become another memory engraved on my heart.
As dark as the sky on a moonless night, this is a wine which is dense and broody. Upon opening, it was practically impenetrable. On the second – and even more so by the third – day, there were more aromas of blackcurrants, brambles and mulling spice and smoke, and a touch of camphor. In the mouth, the tannins, still grippy, pucker the tongue. The structure shows no sign of losing its bodybuilder stance but paired with the right food, it makes for a wonderful pairing.”
The winery “Piccolo Bacco dei Quaroni” was founded in 2001 when four friends – Mario, Laura, Giulia and Tommaso – bought a small historic cellar in Montù Beccaria, on the side of the Oltrepò Pavese that is practically on the border between the regions of Lombardia and Emilia-Romagna.
The tech sheet – available online here – says that the wine in question is composed of 80% Moradella and 20% Uva Rara. (Considering Moradella is not exactly a major variety, I’m curious to know what the “rare grapes” actually are!) In any case, just the mention of moradella piqued my interest and, as always, my first reflex is to consult Jancis, Julia and José’s Wine Grapes book.
“Prized by growers but not recognized by officialdom” that’s how the grape variety moradella is introduced.
It continues: “once the most important variety in that area [Oltrepò Pavese (Lombardia)] its popularity has declined dramatically in favour of barbera…” Two reasons are given: 1, the variety’s sensitivity to oidium and 2. because moradella has never been included in the national register of grape varieties. (It baffles me that it should have been left off the list, but then I remember that this is a matter of Italian bureaucracy so anything is possible… Anyway I digress…)
“It is now only found in old vineyards but is prized by growers and used incognito with barbera and croatina in such blends as Buttafuoco and Sangue di Giuda, both within the Oltrepò Pavese DOC.” (Wine Grapes, 2012.)
Ian D’Agata’s “Native Wine Grapes of Italy” concurs almost verbatim, while also giving an interesting bit of insight: “in the past, experts found a strong resemblance with mourvèdre.”
Wine Grapes suggests seeking out moradella wines made from producers such as Fortesi, Cantina Storica di Montù Beccaria, Il Santo and Fattoria Mondo Antico – all of whom apparently make “valiant efforts to preserve the variety.” Fortunately, the latter is also a member of the VinNatur Association (as is Piccolo Bacco dei Quaroni) so recently I was able to get my hands on – and my nose into – a glass of their 100% moradella.
Fattoria Mondo Antico is a family-run winery situated on the opposite side of the Oltrepò Pavese from PBQ, in Rocca Susella, near the border with Piedmont. The estate comprises a total of 26 hectares, of which only 4 are planted with vineyards and the rest is dedicated to agriculture and woodland, with 3 hectares dedicated to their free-range pigs!
FATTORIA MONDO ANTICO “RePerto” 2017 “vino rosso ottenuto da uve Moradella L.0419. 14.5% ABV”
The first striking element about this wine is the deep, dark purple colour. Having just finished a tasting note about Villa Calicantus’ Bardolino Classico, this intensity comes as a shock. The nose is spicy and earthy but a little shy and austere. Take a sip and let yourself be lulled into a world of ripe black plums, juicy blackcurrants with undertones of forest floor and game. It is a wine which is full bodied yet smooth. There is a substantial amount of flesh on this wine’s bones – the pulp of these prized grapes perhaps – but the effect is comforting rather than oppressive. The tannins and the acidity right now are perfectly in balance and whilst the alcohol is noticeable, the overall sensation is most harmonious.
I find Ian D’Agata’s comment about the similarity with mourvèdre particularly apt. I don’t know about the visual aspect but the gustative profile certainly seems aligned with some mourvèdre and monastrell that I’ve tasted in the past. Moradella feels rustic and archaic in both of these expressions, and not a variety adapted to making expansive, glu-glu wines that pull in the natural-wine crowds in the year 2023, nor does it seem to have the prerequisites for making barriqued, Parker-style wines. That said, they’re both good, well-made wines, but in order to enjoy them, you need to adapt to their habitat rather than the other way round.
I ought to start today’s piece with a translation. Not a direct translation from Italian to English but instead from our Veneto dialect to the proper term in Italian and then to English.
Sora = sopra = above. Cuna = culla = crib.
Thus the phrase “andar de sora cuna” means to go and visit a newborn baby and congratulate the parents.
Daniele Delaini and his wife Chiara created this wine in 2017 and they chose to dedicate it to their firstborn Anna who arrived in the same year.
This is a bottle of wine that Daniele gave me during a visit to Villa Calicantus in December 2022 and that I promptly squirreled away for when my own newborn had made his entrance into the world.
Daniele Delaini explaining his viticultural vision to Mathilde and Florian Beck-Hartweg and Alessandro Maule.
The Villa Calicantus winery was founded in 2011 when Daniele returned from Paris to take charge of the family holdings. He knew from the start that he wanted to work organically and make natural wines and then he started with biodynamic agriculture in 2014. There are now 8 hectares of vineyards, making an annual production of somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000 bottles.
Soracuna is their most simple Bardolino red wine. They make rosé (most years with the status of Chiaretto di Bardolino DOC, but not always) in both still and sparkling expressions. The sparkling Sollazzo is perfect for summer aperitifs whilst the still Chiar’otto can have remarkable potential for ageing.
The Soracuna wine is made of corvina, rondinella and molinara grapes with just a touch of merlot, fermented and aged for six months in cement tanks. Upon first opening, it was rather reduced but the next day (or sooner if I had wanted to get out the carafe), it had opened up and started expressing its true character.
Sea bass in “acqua pazza”
It’s a linear wine, direct and focussed, which expresses the minerality of the morainic hills. It is unusual because when we talk about red wines, we usually look for tannins, body etc, not minerality, but this wine speaks a different language. It has fruit characters – forest fruits – and spice but are conveyed in a very light, delicate style. It’s a wine which pairs with fish rather than meat – in our case a beautiful line-caught sea bass in “acqua pazza.” Incidentally, it’s also the perfect wine for a new mum who, after 9 months of abstinence and three weeks of very limited sleep, wouldn’t be able to appreciate anything heavier either in structure or in alcohol content. (It’s just 11% abv.)
And paired the next day with cold meats and salad…
Quick disclaimer to clear my conscience and nib any potential accusations of impropriety in the bud:
1. I first met Daniele in 2018 (or was it 2017?) at a wine fair in Finland where we were both exhibitors. It turns out that he left Paris just as I arrived so even though we moved in similar circles, we probably missed each other. 2. I am currently on maternity leave from the PR agency Studio Cru which counts the Consorzio di Bardolino and Chiaretto as a client. 3. Villa Calicantus is a member of the VinNatur Association since 2022. 4. The aforementioned winery visit in December 2022 was far more personal than professional in nature; the number of children present (when you include the one that was yet to be born) equalled that of the adults!
These multiple conflicts of interest would normally be reason for me to leave a wide berth but in this case, the pull to choose this particular wine was just too strong. As I sit here cuddling my rainbow baby and exchanging messages with a good friend who is in hospital waiting for her own late miscarriage to pass, it feels appropriate to affront the taboo and address how difficult maternity can be. The process of conceiving and carrying a baby for nine months is far more unpredictable than society makes it seem. Reaching the finish line is not something to be taken for granted and therefore when you do finally take home a happy, healthy baby, it is a valid cause for celebration.
If you know of any other winery that actually has a wine dedicated – not simply named after their children – but to the act of welcoming a newborn, I’ll happily have a taste.
Got Legs 