The Morning Claret

Simon J Woolf & Friends on Wild and Wonderful Wines

Month: January 2016

Tauss vinyeards in Southern Styria
3 minute read

A fiery Roter Traminer from Tauss

I’ve featured wines from several of the Schmecke das Leben producers in this series, but not Tauss until now. Roland and Alice Tauss are perhaps the least well known winery in the group, partly due to their very small size – there’s a mere 6 hectares of vines at their bucolic estate in Southern Styria.

Newly delivered qvevri, Tbilvino (Photo courtesy Kasmirhare)
3 minute read

Deep down in a Georgian qvevri – Vinoterra Rkatsiteli 2011

The spiritual and traditional nub of Georgian winemaking is the qvevri – a clay, amphora like vessel buried in the ground and described by Josko Gravner as “a womb for the wine”. Wellmade qvevri white wines can be revelatory in their freshness, intensity and uniqueness. Qvevris have become hip, and producers all over the globe are buying them up. But sometimes you need to go back to the source, to find a winemaker who really knows how to make the style sing. Gogi Dakishvili is just such a chap – head winemaker at Schuchmann estate in Kakheti, Georgia.

Gut Oggau wines - Photo Simon Woolf
6 minute read

Bucking the trend at Gut Oggau

Somewhere, out there on the internet, the discussion rages on about natural wines. To true believers, it’s the one and only righteous path, to sceptics, nothing more than a farcical or even fraudulent movement. Regular readers of The Hosemaster have Read more