Simon J Woolf & Friends on Wild and Wonderful Wines
I love Champagne. But whenever I start talking about it, I fear being labelled elitist. But, but… Grower Champagne? And then there are those Champagne enthusiasts who think any other form of effervescent wine inferior. They huff and puff and Read more
A year living in the small Austrian town of Eisenstadt developed my considerable love not just for one of its natives, but also for the restrained and elegant wines. The issue? Availability of many of the greatest wines is pretty sparse, Read more
Some interesting Austria producers are well nigh invisible to the English speaking world, and at a guess this is why I’d never heard of Michael Andert (Andert Wein) until late last year. His tiny estate (4ha) in Burgenland (Easterly Austria, near the Hungarian border) has been certified biodynamic since 2003, and the white wines are all fermented on their skins.
Regular readers will have noticed I’ve featured a few wines in this slot that merely flirt with the orange wine category. So to end the first year of these orange segments, here’s an all-out, serious contender made with 12 months of maceration: Strohmeier’s Wein Der Stille 2013, from Southern Styria, Austria
This autumn’s Orange wine festival (Vienna edition) was once again a busy, joyful occasion with some 80 producers from 9 countries, and 500 or more enthusiastic tasters. Many great producers were in the room, but one new discovery wowed me enough to want to share it here. Erzetič is a long established winery in Goriška Brda (effectively the Slovenian part of Friuli Collio), with 5ha of vines. Andrej Erzetič, the youngest member of the family involved in production, told me winemaking here can be traced back to 1721.
Technology can be a double-edged sword. Always-on internet and social media allow us to network and broadcast as never before, but that immediacy can sometimes be problematic. At last year’s European Wine Bloggers Conference, the organisers went to great pains Read more
Tucked away in a quiet corner of Lombardy is an attractive, stately city, untouched by major tourism and unhyped by the guide books. Brescia is the de facto capital of Franciacorta, a sub-region specialising in the production of sparkling wine. Read more