The Morning Claret

Simon J Woolf & Friends on Wild and Wonderful Wines

Sauvignon blanc

Supernatural Wine Co. - Green Glow 2015
3 minute read

Supernatural’s green, green glow

Supernatural is the project of globe trotting Gregory Collinge, and Green Glow is the estate’s skin fermented Sauvignon Blanc. This 2015 is by far and away their best effort yet, it really blew me away. And yes folks, the label glows in the dark!

Simon having a good sniff....
9 minute read

The unknown Austria – Part 2

For the introduction to this tasting, please see Part 1. Orange Interlude Austria shares borders with Northern Italy and Slovenia – both parts of the world with a long tradition of using extended skin maceration in white wine. So it’s Read more

The Unknown Austria - Line up
9 minute read

The unknown Austria – Part 1

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

Prinčič - Favola 2008 in the glass
3 minute read

Prinčič and the peronospera: A fable

You can tell a great winemaker not by what they produce in a good year, but by what they pull together from a catastrophic one. And it didn’t get much worse than Dario Prinčič’s 2008 vintage, where some 90% of his harvest was infected with Peronospora (downy mildew). Prinčič salvaged a pitiful amount of grapes, blended the entire output together and made a one off – the aptly named “Favola”, meaning fable or legend.

Strohmeier road sign
4 minute read

One year of skin contact – Strohmeier Wein der Stille 2013

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

Sandi Skerk Oct 2015
5 minute read

Master of the Carso: Sandi Skerk – Ograde 2012

Sandi Skerk must have one of the most idyllically sited vineyards in Friuli, if not the world. Grassed terraces curve gently around the contours of the Carso hills, and lead your eye out towards the Adriatic coast. I’m profoundly happy to be standing by his albarello-pruned Vitovska vines, almost four years to the day after a previous eye-opening visit in 2011. Sandi is of course the same as ever – gentle, rather shy, yet somehow dogmatic and politely forceful when he needs to be.

4 minute read

Sepp Muster – Erde 2012

If you made a list of the world’s most vertiginous wine regions, Southern Styria would certainly be amongst them. Vineyards sprawl up and down extraordinary gradients, at unlikely angles to each other. It’s a breathtaking, individual landscape, and therefore quite fitting that the area is home to some of Austria’s most unconventional wines and producers.

Andreas Tscheppe - Stag Beetle Erdfass 2011 + 2012
3 minute read

Andreas Tscheppe – Hirschkäfer Erdfass 2006

The production methods for Tscheppe’s Erdfass (“earth barrel”), also known as Hirschkäfer (Stag beetle), seem bizarre at first glance. A blend of Sauvignon Blanc & Chardonnary ferments on the skins for two weeks, and is then transferred into a 600 litre oak barrel which is buried in the ground over the winter months. After the winter, the barrel is dug up, the wine continues to mature and is then bottled after 24 months.