The hills of Matellica

What is Natural Wine?

There have been countless blog posts and even books on the subject and none of them seem to arrive at much of a consensus. And frankly, it doen’t matter. Defining ‘natural’ wine is pretty much irrelevant to the issue of what constitues a ‘good’ wine – that is, at its root, wine that clearly expresses time and place. Good wine tells you in no uncertain terms when it was grown and where. Period. Otherwise, it’s just alcoholic beverage (which will always have its place).

We’ve tasted hundreds upon hundreds of ‘natural’ wine in the last week (and many, many more over the last decade) and like most ‘conventional’ wine most of it is crap. Just because you farmed biodynamically, crushed your grapes by foot and left it to ferment in naturally occurring stone basins dating back to the 1st century doesn’t mean your oxidized, VA riddled bacterial experiment is ‘good’! It says nothing of time and place any more than an oak dusted, reverse osmossised, mega purpled wine does. Neither are ‘good’ wines, neither say anything about where they were grown and when. They are alcoholic beverage and they will both succeed in getting you drunk. You just have to choose your poison.

However, when a winemaker has the balls and brains to leave their fruit alone and let it tell it’s real story (if there is one, that’s where the serious farming comes in) ‘good’ wine can enter the realm of profundity. If a winemaker/farmer knows so much that they can know to do very little they can make some pretty amazing stuff.

It’s just a shame there are so many dogmatic poseurs who insist on pissing in the pool.

Or maybe it makes finding the ‘good’ stuff that much more rewarding.

Off to Slovenia tomorrow. High hopes for some more ‘good’ wine.

Matt & Mike

We’re posting from the road for the next few weeks as we twist and turn our way through Italy’s back roads looking for new farmers and thoughtful vintners. Posts may be brief and picture heavy but we will try to show you some of the cook stuff we are trying and then compose our thoughts more lucidly when we are back.

Abruzzo from Cirelli 6:30am

undisgorged glera (col fondo) from Trevigiali.

Flew into Rome on Monday night and drove a few hours into the hills of Abbruzzo to meet with Agricola Cirelli, eat some homemade goose stuffed ravioli and pass out. Up early Monday to taste Cirelli’s entire line-up from cement, old wood and clay anfora (very interesting) We also tasted through a line-up including many other like minded vintners who have formed a group called the “Unione Vignaioli Authentico” and seem to be doing some excellent things.

yes yes and yes. grignolino

Off to the Marche today.

(Thanks to the EmiliaRomagnaTourismo for the map)

So, we asked three prominent people from Emilia-Romagna to tell us their favorite Lambrusco and food matches.  We asked a winemaker, a sommelier, and the owners of a recognized Emilia-Romagna restaurant.  Their answers are below. Explore, enjoy, and drink real wine!

PAOLA RINALDINI – THE WINE-MAKER

(Winemaker at Rinaldini. She makes two stellar dry Lambruscos: PJCOL Ross and Vecchio Moro)

“First of all I have to point out that Lambrusco is a wine that you can match with a large range of food. I venture to say, if you let me, that it’s the most versatile wine of all. Especially Pjcol Ross, a dry Lambrusco which marries beautifully even with fish dishes. For this reason, it’s difficult for me to give you just one answer… so I’ll tell you what I prefer in every season:

Winter: Mixed boiled meat (beef, capon, calf’s head, tongue, zampone (pig’s trotter stuffed with minced pork meat and spices), and cotechino (large boiled pork sausage) matched with homemade sauces and mostarda (pickled candied fruit and vegetables in a spicy syrup).

Spring:  The first fruits of the season – the time when you can find those white sweet onions. I use them to create a rich delicious omelette, cooked with butter, which gives a divine taste (despite the cholesterol!) … And there is nothing better with it than a glass of Lambrusco!

Summer: An unusual match – but for me it is excellent: Stewed octopus.

Fall: A dish of  “tagliatelle” (noodles) where the protagonist is Lambrusco! I prefer a tagliatelle with a sauce made with Lambrusco Vecchio Moro and chopped fresh salami.”

LAURA ZINI – THE SOMMELIER

(Sommelier, Vice-President of the Italian Sommeliers’ Association of Emilia Romagna (AIS Emilia) and representative for Reggio Emilia)

“Lambrusco is a wine of long tradition, full of solidity and strength. In particular, Pjcol Ross has a complex and intense bouquet that ranges from wild plum sauce to little juniper berries and ethereal notes of sealing wax.

Considering these premises, we should match it with important dishes, even if the wine is never lacking of seductive and lively taste.

My favorite food matches for Lambrusco are: risotto with sausage, stewed game cooked in red wine with polenta, or matched simply with mature Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.”

THE RESTAURANTEURS – THE RESAURANT:  “LA GHIRONDA”

(La-Ghironda in Montecchio Emilia)

Restauranteurs Camillo and Daniele, the two owners of La Ghironda in Montecchio, really love Lambrusco for cooking special dishes at the restaurant.

Their favorite dishes are:

Brasato di guancialini di manzo al Pjcol Ross (Stewed beef cheeks with Pjcol Ross)

Anatra arrosto in confit con salsa di mosto e Pjcol Ross (Roast duck confit with must sauce and Pjcol Ross)

Disclosure: We import Paola Rinaldini’s two dry Lambrusco’s (PJCOL Ross and Vecchio Moro).  For our latest offer of Paola’s wines go here.  For a full profile of the Rinaldini Winery go here.

In some wine-making circles maverick wine-makers are looking to the past to conceive of the future  (think fermentation in amphorae clay vessels).

This method of innovation may also be used to re-think the glasses we use to drink wine.  Beppi Crosarial from the Globe and Mail recently did a piece on clay drinking vessels for wine in response to a question he got from a reader: “Will unglazed clay goblets improve ‘economical’ red wines?”.  In his response Beppi  pointed out that there might be some scientific evidence supporting the fact that young red wines may taste better from clay vessels because certain types of clay can bind to tannins and remove them from the wine.  Although, he admits the effect may be subtle. He also mentioned that there are a number of mavericks in Europe that are experimenting with fermentation in clay.

It just so happens that Josko Gravner is one of the mavericks that Beppi mentions in his piece and Josko recently sent us pictures of the new wine glass he has designed. (To see our recent interview of Josko Gravner and why he started fermenting in clay amphorae go here.)

The glass is based on the old cups of baked earth that people used to drink wine from 5,000 years ago.  Josko Gravner believes that these wine cups are the best way in which to enjoy his amphorae wines.

We are not as sure that these glasses will make your wine taste better. But, if you live in British Columbia and want some of these glasses to give them a try – let us know – we will be glad to order some for you.

Disclosure: We import Josko Gravner’s wines.  To see our latest offer go here.

This week we interviewed Gavin Joll the general manager of White Rose. He’s a pinot nut and all around great guy.  Enjoy.

Question: Oregon is one of the most exciting qualitative pinot noir  regions in the world. Yet, everyone seems to be experimenting with varietals other than pinot noir (riesling, gamay, pinot blanc etc). Why has White Rose remained a pinot noir only winery?

Gavin: There are some great white wines being produced in the Willamette Valley and there is a demand for these wines at both the local and international level.  For years our customers and distributors have expressed a desire for us to produce a white wine, yet we remain reluctant for several reasons.  The primary reason is our owner, Greg Sanders, had a very clear purpose when he founded the winery in 2001 and that was to produce world class Pinot noir.  His, passion, our focus, and 100% of our efforts remain committed to making the best expression of Pinot noir possible.  We are also a pretty small winery that makes about 3-4000 cases annually.  We like being small and specialized and wouldn’t want the production of other varietals to disrupt or distract our pursuit of making great Pinot noir.

Question: Much is made of clonal selection in the pinot noir world: What to plant, where to plant it and how to treat each clone in the winery. How do you handle your different clones at White Rose, both in the vineyard and the winery? Can you speak a little bit about massal selection and what role you see it playing, if any, with respect to how pinot noir clones are handled in Oregon moving forward.

Gavin: White Rose Vineyard is mostly self-rooted Pommard with one block of Dijon 115 on American rootstock.  The other vineyards we work offer several different clones including Dijon 114,115, 667 and 777, Pommard and Wadensvil.  While we believe the different clones do have distinct flavors and characteristics, we base our decisions in the winery and vineyard on location, vine age and conditions of the vintage.  We will select our preferred clones (Pommard and 777) and propagate by massal selection as we plant additional acreage in the coming years. Massal selection is similar to the philosophy of ‘survival of the fittest’ where new plants are propagated only from the budwood of the most outstanding plants in the vineyard.  Rather than pick a particular uniform clone to plant, you get greater genetic variety buy selecting a group of outstanding vines.   We began identifying the best plants in White Rose Vineyard in 2005.  Our White Rose Vineyard “Hand Select” is a wine produced from these specific plants.  It’s something we believe in, but I’m not aware of anyone else doing it and doubt it will play a significant role in Oregon in the near future.

Question: White Rose is known for using whole clusters during fermentation. What do you guys see as the benefits of whole clusters and do you think whole clusters are especially beneficial in Oregon Pinot in particular? Whole cluster fermentation is something we began experimenting with in 2004 and now is the foundation of our winemaking philosophy.  Our belief is that whole cluster fermentation is crucial for the most authentic expression of Pinot noir.  It allows for the fruit character, secondary characteristics, structure and balance we aspire to achieve in our wines.

Thanks to Gavin for dropping some pinot knowledge on us and offering a look at pinot philosophy in Oregon. 

Sedimentary Wines: You went to California in the 1980’s and came back a changed vigneron. What was it that you saw in California that made you re-evaluate everything you were doing back home?

I visited California in 1987 where I tasted over 1000 wines in 10 days.  I returned to Italy disillusioned.  When I returned, I my wife asked me what did I learn on that trip? I answered that I had learned what not to do and that what I had started to already do in Italy was correct.  I told her that I was sick and tired of conventional wines and that wine-making in California was not working very well because they were moving in the opposite direction of that of safeguarding the soil and the authenticity of the product. Once again, the fault was in the progress and the technology.  From the North to the South, the wines were all the same (equal), and they were proud of it.

Sedimentary Wines:  Can you tell us about your trips to Georgia that changed the way you approach your wine-making?

When I went to Georgia my ideas were already clear. After my visit to California, I began to take an interest in the study of vines and wine. After I had been reading some ancient texts like Pliny the Elder and Columella, the secret of the agriculture and the wine was written in the books that were 1000 years old and it led me to the Caucasus and Georgia. To make quality in agriculture you need to turn and look behind you.  All the environmental catastrophe of the last decades, the sickness, etc. are nothing more than the demonstration that the progress of agriculture is destroying the planet and humans still did not have an understanding of it. My wine is trying to respect the land where it comes from.

The objective of my next journey was no longer the “new world” wines where they had been producing wines for 50 years – but the Caucasus – where the wine was born and they had been producing wine there in amphorae for 5000 years.

The problem was how to get there.  In those years, Georgia was still part of the Soviet Union – and it was impossible to travel and everything was a secret.  No one could say how they operated.  So it was difficult.  After 1991, when Georgia split from the Soviet Union, I became hopeful – but then there was civil war.  My first trip was in 2000.  I arrived in May and went straight to Kaketi in the south – one of the best areas for wine production.  I tasted wine from the amphorae.  It was heavenly. I have to say that I was astonished by the result of this kind of production.

My first amphorae vintage was 2001.  The big advantage of the amphora is that they allow you to respect nature by requiring no intervention during fermentation: neither with fridges, nor the need for additives or to clarify.  Nothing – except for a little sulphur.

Sedimentary Wines: Other than sleeping well at night why is it important that you farm the way you do?

An agricultural business farm (azienda agricola) is managed with love and passion . . . we cannot be consultant oenologist and do it for someone else unless we do it ourselves.  Wine is like a sponge that absorbs whatever is around it. I always say that it is impossible to do a natural wine if the person who is doing it does not have a natural life. You cannot teach honesty to your son if you are dishonest – same thing for the wine.

Sedimentary Wines: Your wines challenge accepted qualitative metrics. Why is it important, if at all, that we change the way we think about wine?

In my life, I have changed four times my cellar [la cantina]. I was young when I started and I wanted to make a lot of good wine and to do so I followed the most advanced technology.  As I got older, I realized that wine is not a computer. . . it ends up in the stomach. . . it is different [from other technologies like] computers, phones etc.  So, I stopped myself and I saw that the future of the wine was written in the past 5,000 years ago.

Making wine the way I do is a little like looking for the clean water of the river.  You do not look for clean water at the mouth of the river close to the sea.  You have to go to the mountains to where the river rises from the ground.  I have applied this same idea in my approach to wine. I have searched for wine at its source, how it was invented, and how it has been produced for 5,000 years – and I found it.

Disclosure: We import Josko Gravner’s wines.  To view our latest offer of Gravner visit here.

To see a longer video that explains how Josko Gravner arrived at making his wines in Amphorae go here.

[Show as slideshow]

Frank – “The Wine-maker”: Our favorite quote about Frank as a winemaker was:

“Frank Cornelissen may just be the most driven, ardent, perfection-oriented winemaker in the world.”

We tend to agree with Tom.  To say that Frank Cornelissen is a perfectionist is an understatement of monumental proportions.

Frank’s Vineyards: The article also highlighted one of Frank’s vineyards: Barababecchi which is a 100 year old vineyard planted with pre-phylloxera ungrafted vines.  As the article states:

“The soil here is pure lava rock, and the vines are in the classic alberello system, where the free-standing plants reach only a few feet above the ground. This site is given over mostly to Nerello Mascalese that he uses for his signature red, Magma.”

Frank’s Wines: The article also contained an eloquent description of Frank’s process for making Magma:

“Small yields, cluster-thinning, and cutting the bottom off some of the bunches mean that Cornelissen has only a small amount of fruit to work with for his wines; for the Magma 8VA, that total was only 1,433lb (650kg) of grapes from 5,400 vines.  From this he ultimately had the potential to produce 800 bottles, but after tasting the wine, he decided that some of the product in the smaller amorphae was not up to his quality standard, so he declassified a total of 300 bottles and used that wine in the MunJebel Rosso offering.  As a result, Cornelissen produced fewer than 500 bottles of Magma 8VA – 430 standard 75cl bottles and 30 magnums. Given this minute amount of wine, it is easy to understand the price of this wine, roughly on par with a few of the finest Barolo crus.”

Frank Cornelissen continues to gain in stature and his wines are garnering more attention worldwide. Recently, Magma was named 2011 wine of the year by wine-pages.com. We also interviewed Frank recently about his approach to wine-making – you can see our interview here.

We could not be happier for Frank Cornelissen, because his profile is building the right way, it has not been done with a marketing team nor a large marketing budget, it has been accomplished because of his slavish dedication to his wines, his exacting standards, and his unwavering values.  The result is that he produces wines that demand attention just because they exist.

If you have never tasted one of Frank Cornelissen’s wines – you should.  We import them and you can see our profile of Frank Cornelissen here.

- Mike and Matt.

Wine Stories, an italian blog about “living the real italian experience”, has just posted a new profile (in english) of Stanko Radikon and his son Sasa.

The profile includes a nice video with footage of Stanko talking about his wines together with images of the vineyards.  Unfortunately, the video is in Italian – but take a look anyways – the imagery is beautiful. Nicely done Wine Stories!

Disclosure:  We import Stanko Radikon’s wines.  Our first offer of his wines will be released this Thursday.  To view our profile of Stanko Radikon go here.

Radikon from mauro fermariello on Vimeo.

Frank Cornelissen’s Magma® Rosso 8VA (2009) has been elected by Tom Cannavan of wine-pages.com as his red wine of the year!

Frank Cornelissen’s wines are gradually settling in with the other great wines of the world and this is a nice reward for both Frank and the Mt. Etna region.

Not only does Magma taste great but it is also one of the iconic natural wines in the world – which means no chemicals at all.  None.  Which makes Frank’s achievement that much more impressive.  Bravo Frank!

To view Tom Cannavan’s Wines of the Year list go here.

Disclosure:  We import Frank Cornelissen’s wines.  For our latest offer of Frank Cornelissen’s wines go here.