Vivant A Souvi is an 80/20 Grenache Blanc/Viognier blend, with 24 hours maceration before pressing and fermentation in concrete. Fleshy, tropical fruit with a refreshing, tangy acidity. No added sulphur.
Organically farmed. Lots of richness and minerality with a long finish. One for seafood, or for food by the sea, or for making food feel like you’re at sea.
Ker Ma is hand-picked from the same plot that yield’s Manu & Marion’s La Croix Moriceau: north facing plots, with freshness and high acidity. Ker Ma sits a little higher up the slope, on amphibolite rock (sea deposits and fossils) Worked simply, fermented in concrete tank. Manu & Marion vinify each of their plots in the same manner to express the singularity of each exposition.
From the inimitable Brand Brothers: old vine Pinot Blanc grown on solid limestone. The limestone minerality shines through very clearly, pithy limey acidity and green apple notes all rounded out with a very gentle saline edge. An absolute favourite here.
From clay-limestone plots kissed by the salty breeze of the Mediterranean. Pretty white fruit and floral aromatics, a lovely nifty acidity. Empties quickly.
For the last 4 years or so working with Laurent & Melissa at Mataburro, they’ve only had red wines, from red grapes. For the first time ever in 2021 we now have a white from a parcel of Macabeu planted beside the river on alluvial soils by Laurent’s grandfather, 'Memo' has the lightest bit of grip, beautifully saline and pretty.
An elegant and supple barrel-aged Carignan. Dark-fruited and balanced, with real depth and a black-olive heart, long, long, long.
From ex-dancer and ex-pat Australian Paul Old’s Project 108. Paul works with old, near-abandoned vines of Carignan, Mourvedre and other mediterranean varietals, near the ocean in Corbieres Maritimes.
From a single parcel of 70 year old Carignan on schist, pure-fruited and pretty, with powdered-rock tannins. A 3 month de-stemmed maceration with no extraction, aged in fibreglass. Working across a patchwork of 8 parcels, Alexandre Durand's wines channel the wild-hearted energy of Faugeres. Zero sulphur.
Absolutely beautiful, highly sought-after red from the UK - delicate, pure and detailed. Bright little berries lifted by a delicate dried-juniper tannic thread.
Every year as harvest progresses, Lori Haon selects a few cases of grapes from each of his vineyards on the day they're picked, to join the party in one big tank dedicated to a single cuvee: *La Partouze* (mind how you go looking up the translation of that one). Sometimes added in as whole bunches, sometimes pressed directly to top up the juice in the tank- Lori makes the call on the day. The tank ferment slowly at a low temperature for 6 weeks, before it's pressed back to concrete for ageing. The finished wine- a dizzying blend of all 13 of Lori's varieties is light, juicy, neon-bright and bags of fun. Bottled with no additions - and probably the only Partouze we'll be inviting you to this year.
From the brilliant Maxime Woerly. A blend of two parcels: the top of the southern-facing slope on solid granite - 60 years old- and the bottom of a northern-facing slope in Dambach, on sandy granitic soils planted in the 1980's. Bright, soft slightly smokey Alsation Pinot Noir with no added sulphur. A new fave!
A precise and pretty blend of Grenache and Cinsault with crystalline freshness. As is Lori's practice with most of his reds these days, whole bunches in concrete are topped up with a few litres of direct-press juice for a gentle 2 week infusion.
The oldest vines on the farm, planted in 1974 from massal selection, close to the Premier Quartier parcel. Much shallower soils, and finer boned than Premier Quartier. Aged in demi-muid for 12 months. No additions.
From Vincent’s plots across iron-rich, flinty soils; this is his hearty, charming blend. Welcome to the table, from cooler summer evenings outside with any manner of items on the grill, or a long autumnal lunch with the fire on.
Balanced, fresh and crunchy, with floral aromatics and delicate tannins, from the wind-battered hills of the Hautes-Corbieres. A lighter autumnal red well suited to brightening the spicier veg and heartier cassoulets we start to pull from the oven.
Deeper black fruits framed with linear minerality, delicate bitterness and a fresh finish. From the wind-battered hills of the Hautes-Corbieres. We’ve been enjoying the new releases from Domaine Balansa, lightly-worked expressions of a fascinating terroir.
Waxy, mineral, deep and delicious. Cyrille hand-destems the Gamay before leaving to an 8 month maceration in amphora. Aiming to intervene as little as possible with the wine, looking for an ancient method of vinification.
From a plot a little further down the hill, on broken granite. South facing, here the wine is deeper-fruited and sappy, with black fruits lifted by a delicate structure and acidity.
Biodynamically farmed. Deep, concentrated - the most structured wine with the broadest shoulders. With the hallmark violets & pepper of the Rhone: floral & focused with delightful texture. No added sulphur.
The oldest vines on the farm, planted in 1974 from massal selection, close to the Premier Quartier parcel. Much shallower soils, and finer boned than Premier Quartier. Aged in demi-muid for 12 months. No additions.
A medium-bodied, dark fruited, but seriously juicy blend of Grenache, Cinsault and Syrah. From 35 to 60-year-old vines close to the winery planted on deep silty clay – characteristic of the area. Whole bunches go into the tank for a light gravity crushing, a week on skins then basket-pressed gently.
Another warmer vintage leaves less of this than we’d like this year, but Vincent has still coaxed freshness and drinkability from his fruit. Short macerations and the lightest of extraction create a wine that is bold with flavour but still has freshness and drinkability. BBQ glugger.
Juicy, black-fruited Gamay from a fresher 2019 vintage for Romain & Fanny at 2P Production. Co-planted with a little of the native white varietal Loin de l’oeil, fermented together as whole bunches.
Husband and wife duo Jordi Miró & Sònia Gomà-Camps make their wine 20 miles from the sea. They work primarily with Trepat, the native red grape, and farm biodynamically. This is from their younger vines. Aromatic, crunchy red fruit and citrus. Spring red!
Elegant, mineral and pure-fruited Gamay from 60 year old goblet-trained vines. Sylvere Trichard and his partner Mathilde farm 4 hectares in south Beaujolais, planted on sandy clay & granite, working organically and in accordance with the lunar calendar.
A blend of juice from all of Anna and Jean-Benoît’s plots of red grapes (Carignan, Grenache, Syrah) After macerations for their other wines they blend only the pressed juice into a small steel tank for the fermentation to finish, before it's passed to a single 300l French oak barrel for 6 months ageing.
Camion Cagettes is a red to pop in the fridge: crunchy and bright fruited. Every year, Vincent Alexis and his friend Romuald Cousy take a trip to pick grapes from near and far for their Les Gaules Des Bois side-project: a busman's holiday making juicy, light reds that can be harder to come by in Bergerac.
In 2021 they travelled to Beaujolais to pick Gamay, Minervois for Grenache, and Merlot from Romuald's parcel in Bergerac. Each variety had about a weeks carbonic maceration in stainless steel, before blending and bottling unfined, unfiltered, and with no sulphur.
Beautifully supple, elegant Pinot Noir from a true master of the variety. Xaviere Hardy knew the blue schist of the region would be ideally suited to planting Pinot Noir, and she’s been proving right over and over again. Black cherry, blackcurrant a little pepper, a bright bounce of acidity.
Brilliantly mineral, black-hearted and deep. From young winemaker Damien Lorteau, who recently took over his parent’s estate, determined to pave the way as an organic, natural winemaker in Bordeaux. Still a rarity for the region, beset by monoculture and mass-agriculture.
Beautifully deep, structured Côte de Brouilly. Regal, glittering fruit, bursting berries, exploding mineral-heavy rocks. Lots going on here.
From a parcel on the hill or Mt Brouilly (just next to neighbours Pierre Cotton & Marine Bonnet) planted over granite and diorite. De-stemmed and macerated with low, gentle extraction, aged in barrel for 12 months.
Pure, fresh, fine boned, with superb fruit and an elegant minerality. A deeper, chewier expression of Gamay & Pinot; one for the table rather than the sofa.
A two week carbonic maceration in concrete, yields a light and driving wine from parcels planted over clay, silt and sandy granite, with the 90 year old vines usually picked for ‘Gisous’ going to this cuvee.
Sylvere Trichard and his partner Mathilde farm 4 hectares in south Beaujolais, planted on sandy clay & granite, working organically and in accordance with the lunar calendar.
Wild Gamay dense with hedgerow fruit and a stony-black minerality. Grown on sandy clay soils, with an 11 day semi-carbonic maceration, aged in steel tank for 5 months
Juicy, plummy fizz from Pauline & Francesco at Tenuta Foresto, young vignerons working with their dream vineyards in the hills of Monferrato. This is from their youngest plot of Barbera, picked first to preserve acidity and a lower alchohol level.
It ferments until the cold weather starts to kick in and then it's bottled. Secondary fermentation kicks in with the warmth of Spring. Naturally sparkling, ancestral/pet-nat style. No filtration, no disgorgement no added sulphur.
Marine Leys performs the incredible feat of bottling freshness and drinkability in her wines, grown in the ever-hotter south west of France, Gaillac. Her pet-nat from indigenous varietal Braucol brings herbaceous, hedgerow fruits, blackberry leaf and a dry, savoury finish to bring you back for another glass.
Soft, pretty and elegant with light pithy citrus and lovely toasty-brioche depth. Second fermentation of a barrel of reserved 2020 field blend was sparked with a little fermenting juice of 2021.
Very lucky to have got our hands on this biodynamic traditional method sparkling from Hugo Stewart & Daniel Ham’s new project: Domaine Hugo. Driving and complex with lovely acidity, leading into a little stone fruit and a buttery leesiness.
Potion Mama is Manu & Marion’s superb Pet Nat, picked from 3 of their parcels, and aged a year on the lees. Bruised apple and brioche depth tightened with swift stroke of acidity.
Both Marion and Manu of Complemen'Terre were born in Muscadet and have been around vineyards their whole lives. They farm 9 hectares of smaller parcels to biodynamic principles, all within 5 minutes of one another.
Deep, crunchy, juicy pet-nat with a lick of limestone acidity, this is the exact bottle to pair with your no-cook heatwave dishes at the moment. Plates of cheese, leafy salads, nuts and citrus. Total Refreshment Now.
Super bright, fresh and clean. A perfect, pink pet nat to bring sunshine to Autumn. No sulphur, no filtration, everything disgorged and bottled by hand. Available in only tiny quantities!
Vibrant, dynamic Portugieser lifted with a twist of Riesling. Lower alcohol and with a delicate spritz, this is a glugger! Tart cranberry notes, with wild strawberries, earthiness and some funk thrown in to measure.
Juicy, pure fruited rosé with a lovely structure from Michael & Melanie Voelker. Named for their first Ouessant sheep born on the vineyard. From 25 year old vines planted on clay-heavy soils over shell limestone.
A generous & opulent ‘orange' wine, macerated on the skins for 6 days before fermentation in old barrels and ageing in terracotta amphora. The 2019 has a fresher, pithy acidity: a twist of grapefruit, apricot picked early, and just a hint of smoke. Held together with a tightrope-line of acidity, and wonderful savoury minerality. A special wine from Vincent at Chateau Barouillet.
A special one. Delicately spiced, a little smoky, with comice pear, herbal accents of fennel and sage, continues to develop once open. Complexity sings loudest here, though there’s a wild harmony in the mix. Despite the 9 months of skin-contact, this one still hums with the electric acidity present in all of Andi’s wines.
Pithy, mineral and aromatic, would pair great with south-east Asian dishes, a more nimble orange wine.
From ex-dancer and ex-pat Australian Paul Old’s Project 108. Paul works with old, near-abandoned vines, both near the ocean in Corbieres Maritimes, and high in the hills of Hautes-Corbieres.
Pithy, saline, zesty and grippy, this is one we’ve loved this summer. The Blue-skinned variety of Silvaner yields a pinkish hue when macerated on the skins like this one, so you can file this under “vibrant, zippy skin-contact wine’ or ‘complex, grapefruit and pepper rosé’. Both are very good categories to find oneself in.
Pithy, zippy, saline and aromatic. Soft stone fruit and garden herbs, perfect skin-contact. Infusion 2021, is as it says on the tin: an infusion of de-stemmed Muscat, Pinot Gris and Gewürztraminer, suspended in large ‘tea-bags’ in a tank of direct-pressed Auxerrois juice. A macerated, orange wine made in a style that enables the grower to have much more granular control over the extraction.
The famous 'tea bag' method continues to catch on!
100% Chenin from the Saumur region in France. Biodynamically farmed. Deep sweet wine with a spicy, savoury edge to the concentrated raisin and marmalade flavours.
Organic Saison with foraged hogweed seeds. 4%. Rustic-style saison with lots of banana and clove flavour from fermentation. Finished with foraged hogweed seeds for an aromatic, orange character.
FUTTLE is an organic brewery tucked away on the East Neuk of Fife coastline. They make farmhouse, foraged and wild beers that follow the seasons, alongside some smaller batch spirits and soft drinks.
A reimagining of the traditional farmhouse beers made by workers on farms all across Northern Europe. Made to be malty, light in alcohol and very refreshing. A rustic, sparkly pale ale for these warmer days, at a very friendly 3.8%
FUTTLE is an organic brewery tucked away on the East Neuk of Fife coastline.
Stephen & Lucy make farmhouse, foraged and wild beers that follow the seasons, working with organic grain and hops, with water sourced from a borehole on the farm.
“Made in Guyana from Demerara sugar cane, it's buttery caramel and vanilla taste can be traced back to the one-of-a-kind wooden still it's distilled in (as well as the ex-bourbon casks it's kept in). A round, smooth flavour starting off with notes of caramel, and finishing off with vanilla, nutmeg, clove and allspice. Delicious on its own or in a daiquiri.”
Chardonnay 100%
Blacé, Beaujolais
Medium Bodied
A tightly-coiled, mineral Chardonnay from a cooler vintage in Beaujolais. Linear, pure and alive.