It’s been quite the year of wine tasting for me. I’ve been fortunate enough to visit a few bucket list regions and discover some truly unique juice, with 50% of this list coming out of Italy, it might be a bit one-sided, but who cares.
Kardenakhi 7 ‘Saamo’ Fortified Rkatsiteli 1987
Liquid-gold. I tasted this on a recent trip to Georgia whilst judging for the IWSC. Judging always throws interesting wines your way, and Georgia was no different, with a real mixed bag of quality and styles. I certainly found a few producers of interest during my trip, so watch this space… However, there was one wine that I could still taste a month on.
This is a fortified Rkatsiteli from Kardenakhi 7, the 1987 ‘Saamo’. At the best part of 40 years old this sweet wine weighs in at 17% with an aromatic intensity that would take you to a Madeira of a similar age, or some sort of white Colheita port from the 60s – Kopke, I’m looking at you. A wine of exceptional depth, concentration and complexity. Nutty, layered with notes of orange peel and tangerine. Unforgettable and the highest-scoring wine of our week in Georgia. (not available in the UK)
Castello di Meleto ‘Vigna Casi’ Chianti Gran Selezione 2019
I’ve been fortunate enough to go to Italy a few times this year and even luckier to visit Tuscany twice. My final trip (courtesy of Alliance Wine) resulted in a fabulous few days bouncing around Chianti Classico. It felt good to get under the skin of the region; I don’t think I realised how rife Merlot is in these parts. With ‘Classico’ legislating for at least 80% Sangiovese, the amount of 80/20 Sangiovese/Merlot blends we are seeing these days is a bit of a shame in my opinion. Keep it indigenous and stop making wines for the US palate, please.
Rant aside, we stayed at the stunning Castello di Meleto and our hosts put on a little blind tasting for us; pitting their wines against the likes of Fontodi, Isole e Olena, Castello di Volpaia and Castello di Ama. Three rounds of blind wines, starting with Classico, to Reserva and eventually Gran Selezione. Enter the ‘Vigna Casi’ from Meleto. This is a serious wine that’ll keep, but is drinking on point right now. Structured and elegant, hailing from a slate single vineyard and sees the inside of a 50hl cask for just over two years. It knocked the ’19 ‘San Lorenzo’ from Castello di Ama out of the park.
Chateau Léoville Barton Saint-Julien 1986
Hands down the best Bordeaux I have tried this year. I took it along to a BYO with some wine friends at Mangal 2 in Islington back in February and it didn’t disappoint. Léoville Barton tends to take an age to open up so I gave it a cheeky double decant before sticking the cork back in and pairing it with a seriously good Turkish meal. A wine that bears all the hallmarks of just what you want from an aged claret, donning notes of leather, bramble and cedar spice. Effortlessly balanced, wonderfully poised.
Franco Terpin ‘Sialis Rosso’ 2015
This is a wine that couldn’t have come at a better time. This past summer I spent a month in Mexico and it was safe to say that I went fully down the rabbit hole when it comes to Mezcal. Oddly I’m not a huge Tequila fan, but I am convinced that Mezcal is the most terroir-driven spirit in the world, so a suitable diet of tacos, Modelo and Mezcal underpinned a fabulous month away. Suffice to say, after four weeks, I was chomping at the bit for a decent glass of wine, and on my penultimate day in CDMX, I walked past a bloke with a magnum of Tua Rita’s ‘Giusto di Notri’ under his arm. So, I approached him in the hope that he could point me in the direction of a good wine bar. It turns out that he owns Brutal in Mexico City, and he invited me along, where I finally had the chance to taste wine from this guy for the first time.
Franco Terpin remains a legend of Friuli but is perhaps better known for his skin contact whites. His ‘Sialis Rosso’, which is a blend of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, is mesmerising and just starting to open up. Expect stewed red fruits, balsamic and top notes of wild, funky bramble hemmed in by a beautiful herbal accent. I can’t believe it took a trip to Mexico to at last try wine from a Friuli legend, funny how these things work out.
Vins l'Apical 'Vividors del Vi' Garnatxa 2023
Vins l’Apical is a very exciting outfit from Penedés in Spain, and I am very proud to be importing them into the UK through Good Pair Days.
Through Spanish specialist John Small, based in Northern Ireland, I discovered these wines whilst helping him pour at a tasting in Dublin in May. The winemaking philosophy here is minimal but clinical and approachable at the same time. They make friendly wines across the board with moderate alcohol levels and minimal use of oak. This wine is brilliant, think Ribena, black Jelly Babies and violets. So much freshness on the palate, with natural, chalky tannins and lovely blueberry notes on the finish. A superb, triumphant wine.
Emmanouil Orfanos ‘Single Vineyard’ Malagousia 2023
I visited Greece in January this year for new producers to bring into the UK market. The trip was overall a great success, and whilst I couldn’t bring in anything from Orfanos, their ‘Single Vineyard’ Malagousia has stayed with me all year. This trip was a real eye-opener, from epic old vine Savatiano out of Central Greece, to Malagousia across the spectrum, and it was in the latter, that I started to get my head around the regional differences of this grape variety – after all, it’s one that the Greeks have put a fair whack of stock into.
Orfanos is a winery from Patras at the northern tip of the Peloponnese. The winemaking here is low-intervention with minimal use of sulphur. This is nothing short of electric. Malagousia isn’t a grape with the highest acidity, but this pub is aptly bottled in a Riesling flute, sealed off with a bit of wax and rubs shoulders with the best that Greece has to offer.
Pegasus Bay ‘Bel Canto’ 2015
‘Bel Canto’ is arguably the closest thing to a Spätlese Riesling you will find from the New World. Regardless of the vintage, you can be sure to find richness, weight and texture. These are wines that smell sweet and taste dry, always delivering with notes of candied orange peel, rich stone fruit and honeysuckle. I drank this during that same trip to Dublin, (where I discovered Vins l’Apical) at the infamous Montys of Kathmandu, arguably Ireland’s finest wine list. The 2015 takes all of the hallmarks I love about this cuvée and amps them up. With time to mature, the wine only intensifies, developing dried fruit character and a kerosene accent.
Cascina Ebreo ‘Alea’ Orange 2021
In terms of chronological order of play, this should be at the top. The discovery of this wine coincided with my first-ever trip to Piedmont – and not my last! Cascina Ebreo is an important winery for the region. Founded in 1992 by Pete Weimer, a computer programmer at the time with a dream of establishing his winery to break the rules. In 2015 the winery was taken on by the young team at Réva who to this day, adhere to Pete’s philosophy of indigenous yeasts, no sulphur and low intervention winemaking. The reds are powerful and thought-provoking, and the ‘Alea’ is a skin contact white made from Malvasia and Moscato. The perfume here is lovely, with terpenic intensity fringed with a hint of leather. The tannins are powerful yet integrated. This is a natural wine by most accounts, one with outstanding concentration and complexity.
Zoppi Cristina Ruchè 2021
From a sourcing perspective, I wanted to get under the skin of Piedmont this year, but specifically not with Nebbiolo. I’ve always been a big fan of Barbera and Dolcetto (when it’s taken seriously), so I decided to have a serious look at the region beyond the realms of its cornerstone variety. Like I said, I reached out to some seriously impressive producers, with Grignolinos and Freisas coming out of my ears and a few really good Chardonnays.
I could have written my top ten wines of the year simply from this deep dive, but one wine that stood out was the 2021 Ruché from Zoppi Cristina. I hadn’t heard of Ruché before, nor the Ruché Castagnole di Monferrato DOCG status (gained in 2010). Lovely aromatics here of earth and bubblegum, black fruit, Turkish Delight and rose. This is peppery and taut, with layers of marzipan and blackberry compote, wild strawberry and smoke, all wrapped up in a case of powerful tannin. Seriously good.
Flavio Roddolo ‘Bricco Appiani’ Langhe Rosso 2010
It’s been a good year for Harry and Italian wine. This number however was consumed over a lunch at one of London’s best new restaurant openings this year: Cloth. Owners Ben and Joe both import and sell wine under their own steam and have combined their portfolios to great effect under the banner of Butterworh and Penzer. Flavio Roddolo’s wines need time, case in point here with this 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. This wine is a geeky wine, paired beautifully with a pork chop, displaying plenty of umami richness across the board. All of Roddolo’s wines are the result of long maceration and patient ageing in cement and old oak. This Cab is smoky, gamey and truly unique in the context of Piedmont.
Harry Crowther has a background in wine production completing harvests around the world before returning to London to work at Hedonism wines and run the wine category for a restaurant group. He is the UK wine buyer at Good Pair Days, an online wine subscription service that tailors cases of wine to people's palates. He has also just launched Tiny Wine in partnership with Coravin making fine wine more accessible to consumers.
Contact him on cheers@graintogrape.co.uk.
