Organic Wine

For complexity, depth of flavour, and interest, it’s hard to beat this ancestral method sparkling wine from Vincent Carême. So vinous and lively, it’s delicious in youth, and fascinating with some age. It’s made by transferring the still sweet and fermenting grape juice into bottle, and then trapping the subsequent carbon dioxide as it continues to ferment to dryness in the bottle. No dosage is added, though the spent yeast cells are expelled, leaving a brilliant, crystalline sparkling wine behind. It has such a wonderful depth and complexity on the nose, with a vinous structure on the palate, and a salty zing. The creamy mousse wraps around crunchy apple fruit. Experience from tasting back vintages of this cuvée shows me this wine ages brilliantly, and will develop complex depth, and savoury precision with a few years in bottle.

"This smells just like membrillo. Delicious! Exciting depth of fruit that seems to go on and on. The longest wine so far. Tiny traces of spice are folded like secret love notes into the fruit, and the acidity envelops every sip with its chalky lemon-sherbet ribbons. Apricots and golden figs. Fragrant with lime. This is truly thrilling." 17.5 points, Tamlyn Curran, jancisrobinson.com

Claudie’s father, in his days of running a plant nursery with access to a huge range of plant material, planted seven different clones of Pinot Noir in this 2.5 hectare site. Now at 45 years old, this diversity, twinned with the quality of vineyard husbandry, means the vineyard is thriving. The different clones call for pruning and harvesting at different times, but it’s an effort worth making, as the wine is texturally sophisticated, juicy, and full of Pinot nuance. It’s open, balanced and extremely drinkable, with a touch (10%) of new oak adding a little sweet spice to the gorgeous red fruit.

This is the sweet spot of Domaine de la Butte - from right in the middle of the slope - and as such, produces the most complex and ageworthy of this triptych. Jacky and Jean-Philippe hold the wine back for an extra six months in the cellar before bottling as they know: this wine needs time. Its huge concentration and tannic stature are matched to slightly more new oak than the other wines. The density of fruit is more than a match.

This is everything we’ve been looking for in a dry Vouvray: precise, chiselled Chenin fruit, balanced weight, sappy freshness, and flinty finish. It comes from clay and flint soils around the domaine, andin 2020 has an electric energy. It’s so bright, and with a clean, precise weight and length, it’s hard to imagine a better example of the appellation for the price.

This comes from three neighbouring parcels near the cellar, from vines with an average age of 45 years. The additional clay in the soil here gives added depth to this cuvée, as well as more longevity. This is such an enjoyable wine: it has ripeness and personality in spades, with a razor-sharp line of acidity slicing through to a long finish.

100% whole-bunch lifts this village Pommard up a notch or two. It’s such a fragrant and appetising style, and the best we’ve seen from Joannes since he took over in 2019. It is a great entry point for one of Pommard’s most promising new voices.

This is juicy, lightly peppery, bright and elegantly smooth Cabernet Franc which is wonderful in its youth. The fruit comes from the bottom part of the slope, hence 'Pied' - foot. This is in contrast to the mid-slope fruit goes into the age-worthy, denser 'Mi-Pente' cuvée. Some vines at the bottom are as old as 80 years, so although the wine is juicy, upfront, and invitingly drinkable, the finish is sustained and persistent with old vine intensity taking this above a simple easy-drinking wine. It’s got a wonderful sour cherry note, with lightly smoky notes.

Tasted April 2023. A lovely silky feel on the finish with more fresh mint notes on the finish keeping it lively and appetising. Ripe blackberry, plum and some red cherry flavours, with a bay leaf, sage herbal quality.

Made from a selection from the San Marcellino vineyard, this wine is only produced in high quality vintages. A small vineyard that is majority old vines, the wine has 5-10% of the indigenous Pugnitello grape added, a Tuscan grape that brings colour and perfume to the wine. Aged for 24 months in barrel, the wine has leather, coffee and spice at the forefront with wild flowers, brambles and blood orange notes that support it in the background. Tannins are evident, however there is a lot of concentration and matter on the palate to balance this.

The second wine of renowned Clos Apalta, this year Petit Clos is just fantastic, with pure, ripe berry fruit character and long flavours of violets and damson.

Tasted April 2023. 100% Merlot. Anne-Laurence, who makes Château Marsau, has further increased the use of foudres this vintage to 80%. The remaining 20% is in old barrels, amphora and vats. There's an incredible amount of texture and savoury-tinged fruit on the palate as a result. Fragrant and lifted on the nose, and linear with lots of the chalky, refreshing salinity we love in Marsau. Ripe and focused tannins, present but fine and silky. Yields here were low but the wine really shows the benefits of their regenerative approach in the vineyard. This is a very expressive wine that sings of its people and place.

The second wine of renowned Clos Apalta, with pure, ripe berry fruit character, hints of sweet spice and long, complex flavours of violets, pepper, chocolate and damson.

Fontodi’s 2021 Gran Selezione Vigna del Sorbo is a masterpiece. An intense, statuesque wine with so much complexity from the off. Spiced notes of espresso bean, violets and liquorice mingle with the plush, detailed hedgerow fruit. This coats the palate with its explosive power and charm in equal measure with a finish that lasts for minutes.

Stéphane Riffault grows in stature with every vintage, and is now unquestionably one of the most exciting producers in the appellation. Chailloux is the local Sancerrois name for flint (more commonly known as silex), and this parcel is tucked up in the north-east of the appellation where this soil type predominates. It has a northwest aspect and is shaded by a large forest. Flinty sites are often a little warmer, but this one keeps cool, and produces profound acidity. The 2022 is focused and structured with a flinty power and backbone of acidity, that drives through the wine from the start through to the very long finish. Excellent.

This is an excellent introduction to Saumur Rouge, with its sweet, leafy red fruit and silky tannins. Father and son team Michel and Thibaud Chevré are showing themselves to be every bit as skilled with reds as with whites, which is little surprise given Michel’s long career working with Thierry Germain.

This is juicy, lightly peppery, bright and elegantly smooth Cabernet Franc which is wonderful in its youth. The fruit comes from the bottom part of the slope, hence 'Pied' - foot. This is in contrast to the mid-slope fruit goes into the age-worthy, denser 'Mi-Pente' cuvée. Some vines at the bottom are as old as 80 years, so although the wine is juicy, upfront, and invitingly drinkable, the finish is sustained and persistent with old vine intensity taking this above a simple easy-drinking wine. It’s got a wonderful sour cherry note, with lightly smoky notes.

Pierre de Tuf is Jérôme's stand-out cuvée. It's made from a blend of two parcels of Cabernet Franc, both planted in the 1940s. He uses an incredible fifteenth-century tuffeau cuve, hewn into the wall of the old cellar, to do a long, slow fermentation. This method brings out the delicious complexity in this old vine Cabernet Franc. 2020 is the first vintage that this wine sees 24 months ageing before bottling (previous vintages had seen 18 months). This allows the wine time to knit together, so that it feels composed, powerful, and elegant once in bottle. The tannins of 2020 are still fairly forthright, but with the succulent ripeness of black fruit behind them, the wine shows impressive balance. There's a whisper of smoke and violets on the nose, and a deep fruit core on the palate promising great ageing potential. It remains outstanding value for money.

This is the pinnacle of the Balthazar cellar - a Cornas that defines Franck’s style for making complex and ethereal Cornas from old vine fruit, vinifying with 100% whole bunch. It shows impressive tension, with a superbly long, silky finish. This is Cornas at its very best.

This cuvée is made in only tiny volumes, and released to just a few customers. It is made from Chaillot grapes (a particularly old parcel), and is vinified and aged without sulphur. Just 1 gramme per litre of sulphur is added before bottling.