We write this post with heavy hearts. The community we work with, so many of whom are our friends, people with businesses they have made their lives, everyone is shattered and shellshocked trying to understand what has happened in the last two weeks and its implications. It’s tempting to lash […]
Natural wine
About organic and biodynamic wines that have been fermented with natural yeasts and no additions except for a little sulphur.
Mataburro – Laurent Roger and Melissa Ingrand
Mataburro is the name of small domaine established in Roussillon by rising stars Laurent Roger and Melissa Ingrand. Their wines are natural and very delicious! They have kindly agreed to supply us with some of their much sought after wines and they will arrive in Australia around the middle of […]
Domaine de la Loue: Catherine Hannoun
Catherine Hannoun of Domaine de la Loue produces excellent Jura wines from plots near Pupillin and Marnoz. Her Savagnin, from a plot near Pupillin is a real revelation. It is complex, pure and delicious! Her domaine is named after the Loue river which rises from a spring slightly north-west of […]
Jean Marc Dreyer: Refined wines from Alsace
Jean-Marc Dreyer AOC Alsace Riesling Argitis 2017 The Dreyer Argitis is a white wine made from direct press Riesling grapes. The name Argitis is the old Alsace name for Riesling. The grapes were harvested by hand, pressed and then transferred to large wooden foudre. A veil of yeast protected the […]
A visit with Jean Marc Dreyer in Alsace
We first met Jean Marc Dreyer from the village of Rosheim in Alsace a number of years ago at a winter salon in the tiny village of Glaine-Montaigut in the hills to the east of the Auvergne city of Clermont-Ferrand. It is a small salon, but we always meet interesting […]
A brief history of the term “natural wine”
Sue Dyson and Roger McShane We love the term ‘Natural Wine’. Let us explain why. We have always been educators and communicators and always will be. That is why we love writing these long newsletters to explain our wines and what they mean to us. And that is why the […]
Just add oxygen – Reflections on the allure of oxidative wines
Sue Dyson and Roger McShane We have been thinking a lot about oxidative wines lately. There are a number of reasons for this. We have been importing Jura wines that are deliberately oxidative ranging from the Vin Jaunes that are exposed to oxygen for many years through to the table […]
Minerality in wine – Part 2
We want to explore the importance of the soil in more detail, because in Part 1 of this series published in last month’s newsletter (April 2013) we explained that only three of the sixteen essential elements for plant growth enter the plant via the leaves. The other thirteen enter via […]
Minerality in wine – Part 1
Minerality in wine and the role soil plays in contributing to minerality was the topic of a Masterclass at an early Rootstock natural wine festival in Sydney. It was interesting to participate in this event and to see how different people viewed the topic through completely different ‘lenses’. Vineyard managers […]
Bistronomy: A book about the resurgence of bistro food in Paris
So why are we reviewing a book about Bistronomy in Paris? Apart from the fact that our general preference is to eat bistro food rather than tricked up, contorted food in Michelin-starred restaurants there is a connection to bistronomy through the wine. Almost every restaurant that features in the book […]