Specialists in delicious natural wines
We love the term ‘Natural Wine’. Let us explain why. We have always been educators and communicators. That is why we love writing to explain our wines and what they mean to us. And that is why the term appeals, because it helps people communicate exactly what they mean about a naturally-fermented wine that has been made without additions and without anything being taken away from the wine.
In the first part of this article published in Wine Talk for April 2017 we discussed the importance of the human aroma receptors, volatile compounds associated with wine, the link between aroma receptors and the brain, how aroma is a construct of the brain and how different people smell totally different things in wine sparked by different memories.
It is almost an habitual reaction. When someone hands you a glass of wine it is inevitable that the first thing you will do is swirl the wine in the glass and take a sniff. The better the glass the more likely you are to detect a range of aromas coming from the wine.
In three previous articles we have examined different rock types, how soils are formed and the creatures that work the soil for us. In this final article in the series we are going to explore the scientific literature that informed us about the negative effects of systemic sprays to prove that there is scientific merit in our claims.
In the two previous articles under this title we examined the different rock types that are found in vineyards and then looked at how soils are created from those rocks by actions including physical weathering, chemical weathering and biological weathering. In this article we are going to look at the living creatures that inhabit the soils in vineyards.
In the first article of this series of articles in the last newsletter we discussed the three types of rocks which cover the Earth but we did not discuss how these are turned into soil. That is what we are going to discuss in this article.
In this series of articles we will examine the influence of soils, their mineral composition and the inhabitants of the soil (worms, spiders, bacteria and fungi) have on the quality of grapes and hence the quality of wines made from them.
The Auvergne region of France is one of our favourite places to visit. It is home to one of our most-visited establishments, namely the Auberge de Chassignolles where the accommodation and food lures us back many times each year. It is also the home to one of France’s most important […]
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 wines made from Savagnin and Chardonnay that have slight oxidative qualities.
Minerality of the soil – Introduction We want to explore the importance of minerality of the soil in more detail, because in Part 1 of this series, published in the April 2013 newsletter we explained that only three of the sixteen essential elements for plant growth enter the plant via […]