Sourced from the warm, sandy Black Sage Bench, this one offers fine red fruit with toasty, peppery, savoury and smoky aromas and raspberry, with peppery spice in the mouth. Smoothly textured with firm, but not overbearing tannins, it needs a little more time for youthful acidity to settle down.
Just like an old friend you are meeting again, the green touch associated to lesser ripe Bordeaux is somehow comforting. Medium body with fresh acid and notes of green bell pepper, bright plum, coco and vanilla. Chewy tannins a touch rustic with a rather abrupt finish. Simple but shows typicity at a price that is hard to argue with.
Very pale in colour; minerally, kiwi flavours with good tension between sweetness and acidity. Just a touch of oxidation (browning-apple flavour) on the finish.
From a top vintage and producer comes this Amarone which doles out the plum, cherry, raspberry, vanilla cinnamon, raisin and garam masala. Full-bodied, with 15.5% alcohol, it is balanced, concentrated and long-lasting. It will age well for a decade.
Dark ruby. Black fruits, earthy and slightly spicy oak notes. Full body, dense fruity taste in the intense middle palate. Somewhat coarse finish of good length, a bit warm on the tongue. Drink now and over the next 2 to 3 years.
Gut Oggau is one of the exciting darlings of the natural wine movement. Based in the small town of Oggau in Burgenland, Austria, the project was started by Eduard and Stephanie Tscheppe in 2007. The couple took over a 17th century winery that had been abandoned for 20 years, renovated it (including its 200-year-old screw press) and renewed the vineyards, which had benefitted from two decades of a chemical-free life. They practice biodynamically and are Demeter certified. Each of their small-lot wines have a distinct personality, so they've come up with an entire family tree of intertwining stories and characters, faced with striking label sketches by local artist Jung von Matt. The labels depict the human face of each wine and, remarkably, each ages and matures with each vintage. Atanasius is one of the children, a generation of wines meant to be lighter, fun and fresh. His is a blend of gravels and limestone, single plot and field blend 35-year-old Zweigelt and Blaufränkisch, fermented in large-format old wood where it remained on skins for 3 weeks. Post ferment, the wine stays in the same vessels for 1 year with no sulphur until bottling unfined and unfiltered. Tight herbal raspberry, plum, blackcurrants on a finely dusty palate, lined with worn leather and housed with light gritty tannins. There's a perfumed wild raspberry that clings onto the drying finish. Honest, chillable, chuggable.
This is Norman Hardie’s expression of fruit from Niagara rather than his own Prince Edward County grapes; but the same Burgundian style prevails here. The smoky, spicy apple bouquet replicates on the palate with lively acidity and a toasty oak finish.