(2025) Developed by Danish sommelier Jacob Kocemba, this is a blend of 13 organic teas which have been steeped at precise temperatures and intervals, then blended with a little grape must and touch of lemon juice. With zero percent alcohol, I really do prefer something like this, featuring jasmine, white and Darjeeling teas to de-alcoholsed wines. It pours a pale golden colour with plenty of bubbles, and is highly aromatic, the jasmine and floral notes are there, but also the umami and gently smoky meatiness of tea that you might expect. In the mouth it has sweetness with 50g/l of sugar given by the grape must, but also savouriness with fresh, lemony acidity to balance. Interesting in concept and execution. Watch the video for more information.
(2025) Made from Malvasia Puntinata, this wine has loads of honeyed opulence, loads of texture, in a succulent style. Touches of that honey over sherbet lemon and peach bit with a dry extract savouriness. it's an intriguing wine in some ways, fresh and appetising with only 12.5% alcohol, and yet with texture and mouth-filling presence. Full flavoured, Commice pear into peach, with fine acidity to freshen the finish. £13.49 as part of a mixed dozen.
(2025) Emilia-Romagna’s version of a Super Tuscan? That's according to Laithwaites for this Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese blend that is £17.99 as part of a mixed dozen. The wine was aged in French oak barrels for 11 months and, having left the grapes on the vine for a month later than normal, it has an almost Amarone touch. Chocolaty, spicy, a prune-like (but most definitely not stewed) character has sweetness and intense blueberry richness. The palate too has an Amarone intensity of dried fruits, spices and mocha, and that hit of sour cherry acidity. The barrel ageing has added softer, vanilla and cocoa touches in a big, bountiful wine with enough structure to offset the fruit sweetness.
(2025) This Languedoc red is vintage 2019, so rather nice to have a wine with a bit of tertiary development. Montpeyroux is a 'Cru' on schist soils in the foothills of the Pyrenees, this blend of Carignan, Grenache and Syrah from vineyards that lie between 140 and 280 metres altitude. Dark, spicy and deeply fruited, there's some cherry and raspberry lift over plummier, chocolate depths. The palate is smooth, dense and spicy with quite a long finish, the tannins well on their way to being fully resolved but, along with good acidity, freshening the finish. £16.99 as part of a mixed dozen.
(2024) The first still wine from sparkling wine maestro Dermot Sugrue and his wife Ana is as quirky as its name. It is in fact the first issue of a solera of Chardonnay, the 2022 component aged in small barrels, the 2023 in large barrels, with a proportion made in an oxidative style. It displays a flinty, herbal character but elegantly smoothed by almond and creamy ripe, honeyed apple. The palate shimmers with vibrant sherbet lemon and ripe grapefruity vivaciousness. It has a flinty drive and freshess, a bittersweet ripple of citrus, the finish long and intense like a blood orange straight from the freezer.
(2024) From various plots in Salnes, some vines 100 years old, this was fermented under controlled temperature using indigenous yeasts. It's a wine that at first seemed underpowered to me, but it's definite edge of salinity to crisp, lemony fruit was good and it grew on me as I tasted. There's a pithiness and saltiness, light bodied and very dry, all about citrus and apple cores. It's a delicate wine and very composed and restrained, but has vivid clarity too.
(2024) If you have tried Noval's LBV before you are in for a treat: unflitered and aged five years in casks, the fruit (Touriga Nacional, Touriga Francesa, Tinta Roriz, Tinto Cão, Sousão) comes from their own vineyard and is trodden by foot in traditional lagares. It has a heavenly nose, spices and intense floral and dried fruit notes combine with juicier blueberry and a hint of dark cocoa. The palate is powerful and structured, framed by powdery tannins but abundantly sweet with 90g/l of residual sugar it seems endlessly long. This will also cellar for a decade or more. Watch the video for more information.
(2024) A slightly firmer style in this lees-aged wine, the nose hinting at passion fruit and lime peel, a ripe peachiness beneath, fermentation with wild yeast adding a savoury note. On the palate that concentrated, zesty concentration drives this, a pithy lemon grapefruit towards the finish making it gastronomic and dry, with good, precise length.
(2024) A traditional Barolo that spent three years ageing in large oak casks, then six months in bottle, before release. Medium-pale in colour and density, the nose has an attractive perfume with small floral notes over tobbaco spice and chestnut. The palate has good fruit, but it stays in a very savoury spectrum, tannins quite chewy and dense, a twist of bittersweet acidity, and lively length balancing raspberry bright fruit and a darker liquorice stripe.
(2024) Great to have a chance to taste this eight-year-old vintage of Cantina Tramin's Nussbaumer, made from selected vineyard parcels of Gewürztraminer. It is made from vines that are 40 years old, and aged on the lees in stainless steel. Intense leafy and floral notes almost like geranium leaf, with some Nivea cream and lychee. Luscious, weighty and off-dry, it fills the mouth with creamy texture, spice and tropical fruit married to a pithy, bracing acid note in the finish. Note price and stockist is for the most recent vintage at time of review.
