Wine Club 034 Winners

It was great to welcome back many regulars along with some newcomers at the latest editions of Highbury Library Wine Club

We kicked off the night with Ham Street's latest release Meunier Chardonnay 2023. As the name suggests, this is a red (80%) and white (20%) blend of biodynamic grapes form Kent that were macerated in whole bunches. With just 10% alcohol but still showing a lovely concentration of peppery fruit, it served as a great aperitif to warm everyone up.

Next up we opened the 2022 vintage of Jean Pierre Rietsch's Stierkopf. Made from a single vineyard, this usually serves as the Alsace vigneron's more serious and earthy Pinot Noir that can age particularly well. Showing a hint of spritz on opening before settling into a wine full of concentrated fruit and minerals, this was really singing. On night two it was voted as the winning bottle. Yet another top spot for Jean-Pierre after his Gewurztraminer cuvée, Demoiselle 2023 won the vote last month. He never really misses.

One thing I love about Wine Club is that it gives the opportunity to open some really out-there wines that people wouldn't usually be exposed to. To show everyone the spectrum of where natural wine can go is really fun and that's exactly what Mendall's Espartal BP 2022 does. Made from Garnacha grapes, this is a light bodied red that has such an unusually deep and dark profile. Black olives (including all the brine!), developed black fruit and some herbal notes, some drinkers likened it to a Bloody Mary! I have to say, when I first opened, I thought this might be too much for everyone but I was pleasantly surprised by the reactions. On the first night it actually received the second most votes! 5 out of 5 on the wild scale, for sure, but good to know there is still an appreciation for wines like this. You can read about our recent visit to winemakers Laureano and Alicia here.

On to the whites we went starting with a new arrival from Gazzetta in Lazio. Winemaker Trish Nelson worked with Le Coste before settling nearby on the shores of Lake Bolsena to launch her own project. Bianco Trilli 2024 is her blend of Vermentino and local hero, Procanico. A few days skin contact gives the wine a fuzzy peach skin texture which drinkers really appreciated. At just 10.5% alcohol, there were some comments that this could be a wine you could quite easily drink a lot of!

For the next wine, we showed a different bottle each night. On Wednesday we received a brand new cuvée from our good friend Diego at Bodega La Senda and desperately wanted to open it! 213 2022 is an orange cuvée made with Malvasia grapes that are macerated for 45 days. The result is quite a serious, complex wine with a long finish. People commented that it was the maybe the most precise wine of the night and could be matched really well with food. 

On the Thursday, we opened the new vintage of La Bufarrella from La Salada in Catalunya. We are longstanding fans of this skin contact Xarel Lo and the latest iteration only deepens our appreciation. Subtle pink grapefruit notes are enhanced by delicate  spice and refreshing minerals. It was the runner up in the vote so definitely tasting great now but will also continue to get better with time in bottle. We have recently released a 2019 vintage to our cellar if you want to see for yourself.

To top off the evening, we reached for the 2024 Pet Nat from Domaine Dandelion. Whilst Christian produces quite serious and highly sought-after still wines, he likes to get a bit more experimental and wild on his Ancestral method sparkling wine. Whilst it's a direct press of Gamay and Pinot Noir grapes, the wine has still taken on quite a lot of colour and loads of texture! A hazy shade of pink in the glass, you could be forgiven for thinking this is some sort of alcoholic raspberry lemonade rather than wine. It won the vote on the first night and finished runner up on the second. Only 1 left in stock at the time of writing so don't miss out!

Another very enjoyable round of Wine Club and really looking forward to the next one on Beaujolais Nouveau Day where we will be celebrating our love of the Gamay grape variety

Until then,

Happy drinking!