It has been a difficult January and February. Firstly, the sun seems to have packed its luggage and gone on holiday. By the time you read this, we will be basking under balmy blue skies, and you will have no idea what I am referring to. Thus far each and every Monday has been a parody of beginning of the week doom-gloom blues. Not sure if I have squeezed enough tautologies in there. It is enough to drive you away from the pieties of dry January and health-obsessed new year’s resolutions.
If the same number of people are practising abstinence (dryads) then at least I have noticed mercifully less flaunting of such worthiness. I have never tried to give up drinking, but then I try to be moderate and know the point where pleasure morphs into habituation.
Whether there is something in the air (beyond mist and drizzle) or whether I have to decide to carpe diem, but I have been drinking some seriously good natural wines recently and all of them deserve praise.
Drink less and drink better is my new mantra.
2017 Charlie Herring Wines Legion Solera, Lymington, UK
A bottle shared at AngloThai restaurant over a leisurely lunch. The concept of this wine is reserve perpetual, namely blending wine over several vintages. My companion and I cherished every mouthful. It tasted like history.
2020 Andreas Tscheppe Segelfalter, Styria, Austria
A desert-island wine (i.e. I usually drink it on a beach in the Outer Hebrides) performing beautifully on a cold winter’s evening in London. A bouquet of wild meadow flowers.
2022 Pouilly-Fuissé La Croix, Robert-Denogent
Why I drink (austere) Burgundy. Old vines, aged for 19 months in a mix of cement eggs, foudres, demi-muids and small barrels. Lean, mean and clean.
2019 Massa Vecchia La Querciola. IGT Toscana
Destemmed Sangiovese in old chestnut vessels. Sanguine and meaty. Magnificent.
2023 Makaridze Tsolikouri, Imereti, Georgia
From 86 year old vines grown on limestone clay soils, straight pressed and fermented and aged in qvevri for 10.5 months, a truly resilient white wine. Peach-stone, citrus pith, mineral salts.
To be mentioned in dispatches:
2023 Makaridze Cuvee 09, Imereti, Georgia
2020 Nikau Farm Amphora Granite, Gippsland, Victoria
2022 Georges Blanc, Domaine Thillardon, Beaujolais
2022 Vino di Anna Pirao Rosso, Etna
A remarkable list. I am so pleased to see Tim’s Legion on it. These are special wines and when such is acknowledged by one of a small number of people who have shaped my wide world of wine then I am content. PS sunny up here right now, quite consistently so. As we have overseas visitors in three weeks I’m getting worried.