The Edit is our monthly selection of what's exciting and drinking well. Three bottles to introduce you to our world of natural wine or encourage you to delve deeper.
Buy it online for delivery or collection or come and see us in the Market Hall.
As some of the wines in these box sets are produced in very limited quantities it's first come first served but coming soon is our subscriber service which will give you first chance to buy each version of the Edit and the following additional subscriber benefits -
- early notification of rare and sought after wines
- discount on tasting tickets
- early access to events at GlouGlou, PetitGlou and collaborations with chefs, winegrowers and food producers.
Domaine de Thalie, Les Cosmics, Bourgogne Aligoté 2020 - Peter’s secluded corner of Southern Burgundy is striking for its biodiversity: polyculture, cattle farms, deep forests, and mixed agriculture, far from the monoculture that is more prevalent further North. The vines for this wine are between 300 and 400m in altitude with a wide diurnal range that preserves acidity and freshness even in hotter vintages.
Aligoté is often seen as a secondary grape in Burgundy but it can be delicious. Like this one. A bit fresher and lighter in fruit than Chardonnay but great complexity, in this case, and that lightness makes this a joy to drink.
Producer - Domaine de Thalie
Country - France
Region - Burgundy
Appellation - Bourgogne Aligoté
Variety / Blend - Aligoté
Farming - Organic and biodynamic principles
Vegan
Pheasant's Tears, Quinta Red Blend, Kartli, Georgia 2020 - Georgia is where it all began, a wine revolution that is coming full circle and it's only taken around 8000 years to do so.
John Wurderman, an American artist, was painting in a vineyard when by chance he met the vineyard owner Gela Patalishvili, decided to get involved in the Georgian wine culture and show the rest of world what we had been missing out on.
Gela and his family had been making wines for 8 generations. But the traditional way of making wine, fermenting in Qvevri, very large, beeswax lined clay amphora sunk into the ground with just their lids above, was in danger of dying out completely and the unique grape varieties lost for ever, having been made illegal during Soviet occupation when only the sale of bulk, mass produced wine was allowed. John and Gela are at the vanguard of its rebirth.
The name Pheasant's Tears refers to an old Georgian story where only the best wines are good enough to make a pheasant cry. Who knew that was a thing?
"Quinta" is a red made from a blend of four of the 400+ indigenous, unique Georgian varieties. This is a medium bodied, big boned red, a wine rich in flavours of sloe and spice. Perfect for robust stews and food with attitude. The name Quinta refers to parallel fifths, a chord structure found in the very wonderful traditional polyphonic Georgian music.
(We also have in stock now Chinuri Amber, a wine made from a white variety, fermented on skins, producing a rich grippy wine that has haze for days and a spicy citrus edge. This wine is possibly the catalyst for my slight obsession with orange / skin contact / amber wines as it blew my mind when I first drank it and just writing or reading about it brings back the taste...)
Producer - Pheasant's Tears
Country - Georgia
Region - Kartli
Variety / Blend - Chinuri, Mtsvane, Tavkeri, Danakharuli
Farming - Organic
Vegan
Dune, Empty Quarter, McLaren Vale, Australia 2020 - Brothers Peter and Duncan Lloyd both worked in kitchens as teenagers growing up in McLaren Vale. It's where they developed a love of good food and an understanding of the role of wine in bringing food to life. Duncan studied winemaking before heading off to make wine around Australia and beyond to Chianti and the Rhone. Peter also had the travel bug and worked his way around Europe before returning to Melbourne. They set up Dune together in 2008. They mainly source their fruit from the Desert Sands vineyard in the Blewitt Springs sub-region of McLaren Vale.
The site they bought had been farmed intensively. The Shiraz needed extensive pruning to deal with Eutpya. They replaced Chardonnay and Pinot Gris with southern Mediterranean varietals - Carignan, Mourvedre, Grenache, Negroamaro and Nero d'Avola - which suit the site better. Yields have been reduced, farming is now organic and on the way to receiving certification.
In a turn up for the books they don't describe their winemaking as minimal intervention! Rather they have a style in mind for each of their wines that stems from the individual qualities of the vineyard. This may involve particular pruning techniques, or harvesting parcel by parcel. The same goes for the winemaking sometimes they de-stem sometimes they use whole-bunch, sometimes low-sulphur, sometimes none - basically the grapes are treated as individuals!
The Brothers Dune have taken on the GSM blend here but are leading with the Mourvèdre which enables are brighter style with a perfumed spice. Bright berry fruit, ripe tannins, dried herbs and a perfumed, spicy finish.
Producer - Dune
Country - Australia
Region - McLaren Vale
Variety / Blend - Mourvèdre, Montepulciano, Syrah, Grenache
Farming - Organic
Vegan