Plain Wine Volume 17: The Content is King Edition
Just as days get a little more bright and maybe the rain even stopped, we have some more light for you. While we’re currently in France tasting wines and eating mostly good food, we hope you’ll enjoy this month’s selection with our all-star winemaker Cornelissen, our personal star-maker couple Schmitt and the Champagne-star from Austria.
Weingut Bianka & Daniel Schmitt — 2018 Riesling — Rheinhessen, Germany As a 200-year old family winery in the southern part of Rheinhessen, called Wonnegau, they first switched to organic farming in 2010. After they converted everything to biodynamic, the son Daniel and his wife Bianka took over. At a workshop with French “vin nature” icon Julien Meyer they were infected with the natural wine virus and, in 2013, started making their own range of “Naturwein.” With 16 hectares of wine yards, they are one of the more significant natural wine producers and have made continuously very drinkable and stable wines. With them, a whole new group of winemakers is making Rheinhessen an exciting wine region once again, after being neglected for a long time.
From a multi-layered soil type with limestone, silt, and loam, this white wine has everything you want from an easy to drink wine with enough complexity. After the harvest, it was directly pressed and put into big 1200 liter oak barrels to ferment spontaneously and age for one year without any additives. It was filled straight into the bottle, and as you might have noticed, it’s the first screwcap bottle we’ve featured. The result is one of my favorite natural Rieslings in Germany. With its slight creaminess, it still has quite a bit of exotic fruitiness. This wine works with many foods from lentils to the usual Asian cuisines, which Riesling is perfect for.
Christoph Hoch — 2018 Kalkspitz — Grüner Veltliner, Zweigelt, Sauvignon Blanc, Muskateller, Blauer Portugieser — Kremstal, Austria Christoph Hoch’s family is making wine since 1640, so his efforts are only taking up a pretty small part of the story. Nevertheless, he learned winemaking traditionally in the local “wine school,” but quickly realized he wanted to make a different kind of wine. Because the soil shares similar qualities to the Champagne region, he realized this could work and asked Benoit Tarlant for used Champagne barrels, which he offered to give him for free if he could make a Pet Nat of consistently good quality. Fortunately, all those bets paid off and made him well known for his unique sparkling wines.
This Pet-Nat comes from limestone-heavy soil and is a mix of different grape varieties, some red and some white. All of them were directly pressed and left to start fermentation for two weeks. The fermenting must, which still contains unfermented sugar, is bottled and closed with crown caps to finish fermentation and mature in the bottle for four months. The wine was not disgorged, which adds some yeasty softness to counter the crispy freshness. With its very dry minerality, it goes well with cheese, but also some heavier dishes which need acidity to cut through them.
Frank Cornelissen — 2018 Susucaru Rosso — Nerello Mascalese, Nerello Capuccio, Allicante Boushet, Minella, Uva Francesa — Sicily, Italy As the son of a wine broker, Frank was exposed to wine from very early on and pretty soon was very much bored by all the expensive wines he drank. He set out to make different and more authentic wines with a focus on minerality. To fulfill this dream, he moved to Sicily and tried to make wines that ideally should contain as much terroir as possible. He is trying to avoid any treatments to his land, even homeopathic, organic, or biodynamic, and just follows the path of nature as he puts it. In the cellar, he’s not adding or taking away anything from the wine. Still, the cork is only one indication he’s also using technology wherever possible to support his idea of terroir-driven wines.
After some industrial wine producer picked the name “Contadino,” which this wine was previously called, Frank did the smartest thing and just named this one “Susucaro Rosso” to take some of the fame of the rosé with the same name. Frank makes a “pied-de-cuve,” a starter culture, from the same vineyard to get the fermentation going. The must and the skins stay in neutral epoxy tanks, with the skins being removed after 60 days. You will probably taste the volcanic Etna minerality when trying this, but also small red cherries, licorice, and smoky, peppery notes. This Vino Rosso is going well with seafood pasta or grilled meats.
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