Part 2 here represents six wines, or rather five wines and one bottle of spirits we finished, drunk on one evening in mid-October, with two very good friends whose wine passion mirrors our own. We drink a lot of natural wine with these particular friends, but at the same time we do like to raid the cellar for a few classics, and that is what we did. Four of the wines are French, the other being a rather desirable Austrian.
The spirit was rum, a rather special Spanish one. For a few years after I first discovered this Grower Maison on the crest of the Craon de Ludes at the top of the Montagne de Reims, I was lucky enough to visit them most years, until just before Covid intervened. Only 5, precious bottles were made in , and I had just two. This one was disgorged in May and dosed Extra Brut, at 4.
That colour is on the pale pink to orange spectrum, elegant and very attractive to the eye. The bouquet is light but concentrated, with notes of pomegranate and raspberry. The bouquet in itself is enough, but the palate has zippy red fruits and lovely salinity, bound together around a stream of fine bubbles which spiral into the space above the elegant liquid.
A star of a wine. Stellar, in fact. Ewald and Brigitte Tscheppe are the dynamic yet thoughtful couple behind Werlitsch. Ewald makes biodynamic wine from around Glanz an der Weinstrasse, in South Styria.
We get a complex mix of yellow fruit with citrus aromas along with a little tannic texture. Savour it almost as you would a Vin Jaune, although subtlety in this case is its greatest asset, easily lost if washed down straight from the fridge. This Monopole Clos has been in the family of Comte Armand since , but in winemaking was taken over by the now very famous Benjamin Leroux, who has taken the domaine into biodynamics from field to bottle.
