July 2015 edition is here and it is packed with organic wines, brand new on the online shelves, reviewed for you, so you can buy organic wines with confidence. It has been a week since a new and exclusive search tool was developed – if you haven’t tried All Organic Wines yet, please do so. You can find who sells a particular wine, how much it costs and sort out some thoughts on a potential mixed case. More and more organic wines are reviewed, so have a look at their organic rating and review. Buying organic wines online can be sometimes tricky, so hopefully you find a lot of helpful tips here.
Without further delay, I present to you these organic wines, most of them are very good, one sadly not so much and one simply an unusual bombastic organic white from Priorat. Intrigued? Well, let’s start then!
Organic Albet i Noya Finca La Milana 2009 is made in Penedes, Spain and boasts of the usual alcoholic content of 15%.
First impression you get is how soft this wine is. It opens up like a feather, one made of blackcurrants, plums and blackberries. Wonderful.
When you taste it, it further develops into a sour cherry, red currant flavours (due to its refreshing acidity) and finishes with blackberries, plums with some earthy and mineral-like spice.
It has a bouquet of complex spice and further gamey and animal notes. These give you a hint that the ageing made its toll, and indeed 13 months in French oak resulted in the softness of this organic wine so you will enjoy it immensely. It is a blend if Merlot, Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Caladoc.
Apparently it is not only me who is excited about this bottle, it also got a bronze medal at Decanter world wine awards. Sourced at Vintage Roots for £21.
28/35
Chatelaine Stephanie Vin d’Espagne (Valencia)
There is no identity on the bottle, written in French, but then you figure out that this wine is actually produced in Spain (I picked up Valencia only on the website where I bought it – Vinceremos) . What is surprising is that there is no indication of vintage, geography or grape. I am only taking one front picture of the wine label, but in this case, so you can check how weird it is – here you go!
It is what I would call an enigmatic wine, this time taken from a negative point though.
When checking about a grape on a producer’s website, you find out that it is made of Monastrell, typical grape for a region of Valencia. I suppose it is still very young as you get some red currants and some sweet spice perfume; yet it is too acidic for me. When you get this sharp acidity without much fruit, it is really unpleasantly simple.
The fruit is juicy, but you need much more of it, and more ripe and pronounced to make this work.
It is one of the rare cases where I would be telling you to avoid buying this wine at all costs (at £6.49 it is cheap, but definitely not worth your liver capacity). I noticed that the retailer added that this wine is available also available in 10 litre bag in the box. Well, I am totally speechless – even if you have a large party of guests coming, why would you hate them that much?
20/35
Garciano 2012 is probably just play on words as it is made of organic Garnacha and Graciano grapes in Navarra, Spain.
It has been sourced at Vintage Roots for £11.75.
This organic red wine is very fresh as only stainless steel was used with no oak ageing at all. It displays generous black fruit flavours and good acidity – the wine is very fruity and refreshing at the same time.
I did enjoy flavours of blackberries, ripe plums and bits of bramble – this wine is deeply coloured, but not overly heavy; very good balance.
28/35
You have probably tried other examples of ‘Pure’ umbrella brand – Cabernet Sauvignon, 60/40 Cabernet Franc / Cabernet Sauvignon were already reviewed and actually are in the top list of The Best Organic Wines. This time it is a pure varietal again, meet Pure Petit Verdot 2012, that is 100% organic Petit Verdot grapes from Domaine de Brau.
You have come across this grape before, but I will still call it off beaten track, simply because it is extremely rare to find it not in a blend. You can expect some Bordeaux wines to have 5 to 10% of Petit Verdot in the blend, it adds colour, spice and freshness to the blend. I was intrigues to check how this grape performs on its own.
At first I was slightly disappointed – it was simply not very attractive when I smelled it. Yet its Flavours are much much better – gorgeous black and forest fruit, velvety peppery and floral, refreshing, ripe and, overall, very pleasant. The wine is smooth and not overly powerful with a 13% alcohol content, but quite juicy. This grape is not very tannic (that, I would imagine, is the reason why most of winemakers do not produce single varietals as it would not age as well as Cabernets), but quite straightforward with its fruity juiciness.
I recommend it very much, but do not forget to chill it slightly.
It is available at Vintage Roots for just over £12, but could be found at Planet Organic and other independent wine merchants as well.
28/35
Chateau B
ouissel Classic 2012, AOC Fronton is an organic wine from France, which is a blend of ever popular Cabernet Sauvignon with a little gem like Negrette.
When smelling the wine it appears to have some off aromas, but it’s getting better with trying it – the wine starts singing with good flavours of cassis and round tannins. It is very juicy with notes of violets and liquorice, but also pleasant refreshing acidity. The complexity of this wine also benefits from some forest fruit and touches of cedar.
Negrette is rather obscure grape variety if you take global viticulture, but in Fronton it is rather more prominent. I find it exciting to taste unusual varieties, because it is quite surprising what you will get as a result and how it blends together with other grapes. In this case it gives both freshness, dark colours and this weird combo of floral and liquorice notes.
It is an interesting wine, but I would like to have more fruit and those additional (tertiary) flavours of oak, which this one is sadly lacking. Available at The Wine Society.
26/35
Finally, a brand name that already made an appearance on this website and currently one of their reds is holding a top spot in The Best Organic Wines top list, I am talking about 1270 A VUIT FINA 2011. This time, I have decided to try one of their white wines. Even though I will prefer reds, and you clearly can see it from my selections, this hot weather that is upon us in London just screams of something white and very delicious. I decided to take my chances with 1270 A VUIT Blanc 2013, which is also an organic wine as all previous ones.
So this one comes from Priorat, made by Celler Hidalgo Albert and boasts with 15.5% abv! Can you imagine a white wine with 15.5% alcohol, have you come across one?
It is made from white Garnacha and has a wonderful complexity of apricot, peach and lime aromas. This organic white tastes very round, with fresh notes of lemon lime it is juicy and refreshing; its deepness comes with layers of apricots and peaches together with floral notes.
Oak is there just a little bit, but you can already taste some buttery notes. I really like this organic white Garnacha – it is very exciting, not just being unusual, but because of its roundness, pleasant acidity which is somewhat masked by high alcohol and warm mouthfeel. Fruitiness is married perfectly with oak.
It is probably not the best wine to drink on a extremely hot day, but when the heat is down and you host a party serving poultry and some fresh side salad, I cannot see why not to delight your guests with this outstanding organic white wine from Priorat.
28/35 (just a bit too high alcohol to make it higher!)
I hope you’ve enjoyed this edition and it is useful for you. Come back to check out what to buy or avoid on the supermarket, specialised merchants’ and indies’ shelves. I will continue exploring organic wines, taking notes of exciting examples, obscure grapes, good winemaker’s job and report on the failures and unimpressive wines, so you drink only good organic stuff. Cheers!
