Young wine producer, Christian Hirsch, has produced his "virgin" wine - Virgina - an extraordinary Sauvignon Blanc with aromas of gooseberries and yellow peppers. Bernd Flemming has created a special recipe to go with the wine - corn-fed chicken breast with mango and avocado in cocnut and lime sauce. To discover more about the wine and read the recipe, click on the link to the right.

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Virgina

Prosecco - the name sounds so promising, but is often synonymous with cheap rubbish of undefinable origin which smells only of bananas (isoamyl character resulting from fermentation at temperatures which are far too low).  These two charming ladies show the true face of classy Prosecco with their range of high quality sparkling wines from the DOCG region of Conegliano Valdobbiadene.  Fortunately Cristina and Francesca and their wines have a much more pronouncable name than the region of origin - Follador.

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Follador Prosecco

French wine with Italian cheese ?  Yes, they do go together and in fact, they go together rather well.  The cheese is a mature Pecorino from a Tuscan farm, Fattoria la Vialla.  Here they make wine, cheese, tomato sauces, biscuits and so on with great skill and passion.  The French wine is a Fitou as you have never experienced before.  There were only 1200 bottles produced of the 2010 vintage, in 4 barrels.  The vines are over 100 years old.  Katie Jones, a charming and funny English girl, gave up her job as an Export Director and started as a wine grower. This wine is a real treat and has a great future.

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Fattoria la Vialla

Domaine Jones

Nice people deserve success and Jürgen Hofmann is one of the nicest – and one of the most laid-back – winemakers around.  Happily he is successful.  Of course this success didn’t come from nowhere.  A winemaking degree, much intuition, innovation and creativity – and, it has to be said, his wife Carolin - also contributed  Carolin is also from a winemaking family, has a winemaking degree and has made wine in Germany and abroad, and supports Jürgen in all decisions.  Together they run the Hofmann wine estate in Appenheim, a tiny, undistinguished wine village in Rheinhessen, as well as the 4.5 ha estate on the Saar belonging to Carolin’s family, with wines under the Willems-Willems label.

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Carolin und Jürgen Hofmann

Grüner Veltliner grows (almost) exclusively in Austria.  Not only is this grape variety much hyped here, so are the winemakers.  This means that competition in this rather small country with many big winemaker personalities, is strong.  One grower, who is known for his very special Grüner Veltliners (as well as his Rieslings, Weißburgunders and so on), is Ludwig Hiedler.  He is a real personality, which is not easy in a wine village boasting such names as Bründlmeyer, Jurtschitsch and Loimer.  „Wine should be an adventure, and adventures begin in your head“, says Ludwig.  His wines prove that he goes to the limit to get the absolute best from his vineyards and his grapes.

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Ludwig Hiedler

As winemaker for one of the leading British retailers, Gerd Stepp used to travel across the globe.  Now he has returned to his roots in the Pfalz where he has bottled wine from his own grapes grown on the 4 ha of the Stepp family vineyards for the very first time.   Previously these grapes used to be handed over to the Bad Dürckheim co-operative to disappear into anonymity.  That is now a thing of the past, as Gerd's Wachenheimer Fuchsmantel and his Kallstadter Saumagen Rieslings 2009 leave a long-lasting impression both on the nose as well as on the palate.  The Fuchsmantel is very exotic in character with aromas of papaya and banana, while the Saumagen reveals notes of ripe apricots, pink grapefruit and white pepper..

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g_stepp@yahoo.de

 Matthias Gaul is from Asselsheim in the northern part of the Pfalz.  He describes himself simply as "wine grower".  What is without doubt is that he has bags of talent and also a lot of a peculiarly German characteristic, cleanliness.  "You don't have to do anything in the cellar if you have worked well in the vineyards - apart from cleaning, cleaning, cleaning.  Everything must be dirt-free." says Matthias. On top of this, he is also curious and keen to experiment and this is why he has a few rows of primitivo and tempranillo as well as a hectare of cabernet franc. His Cabernet Franc 2007 is dark and intense with a bouquet of green beans and wild herbs, rendered more complex from the nuances of mocca and dark chocolate from maturning the wine in barrique.  However, not everything in his vineyards is red: he also makes wonderful white wines.

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Matthias Gaul

The further south in France you travel, the bluer the sky becomes and the higher the temperatures rise.  The fleshy, alcoholic grenache variety plays a key role here and is normally blended with other varieties such as Syrah and Mourvedre.  I particularly like these two Rhone wines: the Domaine Coteaux des Travers Rasteau Réserve is full-bodied and smooth with aromas suggesting figs, a little leather and dark chocolate; less opulent but equally delicious is the Montirius Le Clos Vacqueyras made by the charming couple, Eric and Christine Saurel.  This 50:50 cuvée of grenache and syrah is deliberately vinified without oak, so that the natural fruit aromas can speak for themselves.