Author Archives: Leopold

Natural Wines: Embrace the Pure and Untamed Side of Winemaking

Natural Wines

Wine, in its purest form, evokes an emotional connection that transcends the boundaries of sensory experience. Natural wines, marked by their unadulterated essence, provide an alluring bridge between the land, the grape, and the ardent connoisseur, forging an indelible bond that speaks directly to your soul. Handcrafted with minimal intervention, these wines captivate the senses, […]

Uncorking the World of Orange Wines: A Vibrant and Trendy Alternative

orange wine

Orange wines have taken the wine world by storm, offering a unique and distinctive taste that has captured the imagination of adventurous wine lovers. These amber-hued potions are neither red nor white, occupying a vibrant niche all of their own. At GrapeTimes, we are fascinated by the world of orange wines and have handpicked a selection […]

7 Incredible Places You Can Enjoy Natural Wine in Munich

natural wine

Natural wines have been creating a buzz in the world of wine enthusiasts. These wines are made with minimal intervention, using organic or biodynamic practices, and without adding any chemicals or artificial ingredients. If you're a wine lover visiting Munich, you might be wondering where to find these delicious and unique wines. Fret not, as […]

Brutes cider

At the gates of Stockholm, on the islands of Lake Mälaren, the apples and pears are hand-picked in old orchards that have largely been forgotten, but fortunately have not been abandoned. The fruits are crushed and then macerated for different lengths of time before being pressed. The maceration gives the cider a similar structure and body to the wine, especially the “orange wines”.

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TETRAMYTHUS

Tetramythos is a boutique winery on the Peloponess and the vineyards are between 600-1050 m altitude. The winery is a little gem not only in our range.
The guys are doing a fantastic job, they have been experimenting a lot and especially with natural wine for years and the result is simply overwhelming. Everything is stable and cleanly vinified.

Alessandro Viola

Alessandro Viola

It is better to visit Alessandro Viola personally to find out more about him, the winery and his wines. He cares very little about wine expertise, online marketing, advertising in general. He prefers to work in his 20 hectares of vineyards or in the cellar.
If the result is such impressively elegant wines from the hot region of Sicily, then we should be right.

Domaine de Villeneuve

Perfect terroir and old vines are the prerequisites for complex deep wines full of character. Domaine de Villeneuve is richly blessed with both. The Grenache, Clairette and Cinsault vines, which are over 80 years old, grow in the immediate vicinity of Château de Beaucastel. Due to their biblical age, they do not produce a lot of income, but compensate for it with even more finesse and elegance.

Domaine Vacheron

The Vacheron family winery is one of the absolute top companies in the Sancerre appellation. Thanks to top quality sites and uncompromising biodynamic work in the vineyard and in the cellar, the terroir comes into its own in the wines in an inimitable way. Freshness, minerality and complexity are characteristic of the wreaths of this domain.

Agnès & René Mosse

The flat floors of Domaine Mosse consist mainly of slate and sandstone, some of which are covered with clay. Fantastic nautical wines from the Loire. The bedrock for the red grape varieties is dominated by volcanic rocks, slate and sandstone. In order to get the best quality out of their vineyards, they work organically with the additional help of a few biodynamic preparations. The grapes are hand picked.

Jean-Etienne Pignier

The Domaine Pignier is located in one of our favorite areas: the Jura in France. Some of the most exciting winemakers have settled there over the past few years. Domaine Pignier was originally founded by Carthusian monks in the 13th century. At the end of the 18th century, the Pignier family took over the winery and its impressive Gothic cellars.

Domaine Luneau-Papin

The Domaine Luneau-Papin is one of the great innovators in Nantais, where the Muscadet wine-growing regions can be found. With their domaine, which was newly founded in the 1990s, but which had roots as far back as the early 18th century, Pierre Luneau and Monique Papin belonged to that small movement that recognized the potential of the Melon de Bourgogne grape variety as a translator of terroir and did it with organic and later promoted biodynamic cultivation. The wines that are vinified today by their son Pierre-Marie and his wife Marie are examples of how texturally and structurally strong Melon de Bourgogne can be, how well the grape variety ripens and what abundance of expressive possibilities it has.

Peter Jakob Kühn

With respect for the knowledge and experience of his forefathers, Peter Jakob Kühn has been working as a certified Demeter member since 2004 according to the principles of biodynamics. In this way, in the greatest possible harmony with nature, he comes closer and closer to his idea of inspired wines. The great conviction for his future is ecological and biodynamic viticulture - with many challenges, big and small, but also endless moments of happiness and the increasing certainty that he is doing the only right thing for him.

Schätzel

We already know Kai Schätzel when he just started to stir up the sleepy Nierstein. A sylvaner from real roots from Hipping! That was an announcement. But his Riesling were also convincing from the start. Always something different and surprising, but never intended. It was accepted into the VDP in almost record time and easily joined the phalanx of the big names on the Rhine front, perhaps even showing the established goods a little bit of the way where the wines from the Rote Hang can go. Experimental, uncompromising, quality fanatical. That has brought Kai to where he is now: "Schätzel is one of the most exciting and interesting new developments in German wine culture", which almost sounds like an accolade, writes Stefan Reinhard for the Wine Advocat.

Staffelter Hof

Staffelter Hof is one of the oldest still existing companies in the world!
Hard work is an integral part of the winery's founding legend. Centuries ago the steep slopes of Kröv were farmed with the help of a donkey until a wolf killed it. Legend has it that the monks caught the wolf on it and let it do the work in the vineyard instead of the donkey. The wolf “Magnus” is still the idol of the wine cellar and can be found on the labels. And also appears on the label in the wines Little red riding Wolf and Little Bastard.

Sextant - Julien Altaber

Julien Altaber grew up on a farm in southern Burgundy. He knew early on that wine was his great passion. Each of his wines is made without the addition of oenological products (including sulphites) and with minimal intervention. He produces wines from the best appellations on the Côte de Beaune. His goal is not to produce a “Grand Vin” but a “True Wine”: honest, with maximum drinkability.

Domaine Matassa - Tom Lubbe

Matassa - that was the name of the first vineyard that the native South African Tom Lubbe bought in Languedoc in 2002. Matassa / Tom Lubbe has become a role model for many young winemakers who, like him, are looking for wines with a cooler style paired with a high level of tension on the palate. The result proves him right. The wines have enormous storage potential.

Loimer

Fred Loimer should actually be a geologist by profession. The terroir that he plays in the Kamptal and the thermal region is so diverse that it is easy to lose track. The winery is located in Langenlois, the central municipality in the growing area. In the northern part the basement of the Bohemian mass dominates with gneiss and mica schist and in the Heiligenstein also sandstones. Towards the Pannonian Basin, the rocks were often covered with ice-age loess a meter thick, and towards the Donau you can find thick gravel terraces of the original Danube. It is a real pleasure to compare the different Grüner Veltliner with each other or to taste the three top-location Rieslings side by side. In Gumpoltskirchen, the wines show how similar the thermal region is to Burgundy. All wines, regardless of the terroir, are always authentic, profound and complex, never fat or loud.