Natural wine is a fast-growing sector of the wine industry that comes with several benefits. It offers unique and exciting flavors and helps support local communities. It can be enjoyed in its purest form or blended for a new experience in every sip. With all these reasons to love natural wine, it's no wonder why so many are becoming unconditional fans!
Category Archives: Winzer
the winemakers we trust
It's unbelievably beautiful what great wines the Castrum Morisci family conjures up in the bottle. We are big fans. The organic winery Castrum Morisci with its 7 hectares is located near the coast in Moresco (Marche), in the south of Ancona.
Striving to protect the biological fertility of the soil, biodiversity and the balance of the ecosystem in the vineyard. Together the family produces excellent, independent, exciting and high-quality wines that you absolutely have to try.
The Bonnet-Ponson champagne winery is located in Chamery, a premier cru location on the Petit Montagne de Reims. The father was one of the first in the village to work organically. Fantastic champagne and a sensational price-benefit ratio.
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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To expose what has always been there - to make the invisible visible - is the drive of Marianne and Robert Gassner.
Out of this philosophy, wines are created that are deeply influenced by the nature on which they grow. They carry the past and at the same time the future.
They are created in intensive manual work. Biodynamic, in the cycle of nature.
They are like the land on which they grow.
No more and no less.
Pure.
Kristinus produces really exciting natural wines and biodynamic wines in Hungary and are pioneers in the region around Lake Balaton. "We are convinced that the best grapes can only come from nutrient-rich and humus-rich, healthy and living soils."
Matic Wines from the white wine region of Štajerska in the far north-east of Slovenia to cultivate its 9 hectares of land exclusively with organic and biodynamic methods.
We produce natural wines because we believe in nature and its processes, and our contribution is only a fraction of the cycle.
Biodynamic and with more than 240 years of family tradition on the fertile hills of Bizeljsko.
Roterfaden winery, the micowinery from Württemberg with fantastic Lemberger and Riesling natural wines. Young winemakers with vision, sustainability and taste always in view.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Joan Ramón Escoda-Sanahuja, or as we call him: “the wild Spaniard” is one of the pioneers of biodynamic viticulture as a member of the Grupo de Trabajo biodynamico del Mediterráneo. He works consistently according to Steiner's methods and in harmony with nature in northeastern Spain, in the hinterland of Tarragona.
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.
Domaine Les Dolomiers: Céline and her husband Steve Gormally grow their wines in Passenans, a French commune with 344 inhabitants in the Jura department. The vines of Domaine Les Dolomiers grow mainly on limestone soils and colorful marl - ideal conditions for their Savagnin and Chardonnay.
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.
Behind the synonym SCHRAMMEL 2.0 is the young couple Nicole & Daniel Schrammel. The two of them run a micro winery just outside Vienna in the southern Weinviertel with a vineyard area of around one hectare and are new faces in the natural wine scene.
It can be said that Gabriele Buondonno and Valeria Sodano Pioneers are certainly among the best organic producers in the Chianti region. Since 1988 they have been devoting themselves body and soul to the most natural and simple production possible with the least possible energy expenditure,
The area was actually called Roc Blanc, named after a white quartz vein that protrudes from the black slate. However, it was decided to rename it Roc des Anges, in English: Angel Rocks. The winery is now one of the top addresses in the region. The wines are primarily characterized by their elegance.
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.
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.
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 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.
Francisco Javier García Núñez, the head behind the Bodega Suertes del Marqués, is definitely an unconventional winemaker and guy, his vineyards are so crazy. Super old varieties and everything “dry farming” on the volcanic soil of Tenerife. Look at the photos :)
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.
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.
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.
Supported by his family, Christoph Hoch has been going his own way since 2013 to uncompromisingly express the character and uniqueness of his origins in Hollenburg im Kremstal in his wines. Among other things, he uses the most traditional methods of viticulture and winemaking handed down from his ancestors. The step to biodynamic working methods and certification according to DEMETER guidelines was a logical part of his path.
They were also one of the first points of contact with natural wine for us and therefore an important milestone for GrapeTimes. The Heinrichs are among the first winegrowers from Austria who were able to play at the top internationally with their red wine.
The Heinrichs pay particular attention to the correct location of the vines or the interplay of grape varieties, soil composition, moisture, (exposure) solar radiation and altitude. On the 90 ha, the biodiversity (variety of species) of plants and microorganisms is promoted with the aim of healthy vines through a variety of greenery between the rows. Some locations are sometimes even grazed with sheep all year round.
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