The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda wrote often about the joys of traversing a great path and once mused that he might ‘examine myself with no witness but the moon and then whistle with joy, ambling over rocks and clods of earth, with no task but to live, with no family but the road’.
Bodegas Tempore is truly a family affair. Grand custodian of the operation is Antonio, the patriarch, who turned a youthful 102 years old in July.
Felipe García is a winemaker and entrepreneur who began making wine in 2006 with an ambitious vision to create low intervention, sustainably orientated wines of origin which reflected a keen sense of place.
In the town of Haro, in Spain’s famous La Rioja region, lies a historic region often described as Haro’s ‘open air’ museum where at almost every corner you are greeted by bronze and stone statues depicting traditional trades.
PS Garcia is a project that began in 2006 when Felipe Garcia produced his first wines from Casablanca Valley, the renowned cool climate region just 30km inland from Chile's Pacific coast.
What comes to mind when you hear the word Alicante? You might think of the sun-soaked mecca of Spain’s sprawling Mediterranean coast beloved of golfers and sangria enthusiasts, or of the medieval port city of Alicante itself and its denominated zone of uncomplicated, strong and rustic wines.
The wines of Pyramid Valley are born in the dramatic soils and slopes of the Waikari Estate in North Canterbury and the Manata Estate in Central Otago, south island New Zealand.
Steve Smith MW has a formidable reputation in the wine industry: renowned for establishing Craggy Range in Hawke’s Bay and Martinborough, he is also one of few qualified Master of Wines to be based in New Zealand.
I met a mate yesterday for an old catch up and chat about business and family and other things. He 'confessed' to picking up a bottle of red wine in one of the low cost German supermarkets last week. "It was their cheapest bottle", he told me, "I was just Curious to try it".
This cooperative in the river-side village of Pouilly-sur-Loire was founded in 1948 by a handful of winemakers and continues to work with a group of dedicated growers whose vineyards stretch across Pouilly Fumé, Pouilly-sur-Loire and Coteaux du Giennois.
Eric Louis is a fourth generation winegrower and vigneron, working the same vineyards that his great grandmother Pauline did when she founded the family estate in the 19th century.
The final of three new German estates added at the start of February, Balthasar Ress was the most polished and modern of the wineries we visited late last summer, and yet it's still over 150 years old and in the fifth generation of family ownership.
Yeah ok, so our German was pretty limited (zwei bier, bitte!) but our heads spun and palates gushed with new experiences and flavours in the Rheingau at the end of last summer.
We're delighted to introduce to the portfolio this month, three new wineries and 20 new wines from Germany that are over two years in the sourcing. We had a trip to the Rhine Valley all booked for April 2020, the first full month of lockdown all across Europe as Covid upended our lives.
Probably the most exciting release and buying opportunity we’ve had the privilege to present in our 13 years in business. Bodegas Corral is the winery behind Don Jacobo, the Rioja wines a lot of you are familiar with from the last year or so since we started importing and distributing them.
This is the sort of wine we exist for and precisely why we aspiringly named ourselves Curious Wines back in 2008. This is Maturana Tinta de Navarrete, a grape deemed lost to history until modern testing revealed it to be unique and unrelated to anything else grown in Rioja.
La Cave du Vieil Armand is one of the smallest cooperative cellars in Alsace, pulling together the vineyards and generational expertise of 80 wine growing families across 10 municipalities.
Colli Orientali del Friuli (free-oo-lee) is the most renowned DOC in the Friuli-Venezia-Giulia region of north-east Italy, its calcareous and sandstone soils combined with Alpine geography and altitudes making it capable of producing world class white wines and some of the very best in Italy.
Il Muro estate has been owned by the Pancaro family for more than two centuries.
Something completely new here, folks. 'Governo' is a winemaking technique going back to 14th century Tuscany whereby a proportion of the harvest is held back, partially dried and then added to the already fermenting first portion of the harvest.
UPDATE AS OF 16/4/2020We are managing to dispatch everything on time but please allow an extra 1-2 days on normal delivery times while the Covid-19 shutdown continues. This is due to courier capacities being exceeded in certain areas.
I've mentioned before my stock reply to the oft-asked question I get in the shop, "what's your favourite wine out of all of them?". It's like asking me which of my kids is my favourite — it depends on the day. Schola Sarmenti is unapologetically my favourite child right now.
About a million years ago, when my now early teens were in nappies and we were just getting Curious Wines off the ground, I met Sam Brannigan at a wine tasting in Enniskillen.
So I have to confess, up until very recently whenever someone mentioned "Bergerac" my immediate thoughts would go to John Nettles driving around Jersey in a Triumph roadster*.
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