Hamacher Wines is a classic example of how we choose wineries to work with at Bowler: Samples are sent to the office, the bottles are popped in the afternoon, and a few of us taste and discuss. Everyone agrees that the wines are very good, and a great fit for our portfolio, but we have too many producers in our book, and the reps are already overwhelmed by the number of wines to sell. So, we make the difficult decision to pass. That evening, David Bowler brings the samples home, and in the middle of a glass of one of the wines (Bieze Vineyard in Hamacher's case), he has an epiphany and emails the winemaker letting them know we changed our minds and want to work together. Great wine is hard to pass up, especially in DB's case. 

Eric Hamacher got the wine bug in the 80s while studying biochemistry and food science at U.C. Davis. His wine journey that followed led him to California working for Mondavi, Chalone, and Etude, but the cool climate and unchartered territory of Oregon eventually stole his heart. In 1995, he moved up to the Willamette Valley and started Hamacher Wines. In 2002, after having bounced around winemaking facilities for seven years, Eric founded the Carlton Winemakers Studio where he would make his wines for the next decade. Finally, in 2014 he moved his operation into the old Ponzi facility thanks to a connection he had made – his wife Luisa Ponzi.

Eric’s winemaking is old-world in style without ignoring the fact that he is making wine in the new world. Seeking elegance and texture, he harvests on the earlier side, ferments with natural yeasts at cool temperatures, and ages the wines in mostly neutral barrels. His production has been around 2000 cases per year and has been that way since he started the winery. Eric’s wines are deliciously classic Oregon, and showcase the terroir of the Willamette Valley beautifully.

The Hitier-Buffeteau family has been running Château Haut-Dambert for three generations; Jean-Luc Buffeteau, also an oenologist, is now taking care of the domaine.  They have 30-hectares located in two villages, ten hectares in Castelnieu and 20 hectares in Gornac. Gornac is in the Haut-Benauge, which is considered one of the most complex areas for whites in the Entre-deux-Mers.

In the vineyards, the Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Gris and Muscadelle are planted at 4,500 vines per hectare, well above the minimum of 3,300 vines per hectare. The vines grow on hillsides at 80 to 130 meters elevation and the limestone soil gives complexity to the wines. Buffeteaux is very conscientious about products that they use on vines; about 70% of treatments are organic or biocontrol products. They do use some synthetic treatments as needed, but they mostly use sulfur for oidium/mildew. Because of careful farming, the winery has reduced its treatments by 40% in three years.

Haut-Dambert is one of the first to go back to working with Sauvignon Gris in their white Entre-deux-Mers; 25% of the blend is Sauvignon Gris, 60% is Sauvignon Blanc, and 15% is Muscadelle. Sauvignon Gris is less acidic than Sauvignon Blanc and it is round, giving a nice balance with the Sauvignon Blanc which is aromatic and has a notable high acidity. Muscadelle is fruity and floral, but with some age it can give notes of gun powder. The Haut-Dambert wines are compelling and balanced, offering incredible value for so-called ‘entry-level’ Bordeaux.

BOWLER E-Zine Issue 4 | January 2022: HVE – Qu’est-ce que c’est?

Christoph Hoch is the twelth generation, since 1640, to make wine in his town of Hollenburg, on the south side of the Danube. Historically, vines were planted on this side of the Danube and the north side was for food crops. In 2013, Hoch split from his parents winery, starting with five hectares that would have been his inheritence eventually. Today Hoch has 12 hectares total, all in Hollenburg, and all farmed biodynamically and certified by Demeter. The subsoil is Hollenburger conglomerate, which was formed by the Traisental and Danube rivers crashing together and compacting the chalk with the river stones. The chalk is equally as active as the Côte des Blancs in Champagne, bringing minerals to the vines. This similarity in soil inspired Christoph to make sparkling wine. Although, the source of chalk is completely different, in Hollenburg it's from the Alps and in Champagne it's maritime chalk, or what is called muschelkalk in German.

Throughout all of Hoch’s vineyards, you find a mix of mustard, rye, and phacelia. He considers all of his parcels by four categories: dry, chalky, nutrient rich, or holds water. Depending on the category, he will plant the herbs and grains accordingly. Mustard brings sulfur to the soil, which protects the plants and transfers it naturally to the wines, so that he can use as little as possible at bottling. Rye brings carbon to the soil. He knocks it down after it has grown and it creates a natural humus. The carbon from the rye works with the phacelia and creates nitrogen. Hoch is constantly innovating and makes his own compost to use in his vineyards. He also works with the wine school in Krems, hosting workshops to teach about biodynamic farming.

Christoph has mostly Grüner Veltliner planted, along with Riesling, Zweigelt, Weissburgunder, Blauer Portugesier, and Muskat Ottonel. He studies his terroir and after discovering the Hollenburger conglomerate is high in active limestone, giving wines with a high acidity, he had the idea to focus on sparkling wine, which represents 75% of his production. He doesn't simply want to make 'good' wine, his main goal is to make a wine that inspires emotion, hopefully enthusiasm for the wine itself, but he is okay with clear rejection as well. To do this, he wants to make wines traditionally, maximizing the terroir – this means spontaneous fermentation in wooden barrels (oak and acacia) some on the skins and some racked. All of the wine is aged in barrel (all used) and he treats each barrel as its own project. Hoch has six different cellars in Hollenburger for aging his wines each has it's own distinctions; one is a bit warmer, and the wines all go through malo (naturally) and other cellars are cooler and the wines mostly do not go through malo. Fermentations happen naturally and slowly in neutral barrels. He now has wine in the cellar spanning several vintages. He feels that limiting a wine to a single vintage does not show the best of the terroir expression and most of his wines are non-vintage, with a dominant base year and previous vintages blended in.

Hoch's still wines are always a blend of three vintages and the pet-nats are two vintages. Generally, for the still wines, the most recent vintage is 30% of the blend, 50% is from two vintages ago, and 20% is three years old. This gives a completely different perspective on terroir. Naturally, wines from some areas are more structured or tannic and they benefit the blend by having time to mellow a bit. The youngest wine is normally the fruitiest and approachable. It's a completely unique way of highlighting the Hollenburger conglomerate soil over vintage. The Hoch wines are very original and are some of the best representations of the ‘new’ wines of Austria. It takes a lot of courage to push the boundaries of the classic Austrian-style and pushing boundaries brings a certain amount of risk. Hoch has created something new and maybe it’s not in the classic Kremstal fashion and outside of the appellation regulations, but it’s certainly exciting to try a wine without limits. Christoph Hoch has an infectious enthusiasm and that energy comes through in the wines.

BOWLER E-Zine Issue 1 | Q4 2020: Austria - Two Newbies from Hoch

BOWLER E-Zine Issue 4 | January 2022: Compost Cookery with Foradori, Hoch, Bucklin, and Podere Giardino

ilBioSelvatico is a young winery in Civitella in Val di Chiana, near Arezzo.  Owner Filippo Volpi was born and bred in the area and comes from a family of restauranteurs.  He caught the food and wine bug early on.  As a teenager in the 1980s, he had already completed his sommelier course and had done formative stages in kitchens in Italy and France.  His career brought him to cook at some of the most important restaurants of the era-- Vissani (Gianfranco Vissani), Trigabolo di Argenta (Igles Corelli and others), Pierre Gagnard, L’Arpège (Alain Passard).  Along the way, he never lost track of wine.  The front of house/back of house duality, and the division of attention between Italy and France, have served him well.   Today he is considered one of Italy’s preeminent connoisseurs of Burgundy.

Filippo’s friends Federico Staderini and Stefano Amerighi encouraged him to stop selling grapes from his 4.2-hectare Sangiovese vineyard, which he first rented from and eventually bought from his father.  The vineyard has been farmed organically since the late 1990s and these days is farmed biodynamically (with no desire for certification).   It’s a fresh, windy site, with sandy clay topsoils. A gentle incline leads to the surrounding woods, a bit like in the Côte d’Or.   On paper, it’s rather homogenous, with 15-30-year-old vines, all planted to one selection of Sangiovese.  In practice, however, Filippo discovered lots of variation and nuance.  He insists that it is not a “grand terroir,” but it is an intact ecosystem, capable of creating something highly original, provided he has the right sensibility.

For ilBioSelvatico, Filippo is inspired by early-1950s Burgundy “à l’ancienne,” both in the vineyard and cellar.  He does a preliminary pruning selection in January/February, then a final one under a favorable moon in March, to push budbreak past the threat of frosts.  He doesn’t do green harvest, nor does he top the vines, preferring to eventually roll and tie the highest canes together.  Treatments are infrequent and limited to copper/sulfur, stinging nettles, algae, and citrus zest extracts.  Once veraison begins he will hardly step in the vineyard until the first harvest.    Harvest is protracted over a month, with 25 to 30 separate pickings happening from early September to mid-October.  No analysis is done, but Filippo and his four-person crew look for the “best of the best” by taste on any given harvest day.  They’ll only harvest in the morning, for four hours max, in order to bring in around 5,000 kg of grapes at a time.   

In the cellar, much as it would have been in 1950s Burgundy, there is no crusher or destemmer or temperature control.  All grapes are kept 100% whole cluster, vinified in open-top 500L tonneaux.  A little more than half of the grapes are foot-tread and the rest of the bunches are left untouched in infusion.  Once separated from the skins, the wines begin their aging in these same tonneaux before being moved to concrete vats.   It’s a “gourmet cuisine” approach that took Filippo some time, experience, and courage to develop;  he did not release his first three vintages, 2015, 2016, and 2017.   The 2018 we have on offer is the commericial debut of ilBioSelvatico.