Producers

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    Toro is long overdue for a breath of fresh air -- or fresh wine in the case of Alvar de Dios. The appellation in northwest Spain is known for its furious wines of weight, richness, and over extraction. Alvar is making sure to change that by exploring different terroirs, blends, and by approaching winemaking in a much more delicate way than we’re accustomed to see from the region.

    He was born and raised in the village of El Pego in Toro, but didn’t stay in the region to learn his trade; instead, he fell in with a pair of vinous rebels working in the Sierra de Gredos – Fernando Garcia and Dani Landi from Comando G. While working as the cellar master for Fernando at Bodega Marañones, he began acquiring vineyards of his own in and around his native DO, splitting his time between the Gredos and Toro.
    Alvar’s first vineyard was inherited from his family in the village of El Pego in 2008. This site, called Aciano in honor of his grandfather, totals 3 ha of mainly Tempranillo at an elevation of 710m and is planted on a unique terroir for the DO – sand. This sandy soil is resistant to phylloxera, which is why these ungrafted vines, planted in 1919, have survived to this day. Since taking over this site, Alvar has farmed it organically, waiting until 2011 to make his first vintage.

    Another one of his wines is Camino de los Arrieros, a village wine made from 40-60-year-old vines of Juan Garcia, Rufete Trincadeira Preta, Bastardo, as well as some other unidentified varieties.

    In addition to his single-vineyard bottlings, Alvar makes a wine from three plots of vines located in the northwestern part of Toro. Ranging in age from 25–40 years old, these Tempranillo vines are grown on various soils. Named Tio Uco, this wine, like those from his single vineyards, is made from organically farmed grapes, is fermented whole cluster with indigenous yeasts, sees only a gentle maceration, and is aged primarily in neutral French oak barrels ranging in size from 300-1000L.

    This profile and tasting notes were edited from the European Cellars website, along with the pictures used. For more information please visit: European Cellars.
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    Jutta Ambrositsch was born in Südburgenland, best-known for stunning Blaufränkisch, about two and a half hours south of Vienna. She moved to Vienna to pursue her career as a graphic design artist, but eventually decided that she needed a change. So, in 2004, she left behind her design career (although she does create her stylish labels) swapping an office job for a career in nature and started a special wine project in the city with only 650L of wine. Now, she spends most of her days in the vineyards; with winemaking, she has been able to find a perfect balance of city living and getting her hands in the dirt.  She manages the business with her husband, Marco Kalchbrenner, who takes care of the administration, poetic wine descriptions, and logistics, while Jutta manages the vineyards and cellar work.

    Vienna has the most vineyards planted of any city in the world: today, there are fifty growers managing 650 total hectares (of those fifty, only twenty are full-time winemakers, earning their living from the wine they make).  The vineyards are on hillsides at the city limits, on either side of the Danube over-looking the city center.  The surrounding vineyards provide a mini-escape from the bustling center and there is a long tradition of residents going to the hillsides to have a glass of wine and snacks at a Heurigen or Buschenschank overlooking the city. Heurigen could roughly be translated as a wine bar. Buschenschank is similar, but they are only allowed to sell products that are made in-house, wine included. Ambrositsch started her own Buschenschank in 2006.

    Today, Ambrositsch farms a total of four hectares —three on the right side of the Danube and one hectare on the left bank— in ten different parcels. Each vineyard is unique, with a distinctive terroir and microclimate. She farms each organically, but does not have certification. Ambrositsch says that the biggest threat to the vineyards is hail and wild boars that live in the surrounding forests and using conventional products will not help against either!

    The specialty of Vienna is a tradtional wine called Gemischter Satz, historically, it was a field blend with many different varieties picked the same day and crushed together for vinification. It sounds simple enough, but the different varieties ripen at different rates and it’s quite a skill to decide the exact day when the ripeness and acidity will be a delicious balance amongst all the varieties. While Jutta and Marco care very much about making traditional Viennese wine, they recently decided that they would not be a part of the newly established Vienna DAC. Ambrositsch feels that some DAC-regulations undermine what makes true Gemischter Satz unique: many different co-planted varieties, if possible the majority should consist of old, traditional varieties, picked together and pressed together.

    The Ambrositsch wines are all micro-cuvées and they are a delightful way to discover the historic Vienna terroir through the lens of a young and fun artist. While her winemaking style could be called “natural”, with no additions of yeasts, enzymes, or sugar, and only a minimum amount of sulfur, very few of the wines show any of the funky qualities of many wines that share the moniker. Most are made in stainless steel and are classic, with a very special energy to them. Are they renegades? No - rock and roll is a more fitting description. In addition to the traditional wines, including three white Gemischter Satz bottlings, they make some playful cuvées, like the Roter (red) Gemischter Satz called Rakete, with its piquant cherry fruit and cloudy bright ruby color. All of their wines are a bit rebellious in that they are made without additions, which gives a lot of vibrancy and juicy flavors, and an unrestrained expression of Vienna's terroir. - Michele Peters, Austrian Portfolio Manager, Bowler. 

     

    BOWLER E-Zine Issue 2 | Q1 2021: From the Streets to Vienna
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    Ambyth Estate was started by a Welshman named Philip Hart in the early 2000s with nothing but a vision to farm and to make wine from a vineyard that would last lifetimes. He settled on the name "Ambyth," which means forever in Welsh, capturing his vision as a winemaker. After purchasing two properties in 2000 and 2001, totaling 42 acres, Phillip began interplanting 16 acres of vines (head trained) with 4 acres of olive and fruit trees to create biodiversity within the vineyards. The combination of steep hillsides, clay/limestone soils, and a hot, dry climate led Phillip to choose Rhône varieties, which he felt were most suitable for the terrain. The land had never been touched by chemicals, and from the start the vines were farmed organically and without any irrigation; they received biodynamic certification in 2006. Soon after, Ambyth Estate became the only certified biodynamic winery in Paso Robles,

    The yields at AmByth are extremely low. As a fully dry-farmed estate, their goal is 2 tons per acre every year. This may seem more than reasonable to most people, but in the drought years of 2012-15 they harvested significantly lower amounts than that, 2015 being the lowest at less than 2 tons of fruit for the entire crop!

    In the cellar, Phillip and his son Gelert (joined in 2015) take a completely natural approach. While the debate over the exact definition of “natural wine” is constantly debated, there is no doubt that AmByth embodies the core principles of the category: natural fermentations, no fining or filtering, no SO2 added at any point, and of course, biodynamic farming. For vessels, they use a combination of tanks, old barrels and, more recently, amphorae.

    Recently, Gelert also experiments with cider-making that yield some very interesting and tasty results. They also make delicious olive oil. 

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    There is exceptional Syrah being made today in southeastern Tuscany in the appellation of Cortona, specifically from the hands of Stefano Amerighi, the young and dynamic owner of the eponymous estate.  Stefano, who comes from a farming family, was born and bred in this area.  He's Tuscan, through and through--actually, he'll tell you, he's so original that he's Etruscan!  

    Cortona is one of only a few places in Italy that could consider Syrah both indigenous and a focus.  Why Syrah?   After the fall of the Medici, Tuscany passed to the Hapsburg-Lorraine dynasty and shortly thereafter to Napoleonic occupation.  These political shifts brought major changes to many aspects of daily life, including within agriculture, where new ways of worklng the land were established and new cultivars were introduced.  Syrah has a presence in Cortona dating back to the late 1700s.  The noted ampelographer Attilio Scienza began a nearly 30-year study of the Cortona zone starting in the late 1970s.  He found the terroir remarkably similar to the Rhone Valley, both in terms of climate and geology.  Syrah was already here; it made sense that it would be the benchmark for any forthcoming wine appellation.  Using Professor Scienza's findings, Cortona was granted DOC status in 1999. 

    After an in-depth geological investigation beginning in 2001, Stefano identified eight hectares of land well-suited to his project:  southeast exposure, a mix of silty clay sedimentary soil, and a base of thriving microorganisms.  Stefano's cru is in Poggiobello di Farneta, in the Chiuso di Cortona, the last hills descending down from the town. This is an area that was not a seabed during the Pliocene, unlike much of its surroundings. Interestingly, it's a goldmine not just for winemakers but also for paleontologists, as dinosaur fossils abound on this little "island." 

    Next came the sourcing of the materia prima:  his selections of Syrah came from some famous estates of the southern and northern Rhone, as well as some Italian Syrah clones.  Since the beginning, Stefano has adhered to the principles espoused by Rudolf Steiner and Masanobu Fukuoka.  He views the farm as a complex holistic system.  As such he employees six people year-round to follow the cycles of nature.  He has fruit trees (200 different heirloom varieties), various grains, olives, Chianina cattle, pigs, geese, and hens. He is maniacal about low-impact farming.  Stefano says, "if it’s wet we don’t use the tractor, but rather a backpack pump sprayer—two or three treatments a year are done completely manually like this, like one hundred years ago. Usually, we work the rows in an alternating fashion—one ‘on’ and one ‘off.’  In the ‘off ’ rows, we don’t work them or even step on them for a year, not even for treatments.  When I started this project in 2001, a few people considered me a visionary, but most thought of me as a bischero." (KR: Tuscan dialect. Literally 'tuning fork,' but colloquially 'a fool').  Things change. Today, Stefano is the president of the consorzio of Cortona. 

    Starting in 2013, Stefano began his Pecorino project, Noe', retracing the grape to its genetic origins in the Monti Sibillini of Le Marche, at 900-1000m above sea level, working with 100+-yr-old ungrafted vines.  More recently Stefano bought some land in San Pietro a Dame in the area known as the Monti di Cortona.  He planted Syrah there on terraces above 700m.  Those vineyards saw their first harvest in 2021 and we'll see a young-vine, fresh Syrah emerge at some point in 2022.   He's also one of six winemakers collaborating at Halara' in Marsala, a one hectare vineyard planted to Parpato and Catarratto.  He's quite linked to some of the famous names of the Northern Rhone and he's currently writing a monograph on Cornas.  Stefano is an ever-searching vignaiolo.  There will also be more to learn and more to say about what he's up to. 

    Amerighi is a Demeter-certified biodynamic winery.

     

    BOWLER E-Zine Issue 2 | Q1 2021: Regenerative Farming: Scratching at the Surface
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    Domaine Amirault was founded in 1977 by Yannick with only 3.9 hectares of vines he inherited from his grandfather, Eugène Amirault. Since that time, he and his son Benoît, who joined the family business in 2003, have expanded their holding to 20 hectares of vineyards in Bourgueil and Saint-Nicolas de Bourgueil. An early skeptic of industrial farming practices, Yannick had gradually weaned his vineyards off synthetic inputs, completing this process in 1997. Work in the vineyard and cellar follows the lunar calendar, and the estate received organic certification in 2009. While these practices may seem fashionable, they are simply returning to the way Eugène Amirault made wine for his family.

    Now, under Benoît, the existing minimalistic cellar practices have become even more transparent. Harvest has always been done by hand and is initiated by many factors, all guided by Yannick and Benoît’s combined experience. Each parcel is picked at its own optimal ripeness, and in several passes, then the grape clusters are transported to the cellar where they are sorted again and destemmed. Fermentations are indigenous and conducted in large, open-topped, conical oak vats. Macerations are long, lasting up to sixty days with pigeage only at the very beginning of the fermentation and rémontage reserved only for the ripest vintages and cuvées to prevent more rustic tannins in the wines. Only the first press is used and the wines are aged in neutral vessels: amphorae, French oak demi-muids, and well-seasoned oak vats. New wood is added only to replenish their stock of barrels.

    This profile, including all tasting notes and photos, was edited from the European Cellars website. For more information please visit: European Cellars.

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    Ampeleia was born in 2002 from the collaboration of Elisabetta Foradori and a two friends. They saw the huge potential of this particular area of the Maremma, the Colline Metallifere, mineral-rich hills that have been mined since Etruscan times.  Not the coastal lowlands one usually associates with the Maremma, the Colline Metallifere are located more inland, at altitude.  For example, Ampeleia's vineyards just outside the hamlet of Roccatederighi reach 600m.   This part of the Maremma has never been home to intensive agriculture, and it has some of the lowest population density in all of Italy.  In fact, the Colline Metallifere are a national park and also a UNESCO Global Geopark site. 

    Marco Tait has been at the helm of Ampeleia since the very beginning. He's originally from Trentino, where his father was the agronomist at Foradori.  As a kid, he remembers doing after-school vineyard tasks and playing hide-and-seek in the cellar.  After enology school and working for some larger, more conventional wine operations in the North, he came to Ampeleia, initially skeptical about the power of biodynamics.   But Ampeleia is a special place, and its unspoiled nature and inherent biodiversity allowed biodynamics to take root much more quickly than in places that are more anthropized.  All activities at Ampeleia had been converted to biodynamics as of the 2009 vintage. 

    It's hard to put into words just how attuned to Ampeleia Marco is.  He's a young guy, but he already has twenty vintages under his belt at Ampeleia.  He knows its every corner and, seemingly, its every whisper.  He is simply trying to give the land a little "information and intention" through biodynamics.  This is no small thing, as Ampeleia's vineyards are diverse and spread out--120 hectares of land, but only 35 planted to vines.  The rest is woods, olives, the vegetable garden, and pasture for Ampeleia's animals.  There is a wide variety of altitudes, exposures, soil types (both mother rock and soil consistency).  As such, Marco has identified 54 unique vineyard parcels, all vinified separately.  The harvest is also quite drawn out, starting at the end of August for the initial picks for the rosato and the bianco, and going to the first part of October for the Cabernet Franc.  Accompanying Marco on this journey is the excellent team he has assembled: the "People of Ampeleia" ... Lucia, Valentina, two Simonas, Francesco.   Yes, domestic sales, logistics, office manager, hospitality manager, export sales, but also always working together in the vineyards and cellars, meeting with Marco, tasting, discussing, planning, making decisions as a cohesive unit.      

    Over the years, the People of Ampeleia have listened to the land and understood its strong suits:  Cabernet Franc and Alicante Nero, a distinctly Tuscan biotype of Grenache.  They've singled out vineyards whose wines continually expressed something so unique that it made more sense to highlight them rather than blend them.  Thus began the "monovarietale" single-vineyard series, with Alicante Nero, Carignano, and Cabernet Franc.  Soon, two more micro Cabernet Franc parcels will be released, making Ampeleia the first estate in Italy to boast four labels of what is becoming their signature grape variety. 

    Like the best wineries of the world, things at Ampeleia are in constant but gentle movement.  Watch this space!

    To view their excellent website, click here.

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    Ancestrale is located on the island of Salina, part of the Aeolian Islands, a volcanic archipelago off the northeast coast of Sicily.  Excavations on Salina from the Bronze Age prove the existence of grape cultivation dating back to 1450 B.C.  For those more familiar with the recent wines of "le Eolie,"  Antonino "Nino" Caravaglio's name comes up frequently.  A native son of Salina, he has produced capers and wine since starting his company in 1989.  He's an indefatigable advocate for the islands' terroirs, with an emphasis on small-scale, truly sustainable farming of micro parcels in this magical landscape, a UNESCO World Heritage site since 2000.   

    For Ancestrale, Nino partnered with his friend Giuseppe Mascoli.  Giuseppe had been living in London, where he was Nino's longtime importer of capers.  Upon his repatriation in Italy in 2016, he and Nino joined forces and purchased 1.8 hectares of 40-50-year-old vines as well as a tiny cellar.  Salina, initially known as Didyme ("Twins") when the ancient Greeks inhabited it, is characterized by two spent volcanoes--Monte dei Porri and Monte Fossa delle Felci--which, from the right vantage point appear to be two separate islands. The vineyards for Ancestrale are located right between the two volcanoes, in what is the coolest corridor of the island, with northwest and northeast exposures, sandier topsoil and later harvests compared to other spots in Salina.  The vines are trained in a low guyot.  No topping of the vines or green harvesting is done, allowing the plant to find its own equilibrium.  Winemaking is minimalistic and anti-technological, in underground, 750L clay amphorae.  Macerations on the whites vary from fifteen days to a month.  For the red, it's almost like a negative photographic image:  maceration is just one day, making for a fresh, light red in the elusive "is it really a rosato?" category.  

    We welcome Ancestrale to Bowler's ever-expanding stable of overachieving producers from Italy's "deep South." 

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    Working out of a humble 60’ by 10’ winery, Chris Camarda launched Andrew Will Winery (named after his son Will and nephew Andrew) with the inaugural 1989 vintage, and he has spent the last three decades producing some of Washington’s most well-respected wines. In 2013, Chris was joined by Will who is now in charge of the winemaking, but the focus has not changed: structured, elegant, and age worthy, the wines reflect a singular voice that has never adjusted to chase scores or suit trends.

    Although always a focus, Chris’ attention to terroir has only intensified over time. His initial releases were single variety wines, but since 2001 he has focused blends for the single vineyard cuvées, as he feels this expresses the vineyards more clearly than a one-variety bottling. Chris and Will source from four of the best sites in Washington State, all planted to Bordeaux varieties: Champoux Vineyard and Discovery Vineyard in Horse Heaven Hills AVA, Two Blondes in Yakima Valley AVA, and Ciel du Cheval on Red Mountain AVA. The best grapes (regardless of variety) from each of these vineyards are used for the single-vineyard blends, and the remaining gets used for the “Black Label” single-variety wines. The fruit is harvested all by hand and transported by truck and then ferry boat to Vashon Island, just off Seattle, where the winery and cellar are now located.

    All of the wines are treated more or less the same in the cellar. All fruit is 100% destemmed, fermented with native yeasts in stainless steel tank, and aged in mostly neutral French oak with 25-35% new depending on the vintage and wine. Production is around 4500 cases/year.

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    Anna Espelt started out working on her family’s estate, Espelt Viticultors in 2005 which is located in  the  DO Empordà. Having studied habitat restoration and organic farming, Anna has always sought to bring her values in line with the farming practices at her family’s large estate of 200 hectares. While managing her family’s operations, she has also been pursuing something more personal – a project focused on 25 hectares of vineyards collectively called Mas Marés located within the Cap de Creus Nature Reserve of Spain. While hiking around this area, she not only recognized the potential to revitalize some ailing vineyard sites, but she discovered evidence of human interaction with this ancient landscape dating back to the early bronze age. At once, Anna knew this place was special, not only for the wine that it could produce but for the very fact that humans had been interacting with this place for millennia.

    When asked to describe her work in Cap Creus, Anna states that it is a land of granite, wind, blue skies, and the smell of wild herbs and sea spray. While it may seem odd that she doesn’t mention vineyards in this description, it is largely because vines have been an integral part of this landscape shaped in equal parts by nature and human hands. In the US, our National Parks strive to minimize the impact of civilization, whereas, in this part of Catalunya, there is no escaping it. What might seem like a relic of a glacier is, in fact, a standing stone erected by human hands over 4000 years ago for some long-forgotten purpose. With Anna’s dedication to organic and regenerative farming, these vineyards can once again be brought into balance with the surrounding flora and fauna. Through her work, Anna is paying tribute to the thousands of years of interaction between her ancestors and the land they’ve inhabited.

    This profile and tasting notes were edited from the European Cellars website, along with the pictures used. For more information please visit: European Cellars.
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    Charles Lachaux, Pascal Lachaux's son, took over from his father in 2012. At Bowler, we’ve always been impressed when tasting at Arnoux-Lachaux and the wines have reached new heights since Charles joined the domaine. Today, Charles' runs the domaine with his mother, Florence Arnoux-Lachaux, the daughter of Robert Arnoux. At first, the changes felt like they were coming slowly, some tweaks here and there, but now, the evolution seems to have come full circle, with the only constant being the land.

    From the beginning of his tenure, Charles has thrown himself entirely into the farming of his 14.5 hectares, some of the most prized vineyards in Vosne-Romanée and equally high-quality vineyards in Nuits-Saint-Georges. He scraped esca out of the wood by hand, vine by vine, but the only option for protecting his old vines. The vines average sixty years old and the oldest, Nuits-Saint-Georges Clos des Corvées Pagets, were planted in 1921. He's replanted some parcels very densely at 20,000 vines per hectare and put in a tall stake to attach the shoots that soar to the sunlight. He's stopped hedging in all of his parcels. It takes twice as long and four times the number of workers for this canopy management, but the results are worth it. This allows for more photosynthesis, getting more energy to each grape; phenolic maturity happens faster allowing for an earlier pick date and lower alcohol with full ripeness. He follows regenerative farming practices and no longer mows or tills in his parcels. 

    In 2010, the family purchased a vertical press, making Arnoux-Lachaux one of just a handful of wineries using this type of press in Burgundy. They prefer it to a pneumatic press because it presses very gently and extracts less. In 2012, Charles’s first year, they introduced some partial whole-cluster fermentation and pleased with the results, they used a higher proportion of whole-clusters each year since. Today, the wines are made with up to 100% whole cluster. The amount of new oak has been reduced since 2012 as well: up to 10% on village wines, 20% on premier cru and a maximum of 30% on grand cru in 2019. In 2022, oak was eliminated altogether from the winery and they are opting to ferment and age in round cement tanks.

    Today, these are some of the most highly sought after wines in all of Burgundy and rightfully so, the wines have an incredible energy and elegance, and are some of the best expressions of Vosne and Nuits available. - Michele Peters, French Portfolio Manager

     

    BOWLER E-Zine Issue 2 | Q1 2021: Regenerative Farming: Scratching at the Surface 
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