DINNER PARTY COMPANION
DINNER PARTY COMPANION
Rest easy this holiday season and let us deal with your wine situation! This selection goes great with holiday foods, but are just as enjoyable by themselves. There’s a winner for everyone in this pack, from light whites to deep reds!
Piollot Come des Tallants NV
Goes perfectly as an aperitif or to wash down roast ham and apple sauce or gravy.
El Bandito Monkey Gone to Heaven 2021
Red and black fruits, lavender and garrigue. Bright acidity and wonderfully supple tannins- good with Brussels sprouts, carrots, parsnips.
Domaine Mosse Bonnes Blanches 2018
Heavier and more complex for the buttery wine lovers - brilliant with roast chicken, rich and creamy dishes, roast veggies.
Karim Vionnet Fleurie 2020
Ripe red berries mingling with earthy and sweetly spiced notes. Best had with roast goose, roast pork, duck.
Jolie-Laide Syrah North Coast 2020
Deep and luscious with silky tannins. Syrupy blackberry and blueberry notes with hints of white pepper and dark chocolate. Melts a lamb or beef in the mouth.
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Organic, Biodynamic and Natural wine. What’s the difference?
To understand this concept and its various ramifications, it is necessary to keep something clear in mind: before the 20th century and the spreading of affordable synthetic fertilisers, all farming was organic. When the shift to the use of synthetics and pesticides happened, it became necessary to diversify traditional organic farming from the new modern farming.
ORGANIC WINE
Simply put, organic farming forbids the use of synthetic fertilisers, synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or genetically modified organisms. The basic requirements are generally specific and engage the farmers not to use any chemical fertilisers and other synthetic products in the vineyard. It does not prevent the vintner from using the conventional winemaking process after harvesting.
BIODYNAMIC WINE
Let’s take organic farming one step further: Biodynamic. The creator of this agricultural system is the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, who developed the principles of biodynamics in a series of lectures given in 1924 in Germany. Here lies the foundation of true organic wines, with a strict limit in the use of additives, stringent requirements and at the end obtaining a biodynamic certification.
NATURAL WINE
The previous definitions are usually, and rightfully, associated with it, because most natural wine is also organic and/or biodynamic. But not vice versa!
Natural wine is wine in its purest form, simply described as nothing added, nothing taken away, just grapes fermented. No manipulation whatsoever, minimal intervention both in the vineyards and in the winery. Healthy grapes, natural yeast and natural fermentation, with no filtration nor fining. Sounds easy, right? However, making natural wine is unforgiving and it requires a bigger amount of work than conventional wine. To this day, natural wine has no certification yet.