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| Oli Hudson, who founded Natural Born wines with Sam Rogg in 2016 |
Natural Born Wines is a combination of the last two. You can buy their wine online or at markets such as Victoria Park Market or Broadway Market which is where we found them. They also hold events at various pop-up establishments and other venues.
They are also importers and here they are able to create their house style. This can be characterised as wines that reveal the nature of their varieties and terroir. From the name it goes without saying that all wines are natural minimum intervention ones. They come from small producers predominantly from Italy. There is no attempt to be all-embracing.
It is said that when Rilke returned a book he had borrowed, he would bind it with a ribbon, such was his love of books. Something Rilkean is going on with Natural Born Wines as you can see from the way they present whatever bottle you might have selected.
Like all their wines, this Nero di Troia is probably different from any other you may have tasted. At only 11,5%, lighter but more expressive of the variety. This is a defining example of what NBW is about.
We bought this bottle because we had never heard of Vernaccia Rosa, here blended 50/50 with Sangiovese. The joke is that no one else (D'Agata, Robinson/Harding/Vouillamoz/Galet) had heard of it either. Who are we to doubt that Vernaccia Rosa does indeed exist and indeed forms part of this wine but more prosaically, it may just have dropped an 's' and is actually Vernaccia Rossa - well documanted in all of the above. Delicious wine in any case.
A high proportion of NBW producers are from Umbria as is this Sangiovese. Again, this wine is distinctive in a similar way as the Nero di Troia. The prevailing elements of extraction, concentration, power and so forth are absent from these wines. Interesting because most plugs for wine tout those elements as a given if a sale is desired. Check out Swig's or Lathwaite's newsletters.
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| Bombino Bianco from Puglia |
If you can find it in your heart to call 'charming' a company with let's say a certain degree of disorganisation, then Pure wines is indeed charming. Don't be too frustrated if out of stock wines are on the website.
Pure Wines heart is in the right place and if you order even half a case you might get a free gift (or two) to boot.
Again the idea is Natural Wine: 'honest and transparent, organically farmed and made with little to no intervention' as they have it. Pure Wines are not exclusive importers so some of their wines may be found elsewhere but they do have some particular wines you may not have seen before.
Initially we were drawn to Pure Wines in our quest for a decent Croatina - one which led us eventually to the Mecca of Bonarda dell'Otrepo Pavese, Rovescala itself but that is for another post altogether. Gaggiarone belongs to the more powerful Croatinas. Lovely wines to be sure but less expressive of the variety than the 12.5 percenters in our view.
Did we say you might find their wines elsewhere? Not this old favourite discovered by Slotovino at Oenorama in Athens 2014 and privately imported by us for our own use soon after. We have been delighted to find Glinavos's Paleokerisio (sparkling blend of white Debina and red Vlahiko grapes) at Flatiron Wines of New York and San Francisco - and now here! Pure charged £12 for this bottle but that may have changed. It's certainly worth a punt at that price.
Anything produced by Ganevat is worth trying even with a questionable label such as this. It's a Gamay/Syrah blend. Not something we would have rushed to buy normally. Other sellers charge considerably more than the £21.78 we paid at Pure Wines.
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| Malvasia, Marsanne, Moscato and Ortrugo |
Noble Fine Liquor has been a mainstay of Broadway Market for some years now and is always choc-a-block with interesting natural wines. Prices tend to be keen but there are always a few bottles of interesting wine going for less than one might have thought,
On one of our first visits we bought this Mauzac from Plageolles for example.
And good to see this wine from Succes - a newish Spanish outfit making interesting monovarietals like this Parellada
A more recent discovery - at Bow, even further to the East was Vinarius. the address is Roman Road which turned out to be a nice market sort of street. There really was a Roman road here, leading to what is now Norwich apparently.
This is a more conventional wine merchant and Enoteca (as so many are these days).
Here we met one of the most charming people you can find in any of London's wine shops - Eugenio - a qualified oenologist and member of the International Wine and Spirit Competition’s judging panel.
Eugenio is from Abruzzo but the most outstanding of the four bottles we bought from him was this delectable Tuscan Canaiolo. Not something you can say of every example of this tricky yet great grape.
Finally, we made it to Newcomer Wines in Dalston. They describe themselves as a neighbourhood wine shop and bar specialising in artisanal wines from sustainable producers but in fact they are the Austrian specialists par excellence.
Our picks included the Carbonic Macerated blend of Zweigelt and Blaufrankisch by Klaus Preisinger, a Neuburger, a Roter Veltliner and a Gemischter Satz by Jutta Ambrositsch made from Grüner Veltliner, Neuburger, Riesling, Traminer, Gutedel (Chasselas), Grüner Sylvaner, and 'a number of other native grape varieties.'
To find any more native Austrian grape varieties you really would have to go to Austria and even then not every winemerchant would have the range you can find at Newcomer.
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