Slotovino: RAW 2019. Discoveries, Encounters, Serendipity.

Ben Walgate, co-founder and winemaker at Tillingham.

At the RAW Wine Fair you can make new discoveries, meet the people who have made the wines you have enjoyed and keep up to date with their latest releases.

For us it has also been a great opportunity to find and sample rare grape varieties. This year's London fair was no different.

Perhaps the most exciting find was an English producer who has appeared you could say fully formed with a dizzying range of wines already distributed by an important merchant, Les Caves de Pyrene no less.

The born fully-formed bit can be explained by the fact that the co-founder is Ben Walgate, former chief executive at Gusborne and many of the grapes he has used so far have been bought in from local growers, some of them biodynamic.

Rose from Regent, Orion and Madeleine Angevine

The grape varieties in the five bottles in the photo here (left to right) include wines made from

1. Ortega
2. Pet Nat from Ortega 68%, Müller Thurgau 4%, Dornfelder 16%, Rondo 8% and Pinot Noir 4%,
3. Ortega
4. Chardonnay
5. Chardonnay Pinot Noir,Pinot Meunier, and Schönburger

Some of the other grape varieties used in Tillingham wines in 2018 include Siegerrebe, Bacchus, Gamay, Pinot Meunier, and Regent.

Ben with his young vines

Ben is planting Madeleine Angevine and Pineau d'Aunis - a first for the UK, surely.

He says "in the end we made wine from a total of 10 vineyard sites and 13 grape varieties, and at times we had up to 30 different fermentations on the go."

If Ben's initiative is the sign of a new trend we applaud it wholeheartedly. It reminds us of Forlorn Hope in California and Ruth Lewandowski in Utah - vignerons who started as garagistes and are progressing to producing wine from their own vineyards.

An unexpected pleasure was to come across Bodegas Gratias, makers of the brilliant Tardana we had enjoyed so much last year. We included this variety in the Slotovino Awards of 2018. Our bottle had been bought from Vagabond wines, another of our award winners.

Left to right: Tardana, Pintaillo and Bobal

Tardana

Pintaillo

Pintaillo is a variety in danger of extinction. We only realised Gratias made this wine when researching the Bodega after the fair. We very much hope they succeed in getting it into the British market.

Malbo Gentile

Another variety we would like to celebrate is Malbo Gentile. Terra Quilia make Pignoletto and Lambrusco as well as a lightly sparkling Nibbio. Good choices,

Natanadze

We were extremely happy to see Netanadze back. They received our main award for 2018 for researching wild grape varieties and making wine from them. Justifiably he calls one of them after himself: Natenadzis tetri. ('I found this grape species and gave it my name.') As well as fascinating the wines are really light and interesting.

This red is made in Qvevri from the rare Tskhenis dzudzu Tetri from a 400 year old vine - possibly the world's oldest - Meshkuri Sapere, and Kharistvala Shavi varieties.

The white is made from Akhaltsikhuri Tetri, Meskhuri Mtsvane, Udis Tetri and Chitiskvertskha Tetri. We never tire of applauding Giorgi Natenadze's initiatives. What he and his colleagues do is an important deed of conservation.

Another lovely surprise was the presence of Brand et Fils at RAW 2019. We have trumpeted the wines of Brand et Fils of Egersheim, Alsace since finding a bottle of their wonderful dry Orange wine made from Muscat over a year ago at Caves L'Etiquette in Paris. And yet in all the wine fairs and tasting events we had been to there were plenty of organic wines from Alsace but never Brand et Fils. Yet here they were on our doorstep. How great was that?

The dry Muscat with 15 days maceration was so good we ordered another 3 bottles from Herve at L'Etiquete for our next visit to Paris.

a sensible move as he is now sold out of this lovely wine - understandably.

Brand's dry Muscat - a truly orange Orange Wine.

L'Etiquette also stocked Brand's Maitre Renard, an interesting wine made from Negrette from the Toulouse region and Gamay from near Lyons. Brand et Fils are an imaginative outfit. Garagistes as well as vignerons from their own properties. Great labels too.

Founded in 1956 by Charles Brand the property has been fully organic since 2001.