Groesbeek wine festival

Every time we go to The Netherlands, OK every time we go to Amsterdam we try to seek out Dutch wine or wijn as they call it.

We have enthused about Dutch wine in these pages before: Thorn, De Kleine Schorre, Aan de Breede Beek, Twente and Apostelhoeve. These makers wines are the ones that have found in Amsterdam's wine shops and restaurants.

As for the other producers we were always told, 'you have to go to them to buy their wine.'

This seemed strange in a country you can cross in an afternoon but the Dutch as we have noted are the fiercest critics of their own wine commonly describing it as 'white, sour and expensive.' This we can't understand because our limited experience suggests Dutch still wine is often better than English or Welsh wine - or has been up to now. Jancis Robinson no less has written to this effect.

So when the opportunity arose to attend a Dutch Wine fair at Groesbeek we thought why not? Let's put what the Dutch say to the test.

Groesbeek is south of Amsterdam near Nijmegen. Not the most southerly part of the Netherlands: that is Limburg which may be a better winegrowing area. The only producer we had heard of in Groesbeek was De Colonjes. We had fielded a bottle of their Johanniter 2008 in our 2011 'Clearance Tasting.' Nice.

It was a dull and rainy afternoon. The town square in Groesbeek might have looked a lot jollier in sunshine but sadly the gloom was pervasive.

That didn't prevent people from coming and having a good time.

In the middle of the square was a roundabout dedicated to Groesbeek wines. Around the sides of the square were it has to be said rather more importers of foreign wines and other stalls selling food and produce.

First, De Colonjes. This is the largest Biological estate in the Netherlands and has been going since 2001. Varieties grown include

White

Cabernet Blanc (Blattner)
Helios (Freiburg)
Johanniter (Freiburg)
Muscaris (Freiburg)
Riesel (Blattner)

Red

Cabernet Colonjes (Blattner)
Pinotin (Blattner)
Regent (Geilweilerhof).

We bought their fresh and lively Helios. An underrated Freiburg variety with an incredibly complex ancestry including several Seibel and Seyve-Villard hybrids, Merzling (itself a complex hybrid), two table grapes and some vitis rupestris and vitis labrusca in the background. Did Norbert Becker actually go out to unite all these grapes one day? How these hybrids are bred is a mystery. No wonder the grape breeders themselves sometimes forget what the ingredients are. Mueller-Thurgau and Rondo are prime examples of that with Mueller-Thurgau turning out to be Riesling x Chasselas de Courtiller cross instead of Riesling Sylvaner and Rondo Zarya Severa x Sankt Laurent and not Saperavi Severny x Sankt Laurent.

Valentin Blattner himself

It was particularly interesting to see a strong presence of Blattner varieties here and in other Dutch vineyards. In the case of De Colonjes, there is even a special one for them named after their estate.

Klein Amerika would seem to be a strange name for a Dutch wine estate but Groesbeek was the centre of Operation Market Garden in 1944 when thousands of Allied parachutists were dropped into the Netherlands in order to secure the Rhine bridges. The British troops' ultimately unsuccsessful attempt to take the bridge at Arnhem has come down to us in the expression (and film) 'A bridge too far.'

The Americans' drop zone near Groesbeek was designated 'Little America' The area is still known by that name in rememberance. There are innumerable plaques and photos on billboards in the town as well as a Canadian war cemetary nearby,

 

Grapes at Wijngaard Klein Amerika include

Cabernet Blanc
Cabernet Colonjes
Regent.

Their Blanc de Noir is made with Cabernet Colonjes by the way.

Plack was another interesting participant.

Again, Cabernet Noir is grown together with Cabernet Blanc and Cal 06 all from Blattner. Other varieties include Helios, Johanniter and Regent.

Another discovery was the 'Biologische Wijngaard van Ditshuizen.

A heartening number of Dutch vineyards and producers are certified biological. Van Ditshuizen must have been one of the earliest ones now counting over 40 years' in this practice. Their varieties are;

Johanniter (Freiburg)
Souvignier Gris (Freiburg)

Cabernet Cantor (Freiburg)
Cabernet Cortis (Freiburg)
Cabertin (Blattner)

The Nederlandse Wijnbouwcentrum has its Wijnhuis Groesbeek on the other side of town so a Choo-choo train (made in Germany) was laid on to take us there.

This institution has a department for analysis, education (up to WSET level) and promotion such as the present festival which was organised by them.

our first sight of a Dutch vineyard.

They also have a wine shop (although with only a few Dutch wines) and there is a vineyard around the buildings.

There were further wines on tasting;

Solaris (Freiburg), Villaris (Geilweilerhof), Regent. Cabernet Cortis and Pinotin are mentioned on the label but according to the sign below, the grapes in this Hollandsch Wit are Solaris, Villaris and Riesel (Blattner).

Other wines at the Wijnbouwcentrum were this Cabernet Blanc from De Holdeurn

and this Cabertin in purezza - not something you see every day from our new friends at van Ditsenhuizen.

Dijso's Bart Dijkema and partner, specialist Armenian wine importers

Back in the town square we made a tour of the wine importers and merchants in the outer circle of tents. As so often, even at the most out-of-the-way events, there were surprising discoveries to be made. 

First of all was a company called Dijso who imported our beloved ArmAs Armenian wines including their brilliant Kamrahyut Rose which we bought even though we had bought it previously from Armenian Brandy and Wine based in Belgium.

We also bought the red version of the same grape, Karmrahyut. The name of this grape is really tricky to spell never mind remember. Karmrahyut just means red juice in Armenian but you can't call a grape Red Juice in English can you?

In any case, respect to Dijso for finding and importing this wine.

This table belonged to a gentleman called Rob Finster and the lady pictured above. Their company is called Wijnimport Lochem.

We noted with pleasant surprise that one of their labels is Fort Berens of British Columbia. We just never imagined a Dutch importer would go for a Canadian wine but historically the Dutch have been almost as active as the British in scouring the world for wine starting in Bordeaux and Porto of course.

In fact Mr. Finster took a lively interest in what we had to say about English and Welsh sparkling and table wine.

Canadian wine wasn't the only rarity, we thought. This Temjanika from Macedonia is also known as Tamyanka in Bulgaria.

We bought this at Megavino, Brussels a year ago.

We assumed it was a rare variety native to Bulgaria,

We were rather chuffed that we knew that. However, once re-united with our copy of 'Wine Grapes' we found out these are just two of the many synonyms for Muscat Blanc a petits grains.' 'the classic muscat...widely dispersed around the world.'

Finally we can say we not only made an interesting contact but also a friendship, we hope. Gianfranco Iacono is originally from Ragusa which is almost exactly where we has spent a week's holiday just a month previously. We had other connections because Gianfranco is a pianist and composer having graduated from the Conservatory of Catania. He now runs a company called 'Taste of Sicily' importing Sicilian wine, olive oil. At the same time he is writing his thesis on 'Eric Satie, the precursor of contemporary music.'

He is married to Els Bruinsma whose company is called Vinilicious. Their wines are mostly from mainland Italy or  'the peninsula' as they call it.

There were many wines we would like to have bought from Gianfranco but space was at a premium as they say and so we settled for a bottle of Moscato di Noto, a dry Muscat. A subsequent check in D'Agata revealed the following:

"Moscato di Noto is the appellation and the grape is Moscato Bianco (also of Moscato di Siracusa)..."[Moscato di Siracusa and Moscato di Noto] "have a long and distinguished history. In fact, some expertes believe Moscato di Siracusa to be the most ancient wine made in Italy, a direct descendent of Pollio or Biblino, a wine named in honor of King Tracio Pollio, who governed Syracuse in the seventh century B.C.E."

All in all, this had been a very interesting day but did you notice something about the Dutch wines mentioned above? There was not a single non-hybrid Vinifera grape involved in any of the wines on show or so it seemed. Strange because the Netherlands' climate is 1 degree centigrade higher than the UK and we have plenty of vinifera grapes in our vineyards. Could it be because so many of the Dutch vineyards are biological and so only no-spray varieties are required?

A final observation: there seems to be a craze in the Netherlands for Blattner varieties. Having planted Blattner's Cabernet Noir ourselves we were fascinated to taste the Dutch wines made from his grapes. the Verdict? Well, plantings cannot have been made long ago so all these vines must be young so the jury is out.

PS. One of the growers said their Blattner variety was not very obliging in poor years.

Winemaking 2019. Warning: may contain disturbing images of gunk.

Poor grape-growers we may be but we fancy ourselves as winemakers. Not everything comes off but we've had our successes especially when buying grapes fro The Wine Grape Club in Hatfield.

It's a family affair that has been going since 1978. Chris Lisney Smith (left) and the dad of his son-in-law (right) man the JCB and trolleys while Mrs Chris mans the cash desk and daughter guids Chris on his JCB as he unloads countless pallets from the vast refrigerated lorries that come in from Puglia and Valencia.

It's amazing how quickly and deftly Chris and family can unload and store a lorry-load of grapes without losing a single one - a talent akin to an F-1 driver completing a race without making contact with another vehicle, although a bit slower it must be said.

We got in on the very first day and decided to buy Tempranillo. The only alternative was Sangiovese. This had gone reasonably well but we wanted a change.

Tempranillo is hardly ever mentioned in Slotovino not because we don't like it but because it is so ubiquitous in Spain that you can't avoid it. There might well be some statistic in Spain such as 'You are never more than 2 metres away fom a bottle of Tempranillo' for all the other varieties get a look in.

Last year we bought Garnacha not because we particularly wanted to but because it was there. It turned out to be a fantastic grape to work with. Very obliging unlike the Macabeu we also bought in 2018 and had to pour down the drain.

The surgery was ready.

 We trod and pressed 10 litres of Tempranillo without maceration.

The rest of the grapes were macerated for 20 hours, half on their own skins, pips and stalks (left) and the other on the skins of the first - unmacerated batch - as well as their own (right). That was an experiment to see what happens with a maceration on that degree of must. We aren't very hopeful and have taken to calling this batch our 'Bad Tempranillo.'

Tempranillo must

As last year we spread what must was left on some of our new vines. It's supposed to be good fertilizer.

In the foreground the 'Good Tempranillo' with the beautiful 'First Press Tempranillo' behind. We don't know if this will turn out to be a rosado or maybe a kind of 'chiaretto' for want of a better word: a wine between rose and red. Actually we love that kind of thing and would be proud indeed to produce such a wine.

As for the 'Bad Tempranillo,' not surprisingly that fermented quite athletically but later we could taste the prominent tannins. Maybe this wine can soften with time.

We have placed it in small amphora made by our in-house potter/amphora-maker.

We bought a glue gun to seal these amphora. It's a great product. You can even use sealing wax in it.

Actually, we had been much more scientific in coating our amphora interiors this year. Instead of laboriously trying to paint the insides with a pastry brush, we just melted the (food grate) beeswax which we bought in granules this year, poured some into the amphora and swilled it around until it had made an even coating of the interior. Now why didn't we think of that in 2018?

Our next visit to the Wine Grape Club a few days later was timed to co-incide with a delivery of their Malvasia from Puglia. Although found in many places, we think Malvasia is an underrated variety. We have to admit also having to throw out the Malvasia we bought last year but that might have been because we were trying to make an Orange wine with it and probably left it in contact with its skins too long.

Right after filling you can already see deposits collecting in the bottom 20%

This section is not for the faint-hearted (see our warning above). First you tread and press the grapes and put the juice into a carboy (23 l) and 2 x 5l jars.

Quite a lot of what goes in is gunk. A mixture of lees and detritus really. 

Sights like these are a great incentive to do some racking.

The surprising thing is that this dirty gunk doesn't seem to spoil the juice. We all know about wines fermented 'sur Lie.' We suppose thes lies are finer ones which come from spent yeast rather than these gross lies but we're basically making this up as we go along. We could be wrong but our inclination is to keep wines as 'clean' as possible.

Amidst all this winemaking with bought-in grapes there was a very tiny amound of Solaris and Goldriesling we had managed to snatch from the jaws of the birds that feasted on all our other grapes this year.

Solaris - that's all folks!

Micro Demijohn with Solaris/Goldriesling juice

The grand total of this Solaris/Goldriesling harvest was about 4 litres. The most expensive wine ever made?

Necessity the mother of invention: bottle fermenting with olive oil airlock.

With such microscopic quantities you have to be inventive as to how to house the juice. Here we had about 2.25 litres left over so we've taken a leaf out of the ancient winemakers' book and simply put a layer of olive oil on top of the not-quite-fully-fermented wine to seal it while also providing an airlock if any bubbles need to escape. The cling film on top is to stop ant flies or dust getting in. When it comes to pouring the wine we'll try to suck up the oil with a turkey baster.

You may be able to see the yellow 5l jar of Solaris/Goldriesling over the left hand shoulder of our big amphora.

Still, all we want is a bottle or two just to taste.

And now for the truly X-rated stuff. Moscato Passito.

Moscato before drying

The idea was to buy Moscato grapes (from Puglia) at Hatfield and lay them out to dry for a few weeks.

Moscato after drying

This we did. Having made a successful Moscato in 2017 (quite a hit if we say so ourselves) we had read that if you leave the grapes on the vine so they shrivel naturally or dry them on mats or slats you get a super-concentrated sweet wine referred to as Passito. So we laid out our grapes in the living room. Three weeks later the pleasantly grapey smell which had accrued was beginning to become rather vineous so we reckoned we should cut the process short before things got too evolved and goodness knows, insects started to appear from nowhere.

Gathering up the grapes we made a rather unappetising mash after treading and put this in a 15l Damigiano.

It was not a pretty sight even after racking and filtration. It looked more like olive oil than wine. We started thinking perhaps we should ahve destemmed the grapes from their dried out and blackened stalks but what is done can never be undone as the famous Scottish vintner said.

And now for the horror-shot. All those of a weak disposition scroll down now!

Yes while our backs were turned as it were, a violent fermentation blew the lid off leaving the demijohn caked in black crust with black sludge at the bottom. It looked like something left behind after a volcanic eruption. We cleaned this up, and racked the juice into a carboy. The colour still hadn't improved any.

Passito siphoning into our large amphora.

Nevertheless since the liquid showed no more sign of fermentation and actually tasted super-sweet in a good way, we decided the time had come to put it into our big amphora - the one that had been such a disaster last year.

Just to recap, we had placed whole berries of Solaris into the amphora. The beeswax coating of the interior was patchy and soon dark stains appeared on the outside where the juice had leached out. No proper fermentation ever occurred despite the late addition of yeast. We later discovered that the lid had not been airtight. Ther was later an unpleasant smell whenever we walked past it. We can only cast a veil over the grand opening this summer. Our amphora/potter said he thought he could clean it up ready for a new filling this year by re-firing it. This he did and after emmitting a terrible smell, came out more or less pristine ready for sealing with our new patented method.

We sealed the top as well as the bung and airlock good and proper this time. We even poured a film of olive oil on the surface of the moscato inside the way the ancients did to keep their wines fresh.

We have hopes that come perhaps a less grand opening in summer 2020 there will be a golden liquid to be extracted - albeit with plenty of sludge at the bottom of the amphora.

our 2019 set of micro-amphorae with 'bad' Tempranillo and Malvasia

Our 2019 range starting their 'elevage' before bottling.next year.