HB&B Blog — Paul Medder

Natural Wine Killers: Bellotti Semplicemente Vino Rosso 2016 (Italy)

Bellotti Italy Natural Wine Killers Paul Medder Red wine

Natural Wine Killers: Bellotti Semplicemente Vino Rosso 2016 (Italy)

Piedmont is probably the most consistently premium wine region in Italy. Spread over rolling hills between Turin and Genoa, it is one of the few regions in Italy where most wines are produced following traditional DOC or DOCG rules and there are no regional IGT wines. Regions like Barolo and Barbaresco are famous for their robust, long-lived wines, which are aged for several years in barrel, requiring time to mellow. Although Barolo and Barbaresco producers may produce more accessible red wines, they tend to be polished, often with plenty of sweet oak. These are serious wines, often with serious prices....

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Natural Wine Killers: Gut Oggau Winifred Rosé 2017 (Austria)

Austria Natural wine Paul Medder Rose wine

Natural Wine Killers: Gut Oggau Winifred Rosé 2017 (Austria)

Who is Winifred? What’s her story? She’s not giving much away, staring at us as she does, rather blankly. Not exactly happy, but not sad either. Her firmly parted hair suggests a certain amount of seriousness. Perhaps more serious than you might expect for a rosé. It’s fair to say the juice within this Instagram-friendly bottle is also more serious than you might expect for a rosé. Quite deep and dense in colour, it’s almost a light red. If Winifred were drawn in colour, she might remind me of Michelle of the Resistance from ‘Allo ‘Allo. All this may seem...

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Natural Wine Killers: Jean Christophe Garnier Bezigon Chenin 2017

Chenin Blanc France Natural Wine Killers Paul Medder

Natural Wine Killers: Jean Christophe Garnier Bezigon Chenin 2017

A mere two editions since our December box, here we are extolling the virtues of Chenin Blanc once again. Where then it was all about the bubbles, with an immensely enjoyable Vouvray Brut, this time the focus is on a dry still wine. In that column, we waxed lyrical about the versatility of Chenin Blanc from the Loire. Its ability to produce truly invigorating wines from dry to sweet and sparkling is almost unmatched in the world of wine. Within the Loire, there are other white grapes which garner more attention (the Sauvignon Blancs of Sancerre and Poulliy-Fumé are household...

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