Natural Wines
Natural wines - either sulfite free (no added sulphites), or with extremely low sulphite content - are our speciality. Natural wines are becoming more sought after, and we believe we have discovered some of the very best available with Domaine Viret and Frey Winery below. Not only are they delicious and actively good for you, they are very competitively priced too. We have not discovered any other natural wines to compare with these on quality or value.Unfortunately our retail prices have increased slightly. Philippe Viret kept his prices the same for us but the weak exchange rate, coupled with the recent excise duty and vat increases has meant unavoidable increases. We are offering a few mixed case deals with some good savings to try to combat this, so this is the cheapest way to buy these wines!"Very impressed - particularly with Solo S02 wine" comment from wine writer Jamie Goode, June 2011 after tasting our wines from Domaine Viret!SoLo Wines
SoLo is a fabulous new wine "brand" created specifically to fill a new requirement in the wine market. Basically they are bridging the gap between "natural" wines and mainstream wines, bringing together all the health benefits of natural wines with no artificial additives or preservatives, with the full flavour, consistency and reliability of the more mainstream wines that we're used to.Their wines are made from organically grown grapes grown at Domain Viret, and at the vineyard next door belonging to Philippe Viret's good friend, James. Their vineyards have never been treated with any artificial fertilisers or pesticides, only natural ones derived from plants on the vineyard. No additional oenological products of any type are used either. Philippe uses only the natural yeasts present on the grapes. This means their wines are perfectly safe for just about everybody - sulphite intolerant people, vegans and people with allergies to other substances such as gluten. Plus of course they are also delicious wines too.Their first two wines, Navitas and Aurum, have been designed and blended specifically to appeal to the UK wine drinker. Many natural wines are a little "funky" and an acquired taste. Many have consistency problems, not just between different vintages but even from bottle to bottle of the same batch. And many natural whites tend to be semi oxidised and either dark yellow or orange in colour - the producers will tell you this is intentional but it is not! It is because of a chemical relationship between the natural acidity of a wine and the sulphite content! It is physically impossible to have a wine with good acidity without at least some sulphite in there.Therefore SoLo have developed a white wine with crisp acidity and full tropical flavour which is made entirely naturally with no chemical intervention right from the planting of the grapes through to the wine making. An absolutely tiny dash of sulphite (less then 5% of legal allowance) is added at bottling to retain the acidity and the wine's crispness and ensure it will keep in condition for several years. The amount is so small these wines are perfectly safe even for people with severe sulphite allergies."Very impressed - particularly with Solo S02 wine" comment from wine writer Jamie Goode, June 2011 after tasting our wines from Domaine Viret!Domaine Viret
All Domaine Viret wines are gluten free and vegan friendly.In our search for no added preservative (sulphite free) wines, we've been extremely fortunate to have discovered Domaine Viret, a truly unique family winery in St Maurice just north of Chateauneuf du Pape. You may remember the winery from the BBC's Oz Clarke and James May episode in 2006 where Oz described their wines as 'cosmic nectar', and thoroughly enjoyed working his way through several of their best bottles while camped in the vineyard.Domaine Viret is owned by Alain and his son Philippe, and is based on a natural philosophy which surpasses organic and biodynamic, which they call 'cosmoculture'. It encompasses an array of natural approaches from producing their own plant food for the vines from 14 different plants from the vineyard, to adopting Aborigine and American Indian philosophies about the earth's energy fields and the cell structure of water. They even built the winery in a specific location to harmonise with the earth's natural rhythms.Now I'm normally a little sceptical, but I was so impressed by their wines that I had to take a look at the winery and vineyards for myself. Their cosmoculture system is extremely in depth, and my French isn't very good so I only understood some of the very basics. But I certainly understood one thing - whatever their secret, they have a winery that is truly unique in the world, that produces wines beyond the capabilities of any other winemaker I've met. Virtually every winemaker will tell you 'you can't make a wine without the addition of sulphur that will keep more than a few months' - I was told exactly that by a South African 'organic' producer earlier this year. However, over lunch Philippe opened a bottle of his Colonnades 2000, and a bottle of Emergence 1999 which were both absolutely stunning with beautifully ripe fruit. That's sulphur free wine which has not only kept for 10 years but is in premium condition, and is a masterpiece of winemaking.Organic wine in the European Union doesn't officially exist. You will notice such wines have to be labelled 'wine made from organically grown grapes'. This is because only the grape growing is organically certified - once the grapes hit the winery to be vinified, almost anything can happen to them including the addition of sulphur and other chemicals, but they still achieve their 'organic' status. This is why many organic wines are just as high in free sulphur as any other wine. Alain and Philippe however, extend their philosophy to every part of the winemaking from the fertilisation and watering of the vineyards to the final production of the wine and even bottling and storage. Their wines are the purest I have ever tasted, and it is perhaps the absence of any chemicals that gave me the feeling of being energised when I drank them. Jane and I sat on our decking in the sun sampling their wines, and we actually drank 'several' bottles on a Sunday afternoon. Normally a bottle each would be our limit, but we just kept remarking how great we felt - 'shall we open the next one up?' We were a little tipsy certainly but felt full of energy. We both got up for work in the morning fresh as a daisy. Now, normally if I have 3 pints of UK brewed lager, I'm sluggish and tired all day! Clearly it isn't the quantity of alcohol that causes this effect, it's the plethora of chemicals I'm imbibing.These chemicals affect us in many ways we don't realise. I strongly remommend you try Domaine Viret's wines, and experience this for yourself. Not only are they possibly the healthiest wines money can buy, they're also delicious in their own right.Current Free Sulphur UpdateDomaine Viret sent all their wines to have their sulphur content analysed for us a couple of weeks ago (July 2010). The 'Limite de Quantification' (the limit below which the laboratory don't even record the amount) is 5 mg/l for Free Sulphur and 10 mg/l for Total Sulphur. Their wines are so low in sulphur that only the Rose and White had anything recorded - the reds were all virtually undetectable. The Rose showed 6 mg/l Free and 11 mg/l Total, and the white, Coudee D'Or, was below the minimum Free and 15 mg/l Total. This is remarkable. We are talking about 15 parts per MILLION in total! In a normal well made, quality white wine the Free Sulphur would be about 60 mg/l, and the Total sulphur upto 210 mg/l.Just a quick word of warning if you like to make your bottle last over a few nights. Sulphite free wines, once opened, will react to oxygen more quickly than wines containing artificial preservatives. To stop them spoiling, replace the cork immediately each time you pour a glass to minimise the contact with the air. If you regularly drink just a glass a night it may be worth buying a Vacuvin to pump out the air completely so it will keep in good condition for several days.
Frey Winery
Frey Winery is the USA's first certified organic winery and also the USA's first certified biodynamic producer, located in Redwood Valley, Medocina County in California. They have been producing sulphite free, natural organic wines for 30 years. For a wine to be certified "organic" in the USA no sulphites are permitted to be added to the wine.Frey is not only the USA's largest organic winery but also reputedly the largest family winery employing three generations of family - 27 members! It was founded by Paul (Senior) and his wife Beba when they moved to California from New York searching for a more natural existence, when they bought a ranch in Redwood Valley. They planted their first vines in the late 1960s and sold the grapes onto other wineries. They had 12 children who they brought up to love and respect nature. The winery itself was born when in 1979 a wine produced from their Cabernet grapes won a gold medal. Two of the sons realised they had the potential to make these wines themselves.The winery now has a vast array of awards for it's wines. It is operated by an extended family of nature lovers with sustainable agricultural practices, with a firm focus on producing quality natural healthy wines. They farm biodynamically, keep several colonies of honey bees, encourage all natural life to flourish on the vineyard - in fact only 10% of their ranch is vines, the other 90% is native forest. They use solar power where possible, and fiercely reject any chemical intervention or use of toxins and genetically modified organisms.
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