Tasted And Rated

Natural wine is a small but rapidly growing sector within the wine industry.
Expertise in the field has been advanced by wine experts and professionals, while publications to aid in further understanding the topic lag behind.

Natural wine is made from grapes produced under organic or biodynamic management without using additives in the cellar. Natural wine represents a movement of winegrowers that see agriculture as an ethical act against wine industrialization and as a way to make food systems more sustainable. The movement has gained fast-growing global fame and connects rural producers with urban consumers.

The Natural Wine Movement highlights the need to develop more rigorous methodologies to better understand the market segment of natural wine, its consumers, and their composition and behaviour.
Moreover, it calls for a deeper theoretical engagement with the notion of natural wine, which positions it among other sustainable and ecological certifications, including organic, biodynamic or sulphite-free. This would allow researchers to advance from the current state of knowledge, which continues to limit our ‘practical’ capacity for advice to policy makers but not to winemakers and marketers.

Love GV Fu***ng Terro(i)r 2015
It’s an 100% Grüner Veltliner from the Austrian wine region of Kremstal.

Owner and wine maker Alexander Zöller started his career just after graduation with the idea to produce wine which should convey its origin and natural precondi.

As the name suggest for this wine (Fu***ng Terro(i)r), it’s all the expression that the environment gives you and not all the manipulation you can use.

This wines express intense stone fruit character with hints of flowers. The palate is dry, with chalky mineralilty at the end.

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A Spritz is a Venetian wine based cocktail, commonly served as an apertitif in North East Italy and enjoyed by milione of people around . It consists of prosecco, bitters and soda water.
Today recipes consist of 9cl of Prosecco, 6cl of Aperol, a splash of soda water and a slice of orange.

However not many people know (except bartenders) that this cocktail created in Venice in 1920 had instead of Aperol a bitter liquor called Select.

Select is an Italian aperitif, created in 1920 in Venice by the distillery "Fratelli Pilla & C." and currently produced by Gruppo Montenegro.

The Select recipe blends together a secret recipe of 30 aromatic herbs and botanicals including juniper berries, for their balsamic and floral characteristics, and individually processed rhubarb roots, which provide intensely bitter notes for balance. The juniper berries undergo a special maceration and distillation process in a copper alembic still, giving Select Aperitivo its fresh and resinous notes.

If you ever in Venice ask the bartender for a Spritz Veneziano and they will definitely use Select instead of Aperol.

Aperol was also created in 1919 and originally produced by the Barbieri company, based in Padova, but is now produced by the Campari Group. Aperol however did not become successful until after the Second World War. Although it tastes and smells much like Campari, Aperol has an alcohol content of 11%—less than half that of Campari. Aperol and Campari have the same sugar content and Aperol is less bitter in taste.

However Spritz itself is a form of cocktail as opposed to a singular drink, the term originates from the German Spritzen. The origin of the Spritz dates back to the 19th-century when the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s owned the region. When Austro-Hungarian soldiers first tasted Italian wines, they found them too strong for their taste and subsequently spritzed their glasses with water to dilute the flavour. 

There is much story behind each cocktail and next time you sip and spritz remember to like this post 😜