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MEET THE MAKER: Jean Bouteille Tasting on Wednesday Evening + Giorgio Nicolini Tasting this Saturday 3-6PM + A Look At Rioja - Spain's most famous region!

by Annandale Cellars

MEET THE MAKER
Jean Bouteille

Wednesday 6th of May

5:30 - 7:30

Jean Bouteille Wines is a project established by French original, Jean-Baptiste Courdesses in 2019 after accumulating years of experience around the globe working in various fermentations, farming & hospitality fields. This is a small scale winery based in Basket Range, Adelaide Hills that makes wines by hand from organically farmed grapes using regenerative practices in both the winery and vineyard. Any grapes that Jean purchases are also purchased from like minded viticulturalists to craft wines from only the highest quality grapes. Jean's wines reflect their respective landscapes and varietal characteristics with winemaking decisions made based on intuitive reaction and natural instinct.

JB will be here as part of his "Grand Tour" to debut his new releases from the 25' vintage and will be showing the following wines:

Traverses 2025 Chardonnay

Maar Red Blend 2025

Machina 2025 Tempranillo  

Brisures 2025 Gamay

Bâtard 2025 Trousseau

Mont Rouge 2025 Pinot Noir

 

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A Look at Rioja

After last week's tour through the Loire we're heading south to Spain - to Rioja in particular, the most famous of all Spanish reds and a region that has been quietly reinventing itself over the past decade or so. As ever with Spain, the wines outperform their price point - even the serious bottles here punch well above what you'd pay for similar elsewhere. For the full breakdown of the region see our guidebook to Rioja; for the broader Spanish picture (we'll keep coming back to other Spanish regions in future emails) our Spain guidebook is a good place to start. Otherwise, here are 9 wines worth digging into.

On the whites, the '23 'Sierra de Tolono Viura Blanco ($45) is a clean, modern white Rioja - texture without weight. A step up, the '23 'Valenciso Rioja Blanco ($80) comes from limestone-clay soils on the slopes of Rioja Alta with mostly concrete-tank elevage and only a touch of older Caucasian oak - a remarkably fresh, energetic white that winemaker Diego likens to a more affordable white Burgundy.

For something pink, the '23 'Ramon Bilbao Rosado ($35) is a fresh, well-made rosado from one of Rioja's bigger houses - a great-value pour for the warmer days ahead.

Walking the reds from approachable to serious, the '24 'Bodegas Exopto Rioja Tinto ($35) is a juicy modern Rioja at very sharp pricing. The '23 'La Bicicleta Voladora Tempranillo ($42) is another well-priced Tempranillo from the everyday end. The '23 'Artuke Pies Negros Tinto ($51) is a modern village-style Tempranillo from Rioja Alavesa. The '22 'Dominio del Challao 'Virna' Tinto ($52) is a structured single-estate Rioja for those who like a savoury edge. Stepping into the cellar pieces, the '20 'La Rioja Alta 'Viña Alberdi' Reserva ($71) is the gateway into one of Rioja's great traditional houses - the classic Reserva profile in a more approachable package than its famous big brother. Finally, the '17 'La Rioja Alta 'Viña Ardanza' Reserva ($116) is that big brother - a benchmark traditional Rioja Reserva from a vintage now drinking beautifully.

Pick a few of these up and dig into one of the wine world's most underrated regions - don't miss out!

 

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Giorgio NicoliniTasting

Saturday 9th of May

3pm - 6pm

Join us this Saturday as we taste through the wines of Giorgio Nicolini - a tiny family producer working a 2 hectare patch on the very edge of Italy, where the hills above the old Venetian colony of Muggia tip down to the Gulf of Trieste with the Slovenian and Croatian borders only steps away.

Giorgio and Rossana farm in the old way, hewing close to traditions inherited from grandparents and devoting much of their effort to replanting old native varieties from the original 100-year clones in their own vineyard - Malvasia Istriana (the queen of the Istrian coast, brought across from Greece by Venetian merchants centuries ago) and Vitovska on the whites, Piccola Nera and Borgogna Nera on the reds. The vines are 20-30 years old on clay with marine sediments, and they catch the singular light created by the meeting of Alpine and Mediterranean air.

Treatments in the vineyard are kept to a minimum and no systemics are used. The same hands-off approach holds in the tiny cellar - hand-harvested in small baskets, fermented with native yeasts, basket-pressed and bottled unfiltered with only the smallest sulphur additions. These are wines that taste unmistakably of where they come from.

These are the wines that we'll be pouring on the day:

Nicolini Vitovska 2023

Nicolini 'Ambrosia' Malvasia Istriana 2023

Nicolini 'Acciaio' Malvasia Istriana 2023

Nicolini Piccola Nera 2023

Nicolini Rosso 2023

See you there!

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