Calvados, Palomino, Trebbiano

Selva Capuzza, located at the southern edge of Lago di Garda, is a place of both incredible beauty and history. Lake Garda was a glacial formation and the surrounding area has clay soils with lots of stones and mineral salts. It is one the northernmost regions to have a nearly Mediterranean climate, where lemon trees and olive groves abound.

Selva Capuzza takes its name from ‘Silvae’ (meaning wild place) and the Formetini family have been nurturing and protecting this wild place for over 100 years. They regard this land as a unique eco system and farm sustainably, and then some. They place enormous emphasis on the biodiversity of their land to encourage flora and fauna to flourish and no herbicides have been used since 2010. They were amongst the first wineries to track their Co2 emissions and, in the cantina, power is supplied from certified renewable sources and they only use recycled materials and lightweight bottles.

Turbiana is the regions name for the grape that is the same as Trebbiano di Soave and the Marche’s Verdicchio. This is a classic Lugana in its most traditional interpretation: delicate, floral and fruity with notes of hay, grass, citrus and apple with a crisp, fresh finish.

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

We say no to chemicals and grow our vines and olive trees according to the principles of organic viticulture with every agricultural practice being an expression of our deep respect for nature and harmony with our ecosystem. That’s why we started beekeeping with enthusiasm. Our happy bees prove that protecting biodiversity is possible and a duty we take on with pleasure. Laura Rizzotto, Balestri

The quote perfectly sums up Laura’s project. She is the latest custodian of a precious patchwork of organically farmed vineyards and olive groves in the heart of Soave. These culminate with an important holding in the tiny cru of Sengialta (‘Sengio’ in local dialect refers to basalt rock). Soils are dark and volcanic, vineyard exposures are southern and at altitudes ranging from 180 - 300m.

Laura and her partner Federico concentrate on low yields from Garganega and Trebbiano di Soave, with winemaking inspired by a respect for their precious terroir and heritage. This place gives the peak expression of native grapes Garganega & Trebbiano di Soave (the same DNA as Verdicchio from Le Marche). Laura makes some wonderfully contrasting wines: from ‘Libertate’, which is terracotta amphora raised Trebbiano di Soave, to ‘Vigneto Sengialta’, a cru bottling of old vine Garganega and Trebbiano di Soave aged on lees in 20 hectolitre ‘botti’. Balestri Valda’s wines are alive, textured and pure.

Beeswax, pear pulp, yellow florals set off a sense of richness, abundance and the fecundity of Spring. The palate follows suit hitting initially with a ripe orchard fruit bowl creating texture and richness before the limestone cinches the corset and draw the wine back to the centre. This sense of restraint V abundance is further accentuated by a lovely almond clip on the back end. I can see this with anything from soft cheese to scampi. Gorgeous wine. MICHAEL MCNAMARA

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

A Vino de Pasto from the laminated Albarizas Barajuelas of Pago Macharnudo. It's aged in 80 year-old bota with 12 months under velo de flor. It's 13.5% natural ABV (no soleo used). 'La Escribana' is a single parcela wine, facing south-east and at 100metres altitude (one of the highest in Marco de Jerez). There's a green harvest, for all the normal reasons, but which also gives a reserve 'green wine' which Willy uses to correct acidity naturally, and add finesse. 'La Escribana' is 'the writer', perhaps a chalk board medium for the illiterate, a translator, documentor, faithful witness.

The wine is a new stop along the Palominos-Finos continuum. As we often find with Spanish, there's a Japanese connection. It's a wine of green bamboo washed by billy tea, of pistachio skin sake. It's Japanese like barely beer witha rice lining.

Gold and green to look and smell. It has a semi-fermentated barley-sake-ricey-acetic tang and gourd skin, paddy-melon-in-the-cool-of-night-edginess. There's a titch of steel and the smell of reeds and rush matting, stripped bamboo, lemongrass outers and typical pistachio skin. It's a wine of lovely depth with some richness, but edged sweet-sour.

Aged in small apple brandy casks for over 12 months, this rich and generous liqueur is a result of blending pressed French and British heirloom apple varieties with our apple spirit.

Complex and well-structured with baked apple and spice, balanced with firm tannins and cask influence.

Our take on the traditional aperitif from North-West France – enjoy as such or serve with blue cheese or dessert. WILLIE SMITH

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

M. Antonio de la Riva (by Willy Peréz and Ramiro Ibañez)
Manuel Antonio de la Riva founded his Jerez bodega in 1858. Located on the famous Arcos Street in Jerez, La Riva enjoyed great success with wines sourced from Manuel's vineyards in Pago Marcharnudo. More than a century later (after Manuel's death), it was bought by Domecq, who added La Riva to some of their best wines. With the decline and devaluation of Jerez after the 1960s, Domecq slowly began eliminating brands and La Riva ceased to exist; the brand names were sold to Beam International.

Before the end of La Riva, young winemaker Luis Pérez (who later founded Bodegas Luis Pérez) had started working as a winemaker in several of the Domecq subsidiaries: Blázquez, Florido, Hermanos y Sancho and … La Riva! Luis learned the vineyards, practices and wines of the La Riva brands just before they were deleted. With the historical knowledge of Luis to guide them, next generation winemakers Willy Pérez (son of Luis) and Ramiro Ibáñez decided to recuperate the brand and its historical wines before they became entirely forgotten. Willy and Ramiro bought back the rights to the La Riva brands in 2017, and have since negotiated access to some of the famous plots from which they were sourced (and which had since become anonymous fruit sources for un-aspirational Sherries), in Balbaina Alta, and particularly Macharnudo.

M.ANTONIO de la RIVA Macharnudo Palomino de Flor con asoleado

La Riva Macharnudo Blanco recuperates a great wine based in the 'el Majuelo' vineyard (specifically in the tiny sub-vineyard parcela, el notario) within Pago Macharnudo[1]; a historical wine of el Marco de Jerez which disappeared under Domecq in the 1980s. 'El Notario' faces north (just under el Castillo de Majuelo, a castle crowning the pago) at 115m altitude, 18km in from the Atlantic, in a mixed poniente-levante setting. The soils are Tosca cerrada and barajuelas with a high level of diatomaceous fossils promoting great freshness. The fruit (Palomino 84) is hand-picked, with individual bunches selected in repeated passes over 2 months, which gain a degree or so of alcohol from an 8 hour soleo. It's then whole bunch pressed (only half the juice is taken). An ambient spontaneous fermentation in 600l  bota precedes 20 months ageing under a film of flor. 1,500 bottles were filled in May 2019 at 14% abv, 5.5 ta, and neither filtered nor fined. It faithfully reflects the origin and style of the structured white wine elaborated under this brand in the past. THE SPANISH ACQUISTION

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!

More product information will be added here soon! In the meantime, if you do have any questions at all about this product or others in our store, you can contact us by phone or email. Our friendly and experienced team are always happy to assist - we love drinking, selling, talking about and being in and around wine!