My favourites from the Bancroft Wines 2022 portfolio tasting

I was invited to attend this event last June (many thanks to Kat!).

It was quite a huge event with LOTS of producers showcasing a veritable variety of wines, and I quickly realised I could not even remotely try as many as I wanted, so I took a quick executive decision to just focus on the producers from the areas that have been intriguing me the most lately: Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Hungary, and neighbouring and “up and coming” trend-wise areas from France such as Alsace and Loire Valley.

Unfortunately left untasted were wines from Friulia in the north of Italy, Abruzzo, many from New Zealand and Australia (I was really looking forward to trying out more of their Pinot Noir and Rieslings), etc, etc.

Here are the ones I tasted and liked the best:

Austria

Burgenland

Michael Opitz

1. Pinot Gris + Traminer 2020, £16.75—NICE! Orange, floral, complex structure, mineral.
2. Buddy Talk White 2021, £10.25—Moscatel, pale.

Kamptal

Weingut Bründlmayer

1. Brut Rosé Reserve Niederösterreich g.U. NV, £23.75—Bubbly floral red. Pinot Noir, Zweigelt, St. Laurent.
2. Kamptal Terrassen Riesling Kamptal DAC 2021, £13.75—Lemony, stone fruit, subtle.
3. Kamptal Terrassen Grüner Veltliner Kamptal DAC 2021, £13.75—”Representative” Grüner Veltliner wine (made same way as the Riesling, but different grape).
4. Brut Reserve Niederösterreich g.U. NV, £23.75—Nice bubbles, complex lees.
5. Pinot Noir (Blauburgunder) Niederösterreich 2018, £24.25—Bit smokey, cherry.

France

Alsace

Domaine Ostertag

1. Pinot Gris Muenchberg A360P 2018, £45.95—Spicy? Peach, apricot. I can imagine this being nice with cheeses.
2. Sylvaner Vieilles Vignes 2020, £14.95—Subtleties.
3. Riesling Muenchberg Grand Cru 2019, £34.95—From volcanic soil, complex layers = semipetrol, lemon, stone fruit.
4. Pinot Noir Fronholz 2019, £28.95—Savouriness; smokiness??
5. Riesling Les Jardins 2020, £15.95—Late-ish harvest. Savoury???

Loire

Domaine des Vaublins

1. Malbec 2021, £9.25—cherry, fruity, subtle, nice. Not the Malbec I expected!
2. Touraine Sauvignon Blanc 2021, £8.75—with a bit of lees, good!
3. Crémant de Loire 2020, £12.25—lemon, very mellow sparkling.

Jérémie Huchet

1. Chapeau Melon Rouge 2020, £7.95—Gamay + Pinot Noir; lovely, easy drinking, Beaujolais style.
2. Brut Nature La Bretesche 1387 2020, £13.75—Refreshing!
3. L’inattendu Muscadet Sèvre-et-Maine 2020, £8.95—Complex and intriguing.
4. Chapeau Melon Blanc 2020, £7.95—good balance.
5. Chapeau Chenin Blanc 2020, £7.95—intriguing.

Germany

Mosel

Selbach-Oster

1. Zeltlinger Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese 2019, £18.45—Stonefruit!
2. Zeltlinger Sonnenuhr Riesgling Spätlese feinherb “Ur” Alte Reben 2020, £22.95—Complex. (“Ur” = ancient)
3. Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett 2020, £16.45—Natural yeast, very good, fruity, subtle off-dry

Pfalz

Weingut Schwarztrauber

1. Riesling Trocken 2020, £10.45

Weingut Eymann

1. Gönnheimer Spätburgunder 2020, £14.45

Hungary

Lake Balaton

Tiwari House

If I remember correctly they had bought a derelict winery and have been working on bringing it back into action for a while. Really striking wines!

1. Unwritten Poem Blanc Brut Nature 2020, £11.95—Very drinkable summer wine, bit fizzy (slightly reminds me of “gaseosa”). Low temperature fermented for 6 weeks.
2. Unwritten Poem Blaufrankisch 2019, £11.95—Like “chupachups” but in wine. Cherries!

Tokaj

Juliet Victor

1. Tokaji Szamorodni 2017, £25.95—Sweet! Apricot!
2. Tokaji Aszú 6 Puttonyos 2017, £58.95—Basically peach juice. To be savoured, every single drop of it.
3. Boarding pass 2018, £11.95—”Entry level”, very intriguing smells, like cheese?
4. Estate Furmint 2017, £14.95—more complex than above
5. Bomboly (2017, £20.45) and Kiraly (2017, £21.95)—both with Furmint, but the rest of my notes here are unreadable, I think it says something about each coming from grapes planted on the north and south side of a hill.

Unwritten Poem Blaufrankisch 2019, £11.95—Like “chupachups” but in wine. Cherries!

Slovenia

Gosriška Brda

Edi Simčič

These are barrel fermented.

1. Sivi Pinot 2019, £17.75—(Pinot Gris), super creamy, bit peachy, smokey-like. Complex, I like this.
2. Rebula 2020, £17.75—Complex and creamy.

And that’s all I tasted!

Hopefully I can get invited to more of these in the future and maybe I even get to stumble upon the Jancis Robinson, which was also there (but in the morning, like a true professional) 🤓

Why aren't more wine writers at today's @BancroftWines tasting? 500+ really superior wines and 93 producers of them?

— Jancis Robinson (@JancisRobinson) June 14, 2022

In the meantime, it might be a good idea to do some wine shopping at Bancroft…