Red currant, luxardo cherries, pomegranate pith, wild strawberry. Adult juice box.
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Trollinger Boutanche: Trollinger (also known as Schiava in northern Italy) is traditionally a very important red grape in Swabia, and Andi is a keen advocate of it. This wine may come in cheap, cheerful liter bottles, but it it is seriously good suff. Light colored, even see through, it is amply fruited, but with grip and tons of refreshing acidity.
Low intervention and organic methods are used in both the vineyards and cellar. Fermentation is with indigenous yeasts.
Farming: Certified organic
Vegan
Whereas winemaking was a hobby for earlier generations at this domain (a way of winding down after a day's work at the nearby Mercedes-Benz factory), Andi Knauss has long known he wanted to be a vigneron. After wine school and a stage in Austria (where Andi learned how to work organically in the vineyard, and to care for the soil) he took over the reins at Weingut Knauss in 2004, and in less than 10 years, he has developed one of the most important and exciting estates in this region. The vineyards are worked naturally, and winemaking is careful and conscientious. Natural fermentations and minimal sulfur are the norm throughout the range, and some cuvees see no sulfur at all.
Andi, who is in his early thirties, runs a tight ship, making wine from over a hundred different plots in Strümpfelbach, the village where the winery is located, and a few surrounding villages in the hills around the river Rems. These hills are composed of different types of limestone of different eras, basically layered on top of each other, changing with the altitude, between 300 and 400 meters above sea level. Vineyard land here is expensive, but Andi has slowly built up the estate parcel by parcel, sometimes just a row, selecting the best sites to be blended into the "Selection" and "Reserve" bottlings.
About La Boutanche (from the importer):When we were first starting out, we quickly became disappointed with the lack of good natural wine in the $20 range. Not being the kind of people to say ‘well, it is what it is’, we got to work thinking about how we could remedy this situation. So, we started talking with our producers and, already knowing what we wanted - native yeast fermentations, low or zero SO2 additions, and the like; basically pure unadulterated glou glou that we could put into a liter-sized screw-top bottle and would be a great introduction to natural wine - it didn’t take long for us to find winemakers who were willing to partner with us on this project.
100% Trollinger
Blauer Trollinger is the most common German name for the black grape variety known as Schiava in Italy, Vernatsch in the Tyrol, and Black Hamburg by many who grow and buy table grapes. It originated in the Italian Tyrol and its German name evolved from it's original name, Tirolinger. In Germany, it is associated exclusively with Wurttemberg, where it has been cultivated since the 14th century. This southern region's 5,804 acres places this grape as the fourth most planted red wine vine, and almost all of the resulting wine is consumed locally.
Country: Germany
Appellation: Wurttemberg-Remstal
Nationally and internationally award-winning wines establish the reputation of the Remstal as a wine-growing region. The cultivated types of wine include high-quality and new grape varieties such as Acolon, Cabernet Mitos or Cabernet Dorio, which are often offered directly by younger winemakers. At the same time, old varieties such as Riesling, Kerner, Pinot Noir, Lemberger and Trollinger are produced, preserved and cared for. With only 10 percent of the cultivation area in the Remstal, 45 percent of the top businesses in Baden-Württemberg are at home. The majority of the 780 hectares of vineyards in the Remstal are farmed after work; the part-time winemakers are usually organized in one of the two large Remstalkellerei cooperatives or the Fellbacher Weingärtnern. Here the grapes are pressed and expanded. The Remstalkellerei is one of the largest cooperative wineries in Germany.
Tasting: Red currant, luxardo cherries, pomegranate pith, wild strawberry. Adult juice box.
Pairing: Antipasti, salami, Pad Thai.