Lautaral Wines

This months offering comes in the form of Pinot Noir which despite being responsible for many of the worlds finest and most expensive wines is notoriously difficult to cultivate for a number of reasons.

Temperature

the first of these is that in order to allow all of the complex flavours and aromas to develop the grape requires a long slow ripening period which generally means that it must be grown in areas that are right at the cooler limit of where wine can be produced. 

The Grape

The pinot noir grape itself is very small with very thin skins. This can be an advantage as it gives the wine its light body and colour but also means that if the utmost care is not taken the wine can be a bit thin and insipid. The thin skins of the Pinot Noir grape also make them highly vulnerable to frost and hail with both being known to regularly destroy entire harvests.

Disease

On your typical bunch of Pinot Noir grapes the grapes are very densely packed together which reduces the airflow between grapes. This coupled with the fact that pinot noir thrives in cooler, damper conditions means that rot and fungal disease can often take root in the vineyard. Often expensive vineyard management techniques have to be employed to counter this.

All of these factors tend to combine to mean that it’s extremely difficult to find a decent Pinot Noir for under a tenner so I hope that you will agree that this one from Romania represents incredible value.

Sauvignon Blanc

This Sauvignon is made in a classic style with grapes harvested in the cool of the night to maximise the freshnes of the fruit aromas. It has the traditional gooseberry notes that you would associate with the Sauvignon grape as well as marked tropical and citrus fruit aromas.

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