One or two of my readers may be aware that I have been struck low with a virus this week. Not only has that meant an involuntary wine detox, but it has also tested my addiction to writing, just at a time when I was expecting to knock out three more articles before Real Wine comes around at the end of the month. One of those was to be on the Edinburgh Trade Tasting of Tutto Wines, held on Tuesday this week. I just couldn’t drag my coughing and spluttering body out of bed but I thought that I’d still give Tutto a bit of a plug.
It’s not because those nice chaps Alex and Jack had been kind enough to allow me to elbow in on their trade clients (though it was indeed very kind of them). I’m writing purely out of self-interest. Tutto don’t, unlike many importers who sell to individuals (in Tutto’s case via their Tutto a Casa online shop), deliver to private customers in Scotland. This means that to grab their wines I have to persuade the Edinburgh Wine Trade to stock them. You see, Tutto sells a whole bunch of producers who are essential to my cellar.
Although this article is merely a selfish attempt to grab these wines, of course it is of just as much interest to my wider readership, which is after all somewhat stronger in England, the USA and Australia than it seems to be in Scotland.
Another reason for being seriously pissed-off at missing the tasting is that it was held at Montrose, the new venue just opened by the team at Edinburgh’s famous Timberyard. It’s in an old 19th Century pub around the back of Calton Hill, about a fifteen-minute walk from Waverley Station. It’s on Montrose Terrace, which is actually part of the A1. By all accounts the Timberyard team has made a good job of the conversion of this listed building, and they are putting out food to match.
Anyway, back to Tutto. They showed a little over twenty wines from their ever-expanding portfolio (more of that later), plus a couple of the Savoie beers they bring in. This was a mix of the big guns (Cossard from in this case Chiroubles, Lambert from Anjou, Robinot’s Jasnières, and of course Anders Frederik Steen from the Ardèche) with some good value gems from Banyuls, Sicily, Lazio, Hérault and Ardèche once more.
If I were to single out one thing only that I like and admire about Tutto, it is this. Many importers have the really big names sewn-up. What Tutto excel at is finding the new, hip, trendy, cool but most importantly goddam brilliant producers that hardly anyone has heard of. They do it time and time again and it proves that they really know their sh…tuff.
What I thought I’d do in this very short piece is list a selection of producers from Tutto Wines’ portfolio that I suggest are worth looking out for. Attendees at the tasting will have had a sniff of a few, but others didn’t make it up to Scotland, which might well be because they just sell out too quickly and they are awaiting a restock. It can’t be because the guys don’t think Edinburgh is savvy or cool enough for them. So here we go:
Manon Farm (Adelaide Hills, South Australia): Monique Millton and Tim Webber (yes, Monique is a daughter of the famous NZ Millton wine family) have a small (under 5ha) farm up in the “Hills”. They are pretty much unknown in the UK, although a flick through Honey Spencer’s new book shows she, as ever, has her finger on the pulse. Tutto sells three wines from Manon Farm, showing just their Rosato on Tuesday. I wonder how many tasters knew its geek factor, but it isn’t expensive.
Lambert Spielmann (Alsace, France): I won’t say much about Lambert. My very last article praised one of his superb “New Alsace” cuvées. Rising star is, in any case, becoming a bit tired and over-used. But innovative will do. Makes wine from a tiny domaine scattered around Epfig and nearby hamlets/villages in a sub-region of the Bas Rhin that is the beating heart of natural wine Alsace.
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Yannick Meckert (Alsace, France): Tutto really do have a nose for Alsace. All their growers are more than worth a try, but they recently took on Yannick, whose wines I already knew through his now curtailed association with Du Vin Aux Liens (imported by Glasgow’s Sevslo Wines). Not only has Yannick worked with some fine natural wine producers around France, but he has also made Sake in Japan with Terada Honke (respect!). He has 3.5ha around Rosheim and I could go on at length about the man’s future potential.
The wine made by Yannick below is not, I think, one of Tutto’s, but it does betray some early YM-style branding
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Maison Maenad (Jura, France): Tutto have, I think, ten Jura domaines and as you will know my particular love of the region, you’ll know this is hard for me. I’m choosing Katie Worobeck’s domaine at Orbanga because you may not know her wines yet, but they will soon have every unicorn chaser in East London asking for an allocation (thankfully I have a secret, non-UK source, at least for the odd bottle). Katie was born in Canada but worked with the Ganevats for five years before she found her old vines. This is a producer who will sort those who trust my ability to be ahead of the game and those who don’t.
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Tutti Frutti Ananas (Banyuls, France): This collaboration turns out quite simple but super-tasty wines from the barren and stony hills above Collioure, near where the Pyrenees literally plunge into the Mediterranean. I think they grow their red grapes on their own small plot, but buy in the white grapes (Grenache Gris and Vermentino). They make the wines with the better known “Les 9 Caves” co-operative. The wines are made in an old garage in the town. Vibrant stuff for a good price (for natural wine). Nice packaging too.
Domaine de Kalathas (Tinos, Cyclades, Greece): For me, subjectively, one of the two best natural wine estates in Greece (the other being Ktima Ligas). They are based on Tinos, an island in the Cyclades ravaged by winds. The wines, the product of very old bush vines off sandy granite, seem to distil that turbulence and come out intense with energy. The winds make for disease free natural winemaking, not that the island doesn’t have other issues (like bush fires…and property developers…and more bush fires). These wonderful wines have, I admit, become somewhat more expensive than they were before the B-word severed the Channel link, but wonderful they are, nevertheless.
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Le Coste (Lazio, Italy): This isn’t a small estate. They (being Gianmarco Antonuzzi and Clémentine Bouveron) farm 14ha near the Lago di Bolsano, at Gradoli. They’ve also been making natural wine here for around twenty years, and they make (and Tutto imports) over twenty different bottlings, plus some rather fine olive oil if it’s a decent harvest.
Testalonga (Liguria, Italy): I had to include the Ligurians. Okay, forget some of the beaches, but have you seen how beautiful this small region is? Testalonga is the label of Antonio Perrino in the region of Dolceacqua (not to be confused with the exceedingly hip South African Testalonga label). I think Tutto lists his “Bianco”, as well as the wine for which the region is synonymous, Rossese di Dolceacqua. These are semi-aromatic reds, foot trodden and with the potential to age a very long time, which I kind of doubt a single bottle that reaches the UK ever will. The grape is known as Tibouren in Provence, which lovers of the wonderful Clos Cibonne will know.
Cascina Tavijn (Piemonte, Italy): Nadia Verrua makes wine in a place I know very well, the Monferrato Hills in the Piemontese province of Asti. The rolling hills here are very beautiful and its alure as a destination for wine tourism remains woefully under-appreciated. Viticulture and winemaking at this estate have been called “rustic”, but that should only be taken as a compliment. Zero added, the wines are characterful and soulful, and they remind me of the kind of wines the really old timers used to get a tear in their eye talking about when they’d been to Beaujolais before the Nouveau debacle.
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Other names you will know, but may not be aware that Tutto is a UK importer, are Arpepe (Valtellina), Domaine L’Octavin (Jura) and the late Julie Balagny (Beaujolais). I would wonder at the thinking behind any wine retailer who wouldn’t be jealous to have all three on their shelves, although sadly in the case of Julie, there must be very little left now?
![](https://maharashtragrapes.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/1714323818_956_Missing-Out-–-Tutto-Wines-Trade-Tasting-in-Edinburgh.jpg)
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So, if we include the three above, that’s ten producers. All of them deserve to appear somewhere in any budding natural wine metropolis. I’d be very grateful if they did…plus any others you tasted on Tuesday and fell in love with, but which I missed out on trying. Let’s see! I missed out on Tuesday, but you don’t need to.