Natural wine exists!

We break with tradition and ship a new type of French regional wine from The Valley of the Loire and the mountains of the Jura called “natural”. It differs from traditional wine by not being corrected or reshaped by additives or modern technologies (seventy-five procedures and oenological treatments are nowadays authorised in Europe) nor containing an excessive amount of sulphur as is common.

In the last five or ten years natural wine has become more talked about on the internet, in the media, books, cinema and in its own circle. In short, natural wine exists, with or without official recognition or logo, and is being drunk more and more worldwide. The absence of a chemical straight jacket and a minimum or no sulphur, make it more digestible, feminine and often sufficient in itself to be enjoyed before, after or simply away from food. Referred to as living wine, it is the most visible manifestation of artisan viticulture.

Why not get to know this unorthodox wine of the avant-garde through our wine list free, available on demand?

The Valley of the Loire

The Valley of the Loire, a thousand kilometres of bonheur.

From the Nantais where the melon de bourgogne prospers to the rejuvenated vineyards of the Auvergne, the Loire beckons us. One comes here for the “douceur angevin” and the wines of Anjou from the chenin, the “queen” of white grapes, the firmer wines of Saumur and their brothers of Chinon, the delicacy of the Chevernys and the magnificent sight of the rolling hills of kimmeridgian marls of Sancerre consecrated to the sauvignon. In the land of a thousand châteaux, the cabernets are king.

Not having grands crus as in Burgundy or Alsace, or the classifications of the Bordelais whose wines are traded at vertiginous prices, the growers of the Loire reject the hierarchy of wine growing, endowed as they are with their paradis-sur-terre: in 2000 the stretch of the river between Sully north of Orleans, downriver through Blois, Tours and Anger to Chalonne, was classed as a Worldwide Heritage Site by UNESCO.

It is here that the organic and biodynamic movements have for quite a time seen the light, coupled with the more recent, fast growing, digestive natural wines. In fact, the region hosts the greatest number of natural growers.

The Mountains of the Jura

On the lower ridges of the Jura mountains autochthon grape varieties are cultivated, giving another kind of wine. Resistant to the cold of winter, they cheat the frost of the spring and the burning heat of summer, late maturers on a soil of marls of the Jurassic period.

Traditional methods of vinification, forgotten by the rest of the world, such as the maturing over six years and three months! of savagnin grapes, protected from oxidation by a veil of yeast which forms on the surface of the wine and gives birth to the particular character of the vin jaune, of an unsurpassed aging potential, and wines charged with ethanol which is the origin of powerful notes of apple and green walnuts. They speak of old times.

A region forgotten by the majority of guides; these are wines of discovery for the adventurous wine drinker.

Contact Us

Ewer Limited
21 Wavendon Avenue
Chiswick
London, W4 4NP
tel/fax: 020 8995 5077
tel: 020 8994 3808
email: admin@ewerwines.co.uk