Forest Wines now has an official Cork Recycling Station! This means you can finally let go of that cork collection you started ages ago, but never figured out what to do with, and free up some space in your house: all while helping the planet!

We’re one of many collection partners for a swiftly growing organisation called Recorked UK. They’re trying to make sure we don’t add to those pesky landfills by throwing our corks away when we finish our wine. By reselling corks in the form of crafts and cork-based products, Recorked UK is able to donate a percentage of their profits to some incredible charities dedicated to helping the environment. They also donate corks to schools and organisations that can use them for art or diy projects! Pretty nifty, eh? Check out their journal for some craft ideas if you’re not quite ready to get rid of that collection.

So, why is it so important to recycle corks at these stations?
Because it’s not as widely used as say, paper, cork is made from organic material that isn’t yet widely recycled. However, they don’t break down well in general waste either! They need to be properly composted in order to fully break back down on their own.

Seems like a lot of hassle. Why don’t we just stick to screw-on bottle tops, crown caps, or plastic corks?
Well. I won’t go into most of the ongoing debate around corks being a good or bad decision for winemakers. There are many sides to that, including considerations of a wine’s longevity, aging bottles, economic input, risk factors like mold and oxygen, and on and on. Those aspects are important, but also won’t be resolved in one blog post. Beyond the wine-based reasons, plastic corks and metal tops aren’t renewable or biodegradable resources, aren’t usually recycled and add unnecessary waste to the wine and beverage industry. Cork, on the other hand, is made from harvesting the outer layers of bark on cork trees (there are entire forests still alive because they’ve been used to make corks!) every nine years. So no
trees get cut down in the process, and the trees get plenty of time to grow and thrive to make sure they aren’t being damaged by these harvests. So the cork industry is simultaneously supporting sustainable forestry and creating a 100% naturally derived, multifunctional product.

We don’t want the sustainability of our corks to end when they leave our bottles! This is where Recorked UK comes in to save the day. So bring in your corks after you’re done using them, and drop them in our recycling station on your way out! We’ll send them along to Recorked, who’ll make sure they live on long after you’ve finished that lovely wine.

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The Czech Republic was formed in 1993, after the Velvet Revolution and the split with Slovakia. The country had been under communist control for decades and during this period winemakers were forced to turn their businesses over to the state. Vineyards were nationalised and turned into huge farms designed for easier and automated harvests, quantity not quality was favoured.

As Petr Ocenasek, a winemaker from Moravia, puts it;
“If ten comrades tasted one wine, you would have ten different opinions. That was in stark contrast with their ideology, appealing to uniformity in all areas.”
So, we can imagine what the wine culture was like during this period, mass produced blandness.

However, as with most cycles of life, things tend to go from one extreme to another, people react to homogeneity with a strong push for individuality.
Since the formation of the republic, producers have rediscovered the concept of terroir which, along with the introduction of modern winemaking techniques such as the use of stainless steel tanks and temperature-controlled fermentation, has led to an invigorated and exciting trend in winemaking.

Okay, let’s get the techs out of the way:
In preparation for EU membership, in 1995 the republic passed wine laws modelled on the German Wine Law. After EU reforms in 2008 the new terms CHZO and CHOP have been introduced, the former a PGI (Protected Geographical Indication), the latter a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin).

The most important wine producing region in the republic is Moravia, along the Austrian and Slovakian Borders. The climate is mild/continental with relatively low rainfall, on average a half to two-thirds that of Burgundy and Alsace which are on the same latitude. Warm days and cold nights mean that ripening is slowed down. Clay and sand dominate the soil. Two thirds of production is given to white varieties which yield highly aromatic, fresh and fruity wines with good acidity. The total area under vine is 17,500 ha.

Grape varieties grown include:
Riesling- Ryzlink Rýnský
Pinot Blanc - Rulandské Bílé
Muller Thurgau
Gruner Veltliner - Veltlínské zelené
Silvaner - Sylvánské zelené
St Laurent - Svatovavřinecké
Blaufrankisch - Frankova
Blauer Portugieser - Modrý Portugal
Pinot Noir or Rulandské modré, has also become very popular in the newer vineyards of Moravia.

Fortunately winemaking techniques have fully recovered from the communist era. There is a group of small independent producers with a wonderfully descriptive moniker, the ‘Authentists’ or ‘Autentisté’.
Included in this group are; Petr Kocarik, Korab, Stavek, Ota Sevcik, Dobra Vinice, Jaroslav Osicka, Tomas Cacik.
The culture of natural winemaking has been promoted with the help of Bogdan Trojak, natural winemaker, distributor, poet and proprietor of Veltlin, a wine bar located in Prague. This establishment has become a hub for the natural winemaking scene. It’s the perfect venue for Trojak to showcase cult Czech wines. He also organizes an annual festival, Prague Drinks Wine, very much on the ‘to do’ list.

It is said that the Czechs drink more wine than their country can produce, an apocryphal exaggeration of course. However, much of the quality wine produced is exported to neighbouring Slovakia and Austria. So we are very privileged to be able to source high quality Czech wines for our customers. We currently have three producers' wines in stock.

Springer and Stapleton’s Orange Pinot Noir

Krasna Hora’s Blanc de Noir Sekt Nature, Ryzlink Rynsky and Pinot Noir

Dva Duby’s Impera Red

All of these wines are made with thoughtful winemaking practices, highly individual and of excellent quality. We are looking to extend the range of Czech wines we stock in the very near future. The quality of these wines is imbued with the energy and vigour of the producers. It’s like being part of a new scene, when all the protagonists have something exciting to contribute, before the new thing becomes ubiquitous, stolen by marketing and competitive sales. Fortunately, the winemakers of the Czech Republic remember the bland old days, when uniformity, conformity, were the normality. It will be a very long wait to return to the bad old days.
Na zdravi!

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The term ‘sulphites’ and ‘SO₂’ have become increasingly part of winespeak. So, what exactly are they and why are they relevant?

Use of sulphur dioxide in winemaking has been around for centuries. It was produced on the spot by burning a piece of sulphur, empty casks were sterilised by lowering the burning sulphur into the cask.
A little basic chemistry; a sulphite is a compound that contains the sulphite ion, which is an electrically charged particle. SO₂ or Sulphur Dioxide, is not a sulphite but a closely related chemical oxide. This is formed when the element sulphur is burned in air.

The simplest way of obtaining sulphur dioxide is by using potassium metabisulphite, a white crystalline substance used as an antioxidant. This substance releases sulphur dioxide when dissolved in an ‘acid aqueous liquid’, and our favourite acid aqueous liquid is wine! Sulphur dioxide can also be used in its liquified gas form. It is toxic in large doses, but generally accepted as harmless when used correctly and is widely used as a preservative in many foodstuffs such as dried fruit, fruit juices and sausages. However it is known to cause allergic reactions in people with asthma.

More relevant to this subject however is the World Health Organisation’s recommended maximum daily intake, 0.7mg per kilo of bodyweight. For a man of average weight this is less than one third of a bottle of conventional white wine. Regular consumption of conventional wines could therefore mean quite regularly exceeding the RDA by a large margin.

Use of SO₂ can result in a loss of fruit and generally, good winemakers use it very sparingly. The principle use of SO₂ is as an antioxidant, ie. a preservative. It is also used as an antiseptic or antimicrobial agent as it kills bacteria in wine, in particular acetobacter which turns wine into vinegar. It keeps lactic-acid bacteria under control as well as Brettanomyces, often referred to as ‘brett’, a yeast that can cause spoilage in wine. Sulphur dioxide is in addition used as a corrective to freshen wine that has been poorly handled and begun to oxidize.

Under EU regulations, any wine that contains more than 10 milligrams per litre (mg/l) must be labelled ‘contains sulphites’ or ‘contains SO₂’, but here is where the story gets interesting; virtually all wines contain naturally present sulphites, as traces are produced by yeasts during fermentation, and usually at a higher amount than 10 mg/l, so even most natural wines will have ‘contains sulphites’ on the label. White wines generally require more SO₂ than reds as they do not have the benefit of protective tannins.

So what’s all the buzz about? Why are people asking for wines without added SO₂?


This shows a very wide variation in permitted levels, especially considering the base-line is sixteen times less than the highest permitted level for dry red wine.
Various organic organisations impose differing limits on certified and labelled products:
Nature&Progres and Demeter - 70, 90 and 210 mgs/l for red, white and sweet respectively.

The natural wine movement eschews the use of what are seen as unnecessary additives in wine, sulphur dioxide being high on the list. Winemakers who are part of this movement want to create a pure expression of their product. It takes immense skill to make a wine without any preservatives that shows the individuality of varietals and place. It is also understandable that if a consumer wants to limit their exposure to chemicals, by buying organic food and wine for example, that they would like to drink wines with less preservatives added. On a personal level, sticking to the WHO recommended daily limits for SO₂ would make a big dent in consumption, and that’s no fun at all.

There is a distinction between free SO₂ and total SO₂. When it combines with other natural substances such as sugars, aldehydes and ketones, sulphur dioxide is no longer protective and is known as the ‘combined, bound or fixed’ SO₂. There are higher amounts of aldehydes and ketones in poorly made and oxidized wines, therefore a greater proportion of the SO₂ becomes combined leaving less available for its primary purpose of protecting the wine. The ‘free’ SO₂ and the ‘combined’ equals the’ total’ SO₂.Combined SO₂ is released by stomach acid and is free to do its damage if above the safe amount.
Just to clarify; although most white or sweeter wines will have higher doses of SO₂, it is only the combined SO₂ that will usually become a problem and this will be higher in poorly made wines, so drinking a top class Riesling Auslese with a maximum of 350 mg/l will be better than a poorly made red wine with a maximum of 160 mg/l, but it will still make quite a dent in the RDA!

There are other substances in wine that can cause unpleasant reactions. Histamine and Tyramine are produced by lactic acid bacteria during malolactic conversion. There are higher amounts in red wines and they have been implicated in triggering headaches and ‘red wine intolerance’. Indeed, tannins themselves can also cause headaches.
White wines are more delicate and require higher protective amounts of SO₂. In addition they have a higher acidity which increases the release of SO₂ from solution and may be a cause of ‘white wine intolerance’.

As we know, white wines are more delicate due to less protection from skin tannins. The natural wine movement has found some degree of solution with the trend in ‘skin contact’ wines, white wine grapes allowed to macerate for varying lengths of time adding these protective substances to the wine thus enabling a far less interventionist regime. These winemaking techniques bring differing complexities to what is seen as usual for a particular variety. Amber coloured Pinot Grigios, Gewürztraminers with the most lusciously deep honeyed depth and complexity, these are wines that open up a whole new flavour profile.

Beaucastel, widely acknowledged as one of the world’s great wines, has been the subject of of a case study suggesting that the most successful vintages have been marked with high levels of Brettanomyces. It seems like a little bit, properly managed, can add to a wines character. Granted this is quite a specific type of wine, robust varietals and blends that can be positively enhanced, not delicate, soft wines where the highly noticeable brett characteristics would overpower.

However, it leads to an interesting and quite relevant supposition; if major players in the wine industry cannot agree if a bit of brett enhances a wine or not, the whole idea of ‘faulty’ wine comes into question. Obviously unpalatable stinky odours and sour flavours are one end of the spectrum, but a hint of this or that, who is to say whether it is not part of the whole wonderful idiosyncratic world that is wine? It is such a subjective area, all of our smelling and tasting history as individuals has such a bearing on how we perceive a wine. A possible reason for the acceptance of what purists would call faulty wine is the explosion of the craft beer industry in parallel with the natural wine trend. The flavour profile of some natural wines, with their unfettered yeasty aromas and flavours, could be described as similar to a pale ale. The intensely beautiful ‘Haggis’ by maverick Australian winemaker Patrick Sullivan has definite characteristics that would appeal to anyone who had a fondness for complex beers.

Limiting or eliminating the involvement of SO₂ in winemaking gives cause for the use of quality techniques, the winemaker has to ensure exceptionally high standards lest their whole vintage may spoil. Ingenuity, best practice and superior production can minimise intervention, creating wines of particular nuance and individuality.

Below is a list of the pros and cons of using sulphur dioxide in winemaking:

Whilst there is no excuse for winemakers to release faulty wines just because they are ‘natural’, the perception of fault can be highly individual. If the wine is pleasant to drink and expresses what the winemaker wants it should be enjoyed as just that.

A possible move forward would be for EU permitted levels and possibly the combined SO₂ to be displayed on bottles giving consumers the choice. Food labelling is far more rigorous so it seems only fair that we are given proper information about what is actually in our wine. Certified organic and biodynamic wines will have far less SO₂ added so maybe until then experiment with more naturally made wines, broaden your horizons and indulge in new experiences.

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Regardless of our many shortcomings, humans are incredibly inventive and imaginative. Thousands of years ago, we knew of this berry that at certain times of year ripened into something sweet and delicious. When stored in large vessels, some magic happened. The naturally occurring yeasts in the air and on the berries combined with the sugars in the fruit, this added with the wonder of time created a marvellous beverage. The drink was and is wine. The history of winemaking is a fascinating subject and although it is not the subject of this blog post, it does highlight the way in which wine was made for many hundreds of years, barely unchanged.

We maintained our ingeniousness throughout wines history. If there was an early frost that affected the grapes, we made Eiswein rather than see crop failure. If the grapes were accidentally left in the sun and shrivelled up we made things like Pedro Ximenez; a barrel of wine exposed to excessive heat whilst on board a ship traversing the world's oceans? Why, I'll have some of your finest Madeira please! The examples are endless, most all fortified, sherried or sweet wines were created by happy accident.

The method of wine production was for most of its history a simple but inexact process, and the end results varied greatly year on year. The introduction of commercially made wines led to a desire for a predictable product. Over the centuries many strange substances have been added to wine in order to achieve this stability.

Primarily, a substance is added to a wine to help stabilize and clarify it. Preservatives are also added to prevent spoilage. A fining agent can remove yeasts and proteins, which can cause the wine to look cloudy. They can also be used to remove excessive tannins in harsh young red wines. Fining agents include albumen, casein, isinglass which is derived from fishes swim bladders, chitosan, which is made from crustacean shells, and gelatine.

Most young wines, if left long enough under good conditions, would eventually reach the same state of clarity as fining can achieve within months, but fining saves money for the producer and therefore the consumer. Consequently, it has been more commercially made wines that tended to have such fining agents used.

Again, the adaptability of the humans comes into play as more and more producers are turning to animal friendly methods in their wine making. Why exclude an increasing number of your potential customer base unnecessarily? Alternatives include; bentonite clay, carbon, limestone, kaolin clay, plant casein, vegetable plaques, and silica gel.

Current EU regulations state that any fining agent used should be declared an allergenic substance so it is quite easy for retailers to find out what has been used in any particular wine's production. A supplier should have an allergen file with details from the producer as to what potential allergens, and therefore animal substances, have been used in production.

With increasing interest in plant based diets we asked our suppliers to furnish us with this information so we could pass it on to customers. As we focus on organic and biodynamic wines is has been a pleasant surprise to discover that in addition the large majority of our wines are vegan friendly. The trend towards less commercially made wines makes it fairly easy to find producers that make lovely well made wines without the need for animal based fining products.

Browse all our vegan wines >>

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In an age of football clubs releasing footballers for free and then paying 100 million euros for them back a mere four years later. In an aeon where English expats living in Spain vote to leave Europe, it doesn't surprise me that we sell an orange wine that doesn't contain any oranges.
I presume it's called that due to its colour I believe you are thinking.

Well yes. It is.

Orange wine is what a millennial would Insta call 'blowing up' right now. It blowing up all over the wine world and people are picking up this left-field drink on summer eves more and more.

The wine is left a lot longer on the skin than other whites and placed in terracotta pots Roman style although the techniques are historically based thousands of years ago to the Eurasian wine producing country of Georgia.

The Italians have taken this craft and really ran with it. Here in our local we serve this tangerine beauty - Baglio Bianco - an organic Catarratto from western Sicily. We have so many Sicilian wines that I presume the island is just a volcano and vineyards. Made with three days maceration on skins this is almost bronze coloured with aromas of russet apples and red plums.

This natural wine is low on sulphites and decent in strength at 12%. Beautifully paired with pork, veal or poultry. I recommend this tasty Northern treat as a dish to eat and watch the new season of Game of Thrones with.

The estate this wine is made almost looks like a Kings Landing.

Thanks be to Jamie, such a lovely man.

He was a Naked Chef...That wasn't naked.

Oh, and if you are ever see me in the shop please rock up with some more contradictions.

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