March 2026 Release

After highlighting my discoveries of the last few years in the first release of the OGB Wine Club, I thought I’d highlight some old favourites for the second release. These are wines that I was a fan of in Toronto and poured in restaurants there and then added to the list – or tried to add to the list – at Fhior. This selection does skew slightly towards red wine, with three of the four wines in the release being of the more pigmented persuasion, but nonetheless offers considerable stylistic diversity, as these three reds are all very different from one another – and different, what more, from the two reds in the first release. Also, there are upcoming themes that will exclude reds, so it’s not a bad shout, I hope, to be red-heavy this month.

Moric Blaufränkisch Reserve 2021, Burgenland, Austria

Weingut Moric’s Roland Velich is widely regarded as the master of Blaufränkisch, the premier red grape of Central Europe. Treating Blaufränkisch as more of a cool-climate variety that could, with the right approach, transmit terroir in the manner of Pinot Noir in Burgundy or Syrah in the Northern Rhône, Velich has been both successful and influential. His Blaufränkisch Reserve is a big step up from his basic Blaufränkisch, which is the only Moric wine available through Scottish distribution channels. Whereas the basic Blaufränkisch is made from younger vines, the vines for the Reserve average 50 to 60 years of age and some are over 100 years old, as the Reserve is made in part from declassified barrels of the top Moric wine, the Lutzmannsburg Alte Reben. Offering a lot of the quality of that wine at less than half the price, Moric’s Blaufränkisch Reserve is a sommelier’s smart buy, and the 2021 is a great vintage of it, yielding a wine with a wonderful sense of depth and substance balanced by cool herbal and mineral freshness.

Domaine de Bellivière Rouge Gorge 2022, Coteaux du Loir, France

That’s not a typo! There is a tributary of the Loire called the Loir, and it’s overlooking this tributary, in the northernmost vineyards of the Loire valley, that Eric Nicolas and his son Clément organically and biodynamically farm their vineyards of Chenin Blanc and Pineau d’Aunis. While their whites are lovely, there are numerous producers making lovely wines from Chenin Blanc in the Loire; but I have not tasted Pineau d’Aunis from any other producer that compares to those made by Eric and Clément. Rouge Gorge is a red wine that is haunting in its singularity; I think of it as a salt-and-pepper wine, with lovely fruit notes (wild strawberries and mulberries) complemented by notes of cracked black pepper and a subtle saline quality on the finish.  

Quinta de Baixo (Niepoort) Poeirinho 2015, Bairrada, Portugal

According to the indefatigable Dirk Niepoort, Baga grown in Bairrada represents the best marriage of grape variety and terroir in Portugal – and if anyone could make that assertion confidently, it’s Senhor Niepoort. For this wine, the Baga vines are 100 years old, and they grow in chalky clay soils near the Atlantic coast in Bairrada. Yet there are two things holding Poeirinho back from stardom in the wine world: first, it’s quite mute when young and takes about 10 years to start strutting its stuff; and secondly, it’s a subtle rather than showy wine and a slightly unusual wine at that. Coming in at 11.5% ABV, it’s not a fun/chillable/crushable hipster red, but a serious red that rewards attention with smoky red fruit and an ethereal texture.

Thierry Germain L’Insolite 2024, Saumur, France

Thierry Germain is one of the small handful of winemakers who makes top-notch white and red wines. My favourite of all his wines, for the incredible quality it offers at a very reasonable price, is his L’Insolite cuvée. Insolite translates as ‘unusual’ or ‘out of the ordinary’ and refers to the silex or flint soils – rare in Saumur – in the vineyard in which the 90-year-old Chenin Blanc vines Germain uses to make this wine grow. Whereas silex is known to yield richer expressions of Sauvignon Blanc, it here yields a very linear, taut, stony and savoury expression of Chenin Blanc without any of the lanolin and honey notes that the grape has elsewhere in the Loire. This is a stealthily great wine that people often have to take a few sips of before they realise how special it is.