International Women's Day Wines

This week to celebrate International Women's Day we’ll be pouring wines made by women, so I’ve written a short introduction on four of my favourites:

Ayana Misawa, Grace Wine, Yamanashi, Japan

Ayana (right) has studied winemaking in Japan, France (Bordeaux) and in South Africa (Stellenbosch), and has made wine with some of the most prestigious producers in the world. I remember her telling me that she was the second ever female winemaker in Japan. She’s still in her 30s, and as winemaker at Grace Wine the quality of the wines have just been getting better and better.

We stock the Grace Wine Koshu Kayagatake from Yamanashi Province, the home of the Koshu grape and many of the best wines in Japan. We were pouring the Koshu last weekend, which is always really well-received. Made from grapes grown at 700m, the style is elegant, well-structured, delicately floral and is probably most closely comparable to Chablis in style.

Estelle Roumage, Chateau Lestrille, Bordeaux, France – I’ve known Estelle (above) for a while now, having spent time together selling her wines to restaurants in London. She’s based in St Germain du Puch in the Entre-deux-Mers region of Bordeaux. She believes in sustainable viticulture, allowing the true expression of the vineyard to come to the fore.

We stock two of Estelle’s wines (although am almost certainly going to add her delicious barrel-aged Bordeaux Blanc to the list) – and am currently pouring her Merlot-dominated Chateau Lestrille Bordeaux Superieur. Her exceptional “Secret” de Lestrille was really well-received when we last opened a bottle in the shop, so we may well have to open this over the weekend too…

Luisella Benedetti, Ancilla Lugana, Lombardy, Italy – Ancilla was Luisella's grandmother, who founded the winery in 1909, waking at 3am every morning to make the winemaking dream come true. Now on to the third generation of women running the operation, Luisella gave up her job in finance to run the winery in the early 2000s. They also have a range of skincare products, although I haven’t tried these out yet!

The Ancilla Lugana 1909 is my favourite of her wines, a wine make from 100% Turbiana (think Verdicchio in style), near Lake Garda. Macerated for a short period on the skins, meticulously made with no addition of sulphites, this wine has really pure fruit, delicious texture and incredible well-balanced. A brilliant aperitif or Mediterranean Salad / seafood wine.

Alicia Eyaralar, Tandem, Navarra, Spain – Alicia (below right) has been making wine across Spain since 1989 and has been pushing forward the quality and reputation of Navarra DO since the early 90s. Alicia founded Tandem in 2003, and they have created a new wave of wines that are made with minimal intervention in their simple yet modern winery. No filtration, no cold-stabilisation, no mechanical pumping over – everything moves through a gravity-fed system and all of the reds spend two year

s in underground concrete vats.

We’ll be pouring their Ars Nova (Tempranillo, Cabernet, Merlot) and Ars in Vitro (Viognier, Viura). Both are lightly oaked, from cooler, elevated spots in Navarra. These are wines that have got quite a few customers really hooked already. They’re not fruit-bombs, but they feel alive, wines that seem to grow in complexity and change in texture as you drink them. Very good over dinner… nothing better than the Ars Nova with a plate of Manchego and Jamon.

We'll also be opening to taste other wines with interesting stories:

Frescobaldi Pomino Bianco - Lamberto Frescobaldi's great-great-grandmother was the first person to grow French grape varieties in this cooler part of Tuscany. Lismore Estate Barrel Fermented Sauvignon Blanc - Samantha O'Keefe was a TV producer in California before becoming internationally renowned winemaker in Greyton, South Africa.