Pioneers Mixed Case

A charming white Rioja, smooth on the palate, with hints of crisp apple with a beautifully structured and creamy weight with lively acidity and freshness. Elegant, expressive, and utterly food-friendly. We are pleased to say that they are Wine Society Pioneers for their efforts towards sustainability. They select only the best grapes for, paying fairly and above market rate to ensure quality, secure supply, and encourage growers to farm more organically and regeneratively with composting, cover crops and soil analysis, conducting their own chemical soil analyses on compaction, organic matter, macro and micronutrients, phosphorous, etc. before making recommendations of what looks like the best approach. They also hire seasonal workers direct to ensure they are looked after, paid at or above minimum wage. To top it off, they have installed solar panels this year.

This unique blend especially created for The Wine Society is 80% grillo for lovely rich apricot and peach notes, with 20% carricante to lift the freshness while adding an elegant mineral note to the perfume. 2025 has created wines with real tension and good concentration. One of our Wine Society Pioneers for their work in sustainability, Rallo have been certified organic for 100ha of their own vineyards since 1994, among the first in Sicily to be so. They use only wild ferments and minimal sulphites, while the vines are drip irrigated, and water used in the facilities is purified and returned to the municipal system. Their electricity is 65% wind power, and they have plans to be 90% self-sufficient with the installation of solar panels. 10% of the estate is rewilded land, and the green cover between the vines no longer needs seeding and feeds grazing sheep in winter. All winery waste is recorded, they make compost from 50% of vineyard waste while the rest goes to a local distillery. All plastic, card and paper is recycled. 30 local families work here, while seasonal workers are hired direct, given contracts and paid into bank accounts, treating them the same as permanent staff. It's an impressive approach to be applauded.

A 'baby Barbaresco' courtesy of Enrico Dellapiana. This highly fragrant, vibrant expression of nebbiolo seduced our Wine Champions panel with its ‘elegant rose-petal perfume’ and ‘refined, pretty palate.’ Made from young vines in Barbaresco-certified vineyards, it's a fantastic bargain. Prestigiously certified Sistema Qualità Nazionale di Produzione Integrata (SQNPI), Rizzi are committed to working as sustainably as possible, from farming without irrigation, reusing water from the cellar and planning to collect rainwater, installing 50kw of solar panels so far, to moving toward organic farming. Growing cover crops encourages pollinators, and compost comes from their own vineyard waste and grape skins, all helping to maintain good soil structure. The planting of cypress and olive trees has the benefit of boosting biodiversity too, with the added bonus of delicious olive oil at the end.

Kotsifali is one of Crete's most exciting native varieties, producing rich, juicy, darkly fruited reds with supple texture, great freshness and bags of blackberry and cherry fruit. This organic example from leading producer Lyrarakis is well worth a try. Certified organic, and employing biodynamic methods and local traditions, working towards sustainability is an important component of farming at Lyrarakis and we are delighted to name them among our Wine Society Pioneers for their efforts. In such a hot area they conserve water wherever possible and use drip irrigation, and farm their soils regeneratively, moving to higher altitude vineyards to find cooler spots. Sheep are grazed, chicken, turkeys, geese and ducks forage, wild plants are encouraged and fruit and walnut trees planted. In 2025 solar panels were installed on the winery and the winemaker now drives an electric car!

Our third vintage of the successful Exhibition Spätburgunder has been produced by a young winemaker in the Pfalz, Vincent Eymann, whose estate has been working organically and biodynamically for many years. The 2024 vintage was cooler than both the 2023 and 2022 vintages and is reflected in crushed strawberries, red currant and red plums combined with lots of energy on the palate. Tannins are fine grained and the wine is incredibly well balanced.

A regular winner in our annual Wine Champions blind tastings and one of the most consistent and delicious barrel-fermented chardonnays in the world at this price point. Produced from around 50 to 60% estate fruit, with the balance coming from trusted growers, the 2025 is full of bright citrus and yellow-peach fruit and a whisper of spicy ginger. It's vibrant and juicy and, as ever, wears its oak brilliantly well. This is rich, yet fresh, and ages superbly. Rustenberg were one of our 2025 Climate and Nature Programme winners, with a small but wonderful project which involves 100 Indian Runner Ducks. Like many farms in the area, Rustenberg have to manage snails and mealybugs that eat and damage the vines. Rather than killing them with harmful synthetic sprays, a common practice on conventional farms, Tessa Van Zyl (the viticulturalist) and team prefer to work with nature to control these pests. Their initial foray into this approach, using a small flock of 21 ducks, has shown it can work. They are now looking to scale the approach up with an additional 100 ducks to see, over time, what impact it can have in keeping pest numbers down, reducing the use of pesticides and improving soil health from the duck manure. Look out on our socials for videos from the ‘duck cam’.