We spend time with Albert Ahrens in the Graft offices to talk about the advent of the South African wine revolution, how to do packaging just right, and the importance of soul in wine.

Albert was winemaker at Lammershoek in the Swartland, before stints in Champagne, Priorat and the Rhône Valley, returning home to work on a variety of projects before setting up on his own. He drives 40,000km per year between vineyards, making wine his cellar in Wildepaardejacht, a serene location beneath the Du Toitskloof mountains, just outside Paarl. Then there’s his MCC, under the separate House of GM & Ahrens label and cellared in Franschhoek – the only bubbly maturation cellar in the centre of town – further adding to the odometer. These are terroir-driven wines from all over the Cape, taking in the Swartland, Voor-Paardeberg, Stellenbosch (Bottelary Hills to be precise), Franschhoek, and Elgin, with more to come from Helderberg, Robertson, Paarl and Tulbagh. Wines that, so Albert says, express their “address” first and foremost, rather than the cultivar..

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We catch up with Gavin Monery at the Vagabond winery in Battersea. Gavin reveals what he used to drink as an Australian cellar hand, and what he really thinks about rosé.

Gavin made his start in wine as a 'cellar rat' in Margaret River, almost 20 years ago. Initially working with a large, commercial producer Gavin worked his way up to a Cellar Foreman position, before studying part time and shifting focus to become a Lab Technician. Eventually, an obsession with quality lead to a role with Cullen Wines, where he was introduced to organic and bio-dynamic vineyard principles, along with regular tastings of some of the best wines in the world. These generous tastings stoked a desire for travel and after three years learning at Cullen, Gavin packed his bags for what became a decade of travel. During this time he worked in 6 countries, highlights of which included working with Jean Louis Chave in the Rhone, buying grapes and making wines under his own label in Burgundy and building the first winery in London since Roman times. Bitten by the English wine bug, Gavin moved to Vagabond Wines in late 2017 and built a winery in the Battersea Power Station, where he is currently focused on the challenge of making the best still wine in England.

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We catch up with Filippo Mangione at Soif in Clapham ahead of a journalists' lunch to find out what was so special about Etna that brought him back home to Sicily to make wine, despite how 'weird' he seemed to all the locals.

Filippo Mangione farms five hectares of old, low-yielding vineyards – some vines between 150 and 200 years old – all within a mile of each other on the northern slopes of Mt Etna in an exceptional contrada called Calderara Sottana, whose rocky, volcanic soils are derived from Etna's very first eruption 3,000 years ago. His bush vines are 700 metres above sea level and found within one of only three sites on Etna whose fundamental soils have seemingly not been altered by ensuing eruptions. Work in the vineyards is both hands-on (no machinery) and hands-off (no chemicals), with native grapes interplanted as was traditional.

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