JancisRobinson.com Wine Reviews
If you have visited us you know the sort of love and care that goes into our wines. Sean puts his heart and soul, and blood and sweat into these babies. Reading these reviews brings tears of joy for it is the result of more than a decade of commitment, tenacity, investment, belief and hard work to bring this farm back to life and to create wines that are unique and each one a story in itself.
What a rake of amazing reviews! 🙂 Bravo Sean.
Ch Feely, Terroir Grâce 2014 Vin de France
17.5/20
Certified organic and biodynamic. 50% Merlot, 50% Cabernet Sauvignon. Natural fermentation followed by 48 months of barrel ageing. A wine that steadfastly refused to do its ‘malo’ hence the super-long barrel ageing. It finally did it in late summer 2018, bottled April 2019. Caro Feely writes, ‘Life is exciting as a natural winemaker – we have to follow our wines and respect their cycles… and be patient.’ Spontaneous fermentation, unfined, unfiltered. Total sulphites 28 mg/l.
Meaty, just-sliced bresaola and crushed-green-peppercorn nose. Super-spicy! This has real bite. Cardamom and black elderberries. Juniper. Tiny, tight-fisted blackcurrants. Coal-dusted tension, but those tannins are oh-so-fluid – they seem to glide like evening shadows slip in over stone walls and turn baked earth and hot stones into something more mineral-perfumed. Rain on black rocks and a wild, rosemary-and-sage-baking-in-dusty-summer herbaceousness that shimmers above the fruit in the way that heat shimmers over tar. Stretched like cello strings over the bridge and under the bow and every note soaring. (TC)
Order the latest vintage of Grâce here
Ch Feely, Terroir La Source 2018 Vin de France
17/20
Certified organic and biodynamic. 70% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon (bit more Cab than before as their 2009 half hectare of Cab is just coming into itself). Spontaneous fermentation, 100% percent barrel aged, unfiltered, unfined. Bottled April 2020. Total sulphites 40 mg/l. Bottle 1,098 of 3,700.
Crisp red fruit and so beautifully delineated on the palate that it tastes as if it’s been carved from redcurrant and blackberry stained glass. There is a fragrance of cedar and green tobacco leaf and sandalwood shavings and green peppercorns that seems to fly through the nostrils. The tannins are remarkable – I’m not sure I’ve come across anything quite like them. They are there, but not there. They have the exquisitely beautiful, cut structure of an Olympian long-distance runner, but it’s as if the fruit and spice throw this feather-light invisibility cloak over them. You actually have to stop and consciously look for them to notice them. There is a little Harry Potter magic in this wine… Achingly fresh and yet dense and with this explosive, resolute energy that carries the wine long, long past the finish line. I hate to say this, but it’s a ridiculous price. Very Good Value. (TC)
Order the La Source 2018 here
Ch Feely, Terroir Générosité 2018 Vin de France
17 ++
Certified organic and biodynamic. 80% Sémillon, 20% Sauvignon Blanc. Caro Feely writes: ‘This is a wine for ageing. We had an 8-year-old Générosité at Christmas and it was really hitting its stride. Old Sémillon vines planted in 1945. Natural fermentation in stainless steel then aged on fine lees in barrel (barrels are new light toast French oak from Jupilles forest) for 16 months and bottled (April 2020). Total sulfites 55 m g/l. As natural winemakers we don’t use any additives or add sulfites in the winemaking (some used in barrel cleaning). But we added at bottling because this wine has a touch of residual sugar (<0.04g/l) and we didn’t want it refermenting.’ 2,200 bottles made.
Deep baked-apple and ground-cloves richness and spiciness on the nose – so tangible on the nose that it feels as if you could lick the aromas coming out of the glass. The acidity is fierce and imperative but complex, feeling like a latticework of knives overlaid with a lacework of lemon-ice shards. Underneath, the fruit is ripe, golden, hazelnut-toasty and shapely. The wine is brusque, right now, dealing with its own youth and angles and needing everyone to back off for a year or two and give it space. But it’s loaded with potential and glittering with pent-up excitement. (TC)
Order the Générosité 2018 here
Ch Feely, Terroir Sincérité 2019 Vin de France
17/20
Certified organic and biodynamic. 100% Sauvignon Blanc. Caro Feely writes, ‘Sin 2019 has great acidity and tension despite relatively high alcohol. It is an indication of the coming challenges of global warming – if we had picked earlier for lower alcohol (we’d prefer 12.5 or 13) the acidity would have been through the roof and we would have had really green notes. Finding balance is going to be a challenge. This wine is natural fermentation in stainless steel, aged on fine lees in stainless for 6 months and bottled young (April 2020). Total sulfites 51 mg/l – added at bottling. Since we are natural winemakers we don’t use any additives or sulfites in the winemaking. But we added at bottling because this wine has 0.04 g/l of residual sugar and we didn’t want it refermenting. Also ref comment above – I think the balance is right – if we had forced that tiny bit of residual sugar to ferment (which as natural winemakers we don’t do anyway) perhaps it would have been too acidic… but we couldn’t choose to not sulfite at bottling because of the residual sugar.’
Smells of fresh chopped fennel bulb and petrichor. Cool, razor-edged lines slicing through the palate like a very sharp knife cuts through fridge-cold kohlrabi and then there is that freshness that is so crisp it makes your spine tingle and a nutty greenness that is neither vegetable nor fruit but is high-pitched humming with the wire-tightness of the acidity. This takes your breath away with its almost merciless tension and acidity, but, like getting into cold water, once you’re in, it starts to make sense and you lean in. There’s a spicy, lifted heat, like green jalapeño and white pepper. There are steely boundaries, hemming the wine into race-track focus and linearity. The finish is decisive, exact and so clean it is blinding. Good Value (TC)
Order the latest vintage of Feely Sincérité here
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Thank you to JancisRobinson.com for reviewing our wines! Order biodynamic natural and organic wine from Feely online organic wine boutique , learn more about organic and wine at Wine school or read Caro’s books Grape Expectations , Saving our Skins and latest book Glass Half Full to discover the story of building this organic vineyard. You can also join the mailing list at the bottom right of the homepage to for latest news or follow us on facebook or instagram.