POWERGLOW | More Natural Wine
POWERGLOW - the collaboration between two powerfrauen!
POWERGLOW is special, yearly changing wine from a very exciting collaboration between female winemakers Pauline Baumberger (Glow Glow Wines) and Alanna Lagamba (Vin de Lagamba)!
Pauline and Alanna are not just great examples of real Powerfrauen in the natural wine world, but are also very close friends, and together with their partners Jonas (from Brand Bros) and Martin (from Marto Wines) can often be seen laughing and dancing together.
For their first vintage together, the two set out to create a wine that feels and drinks like a Gamay, without actually using the grape variety. To make this happen, they blended two grapes - a carbonic maceration of Portugieser from Rheinhessen from Alanna and a skin-fermented Spätburgunder (Pinot Noir) from Nahe from Pauline. They were then combined and fermented in a large wooden barrel at Weingut Baumberger to make their glou-glou style POWERGLOW 2020 originally released for our pals at VinSuperNaturel in Denmark and now available elsewhere!
With their second vintage, Pauline and Alanna felt more comfortable with the process and wanted to experiment some more - so they set out to make a wine that neither the Glow Glow nor Vin de Lagamba lines would produce on their own. The resulting wine is a white cuvée made from skin-fermented Müller-Thurgau from Pauline and fresh Riesling must from Alanna. After the grapes were combined, they were then fermented in a large wooden barrel at Weingut Wörner in Flonheim (where Vin de Lagamba wines are vinified) and the result is POWERGLOW 2021, a more serious and structured white wine.
Pauline Baumberger & Glow Glow Wines-
Glow Glow Wines is a joint venture of siblings Pauline and Carl Baumberger - sixth-generation winemakers in Nahe, Germany, who like many German natural winemakers are the first in their family to make natural instead of conventional wines.
Whilst Carl always knew he wanted to be a winemaker, Pauline left home and the winemaking area, originally not planning to get into winemaking herself. The longer she stayed away, however, the more fascinated she became by wine and eventually returned to the family vineyard. Whilst her family was open for the change and gave her some of the family vines to “experiment” with, not everyone in the very conventional wine region liked her natural wines.
Pauline however loves and lives her new philosophy through and through, caring not just about making wine in a natural way without unnecessary additives, but also living and farming biodynamically and sustainably. The name Glow Glow is a wordplay on the french term “glou glou”, describing very easy drinkable wines.
Alanna Lagamba & Vin de Lagamba
Alanna Lagamba’s story is very different, which makes the collaboration even more unique! Alanna came to Berlin at the young age of 22, spending a few years working in restaurants and developing a huge interest in natural wine. One day she met natural winemaker Martin Wörner from Marto Wines and asked to help at his harvest and wine cellar in Rheinhessen. She absolutely loved the work and eventually the two fell in love, so Alanna stayed to live & work full-time at his vineyard, which he had taken over from his family.
When she discovered some Dornfelder grapes Martin wasn’t using, she was inspired and decided she wanted to try and make a German-style Lambrusco with them. With some Sylvaner, a lot of love, and hard work, the first (and iconic) “Frauenpower” was born!
So far Alanna has released three vintages, including a sparkling rose as well, and is working on bringing even more sparkling wines to the market. Both Alanna and Martin live and breathe the natural winemaking process, including following organic and biodynamic farming practices, hand harvesting the grapes and bottling wines without any additions or sulphur.