In July 2022 Sabi opened it’s doors for the first time in Carouge, Switzerland (just next to Geneva).

Antoine Nouais, is the chef and co-founder. His philosophy is that he wants to feed his customers in the same way he would want to feed his own family. When buying at home, he would only want to buy seasonal produce that he knew the origin of, be it vegetables, wine, chocolate, or coffee. Antoine feels that his customers should be treated in the same way, with transparency and respect. Only the best produce is served.

The restaurant takes a lot of inspiration from South East Asian, Japanese, and South Korean cuisine. At Sabi they love dishes that have ‘pep’, a strong personality, acidity, freshness, and spice! The menu changes regularly, and Antoine is constantly researching and getting inspired by new techniques to use in his food.

Of course, Antoine isn’t alone; he has a great team of motivated and creative individuals. One of which is Louis Rafii, the sommelier at Sabi, who takes his time finding the best natural wines to pair with Antoine’s cuisine. Their wine list is more than impressive, with fan favorites and some hard-to-find gems.

If you haven’t had a chance yet, Sabi is definitely worth a visit; find it on Raisin now.

On the 18th and 19th of March in Köln, is the 7th edition of Germany’s biggest and first natural wine fair, Weinsalon Natürel!

The fair will showcase over 60 natural winemakers from all over Europe, and especially an exciting list of well known and new German winemakers. Every year Weinsalon also aims to highlight a country that isn’t well known for winemaking. This year it’s Bulgaria.

Founded in 2015, at a time where almost nobody in Germany knew about natural wine. Surk-ki Schrade, who founded the festival, wanted to change this and bring the movement to Germany and highlight the great german winemakers who were already working naturally.

Weinsalon Natürel allows both wine professionals and normal consumers to attend the fair. Surk-ki’s idea was that people would leave and begin asking wine shops and restaurants for natural wine, and like that, create a market for her drink of choice. And it worked!

In 2016-17 Weinsalon Natürel helped winemakers like Bianka and Daniel Schmitt, Brand Bros, Marto and Andi Mann open the door to the international wine world. Opening doors and making connections between like minded people is the goal of this fair.

Raisin has been invited to be in attendance and we’ll have a special table and some free giveaways for you. We can’t wait to spend time tasting the delicious wines and meeting people, so please stop by and say hello to us, or even better, share a glass.

FIND THE WINEMAKER LIST HERE

📸 Daniel Schreitmüller

Luca Ferrero might have been destined to be a winemaker. He inherited his passion for viticulture and wine from his grandfather, Giorgio Ferrero, one of the very first winemakers in Italy to obtain organic certification for his family farm in Pino d’Asti (Turin) in 1986.

When Giorgio took over the winery, he choose to bottle his wines under the name Ca’ del Prete (Priest’s house) inspired by the fact that his farmstead, was once connected to the church where his family has been producing wines for four generations. He uses mainly Freisa, the typical red grape of this hilly area, although within his 4 hectares of vineyards, he also has some plots of Barbera and an ancient variety of Malvasia.

The soil on the farm is characterised by it’s fossils, limestone, sand, silt and clay which are old souvenirs from the distant past, when it used to be a seabed. The microclimate found here is also mild in winter and windy in summer, which is perfect for both Freisa vines and olives trees.

In 2014, Luca began implementing new methods both in the vineyard and in the cellar. Inspired by his previous experiences and the exchanges with colleagues he decided to keep a constant presence of wild herbs, aromatic plants, and flowers, as well as worms, birds, and insects that all live symbiotically in the vineyard ecosystem helping create biodiversity.

Luca has also, sadly, been forced to adapt to climate change and droughts, which have made him completely change his timings in the vineyard each year. Pruning, harvesting and soil work have all changed over the years. It continues to be a challenge that he expects will becoming more demanding in the future.

His wines are produced with minimal use of technology, without any chemicals, and with only small additions of sulfur at bottling. His goal is to introduce more people to the grape variety Freisa. Luca describes his vines as a rebellious 16-year-old with creativity, and a desire to discover the world. They just needs places and people ready to taste. We highly recommend that you do!

L’Arbre à Bouteilles in Nantes has an amazing selection of natural wines, but also a great selection of Raisin stickers! Having been one of the first places worldwide to proudly place the sticker in their window in 2019!

Gaëtan Picard first discovered Natural Wine after a long discussion with Richard Leroy in 2005. Gaëtan followed the talks with a visit and for the first time, a winemaker didn’t take him directly into his winery: he took him and his family in his car to his vineyards to better understand where his wine comes from. At the time Gaëtan was a teacher, and he was intrigued why such a logical and educational approach had never been proposed to him before! This was beginning of something very special for Gaëtan.

Gaëtan later opened L’arbre à Bouteilles in April 2018. He made a radical change in his life from being a Physical Education teacher to running the cave alone. He was luckily energised by the support of his wife Catherine and children Hugo and Aubry, but going from a job with financial security to becoming a business owner, mostly fuelled by passion, wasn’t always the easiest change to the make.

Thankfully Gaëtan did make the change though, and now he stocks around a hundred natural references making L’Arbre à Bouteilles a place you have to visit next time you are in Nantes.

Find it on Raisin now!

We are looking for a Senior Project Manager to ensure our growth and development on mobile and our new website. You will be in charge of the project’s current and future developments.

Job Description

This job calls for a native/fluent English speaker with a solid web & mobile project management résumé and a true passion for natural wines. Your knowledge and experience in the project management field and your excellent level of English (both written and spoken) will ensure that you are perfectly autonomous in all aspects of communication in your exchanges with the Raisin and the technical teams.

Roles and missions:

• Mastering the management of web projects and mobile applications (scoping, design, creation, production, maintenance)
• Definition and respect of the planning and budget
• Collecting needs from internal and external users
• Writing functional specifications and test scenarios
• Management of the backlog
• Follow-up and coordination of development teams (front, back, iOS, Android, DevOps), with the support of the Lead Dev
• Ensure unit tests, quality of delivery, and releases
• Good knowledge of ASO, SEO, and Analytics tools

Desired skills:

• At least four years of experience in a similar field, in a digital agency or start-up
• Know how to organize and plan the work of all resources (experience in SCRUM is a plus)
• Know how to prioritize your work, your tasks, and those of others
• Know how to execute with agility and speed
• Good resistance to stress and working under constraints (deadlines, budgets)
• Aptitude for the technical issues related to our product
• Fluency in English is mandatory: emails, meetings, and video calls are only and entirely in English.

Expected qualities:

• Rigor and strong capacity of anticipation
• Very high attention to detail, with good sensitivity to UX and UI
• Autonomous in his/her work, but with a real team spirit
• Solution-oriented, proactive.
• Excellent communication skills with Raisin and the technical team.

You will be organizing daily calls with the technical team to guarantee schedules and deadlines are aligned with our priorities.  You will report twice a week on your progress, difficulties, and points to be addressed with the whole Raisin team concerning the missions you are in charge of and/or any other information related to the company.

This position is to be filled permanently, mainly remotely, as of April 1, 2023. The contract will be governed by French law. The position is only open to candidates from a member country of the European Economic Area or who have a work permit for the French territory.

What We Offer

Occasional travel will be covered and are to be expected to Paris and other places/regions where Raisin is required to work and/or to have its employees work. Salary depends on experience and required training level.

Beyond the remuneration and depending on your location (subject to differ), you would also benefit from 5 weeks of paid vacation (French law). Salary revaluation linked to your efficiency and involvement, and the company’s development. Staff training policy.

👉🏻 To apply for this position, please send your resume and cover letter to [email protected]

Stranger Wines in Brooklyn, New York, was founded in 2019 by restaurateur, Andrew Tarlow, and musician Dennis “DJ” McNany.

Andrew is the proprietor of the Marlow Collective, a hospitality group that includes restaurants Diner, Marlow & Sons, Romans, and Achilles Heel as well as the grocery store Marlow & Daughters, the bakery She Wolf, and of course natural wine store Stranger Wines! DJ Mcnany fell into the natural wine world 20 years ago when he was a young musician looking for side-gig to pay the bills. He began working as a floor stocker at a natural wine shop in Williamsburg Brooklyn and rose up the ranks to become head wine buyer.

Stranger Wines takes pride in curating wines from small, sustainable producers from across the globe. Using their 20+ years of wine experience, they balance the newest and trendiest as well as the timeless and classic producers.

They intentionally do not have tasting notes on their bottles. Instead they greet each guest as they come in and provide personalized recommendations based on the occasion and their taste preferences.

Having a DJ as a founder means that records play a big role in the in-store experience. Vinyls are on display behind the tasting counter and play throughout the shop to set the tone while you peruse through the endless selection.

Don’t miss Stranger Wines free tastings every Wednesday evening at their bar as well. They announce the wines the same day on their Instagram. A great way to discover some gems!

Find Stranger Wines on the Raisin App now and make sure to give them a visit next time you are in New York!