Wine Fictions

 The French German broadcaster Arte has recently uploaded on Youtube a short 30 minute documentary called Rettet alkoholfreier Wein die Winzer (Can alcohol-free wine save winemakers?). As it often happens with most Arte documentaries, I grew directly interested and started watching it immediately. But this enthusiasm soon started decreasing as comments from other users started popping up and sarcasm as well as, what for me already is, hate speech dominated the comments box.  This same problem had the family Dahms as they have organized a alcohol-free wine festival in 2024. The organizer, Luca Dahms, has shared his experience with social media and how a wave of hate speech was born criticizing the event. In a much minor scale I was also caught in some sort of shitstorm yesterday.  It is not needed to say that this has left a rather bitter taste in me and has affected my viewing experience. What was supposed to be a documentary where a new and innovative facette of the...

 I am often confronted with people telling me that they envy my job as I can drink during working time and that I often have the possibility of getting in touch with new and exciting wines. Even though it is partially true (not really supposed to get wasted at work and not all the wines I come across are exciting), it is mainly due to the fact that I am surrounded by wine lovers willing to share their recent discoveries. There are also times that I do not feel like drinking at all. There are also many wines that I do not feel like tasting . I know this sounds rather arrogant, but it is coming from an almost luxury situation which often leads to some kind of fatigue where I end up setting my own drinking borders.  Is it then possible to still be able to discover new exciting wines when I am not really in the mood for it?  Mood can really be a decisive factor at the time of making a decision or analysis about a wine.    Not only if you feel like drinking or n...

 With Christmas and New Year's there is not only a rise in the amount of wine consumption but also, in my very personal case, a long and deep thought about which wines to open to go through these days that I am not particularly a fan of.  More than just picking up the best ones I have around, it is, in fact a by far more difficult question. For Christmas I have taken in account not only what would be cooked but also the people who would be drinking with me. Besides that there was also another important conditioner of my choices: Saudade . This festive times are often quite emotional on how much I miss being in Portugal. That was the reason that led me to making a last minute wine order by one of the most important portuguese wine retailers in Germany . Briefly after having set my order, I have gotten a phone call from the owner preventing me from buying one of the wines as it was not good any longer.   Positively impressed, I have started praying that the delivery se...

That the world's most planted red grape is a cross between cabernet franc and sauvignon blanc is nothing new.  That an argentinian winemaker has decided to combine both grapes inside a wine that may arise a bit more curiosity. To me, at least, it has from the very first moment as a friend of mine has told me about it.  Having met shortly before Christmas I had the opportunity of trying it and it was quite an astonishing moment. Even though the Sauvignon Blanc accounts for only 6% of the cuvée it is quite interesting to feel how the methoxypyrazine character has influenced the dominant Cabernet Franc. But still not quite as intensive as Cabernet Sauvignon. But the green pepper notes were quite lively, bringing freshness into a  Cabernet Franc dominated by intense red fruits and spices as well as a tremendous intensity.  This wine is the living proof that the wine world is incredibly fascinating and that something really exciting is happening where new borders and con...

 While listening to a podcast by Ricardo Felner  about the decay on the consumption  of wine he came with a sentence that I found particularly accurate by stating that there is no safe level of alcohol ingest but that it makes every meal better and that he is not willing to give up the possibilities that it opens. This is a vision that I also share along with a more critical approach to what you drink. If organic wines have gone through a deep revolution in the last twenty years, being now widely accepted by the large majority of the customers, that same path is now being trodden by nature wines. Somewhere in between conventionally organic farmed and nature wines there are the low intervention ones which seek to find a deeper identification with the terroir and its native yeasts without tending too much on wild flavours which often keep skepticals away. This Sangiovese from Chiara Condello is a good example of it. Originary from Predappio, this Sangiovese has a strong min...

 Not too long ago I was taken by a friend of mine to the magnificent Schloss Vollrads in Rheingau. If you have had the opportunity to visit it, I think it is not hard to imagine that I have directly fallen in love with it. If you haven't had the opportunity to visit it, I recommend you a quick look at this video . A couple of days later, while reading Hugh Johnson 's The Story of Wine I have come across a reference to the same Schloss Vollrads as being one of the oldest settlements in the Rheingau region producing wine. When coming across this reference, I thought it was more than enough of a sign to open this bottle in a feeble attempt to relive the incredible sensations that invaded me after having been in such an amazing place.  In fact, when I was there I have tried the Brut while standing in the yard continuously admiring the set of medieval buildings.  Having particularly appreciated it, I have decided to buy the Extra Brut. Being a huge fan of Riesling I wanted to...