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Heinrich Blaufänkisch 2019

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Growing up in Portugal in the 90s and early 2000s led me to the establishment of a certain taste profile that way too often ignored the fascinating variety that you have in wines from all over the world. Even though I ended up growing a fan of completely different kinds of aromatic profiles such as Riesling or Sangiovese, there are certain characteristics that directly awake in me a smile of pleasure. One of them is the iron taste, often also described as blood. Whenever I come across a wine which is dominated by such an iron taste, I feel myself surrendering to it and purely enjoying it.  At first I thought this was something exclusively from the Douro region. It did not surprise me that it was also to be found in most Ribera del Duero wines as it is the direct region when you go into Spain and that Tempranillo is Tinta Roriz. Same grape, same soil, all good. But having a wine from Burgenland , Austria, where the soils can be completely different, has opened a new brave world ahea...
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Arvad Negra Mole 2023

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One of the hardest questions that I am often confronted at the shop is what is my favourite wine? Or alternative, which kind of wine do I drink? To my vague answers, the only thing I can say is that there is no concrete answer to any of these questions.   Being a rather moody person, it really depends on how I am feeling at a particular moment and, definitely what I am eating. Sometimes I may think too much about it as I want to extract the most of both food and wine as well as I like to explore new taste combinations.  That is why I have chosen this Negra Mole for a tapas evening. Also known as Listán Negro, this Arvad has shown the typical light colour of the grape which resembled Pinot Noir, even though there was some brownish nuances.  As I have first felt in the nose there was a feast of elegant cherries and earthy notes such as graphite which has given it sort of a nebbiolo touch.   Some mediterranean herbs were also to be felt. In the mouth it was ra...
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Location: Hamburg, Germany
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Tellus 2020

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 Two years ago I have written a post about this same wine, same vintage.  As it often happens with some wines when I try them, I am curious to know how they end up developing with time, even though there is always an eminent risk of letting them age for too long till they reach a no return point.  In fact, I have to confess that I was pretty scared before opening this Tellus.  Being a 2020 harvest without any added sulphites it could be that the wine would not be stable enough to last that long. As I have first felt it in the nose I quickly became more relaxed as I have not noticed any fault on it.  On the palate, and comparing it to my previous post about it, I found that it has developed some strong blood orange taste which has dominated over the herbaceous notes that have so much fascinated me before. The acidity has considerably risen being on the border of volatile acidity revealing that the wine may be knowing its last drinkable period before developing i...
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Der Dritte Ritter 2024

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 While listening to the podcast "Auf einem Glas"  I came to a moment when Gerhard Retter , at the end of a fascinating interview says "Trinken bildet, saufen macht dumm!"  or "Drinking educates, to get drunk makes you dumb". This is a sentence that got directly stuck on my mind and it could make no more sense to me. As I am getting deeper into the world of wine, I am subsequently valuing how certain wines translate not only a specific terroir but also the culture of the place where they come from. Authenticity is something tremendously important for me and we, as customers, should always look for something that offers a genuine feeling of belonging. To the people who often complain about the over inflated price of wines which are supposed be good, I do believe you can find great value wines which can still be faithful to its origins.  And that is exactly what I have found in this Der Dritte Ritter from the Frey winery. Original from Rheinhessen this cuvée ...
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Location: Hamburg, Germany
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La Malvar 2024

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The year was 2016 when Aldi Nord has launched a publicity campaign which has somehow irritated me:       Translated to English, this would mean something like: "Uncomplicated, because you don't need 10 kinds of lemon varieties, but just lemons." This simplification of products, its specificities and varieties to the general public is one of the main reasons why we are losing a rich heritage of fruits and vegetables a bit all over the world. There are major parts of our society which are ignoring the diversity existing in our nature and how you can use it to enrich your diet.  Exactly the same happens with grapes.  I was born in a wine region that still partially insists on planting "international" grapes  in order to make it more visible and understandable to the external market. Even though you can find some nice examples of Syrah around, I have tried too many Gewürztraminer or Cabernet Sauvignon that do not really reflect the characteristics of the t...
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Location: Hamburg, Germany
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Krispel Weißburgunder Ried Neusetzberg 2018

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Even though I tendentially try to focus in just one wine at the time of tasting, sometimes it is a more than pleasant surprise to see which wines outstand when you try several ones in a short amount of time.  Recently at a friend's birthday there was an exciting selection of different wines as he is quite a wine afficionate, to say the least. From matured whites from magnum bottles to elegant south african Chardonnay, passing through champagne, Rioja or a surprisingly dense german red, among others. But from all the wines which were opened in the evening, this Pinot Blanc from Krispel was, for me, the one that stood out. Even though it was already 8 years old, it still presented itself with tremendous freshness and complexity revealing an interesting balance between primary and tertiary flavours. In the mouth it has very pleasant creaminess, nuts and green quince in what I consider a tremendously fascinating flavour palette.  This is the kind of wine that you can't just s...
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Location: Hamburg, Germany
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On the frustration of trying to open a company in Germany

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 On chapter 37 from his Story of Wine Hugh Johnson decides to dedicate the whole extension of it to the tax system that the Prussians have created in order to favour some wine regions as it also excluded some others from entering a growing wine market.  This sort of commercial war is more than a current theme for us nowadays as this article from Wein Plus brilliantly summarizes. The way Trump has been playing with tax changes has been disruptive and has been creating uncertainty in the global markets and wine is not an exception.  I am not going to go too much deeper on this subject as there are many articles out there portraying this new conjucture and how it is affecting people all around the world. Now that I am trying to get into the business of importing wine from Portugal to Germany, I have been confronted with an unprecedented bureaucratic monster that I could hardly imagine before. To the promises of having a facilitated and fast online business registration I ...
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