Wine Fictions

 Last Tuesday I was at a wine fair promoted by one of the biggest German wine importers at one of the premium hotels in Hamburg. With a strong focus on gastronomy and small shops it was quite a mixed public, quite different in many ways to the habitués of masterclasses. Besides the tremendous offer, there was a couple of episodes which are still living inside me and that I would like to share.  The first one, I was at a South African stand and a man behind me pushed me and screamed to the person behind the stand that he wanted to try the Shyraz. I have quickly shared with him that he should try the amazing Pinotage before the Shyraz as it was surprisingly light and fruit driven. As an answer I got a lecture on how he was working for more than 50 years in the wine business and that there was nothing I could teach him about it. I have smiled and moved away. On another stand I have asked the person responsible for it if the Ribera del Duero that I was trying was a single graped T...

 How important is the history of a wine? Even though I always assume the challenge of trying to be impartial in my personal evaluation of a wine, I also have to confess that I barely achieve such goal as I tend to let myself seduce by all kinds of extra information which may influence my tasting. I am just too sensitive to the worlds you can build around a particular world which is a bottle of wine. Going directly to the wine in question, the fact that it was a 1932 harvest has directly awoken in me an almost uncontrollable world of expectations. Tasted at a recent event of Wines of Roussillon in Hamburg it came as the biggest highlight of a very eventful evening.  Composed of Grenache Gris and Grenache Blanc it has revealed nice dried apricots, dates and some bitter almonds coated by an acidity which imposed a tremendous freshness to a wine which is over 90 years old.  In a way, it presented itself fresher than a 2002 tasted right before. Only having been bottled in 2022...

One of my absolute favourite stories around wine is the origin of the super Tuscans as I often puzzle customers at the shop by showing the price difference between a Chianti which obviously holds the DOCG stamp and a super Tuscan which does not have it. At a wine fair I once heard that German customers love stamps on wines. DOC, Organic, Demeter, Parker points, golden medal at the Berlin, Brussels, Paris Fair, you name it. Even though I often have a problem on generalizing people's behaviours,  this time I am forced to agree. I do not know how many times customers ask me whether a certain wine is organically certified. Whether it has won any prize or how many points it has scored by any relevant critic. When coming to Italian wines, I am often confronted with two major questions: what do I think about Maroni's point system; and does the wine have a DOCG certificate. About the first I am not going to make any comments for now and the DOCG seems to have a bigger quality value to ...

 There are grapes which tend to be seen as not prestigious as others.  Müller-Thurgau is, somehow, one of them. Created by the Swiss Hermann Müller as a crossing between Riesling and Madeilene Royale, it is still associated with low quality half-dry wines which were tremendously popular in Germany during the 70s and 80s.  Even though a long time has passed since then, it is interesting to see how most customers politely deny my recommendation whenever I do it.  In fact, it is quite hard to sell it to people aged between 30 and 50 as it may recall some bad memories of wine they may have tried with their parents.  The most positive side of it is that younger generations do start having a different approach to it, specially due to its flexibility to match spicy dishes and more exotic cuisine.  And that's exactly where this Müller-Thurgau has shown a tremendous depth with elegant ripe apples, nutmeg and a slight smoky note which made it tremendously interesting...