Wine Fictions

 There are few places where I feel much at home as the central library in Hamburg.  In its infinite chaos of people, events, places to read, work or to have a cup of coffee I feel a tremendous peace and deep sense of order in an almost Saramago 's way when he has written that " chaos is merely order to be deciphered". It is also an endless source of inspiration in what concerns what I will read next and, consequently, what I will be cooking and drinking. I know this may seem a rather wild idea connection but as I am getting older I am growing more sensitive in this very particular issue.  Through books I am becoming what Stanislaw Lem has described as a gastronaut in his The Star Diaries .  After having scrolled through Giorgio Locatelli's Siete tutti invitati I felt an urge of going back to experimenting some Italian food and I have found myself cooking some fregula with aubergine and fennel.  As soon as I have started cooking it, of course that the question...

The other day I have found myself wondering which wine I needed to buy.  Even though the answer, on a first level, seemed quite obvious to me  that I did not need any more wine as my basement is considerably full and I am drinking considerably little at home these days. Still, I thought that a white Etna wine was missing in my collection as it is something that I always like to go back to. And what about an Alvarinho from Rheinessen? That can be quite an interesting thing to try and trick close friends on a coming tasting.  This confers my wine collection an almost library feeling to it.   But unlike what happens with books, at least with mine that I have an almost existential problem about getting rid off any book that has entered the premises independently whether I have read it or not,  with wines I do end up drinking them and acquiring new ones giving the feeling of a living entity to my enoteca ( I am terribly sorry about this but the feeble translatio...

 When a product is particularly cheap Germans often use the expression "it's a fair price" to refer to it.  Being a non native German speaker, the question that often invades me is : Fair to whom? To the farmer? To the winemaker? To the transport people? To me who is selling you the bottle, to the labeling team, the marketing, the pickers, and the list could go on almost without an end. Certain is just that this expression annoys me to an unimaginable extent. The answer is quite obvious that it is fair for the customer as it gives them the feeling of saving money. This is quite common among older customers and even though I almost tend to see it as a generational thing, it still annoys me whenever a wine is described as having a fair price. Having recently been in Portugal, I came across A Talha wine shop in Sines. Strategically located close to the Arts Centre it is a more than pleasant surprise as soon as you get in. Very discreet from the outside but a guaranteed wine...

 Having been back in Portugal I have experienced how a different social wine culture can influence your global experience as a tourist with a special gastronomic focus. I was deeply impressed with how you could simply get reasonable and totally acceptable wine wherever you went, contrasting with most experiences that I have from northern Germany where you often get overpriced wine that I often refuse to drink.  Working at a wine shop that regularly sells wine to different restaurants, it is almost painful to see what we sell and how it is further sold after being applied the four times the price rule in what is locally seen as the only way to make it slightly profitable to sell wine.  This leads to normal guests thinking that a 25€ wine at a restaurant is a medium class wine which is, in fact,  an entrance level or even bulk wine. The price of  a 0,2l glass often goes around 6€. I do am conscious that Germany has a different life standard than Portugal, but that...