Wine Fictions

 After having recently been in France a neighbour of mine knocked at my door and said he has brought a special bottle for me. In a rather ecstatic way he has told me how he has got into an endlessly charming shop that literally was my face (whatever that means) and spontaneously asked the owner for a unique wine that could surprise someone who works with wine. After a short thought the owner of the shop has chosen this bottle that I wanted to tell you about.  Without any information on it, I dare to say that I have tried it almost blind, feeling indecisive whether it was Cabernet Franc or Pinot Noir. Too spicy for being Pinot and too soft to be Cabernet Franc. There was some intensive and fresh minerality, some light spices and delicate fruit profile in a lively and complex composition.  Being a natural wine, there was also some funkiness but very decently integrated not overloading the main features of the grape. As far as I have managed to know, the fermentation occurre...

  There is an almost infinite fascination when trying a wine blind.  The brain starts rotating quite fast, trying to find equivalents to wines that we have tried before, to specific grapes, similar aging development and, not the least, a brief analysis of the person who has brought the wine.  The same way that my friends often suspect that I offer them Portuguese wines, in this case I first assumed that I would have a Bordeaux in glass. But as I have first felt it, I directly tended to an aged Pinot as it was aromatically pretty delicate revealing some earthiness along with fine vanishing cherries. As my friend smiled and said it was no Pinot, I needed a complete mental reset as I was almost sure I was right.  After rethinking the wine again from scratch I tended to Rhone as it seemed to me to have some leathery notes which time have made softer.  Wrong again.  I have to confess that it was quite a long time since I last felt I had no idea what could be in ...

 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...

 One of the things that I miss the most from a near past is how spontaneous I would just meet someone and enjoy a glass of wine in a garden. With Spring flowering around and the temperatures considerably raising making Hamburg emerge from the lethargy of the darker months, you feel a complete different vibe all around the city: people tend to smile more, the parks start getting filled with people playing games and grilling. There is a general positive feeling all around. It was in this almost idyllic context that I was invited for a glass of wine outside.  I find it funny how there is an oiled logistic of glasses and coolers to take and soon I was sitting in a bench with a privileged view over a blooming cherry tree.  Somehow, these are the kind of moments that make you feel the world is still in order and everything will be just fine. From the wines tasted, I would like to highlight this Vin Jaune from Marcel Cabelier.  After having recently been completely fascinat...

 The other day I was at a tasting with some work colleagues from other shops belonging to the company to which I am working for. Being for the first time invited in this circle, I soon realized that I often tend to taste with people with whom I have similar references leaving few place for surprises.   The evening was very pleasant and after a soul warming round of Riesling we have gone to some unexpected Zinfandel with high acidity, wines from direct concurrence shops or some nature wines. On my behalf,  I was tremendously predictable and brought Quinta de Saes Reserva  white, which has impressed most of the colleagues as it drove them to tip on Burgundy as we have tasted the wines blind.  With the evening coming to an end, one of the colleagues has invited me and some others to go to his mom's place as she did not live too far away and he still had  some wines to share. Currently studying to become a sommelier he soon dived the conversation into supe...

While reading Nigel Slater 's fascinating A Thousand Feasts I came across a text that, for me, stood out from all the others. Unlike what often happens with me, in this case, it was not a particular bombastic text, but one which has something of a Japanese simplicity and beauty. In a sensitive way Slater describes the joy of eating alone, in an intensity spiral growing throughout the text to some sort of a final climax when he refers to a book where someone has stated that people who have a glass of wine on its own can already be considered an alcoholic. His reaction to it appears as a request "to get out and find yourself a life"*. He ends up concluding that a glass of wine on your own can be as good as one shared with friends.  I can only but agree. Even though I really love to share a glass of wine with people I love, I also deeply enjoy opening a bottle of wine on my own and enjoy the first sip of wine without any distraction. Just me and a glass of wine in a sort of...

 At the recent wine fair of the Vignerons Independants at the scenic Altona Cruise Center I have came across a new kind of wine that I have never heard of before: Ratafia . .  Produced in the Champagne region by adding neutral tasting brandy to not fermented must it is a different approach on the creation of sweet wines, differing from the classic Port or the late harvest methods. This one, produced by Michel Gonet in 1996, is made exclusively from Pinot Noir grapes following an extraordinary year.    What has impressed me the most in this wine was how the dominant raisin flavours revealed themselves tremendously fresh and vigorous, with pristine acidity that grants it a long and parfumed ending. I always find it interesting to see which wines stand out after a long and more than interesting wine fair, filled with great wine projects from all over France.  Even though I was positively impressed with the Champagnes from the Gonet family and with the cativating pe...

 The so much expected Football European Championship has started. All around Europe people gather and celebrate the games in some kind of, for me, strange national identification. Germany, the hosting country not only of the Championship but also mine is living exceptional days. In Hamburg it is noticeable an increase on the number of police patrolling the streets (which have already avoided worst things to happen as you can check here ), the amount of people walking around in football shirts or with painted faces or the inevitable firecrackers whenever the hosting national team scores a goal. But how does it affect the wine business? This question was first asked to me by a fellow wine seller who has complained about the beer culture associated to football and the consequent decrease on wine sales. Instead of trying to answer that, I would rather prefer to ask whether is there a perfect football wine? To the customers that have came asking for wines I tended to recommend lighter, ...

 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 the most exciting things about working with wine is to come across its multiple facettes and how human interference on the fermentation process can produce such different and surprising results.   It has also been quite interesting to follow how knowledge has been reopening older styles of producing wine such as the one that I want to write about today. Having its origins in Georgia for over 6000 years, producing wine in clay amphorae is becoming more and more popular all around the world barely surprising the most common of wine drinkers, having become a viable option to age or even ferment wine instead of the more common oak barriques or stainless steel.  To know more about it, I recommend you this article by Vero Vino . But going to this Beaulieu.  In the mouth it is incredibly fresh with vigorous tannins that develop into some earthy notes as you let it breath.  It can be the power of suggestion, but I have felt some terracota notes on it. That ...

 In one of my previous posts I have written about the importance that labels have in our process of choosing a wine. The same is also true of our choice of not buying a wine.  It is quite interesting to see that younger customers tend to feel seduced by the labels of most of the nature wines we have ( like this one ) and the older customers to some of the traditional cote of arms such as the one from Dr. Bürklin-Wolf .  The truth is that this is, by no possible means, an indicative of a wine's quality, even though they often reveal quite a lot about its production processes or to which kind of public they want to reach.  I am also often confronted with the question of the price a wine costs. Even though the major part of the questions are about how and why is such a wine so expensive, there are also customers who openly say that they do not drink certain kind of wines as a courteous way of saying that they do not drink cheaper wines. This often comes with the covered...

For many Germans French wine is still seen as a holy reference when it concerns wine. Being so, the market is absolutely flooded with all sort of wines which not always correspond to what you would expect and more than once was I deeply disappointed with the quality presented.  Having recently ordered wine from Belvini , I came across this wine which has been produced specially for them, which is a phenomenon that I first got to know in Germany. Having been selected as Belvini wine of the year and with some more distinctions, I thought about giving it a shot. Even though the label presents quite an interesting and rather seducing design, it lacks some vital as the year it was produced.  A reference to the grapes used was also missing, rather having an extensive text about the idea of creating such a wine. The first impression I had once opened was of a wine extremely soft and rather easy to drink, which was a suspicion confirmed with the first sip. Fruity red berries involved ...

I have to confess that whenever I open a bottle of wine I like to start searching something more it so that I can enrich the first research  I have done before buying it. Where does it come from, who has made it, why have they made it, is there something special or witty about the name, who has done it and the history behind it are some of the questions that I feed and expect to have answered. One of my main expectations when I open a wine is that it can offer me the possibility to travel to different places by offering me a unique combination of tastes that can reflect not only the soil, but also the sun or the hands that have worked it. The expectations and goals of its producers and enologues. The conflicts and emotions behind it. In other words, I am expecting a similar feeling as to the one books can offer. And that is the reason why I think that both match each other so well. Besides the gastronomic suggestion, I always try to add the wine that can reflect the feeling of what...