Wine Fictions

The more I dive into the world of wine, the more I come across interesting and fascinating projects, such as this one by Hugo Mendes.  Born out of a crowdfunding, Mendes is producing wines with grapes that he is buying from different producers and different regions. This grants him complete freedom on the kind of wines he is producing.  Following a low intervention philosophy, this is quite an exciting project where you can find from amphora wines to orange or some more "conventional" ones, which end up not being conventional at all.  In this case, it is a rosé made exclusively of Touriga Nacional from a region which is not particularly known for this grape.  I have first tried this wine at a wine festival when I have recently visited Portugal and tried it now again in Hamburg where I am trying to convince my chef to start importing the wines from this project. It is quite a dense rosé, revealing very good acidity allied with some herbal notes and red berries which p...

Being offered a wine is always a good sign of appreciation, but also tremendously complex on both sides: from the one giving it and the one receiving it. When you think of offering a wine to someone you always need to have a serious thought about the person you are offering it and her/his specific tastes as well as her/his expectations when it concerns your personal choice of wines. When receiving a wine, you may feel rather pressured to give some proper feedback to the person who has offered it to you. This Chapel Hill was offered to me by a friend of mine who's a sommelier with a small note saying: I hope it will please you as I know you are not particularly fond of rosés. Great, I thought. Now he will probably be waiting for a comment from me. After having left the bottle for over a month looking at me, I have finally decided to open it, helping me to face the warmth wave which has invaded Hamburg. The first aspect that has called my attention in this wine was its im...