Wine Fictions

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...

 When you come across the selection a wine shop has to offer you also come across a whole market philosophy and how the owners/managers position themselves towards the wine world. This can be a political statement, a specific way of interpreting what is relevant in the wine world, an attempt to understand and perceive what a certain kind of customers want and to attract them, or to simply try to follow the latest trends.  I am sure there are many other approaches on how to create a portfolium that can fit in a shop, but that is not the main subject I want to write about. Recently, I have been looking more attentively to what kind of wine people in Germany are selling on Ebay and I have to confess that I find it tremendously fascinating to dive into personal collections or, as it often happens, the personal collection of someone who has recently died.  By going through it, I have the feeling of immersing in very personal stories as well as reliving a piece of history. Cert...

 I am often confronted with people telling me that they envy my job as I can drink during working time and that I often have the possibility of getting in touch with new and exciting wines. Even though it is partially true (not really supposed to get wasted at work and not all the wines I come across are exciting), it is mainly due to the fact that I am surrounded by wine lovers willing to share their recent discoveries. There are also times that I do not feel like drinking at all. There are also many wines that I do not feel like tasting . I know this sounds rather arrogant, but it is coming from an almost luxury situation which often leads to some kind of fatigue where I end up setting my own drinking borders.  Is it then possible to still be able to discover new exciting wines when I am not really in the mood for it?  Mood can really be a decisive factor at the time of making a decision or analysis about a wine.    Not only if you feel like drinking or n...

 With Christmas and New Year's there is not only a rise in the amount of wine consumption but also, in my very personal case, a long and deep thought about which wines to open to go through these days that I am not particularly a fan of.  More than just picking up the best ones I have around, it is, in fact a by far more difficult question. For Christmas I have taken in account not only what would be cooked but also the people who would be drinking with me. Besides that there was also another important conditioner of my choices: Saudade . This festive times are often quite emotional on how much I miss being in Portugal. That was the reason that led me to making a last minute wine order by one of the most important portuguese wine retailers in Germany . Briefly after having set my order, I have gotten a phone call from the owner preventing me from buying one of the wines as it was not good any longer.   Positively impressed, I have started praying that the delivery se...

When I have started wondering why I like certain kind of wines, it soon became clear to me that I had in the Douro reds a source of infinite offer that really pleased me. The effect of the schist soils provokes in me a whole sensory experience that awakes some of my deepest feelings and sensations. Sure is that grapes like Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca or Tinta Roriz, which in Spain is known as Tempranillo do play a major role, but the soil does establish a special connection to real essence of the wine.  I know that I what I have written may sound rather esoteric, but wine is not always a completely exact science and, in fact, the best moments are the ones that you manage to disconnect what is your conscious perception of a wine's quality and let yourself go in the pleasure that it can grant you. As I have written before, the Douro reds were my first wine passion. Being so, I soon grew curious to know how this terroir expressed itself on the other side of the border in Ribera d...

"Decía que la comida acompana al vino y no al revés."  "She would say that food accompanies wine and not the other way round" When reaching page 394 from Aranburu's Los Vencejos  you come across this sentence which has conquered me a genuine smile.  Having felt for a couple of days like opening this Xarel.lo, I have spent quite some time deciding what to cook with it.  After having opened it for a first trying sip, my primary ideas have started to develop into something more concrete.  Its apricot dominant fruit embraced by a pleasant bitter almond which confers some freshness to it made it seducing from the first moment. There are also some notes of conference pear and white flowers. It has a rather light and delicate orange colour. This is quite a clean orange wine that can definitely conquer some more skeptical drinkers when you offer them a nature wine.  To accompany it, I have decided to cook some filled bell peppers with rice, capers, borettane and fi...

 I know that this is a more than recurrent theme in this blog but, somehow, I have no way to go around it.  Literature and wine.  How can literature influence you at the time you are about to decide what to drink? Wanting a wine to accompany a stew to inaugurate the end of the summer around here I went to my basement and made a selection of three wines that could accompany it. It is, for me, not uncommon to make a pre-selection of wines, bring them up to my apartment and see how a certain dish is developing, ending up making the final decision in a more emotional way where the doors to my unknown hidden wishes are opened.  Right, this must have been too much, but it is just how I feel about it.  As soon as I have got home, I have put  a Ribera del Duero Crianza, a Monastrell from Jumilla and this Priorat that was the chosen one to be open on the table. Only Spanish wines, I immediately thought . Not having that many Spanish wines in my private collection I ...

 "Can you please get me a bottle of wine from Piemonte? I have this birthday from a guy from there and a... can I pass over later on?" What, for me, is an absolutely normal phone call has, this time, driven me to some further reflection on how much certain people seem to trust my wine recommendations.  In this particularly case it was nothing too much as it was a call from a close friend, but whenever people I don't really have such a big connection to say outloud that they simply trust whatever I recommend, I do feel between flattered and puzzled.  Sure it also happens to my colleagues as there are certain customers who just want to be attended by one of us.  Somehow I find it fascinating how you manage to gain someone's trust. At least, wine wise. I do believe that a big part of the job is about this unique relationship that you can establish with customers which, in a very last interpretative point, makes them come back.  That is also the reason why you often...

Portugal was going to play against Slovenia for the European Football championship and my choice to accompany the game has laid on this red from one of my favourite wine regions.  The Priorat region in Catalunya has known quite a hipe in the last years specially since it has been officially granted the DOCa in 2001. This has, of course, given it a bit more international showcase and the price of its wines has been increasing accordingly. Its llicorella soils and steepy mountains reveal themselves optimal for an almost perfect expression of Garnacha conferring it a mix of strength and minerality dominated by strong iron and balsamic notes. That is exactly what you can find in this 90 minuts. In the nose you have dominant red berries but it is in the mouth that its full expression comes to life. Vibrant tannins, somehow blood and iron taste and intensive red berries dominate this tremendously elegant wine which still has some maturation potential. Even though it is suggested that you...

 Sometimes we are not the ones finding a wine. Sometimes wines find us. The other day I have decided to check a wine shop around where I live in order to get a couple of alcohol free wines and see what else would call my attention. Being a shop belonging to one of the biggest supermarket chains in Germany, I have to confess that I was not really expecting anything that would get out of the common. Still, when having a look at the wines which will be out of stock, I have come across this natural wine produced by Bodegas Volver . With a rather appealing label and an even more attractive price ( I have paid 5€ for it) it was one of the wines that I have decided to try. Decisive was also the fact of not being too common to find this kind of wines in such a mainstream shop.  A pure monastrell tremendously fruit driven revealing very ripe berries and slight notes of chocolate well balanced with decent acidity and good integrated tannins, this wine is quite surprising as I was expect...

As I finish a good book, I often have difficulties to get inside the next one, as if I am in some sort of literary hangover, still filled by the worlds previously given to me. That was the case as I have finished Mia Couto's O Mapeador de Ausencias and struggled to enter the genius Un amor by Sara Mesa. Even though I felt deeply identified with the narrative presented by Sara Mesa, I have experienced quite some difficulties during the first 40 pages. Moving from Mozambique to the depth of Castilla was quite a change. The same happens with wines. When I come across a tremendously good wine during a tasting I often have difficulties to objectively taste the following one as the dominant notes of the former one tend to persist. That is what happened with this La Servil from Bodegas Cerrón.  A 94% Monastrell mixed with some other small authoctone grapes such as Blanquilla or Rojal this is a powerful and seductive red, showing good ripe berries flavours deliciously spiced by fine...

 How much of our wine shopping is based on the visual aspects of a certain bottle? This is a question that often comes up to my mind when I get confronted with the fact that I have just acquired another bottle for its looks.  In this case, I was having a look at the offer a certain retailer had on wines from Montsant, Catalunya, and, out of a sudden, this bottle was inside my basket. Only later have I realized that this is the same producer from Anima Negra which is a winery from Mallorca that down and out ends up on my table. Not that this fact would have conditioned at all my choice, but I find it rather interesting to only late realise that my wine buying decisions can still be  rather emotional. And this besides my constant efforts of making it a more rational one.  I also have to take in account that I am working at a wine shop and that I am constantly confronted with emotional choices like the one I have done, even though I try to convince clients that a good w...

 After months of absence I am back to writing here after having recovered completely from Covid and, most important of all: having recovered my taste.  I have to admit that I got particularly worried as the first time I have tried to drink wine again the only thing I could feel in my palate was alcohol. No other taste was there to be identified than pure alcohol as if I would be drinking pure ethanol.  The strangest part of it was that I kept on tasting food, but not wine. Little by little I have managed to start reacquiring the capacity to recognize the primary tastes of wine and about a month later I could fully enjoy the pleasure of drinking wine. Once fit, I went to a wine seminar about Spanish wines and I came across this astonishing Ceres which has transported me to some of my early wine experiences with the Douro Valley region. Even though it is a 100% Tempranillo (which in Portugal is named Aragonez) its contact with wood has given it a rather smoky and cocoa note...

 As I have finished my degree my first job has sent me to Tenerife where I had the privileged opportunity to locally know the wines that were being produced in the island.  For most people unknown, Tenerife is producing quite some interesting wines reflecting its unique and specific terroir. It is so unique that the grapes used in this wine are almost exclusively "Canarian" and rather hard to find in main land Spain or anywhere else in the world. The Orotava Valley, where this El Lance comes from, is home to one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen and while trying this wine I was invaded by numerous memories which made every single drop of it a unique experience of revisiting past memories. This and the fascinating deepness and freshness that I was confronted when I have finally tasted it. Its deep red colour first seemed to me as promising some more complexity but the fresh minerality of the volcanic soil was dominant from the first sip and has developed amazingly ...

After having come across the red Barahonda  in a wine tasting with some colleagues and being considerably impressed by it, I have decided to try the white one as soon as I have seen it for sale.  The choice of grapes for this one promised from the very beginning  to be a rather pleasant and easy drinking wine due to the citrus taste of Verdejo mixed with the more flowery Sauvignon Blanc.  And so it was, resulting in a pleasant balance of soft citrus and white flowers which invade your palate from the very beginning.  One of the things that has most impressed me in it, was its persistent but fresh ending, revealing quite some seducing youth making it quite flexible in gastronomic terms or even to be enjoyed solo. This capacity of being drunk on its own reminded me of one of the most iconic American poets which has set the bases for some of the basic feelings that you may still identify in the American society nowadays, Walt Whitman. It was quite an interesting re...

 A wine tasting at the Instituto Cervantes in Hamburg in the iconic Chile Haus building.  This is, probably, one of the best settings for the presentation of one of the most interesting wine projects in Spain: Grandes Pagos is a project which started in 2000 and aims to give visibility to small projects around the country which stand for their high quality.  Seven wines were selected in order to show the diversity of a territory where different soils and people work in a mix between tradition and innovation achieving astonishing results.  Before getting to the wine which has impressed me the most, I would like to share the magnificent introduction done by the Riojano writer Andrés Pascual which has guided the public in a passionate literary journey which has revealed the intimate relation between the Spanish culture and the ancient culture of wine. From García Lorca to Quixote I have to confess that this was one of the most inspiring talks I have heard these last t...

 Living in Germany has opened me to dimensions of the wine market that I have never thought of in Portugal. First of all the sort of social connotation of wine: even though its consumption has been becoming a bit more generalized in the last years, it is still seen as something which is either local (people form the Mosel or Rheinessen mainly) or as it happens here in the north where I am living, as something rather elitist. I was often told that there is a difference between the ones who drink beer and the ones who drink wine. I find this division rather ridiculous, but I'll never forget a friend of mine who once told me: In Portugal I was astonished to see university students getting drunk on wine!!! I think the following graph shows quite clearly the relation of Portuguese with wine: Portuguese wines can be really cheap in Portugal, specially when compared to other countries. This is due to the different taxes applied for Portuguese wines (13%) and foreign wines (23%).  Bei...

Another grape that I have been quite curious about for a while was Garnacha Blanca , that I found selling at a major discount shop in Hamburg. As it often happens in these cases, it was pretty hard to exactly identify who or where it was produced. Somehow I felt like venturing myself to some sort of blind tasting. The first thing that called my attention was its strong minerality allied with some citrus taste, making it a perfect match for some pasta or sea food. It has a very good first impact, being a wine ready to drink from the moment we open the bottle. I have to confess that I was pretty impressed by it and really enjoyed its freshness and character, almost reminding me of some Vinhos Verdes. As its weakness, I would point some lack of consistency once open for a while, but that can be solved by drinking it a bit colder than normal. Somehow, it suggested me some renewed look over some of Jack Kerouac's haikus, from which I share this one: Birds singing in the d...