Wine Fictions

 While listening to the podcast "Auf einem Glas"  I came to a moment when Gerhard Retter , at the end of a fascinating interview says "Trinken bildet, saufen macht dumm!"  or "Drinking educates, to get drunk makes you dumb". This is a sentence that got directly stuck on my mind and it could make no more sense to me. As I am getting deeper into the world of wine, I am subsequently valuing how certain wines translate not only a specific terroir but also the culture of the place where they come from. Authenticity is something tremendously important for me and we, as customers, should always look for something that offers a genuine feeling of belonging. To the people who often complain about the over inflated price of wines which are supposed be good, I do believe you can find great value wines which can still be faithful to its origins.  And that is exactly what I have found in this Der Dritte Ritter from the Frey winery. Original from Rheinhessen this cuvée ...

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...

Even though I tendentially try to focus in just one wine at the time of tasting, sometimes it is a more than pleasant surprise to see which wines outstand when you try several ones in a short amount of time.  Recently at a friend's birthday there was an exciting selection of different wines as he is quite a wine afficionate, to say the least. From matured whites from magnum bottles to elegant south african Chardonnay, passing through champagne, Rioja or a surprisingly dense german red, among others. But from all the wines which were opened in the evening, this Pinot Blanc from Krispel was, for me, the one that stood out. Even though it was already 8 years old, it still presented itself with tremendous freshness and complexity revealing an interesting balance between primary and tertiary flavours. In the mouth it has very pleasant creaminess, nuts and green quince in what I consider a tremendously fascinating flavour palette.  This is the kind of wine that you can't just s...

Working at a wine shop you often fall into schemes of answers that you do not make too much effort to answer and you end up selling mainstream wines that reveal few character or terroir and that, personally, you would never get close to. A major part of the German public asks for Grauburgunder (Pinot Gris) with low acidity levels, not too pronounced primary aromas, dry, are you really sure it is dry, they often ask and, most of all, cheap.  This is often rather frustrating and I just indicate anonymous wines that we have in offer and as the clients leave the shop, I often forget their faces and names.  Sometimes I do fell the ambition of trying to recommend better wines as I believe everyone should be drinking better wines, but my attempts are often met with mistrust.  This is a theme that I am often confronted with when talking to fellows from other shops.  Germany offers a wide range of exciting wines and winemakers and I feel it tremendously frustrating to fight a...

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...

 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...

 I will start this post with a book recommendation: the German author Carsten Henn has recently published  Simply Wine  where he goes around 66 questions that you are often confronted with when handling with wine.  Even though it is quite centered in the German market and some of its specificities, this was a pleasant read, punctuated by humorous comments (who said Germans don`t have humour?) which had the plus of dismounting some of the most generalized myths around wine without getting into big polemics, such as his personal opinion about nature wines. Still only available in German, I do recommend a go if you are able to get it. What you should also get is the 2020 Silvaner GG by Rainer Sauer. Made out of on my favourite German grapes, this Silvaner shows not only the typical freshness and minerality that make it compete with the best Rieslings around, but also an accurate and perfectionist work in the cellar. Spontaneously fermented, reveals a tremendous complex...

 How much is a wine worth? The other day a customer has asked me for a special bottle for a birthday. Knowing that the birthday girl is a huge fan of voluminous Chardonnays, I have decided to get a rather exclusive bottle of Cervaro della Sala as I was asked to get something more unique than what you can normally get. Made by one of the most prestigious wine-making Italian families it is a 90% Chardonnay with 10% Grechetto, where the dominant Chardonnay is matured in oak barrels, granting it a Burgundian stylistic. I thought this would be a perfect choice, but in the day of opening the bottle, the birthday girl has shown no big enthusiasm about it leaving a generous amount for me to drink later on with some friends. It's good but not worth the price, she said.  Even though this has arisen in me considerable uncertainties about my choice they were not as extreme as when trying the wine later on with a friend of mine who has a very sensitive and accurate palate. He said the bitt...

 It is now a couple of months that I am getting a newsletter from a wine shop where a wine from this winery is wrongly written. Fara insted of Fata may seem, and it sure is, a simple typing mistake, but week after week it seems to me rather sloven as if no care is being paid to it. Another example is on this flyer that I have found at a shop where there's a picture of a Shyraz bottle, with a title of a GSM and as a grape it is given Cabernet Sauvignon. Puzzling, to say the least. What about the following?  A complete disconnection between image and content. A wine from Valencia with the description of a Portuguese Vinho Verde. I believe no further comments are needed.  Having recently been busy ordering wine online for a wedding to which I was responsible to do the wine pairing I have come across countless mistakes and texts which varied from a lyrical romanticism to pure carelessness in order to try to feed people's fantasies about what wine really is in a strange cock...

"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...

 To the people close to me it is no secret that I am a huge fan of the most efficient form of human transportation.  In fact, I can barely imagine my days without a bicycle. Sure is that the fact that I am faster to get to work with it then with public transportation or even by car. Adding to it, there is also the fact that I can almost always find a parking spot relatively easy and close to my final destination.  Of course I could keep on describing how the perception of space and time deeply changes, how the inner feeling of freedom grows to an almost perfect state of happiness but I will just state that it is something that it is as deeply connected to my identity as wine itself.  In this sense it is not surprising at all that I have found the recent Mapped videos by Madeline Puckette in both Alto Adige and Alentejo tremendously inspiring and since I have first seen it that I feel like doing something similar not only in the given regions but also in some others....

 "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...

Sideways has set a before and after of my relationship with wine.  It was around 2008 when I have first seen it and I still clearly remember what I have done afterwards: went to buy wine and along with two friends we have dedicated ourselves to cooking and drinking in some kind of inner euphoria that has lasted for quite some hours. From all the scenes which later became rather iconic, there is one which often invades my thoughts: the end of the discussion between both friends when Jack says to Paul that he will never find the perfect occasion to drink the perfect wines he has been collecting. As a consequence Paul ends up drinking a pretty expensive wine at some fast food restaurant. From that moment on I have made an subconscious decision to open wines that I have been reserving for special events in absolutely normal days.  And that is what I have done with this Cuvée Monsignori from Santorini. On an absolutely normal Tuesday I have invited two good friends over for dinner...

 Can wine drinking be a political statement? This is a question which has been following me for quite a while as I came across projects like Sekko Soziale (Social Secco) or Kein Wein den Faschisten (Not a Wine for Fascists). With its very clear messages against the growing right wing movements in Germany these are projects deeply identified with Hamburg and a certain political and social culture that you can experience there. Still, I have to admit that in northern Germany wine is still connected with a certain kind of elitism and exclusiveness that often excludes people from it. I sure know that this is a generalization, but it is interesting to see that there is barely any wine shop as soon as you leave the richer parts of town. And surely not independent ones. Even though there is still a predominance of older and traditional wineries, often represented by labels showing their cote of arms or chateaux in countries like France or Germany itself, there is a change going on. The ...

 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...

 Working with wine has multiple facettes which not all of them are positive, but the final balance is definitely a positive one. One of my favourite ones is the possibility that you are given not only to know new wines but to know the people behind them. If during wine fairs that can be a rather overwhelming experience, there are also times that I have the privilege to know the producers a bit more personally. That is exactly what happened last week, where I had the pleasure to meet Steven Schmidt and his wines.  From the seven different Rieslings that I tried (from bone dry to botrytis) this Kabinett was the one that  fulfilled me in a way that many wines have not managed before.  Allied to the typical fruity notes of peach and ripe apples, the wine has an intensive and profound smokiness which confers a rather exotic and seductive touch. Also impressive was the lively minerality which helped the wine to keep its freshness to a level that you do not feel like stop d...

 In this post I have written about the influence literature can have in what we drink.  If in Lahiri's book the references to wine appear quite often, in Misericórdia by the Portuguese Lídia Jorge there is not a single reference to wine, but the book, for me, had the taste of long well-known wines and that is exactly the reason why I have decided to open this Duas Quintas white.  A cuvée of typical white grapes from the Douro valley it presents itself with nice white peach flavours allied with some floral notes of camomile and orange blossom have matched the intense and delicate narrative built by Lídia Jorge.  I know this is a rather wild approach but I did have the feeling that the delicacy and intensity that you can find in this wine matches the feeling of eternal in the narrative that I have just read. Maybe it comes from the different fermentation processes that vary from stainless steel that confers it enough freshness to oak barrels which have given it a bit ...

 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, ...