Wine Fictions

 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...

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...

 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...

 Tasted in a particularly nice atmosphere  in the middle of an evening dominated by Italian wines, this Portuguese Petit Verdot from the Alentejo region has stood out to me due to its deep body and tremendous complexity revealing some green herbal notes allied to pleasant tertiary flavours such as coffee and tobacco leafs.  Even though it is a thirteen year old wine, it has still shown some vibrant acidity revealing that it is still fit for some more years in the bottle.  Still, there was a question which has assaulted me yesterday: how much of the taste of the wines was influenced by the fact that they were being drunk in the cellar of an iconic historical building surrounded by bottles charmingly stored in cages? The attention and knowledge of the person responsible for our group also played an important role in the general atmosphere of the evening.  I am often confronted with customers who can swear that the exactly same wine tasted absolutely different in a...

 Being Portuguese I always feel tremendously attracted to cuvées as I find that they reveal a very specific kind of art in wine making which translates to an incredible extent the profile and intents of the winemaker.  I know you may be thinking: what does it have to do loving cuvées and being Portuguese? Even though Portuguese producers have been changing its patterns by producing more and more single grape wines in order to respond to the demands of the international market as well as a small part of the Portuguese, Portugal still is the country of cuvées due to its wide range of grapes.  On the other hand, Germany is a country mainly dominated by single grape wines which we can, somehow, correlate to a specific mindset and way of approaching the market. I have lost count to the amount of people who have asked me for a Pinot Gris (or the germanized Grauburgunder) without any other kind of information.  When I ask whether they want a more complex or fruitier one, I ...

Sometimes I hardly find words to describe the multiplicity of worlds that we can find through a simple bottle of wine.  In this case, I have to first refer to the impressive social project developed by the Valdibella Cooperative  and its strong commitment to nature, to the quality of their local products and specially to their local grapes. This Acamante is no exception. Made from Perricone, it reveals intense red fruits with a light leather scent and spices. Its vigorous tannins make it a perfect wine for tomato sauce dishes or red meats like lamb. In fact, every new sip I had form this wine awoke in me new gastronomical ideas.  I have to confess that I ended up having part of it with a homemade codfish ceviche as I found its acidity matching the  lime juice marinade and the stronger texture of cod.  And as I start biding goodbye to the long Hamburg winter, I leave you this Claude McKay's To Winter for all the ones who will miss it:        ...

 More than any other time, Christmas is a time for special wines.   As many other people I have carefully thought about which wines to open in these special days. Always keeping in mind what I would be cooking I ended up choosing a welcome present I have got from my chief when I have started working at Andronaco.  Described by him as the best Italian wine in the market, I have decided to open it and prove whether he was right or not. Having a rather late harvest, it is quite fascinating to feel how both Sangiovese and Malvasia Nera reveal such a tremendous density revealing fascinating ripe cherries taste along with tobacco notes and a somehow blood depth. After having decanted for about an hour it was amazing to feel how the tannins got softer to a pleasant and full bodied experience.  I also recommend a reading of their technical sheet as it offers quite some interesting details not only on the wine facts but also how the whole making process was made. I have ...