The secrets from the Chef & Sommelier

Upp och ner på börsen och ingen hausse i sikte. Guldkursen är instabil. Inte ens diamanter kan man lita på i dessa kristider. Kanske är vin lösningen på dilemmat? Det är inte konstigt att intresset för vin som investering växer. Priserna har gått som tåget och dessutom har allt fler upptäckt att nöjet med en vinsamling inte bara behöver handla om att dricka gott vin. Tänk om du hade köpt fint vin istället för de där 17000 skattade kronorna du satsade på 200 Telia-aktier år 2000. Då hade du varit betydligt lyckligare i dag. Har du aktierna kvar fortfarande finns inte ens ett aktiebrev att titta på. Tänk om du åtminstone fick ringa upp pengarna? Annat är det med vin. Du kan beskåda furulådorna med sina ståtliga slottssigill medan priserna stiger. Du kan ta fram en flaska, känna på tyngden och fantisera om hur fantastiskt det skulle smaka. Och skulle det gå helt åt skogen med din vininvestering så har du ändå flaskorna kvar. Då kan du bjuda alla dina vänner. Vill du lyckas med en vini...

What is the fuss about Luxembourg and the wines there? The answer is Mr Abi Duhr of Chateau Pauque in the small village of Grevenmacher who is the wild cat in this small country and   in my opinion makes some of the best Rieslings possible of the very old and steep vineyards facing the Mosel river. I was there a couple a weeks ago to check out the grapes just before the harvest and the 2011 looks wonderful with ripe maturity and good acidity lever that are so crucial here and without it can make the wines bland and flat, this is what many winemakers miss out on, to bad. Abi is a fascinating and highly knowledgeable winemaker with a great sense of humour that makes his wine with a passion and great skills to bring out the most in every plant. The wines are concentrated and absolutely wonderful in every aspect with a great acidity that balances the mature fruits and makes them age beautifully. If you can find any of his wines you better buy them before the whole world hear a...

If you speak to wine professionals who provide wine storage facilities or assist in building cellars, they will tell you that a great many mistakes are made along the way to building a dream wine c olle ction. The good news is that, unlike doctors who have to bury their mistakes, those of wine lovers can be drunk – or at the very worst, poured down the sink. However, this can become expensive, so do be careful. Surprisingly, the experts will tell you that it is often those with the deepest pockets that make the most errors of judgment. They can take a scattergun approach to filling the cellar, tossing a wallet at every offer so as to corner as many of the best wines as they can. Unfortunately, they often also dredge up a lot of crap wines on the way. Those who take greater care however, often have more interesting cellars. So the million-dollar question is: what do you put in your cellar? Deciding if you are a c olle ctor or an investor is key. Investors usually have an entirel...

Чтобы посетить Боллинджера миссии это сам, после месяца работы мне удалось получить время посещения этого великого Marque в шампанском. Стиль Боллинджера является одним из моих любимых в течение многих лет и было специального лечения, чтобы получить возможность посетить их в качестве VIP-феерия, и меня, и Кристина была поражена от того, насколько руководство трудящимися было за все cuvees и какие усилия они помещают по крайней каждую бутылку. Что мне нравится в Боллинджера власти в винах, я бы сказал, что они делают большие белые бургундские с лучших и мельчайших пузырьков, его мощный, мужественный, элегантный и чрезвычайно сложные вина всегда готовы к потреблению, ведьма я люблю J Баррель хранения является одной из рода в шампанское и 3000 + баррелей, где все со штрих-кодом, так что винодел мог прочитать всю историю бочку с сканер, некоторые высокопоставленные Tec в традиционном месте. Последняя ребенок розовые вина, что Боллинджера был последним принять благодаря тому, что Ли...

One of my many meetings recently in champagne was with the charming Nicolas Chiquet in the village of Dizy where he produce champagne in an traditional style with great depth and concentration especially the blanc de blanc from the vineyards of Dizy That wine is exiting and very different from the Blanc de Blanc of the Grand cru in cotes du Blanc that is more famous for producing such a wine. This is truly a challenge to identify on any blind tasting, how fun would that be? Very fun indeed J the flagship wine is his Special club selection where he use the best pressing and the oldest parcels of his vineyards, great stuff! Nicolas is a very modern winemaker with lots of new ideas without dropping the respect of the family and the tradition that he grew up with, we hade a good discussion about the cork issue and he told me a lot of how you actually can manipulate the wine just by choosing an certain cork quality, amazing and very interesting news for me. Another thing was all the th...

I culd not resist to put up some more pictures from this wonderful city even that I only use my mobil camera. tomorrow is off to Belgrade the capital of Serbia.

English: Istanbul an Magic city I am actually here on work, as a representative for the Swedish chefs association on the WACS European presidential meeting, but you need some fun also don’t you think? Where to start? The first thing when arriving to this marvellous city is the heavy and crazy traffic that easy scare the living hell out of you, everybody is driving like maniacs, its nothing for weak nerves. Officially the live 16 million people in Istanbul but nobody really knows the right figures, some people told me that as many as 25 million live here, moving in from the country side to get a better life, I don’t know about that. The culture here must be the best in the world without any doubt considering all what have been going on here for thousands of years, simply wonderful architecture and remains from great past times, there is something magical in the air when you hear the priest call people to the mosque with the songs from the minaret, I must say that Islam is truly an...

Champagne Guy Charlemagne is situated in the heart of the Côte des Blancs, in the small village of Mesnil sur Oger. As father to son winegrowers since 1892, they only harvest and vinify grapes from their own Chardonnay vineyards and produce around 130 000 bottles per year and most part of it is sold outside France . I fell in love with this champagne house and its wines some years ago after tasting some bottles of the Mesnillesime vintages that I still today hold as one of the best buys when it comes to vintage champagne, I base this on the pure power and great finesse in the wine that I like and appreciate. All of the wines are well worth the money. On my recent visit I tasted the whole range of wines with the recently realised 2003 vintage of the wine that Christina refers to as the “kexchoklad label” all Swedes know what that is J The wines of Guy Charlemagne is a champagne with great muscular presence, wonderful acidity and aging potentials, I try to use this as an reference ...

Upon arrival to the private office of champagne Pol Roger I noticed that the Swedish flag was in front of the house as an honour to us and that made us feel very special and welcome. The champagne house of Pol Roger dated back to 1849 in Epernay and is still one of very few houses that are still privately owned with Christian Pol Roger and others in the family. You can not write anything about this house with out mentioning sir W.Churchill who in 1908 bought his first bottle of Pol Roger and stayed unwavering client thru his life and called the house “the most delightful address in the world” When Churchill died in 1965 the house declared mourning and in 1975 to celebrate the 10: th anniversary of his death the pay an tribute to an old friend by launching the Cuvee Sir Winston Churchill. Entering the cellars of Pol Roger was a fantastic experience with all the new fermentation tanks and newly restored cellars, I have never seen something like this during my travels in wine countrie...

Efter en lång tur med utagningar och semifinaler så var det äntligen dags för den stora finalen av Unga Eko kockar som gick av stapeln i Växjö denna helg, vinnarna av årets tävling var tjejlaget från dackeskolan i Mjölby som gjorde en utomordentlig tre rätters meny med tanke på deras ringa ålder, dessa tjejer visar vägen att vi säkrar en framtid för Svenska kockars förening och alla våra tävlingslag. ETT STORT GRATTIS TILL EMMA, JONNA & FRIDA Och ett tack till PM & vänner för en strålande middag på kvällen och ett extra tack till Per för den goda Chambollen. här kommer även lite bilder på tjejernas rätter. English: This is from an competition this weekend where students from the 2:nd grade at restaurant school ware competing for the Ekological trophee. what a great future we have in this country. bevare all the guys here comes the girlpower.

That is an very easy question to answer, half of my readers on this blog are from outside Sweden and as I am a very humble guy and most Swedes know English I think that this would be easier for everybody to understand and if you don’t please do not hesitate to write me and I will translate It for you, this will at the same time be a big challenge for me to do considering that English absolutely not are in any way my native language. There will be some in just Swedish and sometimes in Serbian just for fun and I will improve over time so please have patience with me.   In Vino Veritas

This famous chateau is located in the village of Pauillac in the Médoc, 50 km north-west of the city of Bordeaux , France , Mouton Rothschild is one of the First Great Growths of Bordeaux Grand Crus, alongside Château Latour, Château Haut Brion, Château Margaux and Château Lafite-Rothschild. The Bordeaux Classification of 1855 came about when wine brokers were tasked by Emperor Napoleon to create a classification of the wines of Bordeaux . The rating was based (mostly) on the price that the wines were bringing in the market and it divided these top wineries into five classifications. These classifications are known as 'Growths'. Mouton was the first of the grand wines who started to do all the bottling at the chateau to assure quality of the wine.   Historically, however, Château Mouton Rothschild was excluded from First Great Growth status. This, it was thought to be so because the vineyard had recently been purchased by an Englishman and was no longer in French ownership...

I was in Mosel last week with Christina, granny Jorunn and Bianca to see how the new vintage is doing and on site there I tried to explain some about the German wines and quickly realized that this is not an very easy topic, but my friend Glenn is putting it down like this when he tries to explain just how sweet is sweet? The Germans have simplified this process by including the information on the label of each wine bottle. Let's start with Kabinett : The lightest end of the German wine spectrum. They are the least sweet of the German Rieslings. This wine is great as an aperitif. Spätlese is next in line for the sweet category. Breaking up the word spat means "late" and "lese" means "harvest". Put them together it means "late harvest". These grapes are fully ripened, a little sweeter than Kabinett and typically are more expensive. Auslese wine is made from selected bunches of grapes which have been left on the vine and allowed to beco...

Tyskarna dricker glühwein, fransmännen har sitt vin chaud och engelsmännen värmer sig med mulled wine. Här i Sverige dricker vi glögg. Blossa glögg görs på ett mer än hundra år gammalt recept från vinhandlaren J.D. Grönstedt i Gamla stan i Stockholm. Det har inte förändrats sedan Vin & Sprit startade tillverkningen år 1917. Men som alla andra familjer har även släkten Blossa växt med åren. Med rötterna i traditionen har släktträdet fått nya grenar, utvecklats och föryngrats. Blossa för traditionen framåt med nutida design och spännande nya smaker. Blossas röda och vita lättglögg finns numera i närmsta livsmedelsaffär, medan samlare och entusiaster köar utanför Systembolaget inför premiären på Blossas läckert paketerade årgångsglögg. All glögg i Blossa-familjen utgår från samma grundrecept. Smaken kommer från den unika kryddblandningen, som bland annat innehåller kardemumma, ingefära och nejlika. De färska kryddorna kommer från utvalda odlare på så vitt skilda platser som Kina ...

The last day of picking in 2011 was Wednesday the 7th September. A date which is usually matching the preparation of the harvest in Champagne rather than the end. But an early summer-like spring has given more than two weeks advance to the vines. This is not the earliest harvest we have had in recent years, 2003 with it's summer heat wave and the 11th April frost that destroyed almost all the yield had seen the harvest start on August the 23rd. Luckily this is also the only common point of those two years. This year we have seen grapes of exceptional quality: healthy, ripe, giving sharp and fresh juices. Our chardonnays, from both Chouilly and Vitry were already at this stage a pleasure to taste. Now that fermentations are complete, our hope is confirmed, as in 1961, 2011 will contradict the common belief that "years in one" don't make good wines. We could have thought of no better gift for our 20 years anniversary. Similar in many ways to beautiful vin...

The champagne house of Legras & Haas maybe is unknown for some, but let me tell that you are missing out on some great wines made by this family. Brigitte Hass & Francois Legras started up their own company in 1991 after being growers to other houses for many years. I meet one of three sons, Jerome Legras and his mother on a sunny afternoon at the winery in Grand Cru Chouilly (he hade just finished the last pressing) to try some of the wines that they produce, what a great tasting hi gave me, From the tradition bottling of 50% chardonnay, 25% pinot noir and 25% pinot meunier that is representing the house in full scale and great quality to the Millesime 2005 made of 100% chardonnay grand cru selection parcellaire, what a great wine it was. The house produce some 80 000 bottler per year from 14 hectare in Chouilly and a very small parcel of pinot in Ay and the vilification is obtained by the best and most rigour ways to obtain the highest quality. Per Exigence

To visit Bollinger is a mission by it self, after months of work I was able to get a visitation time to this Grand Marque in champagne. The Bollinger style is one of my favourite for many years and is was a special treat to get a chance to visit them as VIP extravaganza, both me and Christina was amazed on how much manual labouring was behind all of the cuvees and what efford they put in at every single bottle. What I like about Bollinger is the power in the wines, I would say that they make a great white Burgundy with the finest and tiniest bubbles, its powerful, masculine, elegant and extremely complex wines always ready to consume, witch I like J The barrel storage is one of a kind in champagne and the 3000+ barrels where all with a barcode so that the winemaker could read the whole history of the barrel with a scanner, some high Tec in a traditional place. The latest baby is the rose wines that Bollinger was the latest to adopt due to that Lilly Bollinger did not like the idea...