The secrets from the Chef & Sommelier

Dear friends from around the world, I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all for following me here are my travel thru the culinary wine world, I appreciate this tremendously and wish you all a very happy new 2013. I will be back next year for sure J   Med vänlig hälsning/ best regards Dragan Unic  

My latest friends in the wine world is the wines made by the dynamic duo Sarah & Chris Vandendriessche (try to pronounce this after a bottle of wine) and the great artist of all the labels Grant Schexnider and his wife Laura who all together created the Vending Machine Winery in Napa CA. Christina broth some back from the states for me to taste and It was a true pleasure. The 2009 Crooked Mayor is a 100% cabernet Sauvignon from old vines that undergo a long maceration in 50% new French oak and are as always bottled without any filtration or disturbance to the wine, 100% pure fruit juice The wine is packed with dark blueberry jammy fruit and cassis all well balanced with the spicy oak, dark cherrys and tobacco, long lingering aftertaste. You have to try the Loulas Revenge, Horror Show, Eccentric and the Dubbleshot Gun if you can find them in the store, worth look for.  

The Christmas is upon us and the new 2013 is behind the door and all of this makes me do reflections of this year with family, friends and work. January and the beginning of the year started with the search of wine producers for the new wine portfolio and hasted to Prowein in march do meet up with some great producers such as Bruno Trapan that make fantastic wines of many indigenous grapes from mainland Croatia, and also Vinarija Bodren who is considered to be one of the best sweet wine producers in the world, I am extremely happy to have these wines for this market. Pago Vallegarcia top producer from Spain is another one that I have added on this year and who is making my customers really happy with excellent quality. My big girl Tammy was going sweet sixteen in April and is a big girl now and I am very proud of her and her achievements in school. Visiting Korea and the WACS congress was great and to meet up with old and new friends there was a reminder of how importa...

The Christmas spirit is here and to sample the Swedish Christmas table with all the traditional delicatessen is a must for everybody here but the challenge is to find the right place to visit for this extravaganza. Last year we tried the Rusthållargården http://www.rusthallargarden.se in the small fishing village of Arild and were amazed by the presentation and the quality of the food so we decided to do this all over again but this time stay over in the beautiful settings. The food was as I expected of great quality, not to much but precise selection of all the must have on the Christmas table, I am very picky on some things like the herring must be perfect, the salmon cured as it should be and the pate just perfect. To have salmon in different way is a big tradition here like the meatballs (köttbullar) and people are suckers for it, but I prefer the more complex flavours of smoked ribs, green cabbage cooked in cream, Jansons frästelse (shredded potaoes baked with anc...

Vintage 2012 – Ripe and Healthy Grapes Guarantee High Quality   The bottom line: crop quality and harvest conditions in Germany was influenced not only by months of capricious weather but also by consistent, quality-oriented work in the vineyards that resulted 2012 to be one of the top vintages with broad selection of first class wines. FRANKEN Thanks to a predominantly healthy crop, growers are optimistic about the potential quality of the new vintage. The weather was good as preliminary harvesting began and Riesling grapes were in top form and nearly all were of Prädikat-level quality. Growers anticipate powerful, yet fruity, wines that are brilliant and elegant . RHEINHESSEN The crop was healthy and ripe ready to be harvested by early October, followed by completely ripened and aromatic Riesling grapes at the end of the month. Quality was above average. Good, solid everyday wines as well as first-class wines from individual sites are expected. ...

Last night I was invited to the residence and beautiful house of the American ambassador in Denmark Madam Laurie Fulton for the Washington state wine tasting for specially invited guests. I was there to learn more about the wines from Washington that I do not have enough knowledge about the stats wines, and I was truly amazed of the quality shown here and this was the best of the night. Columbia Crest is a stabile producer as always and the H3 cab & chardonnay is good and the reserve cab in impeccable. Kiona vineyards showed some great late harvest Riesling & gewürztraminer and wine spectator have put two of Kiona wines on its “100 best” list, not bad at all. Charles Smith is very well known here in Sweden for the funny names as Kung Fu girl & Velvet Devil. Located in the blue mountains in the Walla Walla where he makes his signature wines that are easy approachable. The Long Shadow Vintners Feather cab, Pedestal merlot and the Sequel syrah was on...

  To visit great producers are always nice and one of the great things in life when you travel in wine country’s. To visit the Rhone valley without visiting the Casa Jaboulet and the talented winemaker Caroline Frey it a true treat, but when you arrive to the tasting room and meet the unfriendly attendants you make it easy for the, I just walked out and I will not return. All of the wines are great vallue for money and you can find them at bolaget in Sweden. Caroline Fray you make great wine but you have to train your staff.          

Att prova vin som är rena fat prover kan ibland vara svårt då dessa viner oftast är knutna och visar långt ifrån sin bästa sida. Jag fick ett fat prov direkt tappat på flaska så att jag skulle kunna testa den senaste årgången 2010 som ligger kvar i Dolinas källare. Dolina Barrique som produceras av Bacina vino i Varvarin Serbien har jag skrivit om tidigare och alltid tyckt att vinet visar en trevlig familjär tillgänglighet utan en massa krångel. 2010 är ett väldigt öppet mörkt rubinrött vin med strålande doft av mogen röd frukt med inslag av rökig stekt bacon och örter. Smaken är torr och medelfyllig med tydlig omognad och vissa gröna stjälk toner, mörka körsbär samsas med mogna plommon och fint balanserad fat ton, balanserade mjuka tanniner och frisk syra gör vinet drickbart redan idag. Eftersmaken är medellång och har en mjuk fruktighet som ligger kvar. Jag tycker att Alec, Anders och dom andra gör ett bra vin redan nu efter endast några få årgångar och vinerna ...

     Me And Patrik having a food and wine pairing session

Luleå, the small town far up north of Sweden have some great nature just around the corner, people hunt, fish and enjoy the magic sceneries every day of the year, Sweden at its best. The thing that moved me personally was the small delicatessen shop and food studio HEMMA GASTRONOMI owned by Simon Laiti and his wife Emma, these guys are doing something that is not possible any where else on the same level, there are just one word for this, Fantastic and all of you who want to know what Swedish cuisine and food is all about have to do a visit. Thanks to Simon with staff for some great days.   Hope to see you soon again

Let me tell you out there one thing, a funnier guy than Riccardo Cesari is hard to find! I hade the pleasure of having him in Sweden for a few days this week and we hade so much fun together, my c olle ague Patrik is still smiling J The purpose of the visit was of course to introduce his wines for some customers and we also manage to mage a wine dinner at Nytorget Urban Deli with great success and many pleased customers, well done everybody involved, but also for some staff training. Lets speak about Tauleto for a short wile, this 90% sangiovese grosso and 10% Bursona Longanesi wine is in my opinion kicking some mega superstar Italian ass any day. The wine is made by very long maceration in Slovenian oak and aged for 24 months in oak from American, Troncais and Allier and at least 6 months in bottle. The colour is ink black with a fantastic nose of dark cherry, chocolate, eucalyptus and spices with a fine lingering taste and complex aromas and the aftertaste goes on f...

To be the first Swede who are honoured with the membership of Confraria del Cava Sant Sadurni d`Anoia is fantastic and truly an experience. Some great days of cava tasting and the magnificent gala dinner in the confraria house with fabulous people and the queen of Cava was just great, what a night! I would like to thank all the people involved regarding my invitation and to all nice and friendly people taking care of all the logistic and especially to Montse, her sister and father at Hotel Fonda Neus . I will treasure this forever.   Regards Dragan

Sitting in the beautiful and lush gardens of the Torello family estate just outside Sant Sadurni d`Anoia and drinking one of the best cava is an amazing and gratifying. Toni de La Rosa Torello invited me to his house for some tasting of the cava that his family makes and I could not resist this invitation for sure. The cava he makes are some of the best that I have tasted on my trip here some week ago, when I met Toni on the gala dinner held by the confraria. I have the pleasure to meet the whole family with Toni’s sweet dad Francisco, his mother, darling wife and his kids, I felt extremely welcome to the house like an old friend, I love that feeling J The Torello families have lived on the same ground for 22 generations now and that is truly historic and when you look around the property you can understand why they stayed, its absolutely beautiful here and very relaxing. (They have a street named after them in the town) There are many things to say about the tradit...