4/28/12

BOQUERIA IN STOCKHOLM


Boqueria is a place where the fishmongers in the old time took care and prepared the small anchovies that they in Spain call Boquerones, but Boqueria is also a new restaurant concept made by the talented people behind Vassa Eggen, Tennstopet and Albert & Jacks.

This is a fantastic place for all of you who love well made Spanish tapas and classic Spanish food with a twist extremely well executed by the guys in the open kitchen.

There are also a large bar with small tapas and where you can stop by for just a beer, glass of wine or relax with a coffee, opens early in the morning until late at night.

The wine list is well composed but I could need some more types of sherry by the glass.

Thanks for a fantastic night and well done guys.

















4/21/12

Great Champagne is for everybody

Champagne, the magical wines from France have many followers and there are miles of information about this to find.

The good thing about champagne is that everybody can find they own style and taste that you can appreciate no matter what everybody else says, try many different and you will find champagne that will be perfect for you.

I attended a big champagne tasting a wile ago and discovered a new favourite producer in Forget – Brimont from the small village of Craon de Ludes just north of Epernay.

Michel Forget is the 6:th generation in this winegrowing family where his ancestor Louis started the company at the beginning of the century and Eugene established the brand in 1920 with a very small production of just a few hundred bottles.

The company own 15 hectares of grand cru in Verzenay and Mailly and Premier cru from the Chigny-les-Roses and Ludes with Pinot Noir as the predominated variety grape.

Michel blends his wines from three different vintages to create his signature style and the wines are aged on lees for 2 years for the non vintage and up to 10 years for the vintage wines in chalky caves 15 meters under ground in constant temperature of 10 degrees.

Great wines from a small producer worth visiting next time you are in the area.

I love champagne in the Blanc de Noire style with power and big flavours but will never refuse a glass of Blanc de Blanc J

Here are my best choice.












4/20/12

Constantia Glen South Africas great wine

Looking out across Constantia Glen’s vineyards in the magnificent Constantia Valley, one immediately senses a difference. Cultivated with dedication and a singular vision, Constantia Glen’s 31site-specific blocks are unique in the Constantia Valley. 

Each block is meticulously hedged, carefully thinned of superfluous shoots and limited to allow only one perfect bunch of grapes per shoot.

There is a high regard for precision in the way the vines are established, cared for and harvested that saturates each unique vintage with constant class and a distinctive reference to the preceding year’s climatic influence.

Skilful winemaking has its origins in the vineyard. At Constantia Glen, time-honoured techniques are respected and used wherever they perform best. Constantia Glen uses the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) process, which captures both visible and infrared light emitted from vineyards to create a colour index describing variances between cultivated sections.  This enables us to identify areas of uniformity within our vineyard plots and therefore areas of comparable ripeness.

Before the onset of harvest they allow for at least 4 phenolic ripeness assays. This permits them to track the physiological ripening of each individual plot and the eventual determination of ripeness acts as a point of departure for tasting. The parameters is colour, tannin, sugar and acid accumulation with the desired flavour profile.

The grapes are hand-sorted at four points before reaching the stainless steel fermenting tanks. Hand-harvesting sees the first selection of the very best grapes. After 12 hours in a cooling cube the grapes are bunch sorted before being destemed using custom-made equipment dedicated to whole berry work.

A vibrating sorting table allows for leaf and other material to be identified and removed where after meticulous berry sorting is performed on an illuminated conveyor. Here imperfect grapes are discarded. Only conveyor belts are used to move the berries through this sorting process into the stainless steel fermenting tanks that provide a cool and gentle beginning to the fermentation process.

Constantia Glen makes only three distinctive wines. Because of this each tank can be dedicated to a single lot of grapes. The generous number of tanks at disposal means that each tank is used only once during harvest. At Constantia Glen they do not believe in rushing the art of winemaking.

A long, cool prefermentation maceration allows for the gentle extraction of colour and aroma.  Once satisfied with the extraction the winemaker  Justin Van Wyk gently warms the tank and initiates spontaneous fermentation, using naturally occurring yeasts. A long, warm and temperature controlled fermentation draws out the structure and balance that are required for fine wines. 

When it comes to extraction methods, Constantia Glen employs a careful combination of pump-overs, punch-downs and délestage (rack and return) to ensure a wine that is deep in colour, fruit that is alive and tannins that are soft and persistent. Upon completion of fermentation they retain the wine together with the skins for a further 8 days for added complexity and structural development before the free-run wine flows to the lower-level cellar and into new French oak barrels. All this makes a wine that is ready for the market early but isn’t compromised in terms of quality or ageing potential.

In a further measured step, the skins are pressed in the state-of-the-art computerised basket press. As is the case with the free-run wine, the press wine is barrel aged, later providing a component that the winemaker may blend in for structure and persistence.

All wine transfer activities after fermentation are carried out in the hoist tank that allows for gravity assisted conveyance. This ensures a gentle handling of the sensitive wine.

Once the wine is safely in barrel, the topping, racking and fining processes begin. the winemaker constantly monitors the development of each barrel and evaluates the need for racking and fining.  The wine ages from 14 to 19 months in new French Oak before it is bottled.

Now you can buy the wines thru Gastro-Import in Sweden and Denmark.




4/17/12

Serbian Cuisine is great

First of all, Serbs are very very proud of their food and they should be, having a rich cuisine and a large diversity of alcohol beverages that accompany these amazing dishes.
The whole cuisine is derived from a mixture of influences coming from Mediterranean, especially Greek influences, Hungary, Turkish and Austrian cuisines.

Serbia has a lot to offer to hedonists so eating out, to catch local flavors, is an unforgettable experience and a highlight for many visitors and expats.
Serbians love their food and although meat takes the majority of the Serbian table there is still room for a passion about fish and seafood.

There are plenty of restaurants on every corner, offering delicious food of national and international cuisine, but the best meal you’ll have is on the domestic estates and in kafanas. A kafana is some kind of bistro, tavern an authentic Belgrade restaurant.
The first ever kafana in Belgrade (and Europe) was opened by the Turks at the end of the 16th century. Today, the oldest traditional tavern "?" is situated in Kralja Petra 6 Street in Belgrade where the building is nearly 200 years old.
There are many restaurants with national traditional food but also a wide range of international cuisine restaurants such as French, Italian, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Lebanese etc. located in the larger cities.
The food served in restaurants is in the most cases completely organic – with no genetically modified products or artificial flavorings, and the portions tend to be large for the average consumer.
There are many restaurants with national traditional food (you can find recopies in Serbian Traditional Dishes section) but also a wide range of international cuisine restaurants such as French, Italian, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Lebanese etc. located in the larger cities.

Depending on the country region, you can find different methods to cook a traditional classic meal. The Serbian cuisine is rich in fat meals, and almost every dish contains meat or its derivates.
The most popular national dishes include Pljeskavica (similar to the hamburger), Ćevapčići (grilled minced meat usually eaten with plain onions and bread), Sarma (cabbage filled with minced meat), Stuffed peppers, Serbian beans, Musaka (baked minced pork with eggs and potatoes), Karadjordje's steak, gibanica (pastry), proja (corn bread) etc. Grilling is very popular in Serbia. Makes the primary offer of main courses in most restaurants and it’s often eaten as fast food.

The one certain thing about the Serbian cuisine is the fact that all people in this country will usually serve three meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast in Serbia is an early but hearty meal. Don’t forget to taste Burek-Balkan’s specialty, pastry made of a thin flaky dough and filled with cheese, meet, mushrooms or just plain.
Lunch is the most important one and has three courses: soup, the main course, and a dessert. If someone invites you to have homemade meal, don’t reject, it’s insulting.
Dinner is not that important meal so sandwiches are usually eaten for it.

The most popular alcoholic drinks are brandy; plum brandy (šljivovica) and grape brandy (Lozova rakija), wine and beer.
Rakia (“rakija”) is a strong, alcoholic beverage made from distilled fermented fruit juice, it tastes similar to brandy. Common flavours are slivovica, produced from plums, Kajsijevaca, produced from apricots and lozovaca, made from grapes.
Fruits less commonly used are peaches, apples, pears, cherry, figs, and quinces. Plum and grape rakia are sometimes mixed with other ingredients, such as herbs, honey, sour cherries and walnuts, after distillation.
Thru Belgrade town you can find specialized bars “RAKIA bar” offering many options to choose from.
Serbia’s wine (“vino”) has centuries of tradition behind them. Locally produced wines are popular and they are highly regarded and you should try them.
Expat Adria

4/15/12

WINE IN A VERY EASY WAY

Me and Christina are doing more than 70 wine tastings every year for wine drinkers who love wine but do not know so much about it, I love doing that and let people explore wine in a good and sensible way without fuzz..

This is a great little film about wine where John Cleese guide you thru the most basic stuff in a very good way http://youtu.be/BF6twaKn8xM   for all of you out there who drink your wine for the taste without caring about the label.

Enjoy and give all the posh and snobby sommeliers a hell next time you go out for dinner J


The new Rusthållargården in Arild

Me and Christina are fortune to be invited as the first guests to try the new MM fine dining room at the old Inn at Rusthållargården in Arild http://www.rusthallargarden.se south of Sweden.

The Malmbergska Matsalen is a tribute to the family who runs the Inn as fourth generation and executive chef Claes Ljustander have converted a part of the dining room to a 20 seat restaurant with great ambitions and a set menu with wonderful wines all greatly packed in with atmosphere out of the ordinary.

The food is a little bit shaky as one can imagine in the start but will improve in a few weeks, my guess is that Rusthållargården will set very high standards for the area and I can recommend you all to try it out, you will be surprised how good it is.

I like the idea of transforming some of the classics to the finer level and to use all local ingredients as much as possible, great way of doing things.



This is the menu & wines that we tried in Swedish.



Äggakaka Naccarii caviar, kärnmjölk & äpple.

2002 Laurent Perrier

Lufttorkad grishals från klippan, groan bönor med Masia el Altetolja & ramslökssalt.

2010 Valcorso Monastrell Yecla

Brynt piggvar, krispigt slag i mandel-surdeg, smörkräm med stenbitsrom, toppmurklor & AAA sparris.

2009 Shaya old vines Verdejo Rueda

Spisgrillad Södåkrakilling, rostad ekopaprika och gröna blad från Ådalagård med tryffeldressing.

2007 Neo Ribera del Duero

Sigvard rödskägg, vårens första potatis, kummin och surkål.

2009 Domaine Bott-Geyl pinot gris Les Elements Alsace

Chokladkräm med brynt smör, päromsorbet, youghurt & mynta.

2008 Recioto dela Valpolicella Corte Sant`Alda



Meny 795 Kr

Vinpaket 695 kr









4/13/12

Bodegas Aalto cult or not?

Ribera del Duero have very old traditions of winemaking all back to the old Romans and Phoenician times who showed the Iberian people at that time how to make wine and viticulture.

The Moorish conquerors know how to irrigate and that made even the driest part of the country a winegrowing area that still today flourish from this.

Most of today’s vineyards use to have connections to the church and believed are that the monks from France left some secrets behind on they pilgrimage tours.

Bodegas Aalto was born in 1999 by Mariano Garcia who was the winemaker at Vega Sicilia for more than 30 years and his good friend Javier Zaccagnini who was the head for the Consejo in Ribera.

The 32 first hectares is now 43 of the best sites in the area like La Horra and La Aquilera that are plantings between 40 to 100 years of age, absolutely fantastic when you thing about it.

The grape in Ribera have always been a certain clone of Tempranillo here called Tinto Fino and are widely planted in that part of Spain.

All the wine from seven different villages are vinified separately and the blended for the best balance and future, the wine is after that barrel aged for a minimum of 20 months in new and used barriques.

Aalto is a tasty wine with great ambition and some may even consider this as a cult wine, I don’t think so but that is another storey.

The PS is even more selected and a bigger wine in my taste and for all of you who is interested in Ribera wines should come to my tasting this saturday.



4/6/12

Great artisan food

When you think about great food you have to mention all the wonderful flavours in delicatessen that are made by people who is true to the original history and who really cares about how they produce the cheeses and cured/dried food stuff from all the regions of Europe.

The tradition of producing food from your own and local produce is a great way of preserving the artisan craftsmanship so all of you out there can taste the true favours of the land and the people who every day is trying they best to make us all happy.



I am happy to work in a company who has many of these fine producers and you can find them all in many of the best restaurants and delicatessen shops around the country.

At the Gastro Nord fair the 24-27 of April you can visit us at our stand and taste some of the best products from around Europe on the Swedish market and meet up with the producers and great chefs who will prepare some great treats for you.