Great wines at work

When I look for wines for the Gastro Wine Selection portfolio It is always a pleasure but also some hard work with aching teeth at night but will never complain, It is so much fun and excitement.

Some days ago we where trying to find out some interesting new producers from Peru, Uruguay, Portugal and Italy, all great and finely done wines with bold and beautiful characters.

The wines from Peru was new to me and I remember tasting some years ago on a wine fair but not more, these new wines from the Tannat grape was exiting showing big nose and lot of expression, nice.

I have had problems to understand and to appreciate Portuguese wines, I find them unbalanced, tart and always so very young, same this time, not my cup of wine but I will continue trying to find its soul.

Uruguay have gone from great to fantastic in some years but the good ones is very expensive but can match many of the great wines from around the globe, watch out for complex and amazing wines from this small country.

Italy is another case, so many bad wines produced around the country and in all the IT locations and regions, they sure try to sell you a FIAT with a Ferrari emblem J and charge you for it as well.

I need to fins some more wines from the Veneto region so we tried a some 3 excellent producers, we charged to the top at once and found some very good stuff, lets see what will happened with this.

The story of my life.

Great Hotel in Helsingborg

Hotel Viking in Helsingborg have some of the cosiest and most beautiful setting of all the hotels in Helsingborg where I reside, the new refurbished rooms offer great pleasure and the staff is just amazing.

This is the reason why I keep on doing my wine tastings and lectures here with the helpful hand from the staff, thanks guys for making my life so much easier.

Check out their website here http://www.hotellviking.se

POZDRAV IZ ŠVEDSKE! ŽIVELI UZ VINO DOLINA

Here are a great story about me and the serbian wine of Dolina http://www.vinopedia.rs/?p=3161 

Bocuse d`Or in the sight

The first for in the new 2013 is all about food.


Now it is the time of year when all the important culinary competitions start with the Swedish chef of the year with my friend and team captain  for the Skåne Kulinar Martin Hansen in the finals and I wish him the best of luck cause I will not be there this year due to my trip to France and a mission in the wine world.

The other competition is the finals of the Bocuse d`Or with the amazing Swedish chef Adam Dahlberg representing his country with help of among many others his technical coach Peter Jelksäter who is also responsible for the Swedish national Junior  culinary team.

I will have a glass of wine and cross my fingers for you guys in Lyon end of January.

Here are some amazing pictures of the food that Adam was presenting on the European finals last summer where hi did 2:nd after Norway and Denmark as third.

You can easily say that the culinary scene have moved to the north for the last years when you look at all the results on the years latest competitions and all what the journalists around the world is writing now.
Here are some pictures from Gastronomi Sverige.

Happy New 2013

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

 

Wine from the vending machine?

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 end of 2012

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 important HACCP is when it comes to food, many poisoned chefs knows that now and so do we L

The tastings that I and Christina have done this year have all been magnificent and our customers are happy, faithful and joining us many times on different conducted tastings, more to come in the next year.

To travel in the wine countries is always nice and needed when to stay on top of things, to visit friends at the same time is even better, we travelled in Spain, the Rhône valley, Burgundy and Alsace, many thanks to Stina & Stephane Ogier for explaining the Cote Rotie and thanks to the wonderful Anne Trimbach for great friendship what would life be without friends like you!

To be selected as the first Swede in the Confraria Saint Sadurni d`Anoia de Cava was for me a great moment and a true pleasure meeting all the new friends in Cava land.

The big thing this year was the culinary Olympics in October where Swedish teams won 5 gold and 3 silver medals and really show of what Sweden is all about when it comes to culinary.

Bianca my little seven years old loves KISS and Rock`n`Roll and have a new friend in the new Westie dog Mama Mia, a great puppy friend.

Health, love, respect and understanding is what makes all of us achieve greatness.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year 2013 from all of us to all of you.