Merry Christmas and the best of the new year to come

Dear  friends

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a magnificent Christmas and a new fantastic year of 2014

May you all be prosperous and with best health and I hope to meet you all in the coming year.

Stay tuned for my 2014 wish list.

Love & Peace

 

Over & Out

I am really exited now! After eight years with Gastro Import is over and out leaving fantastic memory’s and amazing colleagues in a bright future, thanks guys for making my time with you all a memorable place in my heart.

The sun is arising and Kosta Boda Art Hotel will be the new workplace as of Monday, cant wait to start my new assignment and to make some new friends there, what a challenge it is (Yoda phrase)

2014 will be a great year and many exiting things will be ahead of me with WACS congress in Stavanger Norway and my candidacy for the Continental director Europe north, I will keep you posted of this event.

 

Wish me luck!

 

New job & New future, Bring It on!

New future is arising and both I and Christina are on the way to new challenges in our professional lives.

The Kosta Boda Art Hotel will be our new home in the future with me as a Food & Wine Director and Christina as assistant development, great way of keeping our family together and do the things that we love in life.

I have great plans to lift up the wine service & food to the highest level and I am aiming high J

There will be challenges but mostly joy to move up to the deep forest where all the trolls’ lives check out the web page and please come visit us at any time.

http://www.kostabodaarthotel.com

GOLD to the Swedish Junior culinary team

The Swedish National Culinary Junior team has done they first performance after the new team was set earlier this year with the big target at the Olympics in Erfurt 2016.

To compete and to know the feeling for it and what it takes is a challenge for most of the guys who have never even been to a competition before therefore was the invitation from South Korea a chance for all of them to do the test and to se what all the training was giving them as a member and part of the team.

I must say that the juniors did a fantastic job and hit the all high gold in the hot kitchen performance just as they have practiced for some weeks before the competition.

The cold display table was a walkover and never considered to do at this time but beware all the teams and see you all in Luxemburg in November 2014.

Enjoy the pictures.

Great wines and fantastic people in Italy

Wine travels always make me feel good and on high positive energy and especially with stunning friends who enjoys food & wine

Few weeks ago I had the pleasure to visit Piemonte in north of Italy with Patrik, Anna, Helena and Camilla who are the best companions to travel with (my wife is the best) J

We stayed at the Tenuta dei Fiore in Calosso (Asti) with the best hospitality of Valter and Yvette Bosticardo and their fab kids.

The Bosticardo family runs a wine farm with very good quality production, but the most amazing wine must be the one of a kind moscato with 12 years on the lees!! Absolutely amazing and unusual

Thank you Valter for giving me the Nr 1 bottle out of 800.

 

Nadia Curto is the nice of the more famous Elio Altare and she is one hell of a lady that I like very much beside that she is a rad winemaker with bold and gutsy wines from the “La Morra” Barolo area, look out for her wines with the label of Marco Curto.

Thanks Nadia for sharing your knowledge and energy to us.

 

I sure hope to be back soon again.

 

Srpska vizija za skandinavsku kuhinju

 Great writing about me and my food visions Srpska vizija za skandinavsku kuhinju
please enjoy.

//Dragan

Dr Burklin - Wolf wines from a German legend

Tom Benns is a very funny and extremely knowledgeable man taking care of the estate export and was also our guide at the weigut Dr Burklin-Wolf estate in Pfalz.

Since 2001 Bűrklin-Wolf have classified their wines according to the vineyard site (similar to Burgundy) and

after extensive research they discovered that today’s top vineyards are exactly the same as those identified in time when these vineyards produced some of the most expensive and highly regarded wines in Germany.

Bűrklin-Wolf wines are labeled G.C.(grand cru) for the top quality their wines and P.C.(premier cru) for the second. G.C. wines are produced from yields of less than 45 hl/ha and minimum 12.5% alcohol from vineyards rated first in the villages of Rupperstberg, Forst and Deidesheim P.C. wines are produced from yields of less than 55 hl/ha and minimum alcohol of 11.5% from vineyards rated second in Ruppertsberg and in Wachenheim. Grapes are harvested with Spatlese and Auslese levels of ripeness but are fermented to dryness.

The Young and very humoristic Italian winemaker Nicola Libelli who took over after the tragic death of the long time winemaker Fritz Knorr are making progress and in my opinion the Burklin-Wolf wines have never bees so good, way to go Nicola.

Since 1998 classical medium sweet wines are no longer produced and I love the bone try wines made here and the delicate way that the wines develop thru aging so please save some for better days J

Thank you again Heike for making this visit happen.