Domaine Weinbach / The Faller family

One of my all time favourite wines has to be the wines from Domaine Weinbach and the Faller family, guess if I was exited when I manage to get a appointment with Catherine Faller at the old winery. (from 1612)

The Faller ladies was the best hostesses you can imagine and the tasting that we hade was just mind blowing with the whole range of the Faller wines one better than the other what a treat that was to taste the wines from the grand cru of the estate.

Schlossberg, Furstentum, Mambourg, Altenbourg, cuvee Laurence vineyard, Marckrain and the historical monopole vineyard Clos de Capucins are all making the finest Alsace wines available, beautifully crafted with a female twist to it.

All the wines are made in a special style house style with extracted mature fruit extremely well balanced with sharp acidity and the minerality that make the wines preferable to match with any modern and classic cuisines.

As a chef I see pictures of food when I taste wines and let me tell you that the menu I hade in my mind was extraordinary that could match the domains wines.

The wine that was slightly above the others is the Riesling Schlossberg Cuvee Sainte Catherine “ INEDIT “ that was produced in 1998 for the first time of vines that are more that sixty years of age! This specific little plot reach exceptional maturities year after year with some botrytis without “ trie “ this wine is pure fantasy of how a great Riesling should be in the mature style with an average residual sugar of 22 grams every year, the wine is silky, smooth, complex with a dry finish that shows a perfect balance and elegance of what Riesling as a grape can produce in the hands of a master winemaker. Do you want to have more information of the wines or the Domaine feel free to drop me an mail.

Finger licking good//D

Zind - Humbrecht wines in gods garden

When you leave South Africa you can not believe that one of the first persons you meet is from that country! How fun it was to meet up with Jolene Hunter the cellar master of maison Zind-Humbrecht, she is from J-burg bye the way J

The winery of Olivier Humbrecht is in my book one of the 3 best producers in Alsace ( I will meet them all this week) and Jolene ( Olivier has to drive his son to a new school out of town this day) made this tasting a memory for life, I hade the tasting extravaganza never seen before when we started to get berserk in the tiny wine cellar, the one great bottle after the other, she was a great hostess who could explain all of my silly questions about all aspects of the house winemaking methods and about biodynamic winegrowing techniques.

The wines in the range are all amazing and it’s hard to pick a special wine, but if you have a request for this just drop me a e-mail on dragan@unictaste.se and I will get you an update.

When you taste wines like this from a master of terroirs you can really notice the difference of every slope and the different plots of land where the grapes are grown, very knowledgeable and interesting and put things in new perspective on things.

To be a sommelier and wine nerd is fantastic because the education never stops and you learn something new every time you taste a wine and meet a winemaker, I’m really humble for all of this people that work hard to give us these great wines, there is no shortcuts for quality when it comes to wine.

You get what you pay for//

Maison Trimbach

After a Quick change at home we where heeding for Alsace for some meetings with the top producers in the region, first out after a long drive that night ( believe me I was exhausted after the long flight from Johannesburg ) was a appointment with the lovely Anne of maison Trimbach in ribeauville one of the bigger wine towns in Alsace, what a wonderful treat she gave me when she start to pour the whole range of the Trimbach wines, believe me its hard to choose but an all time favourite is always the Frederic Emile cuvee made of Rieslings right outside the house on the slopes of Osterberg.

The Rieslings of the house Trimbach is extremely well balanced with racy acidity and great matures in the fruit, with a high content of minerality in the nose this is especially for the Clos St Hune Riesling that still after 5 years is very young and need many more years before it start to show of the real potential with maturity, this is for sure a world class Riesling that is hard to beat for any growers.

The Trimbach VT and SGN wines is something special with a massive fruit and complex aromas but all of them are perfectly balanced with sharp acidity and the sweetness, I’m so lucky to taste wines like this and have friends like the Trimbach family that can treat and spoil me like this.

Many Thanks once again dear Anne and bye the way you look amazing in your costume of flames J

The lucky bastard//

Pinot Noir and great friends

Pinot Noir must be the most exiting grape variety in South Africa right now, after attending a great Pinot tasting with my friend sommelier Miguel Chan I realised quickly the potential of this grape and the great future to come.

The best pinot wines I have tasted so far is Meerlust 2009 from Stellenbosch, De Grendel 2009 from Cape town area, Catherine Marshall seven barrels 2009 from Elgin and finally Nature in Concert made by Danie de Wet from Robertson.

In the new world people mostly rely on New Zealand as a good pinot country by all means, but S-A will give them an match for they money in an few years to come.

The pinot grape can be an real challenge to grow and many winemakers just don’t want do take It, but they who do can make beautiful wines that the world loves right now, its going to be interesting to see how long this grape will stay in fashion considering that everything in the wine world is very sensitive to media and what / how journalists write about wine, for the last 15 years I could see a great development in different countries that make wine but also a development in new style from the old world, we my friends are born in right time for this magic time.

I would like Dusan Jelic welcome back to Europe after many years in S-A, we will meet soon my friend.

Have a great pinot day.

Tack pressen för att ni hjälper oss sprida detta

Här kan ni lästa mer om vad som skrivs i Svensk press om vårt arbete i Sydafrika
http://www.restaurangvarlden.se/Nyhetsarkiv/Arkiv/Svenska-kockar-lagar-mat-till-svaltande-barn/

Hello Africa tell me how ya doing

I’m sitting at the Intercontinental on my last evening in sunny South Africa, what a great country this is with friendly people and great wines.

We have finished our mission of collecting 8 million RD that will feed hungry children for at least 5 years and that is a great achievement, well done all of the chefs who arrived from around the globe to be part of this event.

You must go to a safari when you visit this country!! We went for some days and that was a big treat, thanks Chris for taking so good care of us and showing great skill of finding all the animals that we wanted to see.

When you visit a place like this for the fist time you quickly realise that time is not that important In Africa, they all do they things at the pace of a very slow sleepwalker but I guess you get use to this after a wile like my new buddy Henrik from Sweden who live in S-A for many years and teach me many things about how it all works, Thanks my friend and talk to you soon again.

The greatest guy around must be Chef Arnold at the Montecasino palazzo this guy have been absolutely fantastic with the biggest heart and patience with eight chefs running around in his kitchen and asking tons of questions, thanks a lot Arnold with crew.

Miguel Chan is simply one of the most talented and funniest sommeliers that I have met in a very long time, thanks Miguel for a great Pinot tasting and showing me what S-A is able to reach in a very short time, will keep In touch.

Right now I’m looking forward to meet up with my family for a nice trip to Alsace and champagne for a relaxing treat, I will let you know more about this later.

Cheers to you all

Team Sweden

Nu har team Sweden serverat färdigt för denna gång i Sydafrika, efter två fantastiskt roliga kvällar med supernöjda gäster känns det skönt att denna del av projektet är klart, ytterligare fler demo står på tur.
Tack vare trevliga kollegor från andra länder lyckades vi byta bort vår demo på lördag så vi nu får en oväntat ledig dag då detta behövs efter en intensiv vecka.
på söndag är det dags att besöka Soweto och träffa en massa sköna människor.
Hotellet där vi bor http://www.southernsun.com/deluxe/the-palazzo-montecasino/pages/overview.aspx
så har all personal varit helt fantastiska och otroligt hjälpsamma med att lösa alla våra små problem, människorna är speciella som alltid i U-länder men har ett gott hjärta och försöker gärna hjälpa om dom kan ( skitstövlar finns överallt), ska träffa hotellets chefs sommelier Miguel Chan som jag är mycket nyfiken och spännd på då han är enl uppgift från andra en av dom mest erkända i S-A.