The secrets from the Chef & Sommelier

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 hade 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 sharin...

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

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 a...

I am in Poland to judge the Polish culinary cup (chef of the year) 2013 invited by the organization behind the competition. This was a great fair and competition on a very high standard in all the kitchens and great achievements among the competitors. I am so lucky to be invited and to meet all the passionate chefs from different countries, there is a bright future with chefs without borders; I love you guys and thanks a lot for all the good laughs and deep discussions. Thank you Eva Wojtysiak for taking so good care of me.

To reflect the land and soil in a wine is not easy and you need to focus and work very hard for this, one that is doing just this is the lovely Sabine Ohler from the weingut J.F.Ohler in Gimmeldinger Pfalz. I just love all of Sabine’s wines and the style she have as a female winemaker borne in to the land and raised in the wine cellar, she knows how to express the tradition nicely blended to suit the modern taste of German wines. All of her wines are dry or with just a dash of sugar to balance the wines that have a very high to medium acidity, great full body and very long aftertaste. Due to that she is not a part of the VDP she can not use the “GG” on her label but the wines are at the same level and everybody knows that “Idig” is one of the best “GG” in Germany. The Riesling “Mandelgarten alte reben” have lush and watering mouthful with great citrusy acidity and long lingering finish. Madame Ohler makes some great red wines as well with the spätburgunder “JFO” on m...

To be invited as a judge in foreign countries is a true pleasure and great honour for me and I love every second of it and also to meet all wonderful and creative chefs out there. My trip to Riga in  Latvia  last week was an amazing experience in every sense, great competition, excellent young chefs and great food all around, well done guys. Latvia have some great chef talents and a nice working chefs club managed by the lovely Svetlana Riskova head chef at the Tallinn hotel in Riga and their restaurant The lovely lady Rita Stramkale and Kadrija Klesnika among others that took so good hand of me and I am ever grateful for. There are many good restaurants and to just mention a few are Dome Hotel, Biblioteka no 1, Kalku Varti and Vincents among many more. Riga is a big city but the old town centre is just beautiful and to do a long weekend here is easy and well worth. I will be back.  

The Pfalz as wine region are in big changes with many young winemakers doing traditional Pfalz wines but in a super modern way with great result that will increase and put more fame to this historic sites. One of the new guys is Andreas Rings of Weingut Rings where he make some very serious wines with his brother as companion and head of the vineyards. Weingut Rings was selected as one of the best 100 producer in the whole of Germany in 2012 and that must be a great achievement by this 26 year old winemaker. The white wines shows great “terroir” and some of the best complexity with absolutely no sugar left in them, fantastic dry wines. But Andreas holy grail is the Spätburgunder where his brilliance show of in the best possible way, magic wines and I am so happy to taste them all. Lots of Pinot makers out there have something to learn from this guy.