Natural wines! why?

This years Millesime Bio fair in Montpellier France was the first time for me and a special treat with all the wines on display.

Languedoc Roussillon region is for me a unknown ground and there is many great wines to discover and I meet some amazing winemakers and people who really cares about out environment and the planets future without being to fanatic or strange in any way.

Biodynamic & Ecological wines is something that we all have to learn more about and I am pleased to have the chance to talk to so many producers here for 5 days, thanks guys.

The “vin nature” phenomena is something totally different without rules and regulations its more of a hippie movement that I personally can not understand, unstable and cloudy wines with defect is not something that I want to serve my guests.

Sulphite is the big thing here but many of the IT sommeliers do not really understand the significant of what and when sulphite are used and how much, all wines whatever you call it have natural sulphites in them, the other thing is how much extra winemakers at to it.

When we talk about all the big wines produced in the world today they all contains sulphite more or less but they all do, does this make them bad wines? I do not think so, do you?

I like when people care about the environment and how we manage our planet but we do not need to drink bad and poorly made wines.

Here are some of the best on the fair that all make fantastic wines with care.

 

 

 

12 X 8 with friends & food

My new concept 12 X 8 means that I invite 12 people to my house and I serve them eight curse dinner with selected wines or what I call, All In J

The first dinner was last week with some great friends who enjoyed food that I personally like to cook, the whole idea is that I miss cooking so much and this is a great way for me to perfect food & wine combinations.

This will be a forthcoming event in every six weeks or so all depending on my work schedule and I sure look forward to this next occasion and I have some great plans for this night with the theme of Bond.

Here are some pictures of the food served this night so enjoy folks and if you would like to come please get in touch, the next event will be at the 23: Th of March.

2013 Bocuse d`Or is over for now

The 2013 Bocuse d`Or is now over and the result is as follow.

1 France

2 Danmark

3 japan

4 Great Brittan

5 Norway

6 Sweden

Three Nordic countrys in the top six show again where the focus in the foodworld are.

 This has been intense period of training before the competition and I know for sure that some of the contestants felt relief that this is finally over.

I wish that more of the unknown countries get a chance to shine here like, Guatemala, Brazil, Morocco and others that people do not talk about, that would boost the competition.

The European semi-finals will be held in Stockholm in 2014 and we all in the industry are looking forward to this event.

 

Over & out from France

1500 wines to taste, great treat

First day of Sud du France forum international d`affaires and the Millesime Bio Fair is ended with some more than 1500 wines from the Languedoc-Roussillon region and let me tell you straight away that I did not try them all, but a few hundreds I did for sure, will get my notes together some day and let you know.

Invited for these days of tastings are 210 people from around the world invited to learn more of the region and the wines from here, we will have three more full days of tastings even more wines.

This region is known for simple but good wines in lower/mid range with many everyday drinking wines ( if you are French) but I was very surprised to find some exciting products that can hit the market big time.

I have scheduled meeting with 20 producers on Wednesday to know more about them and to try some more wines in their range, I look forward to this with great pleasure.

My favourite from the region is as always the fortified sweet wines from Banyuls and Rivesaltes that is so neglected in the Wineworld, you have to try them instead of Port sometimes.

How can you taste so many wines in one day? People often ask me that, well…not to swallow is the first rule and next is to be focused and write down what you taste, then of course a lot of training.

When I attend big tastings I prefer to plug in some music for not been disturbed by my fellow tasters who often can be very loud and talkative J when they see my white plugs they get the message. Bug off.

Tomorrow is a new day of even more wines with the focus of BIO and Organic from around the world, interesting and challenging.

Talk to you again soon.