9/9/13

Latvian chefs and fantastic food.


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.






 

9/4/13

Rings in Pfalz, some of the best.


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.










8/28/13

Jurgen Krebs Pfalz magic man


German wines and especially the wines from Pfalz was the theme for the wine tour this year and o`boy what a surprise this was, fantastic wines, great passionate young winemakers and magical vineyards.

The whole trip was actually organized by our great friend Heike Larsson who lives basicly in the vineyards and has all the knowledge of the area and also the best possible connections in the wine industry here,

Heike we love you and are so thankfully for your effort of keeping us busy all the time.

The first one I would like to present for you is the young and very funny winemaker Jurgen Krebs who makes dramatic and lovely wines with the focus on Spätburgunder (pinot noir) he is selected as one of the bright future winemakers of the VDP and it will be a true pleasure to follow him in to the future.
The wines from Musikantenbuckel was just amazing.

Mr Krebs love his wines and have such an eclectic passion for this but the tradition is always there (thanks to his dad) but he loves to use new techniques and to experiment to make his own style.

If you ever travel to Pfalz you have to visit him.







8/26/13

Espania por favor


I have not been blogging lately due to my well needed summer vacation with my family, Bianca start wondering where the heck her father was for the past months J I wanted to make up to her in the best way possible, HEY ! Lets go to Spain!

We hade a wonderful time in dads new house with our own pool and open-door kitchen for me to cook in, just love It and later on great excursions in the afternoon/evening.

Cartagena is a fantastic place that you all must visit, so full of history, nice cultural buildings and the most amazing harbour with great restaurants and small walkabouts.

Los Alcazares in the most beautiful little town with great beaches and the warmest water in the med Mar Menor, just fantastic and worth visiting.

La Manga is a very trendy place with lots of beautiful villas and great sandy beaches go there and embrace the Spanish sun.

September is here and it is the full throttle forward to great adventures with friends and family, I will keep you posted.

 

Cheers//D