It is a gray and rainy day in Stockholm. The kind of day when you just want to stay inside and huddle under a blanket. So here I am, sitting in my comfy chair and reminiscing about the wineweek. It has been since long that we have just been at home. Travel has become (perhaps it has always been) a big part of our lives, so it feels great to be still now and then. It has however not been an eventless week. We opened our first order window for Sweden in a year, received our new logo and we tasted some pretty awesome wines over the week and weekend. I have already been advertising the opened sales window quite a lot (and this will not be the last of it) so perhaps better stick to the weeks wine adventures in this Sundays edition. If you are interested in having a look at the selection for this spring you can visit our website.
On Wednesday we opened a bottle to celebrate our opening of March sales. It was a Parellada i Faura Brut Nature Cava from Cellers Carol Valles. This is one of the small producers we met last week in Penedes. This was their entry level Cava, a Reserva nevertheless, and it was wonderful. You could taste the freshness of the grape trio: Parellada, Macabeo and Xarello combined with some toastiness after a while of oxidation. This is a producer we are very interested in and hope to be working together soon. In Barcelona we also tried some of their Grand Reservas, a brut nature and an extra brut, and they were awesome.
Yesterday we took a day off (it is not that easy as wine is never completely work free) and headed to Magnusson Fine Wine, a private club and wine cellar in Östermalm. One of our friends is a member there and he invited us for a Charles Heidsieck Champagne tasting. Here is the lineup:
- Charles Heidsieck Brut Reserve NV
- Charles Heidsieck Brut Millesime 2005
- Charles Heidsieck Blanc des Millenaires 1995
I must say I am now sold when it comes to Charles Heidsieck as a producer. The Millesime 2005 was excellent (but perhaps could age well for some 5 to 10 years more) and the Blanc de Millenaires 95 was great as well (not sure about the value for money though). But what is the best part is that their non vintage Brut Reserva did not fall far behind the vintages. I am looking forward to writing more about it later, but I must say that it is great value for money. Currently you can take home a bottle of the Brut Reserve for 459 SEK (the Monopoly) which is ok. However, it is often available for an even better price on the Viking Line boats sailing between Stockholm and both Turku and Helsinki in Finland. We just noticed that Viking Line has “Bubbly weeks” on the boats all of May, and there the Charles Heidsieck Champagnes are available for very juicy prices, the NV for 339 SEK. I don’t usually travel with the boats (they are not called “party boats” for nothing), but now we found ourselves already browsing for some day trips to Åland (an island in between Finland and Sweden).
We also tried a sample that we brought home from Portugal, a bottle of Antonio Madeira 2012 red. This is a very interesting and inspiring producer from the Dão region, whom only makes this one wine from old vineyards he has sought out. He attempts to find vineyards that have only very old vines as he believes this will produce the best results and after trying this one I am not one to disagree with him. His wine was very light, French inspired (the producer is half French), almost like a Pinot Noir. Absolutely something that would fit our selection of small producer wines. I think we might need to give Antonio a call.
We also popped out for a very nice brunch this morning at the Black Swan, a gastro pub along the water at Liljeholmen (or Liljeholmskajen as the real estate agents want you to call it) in the southern part of Stockholm. We didn’t have any wine (although they do have Lanson as their house champagne by the glass so not ruling it out), but I was very impressed by the brunch, so will perhaps write a few rows about it later next week.
That was it for the wineweek. Next week will be Easter and we will be travelling again, this time to Finland to see my family. There will be some nice food, reunions with friends and I suspect some wine. The good part about drinking wine and blogging is that you can do it (almost) from any part of the world.
