Category Archives: wine tasting

Gaia Gaja @ Vinoteket

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Vinoteket, a hot new meeting place for wine enthusiast, recently hosted Gaia Gaja for a winetasting. Clearly, I was in attendance. Although I have tried quite a few of the wines from Gaja, I have never been to the winery.
All in all we tasted 5 different wines, 3 from Piemonte and 2 from Tuscany (who knew!).

Gaja has recently started a new project in Tuscany, and at the tasting Gaia showed us two of the wines from there. First, the Camarcanda, which is 80% Cabernet Sauvignon and 20% Cabernet Franc. A simple, but structured wine from a flat area with limestone soil.

Bolgheri is a simple beauty

Gaia Gaja

The second wine from Tuscany is the Brunello di Montalcino, the “brown grape” from Montalcino. With 100% sangiovese, a Brunello can be very tannic if made “poorly”. Gaja brought the Brunello from 2014, a difficult vintage, but a vintage that resulted in lower tannins and good acidity.

Wines from Piemonte

From Piemonte, we tried Conteisa, Spress and Sori Tildin. Conteisa, where the grapes are from La Morra, was more elegant and fruity than Sperss, where the grapes are from Serralunga. Both balanced wines with good structure and good acidity. Compared to the wines from Tuscany, Gaia feels like the nebbiolo wines are less persistent, more quiet.

Nebbiolo allows the vintage to be in front

Gaia Gaja

Sori Tildin comes from a vineyard planted veritcally (very unusual) which allows for a higher density of vines. Located on the top of the hill, southfacing on dense soil means the wine is very concentrated. Rich, dark fruits with a hint of mineralism.

Gaja on climate change & biodiversity

Although she spoke a lot about the wines, she also spend a significant amount of time on the topics climate change and biodiversity. Climate change has become an issue in the vineyards, as the weather is even more unpredictable than normal, making the work in the vineyards more and more difficult. A proposed solution to this problem is more biodiversity.

If you look out into the landscape in Piemonte, you’ll see miles and miles of vineyards as far as the eye can see. The problem with this “mono agriculture” is a lack of biodiversity. Despite protests from Angelo Gaja, they decided to hire consultants to help. Bee keeping, different types of herbal essence, leaving the grass growing, planting trees – all of these ideas are meant to encourage biodiversity.

A truly interesting woman, who comes from a winery with an incredible history! If I were to describe Gaia in 3 words:
Passionate
Fierce
Intelligent

Piemontegirl Tasting

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Piemontegirl tasting 2 Table

As you probably already know, I’ve started to host some wine tastings! Mostly basic tastings, differentiating between 3 grapes: dolcetto, barbera and nebbiolo. I think it is a good way to learn the difference between the 3 main grapes in Piemonte.

The dolcetto from Andrea Oberto had the typical purple color of dolcetto. On the nose it had kind of a strange smell. I think there might have been something strange with this bottle, maybe some reduction, because I’ve had this wine many times before and it did not smell like that. In the mouth it was as it should be – fresh, fruity, light.

Alessandro Veglio’s barbera had a ruby red color, slightly opaque. The nose was a little closed at the beginning, but came to after a while in the glass. It was fresh, fruity and had a good amount of acidity.

Lastly, the Perbacco. Color was brownish red, typical of the nebbiolo grape. On the nose there was roses, violets and earth tones. As Vietti makes their nebbiolo quite similar to their barolo, there were tannins present, as there should be with nebbiolo.

Piemontegirl tasting 2

Autunno con il Barolo di La Morra

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During the month of November you can taste a vadt variety of wines from the town of La Morra at the Cantina Comunale! Every Saturday in November there is a big tasting, featuring a dozen wines from the surrouding wineries. For only €15 you can taste over 40 wines from great producers! If you’re in the area you should check it out!

Vadio Winemakers Dinner

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vadio dinner table

It’s always wonderful to see good friends and it was a pleasure to attend the Vadio winemakers dinner at Astral in Oslo a while back. First – what a location!! Astral is located a little outside Oslo in a beautiful building (I mean, come on – look at those pictures!)

vadio dinner eduarda

Eduarda and Luis, the winemakers from Vadio, shared 6 wines with us. Starting with the bubbly as a welcome drink. Then the Rose, followed by the white wine, before the 3 red wines. You know me, so you know I mostly stick to Piemontese wines, but I make exceptions for when my friends are in town! Go to http://www.vadio.pt/ to learn more about their wines.

Vadio dinner

Lastly I want to give a little shoutout to Astral. I was very impressed that they managed to serve high quality food for so many guests at a time – bravo! The food was delicious, the staff was fantastic and the wine was great (of course)!

Wine Night at Cascina Nuova

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Wine Night a la Piemontegirl

Remember I asked you for advice on how to run a Wine Tasting? Well, here is how it went!

Wine Night 3

My very talented friend Elena Baseotto made me some tasting sheets, and I decided to go for 3 wines next to each other: dolcetto, barbera and nebbiolo. The knowledge level among the participants varied a lot, so this was a nice way to show them the different grapes and their characteristics.

I chose a dolcetto from Andrea Oberto, a barbera from Burlotto and a langhe nebbiolo from Trediberri. These 3 producers are different yet they share the same philosophy (and are people I care about). It was very interesting to see which wines the guests preferred and why. I like all three, but in very different ways. Dolcetto is very easy to drink, not a lot of structure, but very pleasant. Barbera tends to be bigger (in comparison to dolcetto) and tastes better with food (in my opinion). And langhe nebbiolo is tannin free and smooth, yet has more structure than the dolcetto. All in all good wines to try.

Wine Night 1

I think maybe next time I will do a comparison of the same type of wine but either from different producers or different cru. I think it is interesting to see the different producers interpretation of the wine. Any thougths?

Wine Night 4

Barolo Weekend in Sweden

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Barolo Night in Gothenburg

6 people, 10 barolo, 1 night: does it get any better? (Yes I know one of them is technically a Barbaresco, but it’s not my fault someone cheated!) The deal was: bring one (or three) bottles of barolo and we’ll taste them blind. So, blindtasting gallore!

Barolo Sweden 2

The bottles were a little too cold when we started, which made it even harder to taste and try to differentiate and eventually guess the wines. But we had some good conversations around all the wines, and after they warmed up and opened up they were all pretty much incredible.

Barolo Sweden

The way we did it was: 3 bottles at a time, random order. To help us remember which was which I brought my Wine Glass Writer along. Genius way to assist during a blind taste. I also sometimes use them for seating arrangements at dinner parties. You just write the guests names on the glasses instead of on a card. Safe to say I use mine all the time!

Man surprises during the night. What was difficult was that some of the older bottles outshone the younger ones, even though the younger ones were also very good. Example: 2013 Alessandro Veglio is a very good wine, but for me too young and therefore the 2009 Barbaresco and 2010 Enzoboglietti came out a little stronger. I had also set my mind on the Marengo (without label) and so any wines after that were sort of put in second place.

Top 3 wines of the night: Aurelio Settimo Rocche dell’Annunziata 2009, Marengo Unknown Barolo and 2005 Renato Corino Vecchie Vigne. Outstanding. Looking forward to the next Barolo Night!

Barolo Sweden 3

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vivino

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First of, I do have an account on Vivino. I admit I’m not the most frequent user, but I am trying to post more. The problem for me is that I usually take a picture of the wine and then later I post it on instagram or 20170123_125057000_iossomething, and I always forget about Vivino…

 

 

Anyone use it? Love it? Hate it?

 

 

Know of any good accounts to follow?

 

 

 

Any tips are welcomed!

 

For those who are not familiar, Vivino is an app created for those of you who either like reviewing wines or for those who like reading wine reviews. Many consumers will read reviews before purchasing, either in a wine magazine like Decanter or online. The app is an easy way to get quick access to wine reviews. If you want to review a wine you can also read what other people thought of that same wine. It’s a pretty good tool, and I want to get better at using it.

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Giacomo Conterno

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Finally, a visit to Conterno. This winery has been on the list for quite some time, and I was very happy when the dream became reality. Located in Monforte, it has an amazing view (as you can see above) and the winery is recently renovated, absolutely stunning.

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Roberto Conterno, the grandson of Giacomo, now runs the winery and he gave us the tour (along with a translator). I personally thought his English was good, but none the less… The winery is relatively small, they produce a small quantity of wine, and as of now they only really make 3 different wines, sometimes 4 when they also make the Monfortino. He uses big botti, a “traditionalist”, and all his wines are aged in wood (none in stainless steel).

The tasting consisted of his Barbera and the 2 barolos. Conterno is known for his Francia, that he uses both for his barbera and one of the barolos. I thought the 2014 Barbera Francia was excellent, which is rather strange, because 2014 was a difficult year and the wines have been so so… Roberto joined us for a glass or two, and passionately explained his philosophy. Overall a fantastic visit.

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Mauro Veglio

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I have been to Mauro Veglio’s winery many times, both for visits and for a coffee break. But I went back again for a visit this time because my brother had never been for an official winery tour and tasting. It’s always a pleasure to spend time with Daniela, and Mauro of course (although it’s easier to have a conversation with him if you speak Italian). Daniela was kind enough to show us Barolo 2013 from the tanks, so we could compare them to the 2012’s. It’s always interesting to compare vintages.

Looking forward to visiting again soon, and of course drink more of their wines!