Craft Beer Tasting @Bier Bier in Helsinki by Viinitie

Some people are working on bringing new flavors in and for this reason we met in the craft beer bar Bier Bier on the first Monday of May after the people of Viinitie's call for it. Okay this is a business, okay they are looking for selling their products, because we all need to earn money, but in a country like Finland where the alcoholic beverage sales are strictly controlled and under the monopoly of the state, to focus on such specific area of business requires to be little bit crazy and I am proud my own craze and my crazy friends who are passionate about wine, premium beers, good whiskies and more. Please do it, dear friends, more please.

So, for all these related, Dominic Lombard, an Irish man from Spain who has got the title "Beer Sommelier" there, has gone with the wind in Helsinki and hopefully will be back with the wind soon. He is first of all a trained chef, which means he knows the food preparation methods and effects of different ingredients on the beverages, which is highly possible to give him a better understanding of food&beverage pairing, is the representative of some beer producers which we tasted that day and he gave us a presentation about the products and Spanish producers that he represents in Bier Bier, here surrounded by some professionals, some I know well, some I dont. Meanwhile we can learn more about Dominic by some words telling about him:

"Trained as a chef in Ireland and France working in several different restaurants up to 3 star Michelin and for U2 in their studio when they where recording the POP album. For health reasons had to stop and started working for a cheese importer distributor in Dublin buying over 250 different types of cheeses. Then working with wine for over 10 years, has WSET higher certificate (Ireland) and a Master in winemaking, viticulture and marketing of wine (Spain). His great grandfather, grandfather and father worked for Guinness so he has been from a very young age involved with beer working in pubs during holidays, weekends and running a Irish pub in Spain. Since 2013 he is working with young up and coming wine producers and craft brewers in Spain and in 2014 became the first Beer Academy Beer Sommelier in Spain and is now looking to study the USA equivalent cicerone certification."

When we started the tasting, first we talked about the drinking habits of the Spanish and what the young generation is looking for, as easy to guess, such a warm climate, people are mostly looking for a cold simple lager to cool down themselves sitting at the shadow. Flavorful craft beers which are more food-matched rather than drinking like water, are quite slowly coming to the scene. Dominic also talked about the Parkerized wines after the American wine critic Robert Parker, which brought out strong, almost over-matured tannic wines, Dominic pointed out that today same thing happening in beer which the hop is overused by some breweries. It is true that I really had so much beers that are really hard to drink, some not possible to enjoy at all. I like the taste of hop, yes, but too much is too much, that simple it is. But since the consumers re-discovered the cool-pronounced IPA -ay-piy-ey- hops become something people started to demand more and more, I personally think this is just a fashion that is coming and will for sure fade away.  

Anyway, we continued to talk during the tasting, about consumers, drinking habits to the philosophy of the beverages and food, then the first producer we went through that day was Dougall's, located in Santander, close to Bilbao, up very north of the Spanish peninsula, started commercial brewing in 2007. They exactly have some products that will make the usual Spanish consumer very happy, easy going yet nice to drink, fun, happy beers which some kind of a brewery's "hello" to the locals. Especially Dominic told that there is a big local cheese production in the area and one of Dougall's beers called Leyenda, I would love to try this beer with the local cheeses since I believe beer is a great match for cheese, the carbonization of the beer is the key to wash down the fat of the cheese. I even did a beer-cheese pairing workshop in Nomad Cellars, click to see photos from that event. Also with the oceanic shellfish dishes of the north Spain, Leyenda and Tres Mares beers would be something to try. More of that, with trying the beer Django with a barbecue steak, slightly burned surface yet juicy and fresh inside, it would be also very possible to search for the G-Point in our mouth. Mhhhmmm, yes baby right there, don't stop...

After that we went through a very interesting producer, "Mateo&Bernabe and friends" which is already interesting with their location, a wine kingdom of north, La Rioja. Sounds like from Game of Thrones. Again a man with a chef-background, Alberto Pacheco who went to Italy to learn more about brewing then started this brewery. They have these parking beers available in Finland by Viinitie,  Labelled B with a crab on it, C with a duck and A with a gorilla. quite interesting and delicious beers with high alcohol volumes, but their big bomb is actually a beer they called 29 Daniel made together as a collaboration with the Beancurd Turtle Brewery, made as the same principal as sherry, kept in wine barrels, a perfect match for desserts that are light on sugar, or some washed rind cheeses. I might be wrong. Hard to talk about certain pairings without trying it.

But definitely I got it as a mission to myself, I am a man of wine, but I will conduct this mission that I will make people to eat more cheese with beer because it might even match better than wine in some cases, I will, hopefully, in my own bar/restaurant/gastro pub someday or anywhere that I would be in charge, I will put more and more cheese and beer workshops that I organized before and hopefully people of Finland will add more cheese next to their beers someday ;) 

Thank you Viinitie, thank you the smiley man of Viinitie, Santeri, for this organization and the opportunity to be with you in this tasting.

May your glass be filled with well-made craft beers, greetings.

The First Wine Bloggers' Meeting of 2015 in Helsinki

On 21 March Saturday I attended the first meeting of Finnish wine bloggers, Kevään Miitti/The Spring meeting and it was amazing to meet the wine lovers at the same time blind-tasting several wines while having some snacks together.

A very lovely woman and a good friend, Heta of Viinilla blog took a lot of responsibility for this meeting and we all had a great time with wine, about wine and into wine! The schedule was calling for meeting at 3pm in front of Helsinki Distilling Company at Teurastamo.

I have been professionally interested in wine culture almost about 3 years now, and in time, this wine interest also took me into premium beers and good whiskies and I became an advocate for these beverages too. So, visiting Helsinki Distilling Company was I think a great start for such a great meeting. 

So, on Saturday, 21 March, we all met about 3pm at the distillery and a very friendly cool man, Séamus of HDCO warmly welcomed us and he quickly started to introduce the building and the project to us. Séamus is an Irish man, who would be a great partner for a political conversation during/after a few beers (Usually Irish people have a lot to say about politics for sure as a historical result), and his interest in whisky making business was not a surprise for me anymore after I knew he is Irish. He gave us a great amount of info about the distilling premises, even the names of the 3 steel tanks named after the 3 workers carrying them in. I lost the names since i took my notes into my phone and lost some of the data. Thanks to technology.

Séamus told us how they found the building, all the challenges and problems they went through and finally how they did set up all in Teurastamo. He also introduced us their products -whiskies, gins, applejacks- and upcoming trials on different products/ideas after he told us the details of their production line. It was amazing to be there and be able to ask anything directly to the CEO of the company. They do organize tours in the distillery, well, do u have a friend who is into distilled products? Dont you have enough money to buy him/her a ticket to Scotland or Ireland as a gift? Contact the distillery and take your friend to a distillery tour, it is very reasonably priced.

Then we all headed to Nomad Cellars which is a relatively new wine cellar and tasting room in the very heart of downtown Helsinki. It is started by the business partners Petteri Laine and Kale Angus. I have done and still doing some business together with them. They are very relaxed and calm people who are very easy to go along with and I am really happy to know them. 

Petteri in the very middle

In Nomad Cellars, Petteri Laine was already waiting for us to introduce the cellar premises and luckily he joined us at the tasting table with his bottle too. Altogether, we had 10 different bottle of amazing wines, it was just about to be 11 if Antti's bottle was not corked, Otto's non-vintage champagne from 70's was also little bit out of bubbles but it was still drinkable. I also opened a kind of bonus bottle which was not tasted blind, an organically produced Turkish wine of an indigenous Turkish/Balkan variety of Papaskarasi by the producer Chamlija which I am a big fan of. This bottle was recognized as the most interesting of the night by some of the bloggers, but I do not take this wine as in "the same package" with other wines since it was organically produced thus it is another category of wine. It is just so easy to sense "the nature" in that wine so it can easily become your favorite wine and make you write poems, well, say it again Robert! ----> 

"Wine is bottled poetry." 

Thanks.

From the blind tasting, my favorite was Pieropan Calvarino 2012 brought by Copatinto's Teemu, with its fresh, energetic and supple structure. and I joined the tasting with a bottle from a classic French region Châteauneuf-du-Pape with a classic blend of the region, which actually people all guessed that it would be a New World, which was somehow surprising. By the way, I had been practicing my Finnish wine vocabulary via Teemu's blog Copatinto from time to time and it was fun to meet him that day :)

The blogs if you want to visit:

Loppasuut     Pullon Henki     Blanc de Blancs     

Viinihullun Päiväkirjä     Viiniministeri    

Viinikartta    Wineserver     Viinilla

Copatinto     Rypäleistä Viis    Reseptitaivas

After the tasting we all had some small chat, drank the rest of the wines and tried to get to know each other more. The next stop was Restaurant Grotesk for the bloggers but I was not able to join them at that part of the night. People left, I finished my last drops in the glass, cleaned around little bit. I was feeling the satisfaction of being with people who are into wine, who take wine serious, who put effort, spend time and money on it. 

I left the cellar, I was satisfied and happy, my hands in my pocket, slowly heading home while thinking about wine and how powerful it is as a culture or was it me giving it the power, slowly walking in the evening of Helsinki streets, what time it was.... It was after the sunset, but before the midnight, after the offices were closed, but before the taxi drivers started their long night work, after lots of people started to get drunk, but before they got wasted, after the shops were closed, but before the prostitutes occupied the corners, after people started to meet each other, but before they got refused and confused, after the lonely nurse started her night shift, but before she fell asleep on the desk... After the end of a good day, but before the procreative night started. 

May your glass be filled with intelligent wine. Greetings.

Barbaresco Tasting in Emo 26.02.2014

Last week Wednesday, there was a Barbaresco tasting in Gastrobar Emo´s wine bar in Helsinki. The Barberosco producer Montaribaldi was going to introduce their wines with the attendance of the winery respondents. I contacted Emo for the details and decided to go there. The entrance for the event was free of charge and that was surprising considering that type of wine (to make it clear, since it is illegal to serve free alcoholic beverages in Finland, during that event no one was served with a free glass of wine, only the entrance at the door was free, the glasses were filled up with about 1-2 cl of wine to taste and then after that they were on sale; it was possible to buy a glass of any desired wine, if you like).

When I arrived, I was expecting to see a crowd at the bar but it was little bit different than i thought, not that crowded, maybe because of the scheduling, that the event started at 16:00, or maybe some other reasons etc.

During the tasting, the owner of the Montaribaldi winery Luciano Taliano, the export manager Giorgia Tontodonati and the importer Gianluca Poggio were present too and after the introduction by Giorgia, we tasted the following wines:

Spumante Brut "Giuseppe Taliano": Citrus and green apple aromas on the nose, a nice, everyday´s sparkling.

Arneis DOCG "Capural" 2013: Fruity nose with reminiscent of mulberry, well structured in the mouth with a  buttery feeling. The medium body might handle more acidity too.

Barbera d'Alba "Frere" 2011: Opaque, dark ruby red with leather and tobacco aromas on the nose. Blackcurrant is dominant in the mouth with strong tannins but the tannins are integrated. There is a also a touch of salinity too. Still, I felt like it lacks a bit of balance.

Barbera d'Asti "La Consolina" 2011: Slightly transparent, dark red with purple rims. Baked fruit and blackberry with leather at the second nose and good acidity in the mouth with red forest berries aromas. This medium bodied wine has a long final with a satisfaction of blackberry and cassis. Delicious.

Barbera d'Alba "Du Gir" 2010: Transparent dark red colored. The first nose is floral with slightly honey and forest berries, very well balanced in the mouth. The fruity final has a touch of vanillin, for sure it had an oak aging.


Langhe Rosso "Trestelle" 2011: Transparent red color with fruity nose, light to medium bodied, good acidity with a little bit astringency.

Langhe Nebbiolo "Gambarin" 2011: Light red colored with a touch of brown -a typical look for Nebbiolo- The nose has raspberry and clove, medium bodied with a moderate final.

Barbaresco DOCG "Palazzina" 2010: Floral nose gets spicy quickly and licorice gives itself . The nose gets a fruity character in time. Medium bodied; very elegant, feminine, a very nice wine with integrated tannins and a long final.

Barbaresco DOCG "Sori Montaribaldi" 2010: First with ripe apple and leather aromas, the nose gets a berry character in time, medium bodied with strong tannins, more masculine compared to Palazzina. Very nice wine to enjoy with a fine balance and long final.

Barbaresco DOCG "Ricu" 2009: Licorice and leather on the nose, fruity with earthy notes, with significant but integrated tannins, well balanced, a fine wine. Delicious and elegant with a long final.

Barolo DOCG "Borzoni" 2009: Licorice is significant on the nose but all in all, the nose is little bit introverted.  Light to medium bodied, gracious, characteristic.

Moscato d'Asti DOCG "Righey" 2012: A classic Moscato d'Asti. What to say more? Just beautiful, just delicious with tropical fruit aromas. Some Moscato d'Astis´ sweetness obscures the fruitiness of the wine but this one does not have the problem at all. Such a nice wine.

All in all, it was a nice event with a Piedmontese touch in Helsinki, a city where a lack of wine culture helplessly exists despite the high consumption of alcoholic beverages. Also it was not an ordinary tasting since the wines are just great, as what is not great from Piedmont? :) I would like to thank everyone who had put effort in this organization and I salute them.

May your glass be filled with Piedmontese wine. Greetings.

Luciano, Giorgia and Gianluca

Gianluca and Emo´s sommelier Eleonora

Austrian Wine Tasting Helsinki 08.10.2013

Last Tuesday, I was exploring the Austrian wines in a very wide range for the Finnish scale in Restaurant Sipuli which is nearby the Uspenski Cathedral in the heart of Helsinki.
Few weeks ago, I received an e-mail signed by the names Marketing Manager Barbara Arbeithuber and the Marketing Assistant Petra Kotlan. I was grateful to them for inviting me but after the tasting when I got back home, I was not only grateful to them but also extremely impressed by the Austrian wines.

Austria in Finnish is "Itävalta" which literally means "East Power". Such a masculine naming right? But for their wines, no, with few exceptions, it is not working at all... Such elegant, chic, characteristic, charming wines Austria has that from the first sip to the last, they state a nice smile of satisfaction on the face. It is beautiful, it is feminine, it is charming, it is entertaining, it is intelligent, it is caring, it has, "personality".


During the tasting, I had the chance to taste indigenious varieties of Austria such as Grüner Veltliner, Sylvaner, Zweigelt, Blaufränkisch, St. Laurent and international varieties like Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Merlot and more, as monocepage and coupage. The coupage wines were mostly good examples but some of them really resembled wines made of industrial/commercial concerns. But only some of them. After all, when I left the tasting, the only thing remaining in my mind was how great characteristics the wines had.

If you would like to know the producers and companies which attended to that event, here is the link for the booklet of Helsinki Tasting:

http://media.austrianwine.com/pindownload/pindownload.do;jsessionid=6FD3E8E56C39400B96C28C6D750E4CA9

Uspenski Cathetral on top of us "like a boss"

Geyerhof

Birgit Braunstein

I have visited the stands of several producers and I am totally surprised how producers can reflect themselves in their wines. There are "7 Elements of Uniqueness" attributed for Austrian wines and one of them is stated as "The People". That is not just a show of fancy words, that is true, totally true. I have met some of the representatives or producers of the wines and I felt the visions of the people at my palate. For example Birgit Braunstein. When I started to taste her wines while listening her kind voice and watching her warm and friendly eyes, I could see that, this stylish and kind person was "the mother of the wines". As much as she spoke and I taste, the wines became a part of her, or she became a part of them. There was a strong reflection/relation between. The same words I can really say for Ilse Maier of Geyerhof. Great wines, elegance, kindness, the warmth and care of a woman´s friendly eyes... She is definitely another "mother of wines". Geyerhof is also an Organic Wine producer, unfortunately, they are both not available in Finnish Monopoly yet.

Beautiful Design

Esterházy was another producer with great wines presented by the charismatic representative Susanne Janotka. The wines were very "Austrian" in sense of the significant character and elegance. But there is one more thing, that the great label designs. The bottle design is one of the most important reasons for the average consumer and Esterházy has great modern designs; it is not "new", it is "modern"( as everything "new" is called "modern" on these days, nonsense). Here 2 bottles to see, from the producer´s internet site www.esterhazy.at (Click on the pictures if you want to see bigger).


Among the producers that I had time to visit, H.u.M. Hofer, Winzer Krems, Umathum and Zantho are all very good producers for their price-quality ratio with great floral notes, cherry/berry aromas, high acidity with a satisfying minerality. Quite a lot of the producers do not have importers in Finland yet, so I hope in the near future, we can have a wider range of Austrian beauty.

Another Beauty

I left the tasting event with a smile on my face and some new visions with a deep understanding of how one can put his/her personality into the wine. I got a better vision of indigenous varieties too which made me very greedy for Austrian varieties like Grüner Veltliner and Blaufränkisch. For sure I knew that Austria has big, crispy, delicious whites with high levels of acidity and minerality but I did not know that they had developed a very high level of quality for red wines, especially Pinot Noir. Pinot Noir is such a variety that you might hate it if you taste a lil bit lower quality one and the PNs in Finland which are under 15€ are usually such examples of PN that can make one hate it. So, look for some Austrian one if you want to have an elegant Pinot Noir, if you do not have enough budget for a Gevrey-Chambertin. After all, I will spend more time in front of the Austrian stand in the monopoly stores. I suggest you the same! Thanks the AWMB again!

May your glass be filled with Austrian wine. Greetings.

Austrian Wine Tasting in Helsinki by the Austrian Wine Marketing Board

2 days ago, last Tuesday, I have attended the Austrian Wine Tasting organized by the Austrian Wine Marketing Board in Restaurant Sipuli (Ravintola Sipuli) and I am totally impressed by the elegant, chic, characteristic, charismatic Austrian wine. Soon I will write about the tasting event and the wines I tried.

May your glass be filled with Austrian wine. Greetings.

Whisky Tasting we held last week in Helsinki

If you start to get into the knowledge of wine, in time, I think it is inevitable to get into the knowledge of beer and finally, whisky. So me and my friend Eric, decided to set up a whisky tasting and got ready for the evening after a big barbecue lunch on Saturday last week.

We decided on a single malt tasting and choose three Scotch single malts from his big collection to taste with the fourth one which is brought by me (Singleton of Dufftown).

Then we started the tasting with our tulip glasses proper for whisky tasting. we first tried four Scotch and compared each other, then tried an Irish single malt "Connemara" and the Finnish whisky "Teerenpeli".

1- The Singleton of Dufftown 12 years, Speyside: Light amber color with a very fruity nose, dried fruits, caramel, honey, daisy flower. Fruitiness still exists in the mouth, lemon and berry-type of aromas. Vanillin with a floral touch during the long final. Rich but smooth, velvety. Better without adding water.

2- Lagavulin 16 years, Islay : Dark amber color, the nose is strongly dominated by smoke, then toast, smoked ham, wet wood. the attack phase is very strong in the mouth. Peat, little bit petrol, hay and salt strongly felt with a very very long final full of joy. Little bit of coffee is possible to get also.

3- Auchentoshan Three Wood, Lowland: This one has been aged in three different casks, Spanish Pedro Ximenez Sherry, Spanish Oloroso Sherry and American Bourbon finally. The color is dark bronze, fruity nose of lemon, orange, pear, apricot; in the mouth, vanillin and nutty aromas leaves the stage to bitter chocolate and toffee during the final. The body is weaker than Singleton but still a nice viscosity with sweet and fruity touches.

4- The Glenlivet 18 years, Speyside: Medium Amber color. Winey nose, cream; very sweet in the mouth, honey and butter notes,  little bit of vanillin. very easy drinking with a moderate final. The nose is quite extroverted.

Among the four Scotch single malts, with the strong smoke and petrol/tar aromas, Lagavulin had been totally different. Other three were quite fruity and Singleton of Dufftown was marching at the front among them with its thick viscosity, easy drinking and sweet fruitiness.

we had two more whiskies as I mentioned above and they were considered like the dessert after a big meal.





*Connemara Peated Single Malt Irish Whisky: Hay and floral nose, in the mouth, vanillin and caramel come to the stage with a touch of clove-kind of spiciness. Moderate final.

*Teerenpeli Single Malt 8 years: It might be funny for the Finns to read that, this is a very local product; that it has a porridge kind of smell at the nose. floral notes with buttery feeling and a reflection of the nose aromas in the mouth. Sweet-ish final is moderate and water changes it´s taste so much.


I am very much thankful for my friend for being with me to create this chance to taste and compare different whiskies and have a good occasion together.

By the way, interesting that together with sweet soft stone fruits like peaches, whisky goes well :)

May your glass be filled with happiness.

Little bit of Turkish wines

Exactly one month ago from today, I was in Istanbul and had a chance to taste some Turkish wines at the same time having a nice holiday, spiced with pepper spray and teargas by the Turkish police. The protests starting at Gezi Park against a despotic dictatorship-like government are now not only in Istanbul but in the whole country and the demand for real democracy and the need for feeling more like a human now take place in Istanbul streets. The police violently attacks people (not only protestors but any person they can see in the street) but the protestors seem like not leaving the place where they belong to. Turkey, seems like, more hopeful than anytime it seemed like before.

So, just one of the tens of reasons of that social explosion is the new alcohol regulations of the government, which mostly aims to finish the production of the beverages -like wine which contain alcohol- rather than protecting the public health. The wine producers in Turkey recently started to worry quite a lot because they are not anymore able to advertise their products, in any case. So I feel a bit lucky to taste some of the Turkish wines, as they might be the last ones in the world if Turkey continues like that.

I had a chance to watch the beautiful Princes Islands of Istanbul while having an amateur wine tasting. My hosts, who are two great women, were quite much into wine so a tasting with people who really take wine as a serious thing (as it is in nature) is always much more fun than tasting with people who do not care anything about wine but just the alcohol content in it.

My host and friend Hande with her mother and her cheeses :)

We had to taste 5 wines; a Turkish rose, a Turkish white and two Turkish reds with a French red too. I was mostly telling my hosts about wines during the tasting but I was still able to observe the wines and have some ideas as well as write some notes. What I saw again, as all the wine authorities say, was the great potential of local varieties in taste compared to international varieties. The local varieties always feels like close to an elegant, balanced wine while the international varieties sometimes feel like "forced to be a bottle of wine." Even though the wine quality is rising up in Turkey, it has been like that since a long time, as I had tasted several Turkish wines before. The taste, body and aromas are not showing that much typicity which might be a question of terroir, as the vineyards might be in too-warm areas in Turkey. This for sure does not mean that international varieties are not possible to grow in Turkey. But still, it really needs vision, time and experience in Turkey. Actually the French wine in that tasting (Guigal Cotes Du Rhone 2007) was a very good final and good example to prove how an average table wine should be.


With four Turkish and one French, the wines were:


1- Kavaklidere Selection Narince-Emir 2010: A coupage of two great local varieties. Straw yellow color with sour apple and lime aromas at the first nose with nutty and woody aromas coming after that. In the mouth liitle bit vanillin is felt during the elegant, easy drinking. Pleasant with a moderate acidity and moderate final.


2- Büyülübağ Iris Adakarasi 2010: Orange rims with a pink color. At the nose, surprisingly baked fruits, jam,  the acidity is satisfying (might be little bit higher), fruity and fresh at the mid-palate, moderate final. A good rose to enjoy cooler.


3- Doluca Antik Bogazkere-Shiraz 2011: This wine has been my favorite for the price/quality ratio long long time ago. The Turkish variety Bogazkere is blended with the beautiful Shiraz and created a fruity but structured wine to consume. It is a very average wine. But the price for that quality makes it very good. Color is almost purple with light crimson on the rims. The nose has blackberry and blueberry aromas with a hint of spiciness. Possible to get some cloves at the second nose. Nice, medium bodied an average table wine which is perfectly nostalgic to me.


4- Büyülübağ Vedat Milor Syrah Tempranillo Grenache 2011: This is from a series of wine which that producer created together with Turkish food&wine celebrity Vedat Milor and the series has his name. The reason they say that they wanted to create wines which have some level of quality with a reasonable price. But, what I can say, it is not balanced, it is a bit forced power to be wine I think.  Baked fruits and blackberry, little bit astringent, the tannins are strong but on the right way to be integrated, satisfying acidity with a moderate-long final. I think the strong body is overshading the joy of drinking. But that might make this wine match with strong meat stews or strong barbecued red meat, like lamb chops.


5- Guigal Cotes Du Rhone 2007: A classic for a good quality of daily consumption, At the nose rose, baked fruits, ripe pear; in the mouth blackberry, blueberry, cloves... Woody with integrated tannins with a full body. Final is long. A very good wine which sometimes I buy to enjoy, I haven't had 2007 before. There is also a tasting note here for 2009 recolte. 

All in all, Turkish wine industry has potential with a growing number of people who are interested in it. But the religious despotic government is ruling the country into a very scary way and that not might be only the end of wine industry in Turkey, but also the end of lots of political and social freedoms.

Still, for now, Turkey is hopeful, as its wines.

Wine Tastings in Helsinki, you wanna be a part of it?

If you live in Finland and if you are interested in wine in a serious way, if you read about it, write and eager to do more regularly, if it is a big hobby for you or more than a hobby, send a mail to this mail address wineandfinland@gmail.com in order to be a part of our tasting group --->>> There will a be a tasting group of 5 or 6 people maximum, totally non-profit. The idea is to taste, learn and share more about this magical beverage, more than paying membership fees to tasting groups. So you will not pay any membership fee but just participate in the cost of the bottles to be bought, which everybody in the group will participate equally. So you will have the chance to meet people who already know about wine and you will have the chance to taste fine wines which you probably don't buy regularly from the Alko shops when you are alone, because of several reasons, such as high prices. Send a mail and learn more details if you are interested, anytime, any date. An average wine knowledge is required. If you do not know such basics like, for example, what the tears of wine mean, if you do not know where the color of wine comes from, what salinity is, what minerality is, if you are not familiar with wine terminology/aroma definitions and things like that, these tastings might be a bit hard for you in the beginning. But still, do not hesitate to contact, do not forget that, non of us is a MW,  so, contact and learn more, maybe you can still join and improve yourself in time ;)

Wine Tasting: Bodega Atamisque 30.05.13

About two weeks ago, there has been another tasting that I had attended in Helsinki. An Argentinean producer, Bodega Atamisque´s Director General Jean-Edouard de Rochebouët was in Helsinki for a tasting with wine writers and journalists and me, the humble wine blogger, had the chance to attend this event. It happened in the office of Red Bev OY. Mr. Rochebouët and the Red Bev team were extremely kind and we all tasted really good wines during the following hours.

Please check the winery webpage:

http://www.bodegaatamisque.com/

During the tasting, I had the chance to taste seven wines of Bodega Atamisque. As it is Argentina, the predominant variety was Malbec. But there were surprises also. 

We have started with a white, then three Malbecs came following each other, then a Pinot Noir monocepage and two blends made the final:

Serbal Viognier 2011

1- Serbal Viognier 2011: This elegant wine has a nose of floral notes, a hint of honey and it is very fresh. Quite jammy and satisfying with a moderate finish. The altitude of the vineyard is more than 1000 meters so this means a 2-3 degrees of lower temperature, which makes the area proper for that white variety.

2- Serbal Malbec 2012: The nose shows a typicity for Malbec, black fruits and strong tannins in the mouth. Decantation might be better before drinking. 

3- Catalpa Malbec 2010: Very elegant nose and mid-palate. Blackberry and blueberry notes. Aged in French Oak, a very nice example of Malbec wine. Reminds me the Cahors Malbecs.

4- Atamisque Malbec 2009: A bit sweeter than previous wines, softer aromas; cassis, raspberry, medium bodied, good price-quality ratio, considering the estimated price.

Catalpa Malbec 2010

5- Serbal Assemblage 2012: Slightly tobacco at the nose, full-body with a high acidity, interesting, complex, it has it´s own character. Minerality, spices and fruity notes are coming out following each other one by one. Might be more elegant after decanting.

6- Catalpa Pinor Noir 2011: Claret, slight earthy notes at the nose, very soft and easy to drink, strong acidity with a long final. Spicy notes come out in time.

7- Atamisque Assemblage 2008: Nose is dominated by black fruits. Strong tannins but integrated, slightly astringent, good potential to age. 5 years old and very robust. Strong acidity with a long final.

Atamisque Assemblage 2008

During the tasting, there have been wine writers an journalists coming and going always and it has been definitely a busy day for Mr Rochebouët and the Red Bev Team. But I am sure everyone had a great time full of professional information and nice talk flavored by good wines. Frankly, the wines made me think that Argentina has a great potential not only for Malbec variety, but also several Bordeaux grapes and white varieties. Keep an eye on Bodega Atamisque and thanks Red Bev Team -Hadrien and Marina- a lot.

May your glass be filled with happiness. Greetings.