The Barrel Party: A Short Story of Sebastien Riffault Visiting Roster Helsinki With A Full Wine Barrel

EDIT: Dear visitor, I am no more related to Restaurant Roster Helsinki. March 2018


Yes, That happened. We bought a full wine barrel from Sancerre, France and delivered it to Helsinki, Finland to our restaurant Roster Helsinki and sold the wine in a week. Because we are crazy, because I have a crazy boss, because it is such a great event so far never happened in Finland before to our knowledge, and we wanted to give a try, and it was absolutely a wonderful experience, here some short story about it:

All started out of a joke with our importer Henri in May 2016. We discussed about bringing the producer Sebastien Riffault to Helsinki and he and me wanted to set a kind of different event, but what? And then the issue was, if our restaurant manager Paul Hickman would think if this is a crazy idea or not. I was even too afraid to tell about this to Paul so I asked Henri first to mention it to Paul (Sorry Henri). And he did. Same day I came to work and asked Paul what he thought about it. He said: "Crazy... But..." -"But what?" -"But a wonderful idea. Lets do it!"

And so we got the start :)

After a long e-mailing traffic, we finally decided on the dates to be 09-12.11.2016 starting on Wednesday through the weekend and we ordered a barrel of Les Quarterons Sancerre 2014 from Sebastien Riffault. The wine was not yet bottled and Sebastien managed to barrel the wine and save for us before we ordered it to Finland.

One of my favorite encounters of Sebu's(Sebastien's) wines was at Restaurant Grotesk few years ago. Once I was having dinner there and at that time my recent boss, Paul Hickman was the restaurant manager in Grotesk. I was about to have this juicy delicious beef cut "Picanha", and I personally love to play around with "the color code" of wine and meat. So I asked Paul to pair a white wine to go with this nice piece of red meat, he took a second, and then he got excited and said "Ow yeah, wait a minute!". He went to search a bottle and he came back with it, a bottle of Sebu Riffault Akmenine 2010. That was just a perfect pairing. The oxidized flavors of that white wine was dancing so well with the flavor of the meat which takes us to the relation between umami and oxidation. Anyway, breaking the color codes may be the most coolest thing about natural wines. The maceration process, oxidation and the high acidity levels freely found in "Natu" wines make it so easy to play around, white wine with red meat, red wine with fish and chicken. So we were sure that with our wide European fusion cuisine in Roster Helsinki, the wine was for sure going to work well with our food.

The event was set to start on Wednesday with a "Riffault Prestige Dinner with Magnums", followed by a natural wine panel on Thursday together with Finnish professionals, right after a sommelier tasting where the somms could meet Sebu, and the rest of the days Sebu being in the restaurant serving his wine to the guests. To pair with the wine, a 3-course "Barrel Menu" was designed for the guests for the rest of the days. To start with, beef tartar with unagi mayo&marinated mushrooms was such an umami bomb and the barrel wine served quite chilled with this dish. Followed by soy glazed pike perch with smoked potato pearls&pickled cabbage as main dish and finished with French cheese plate. The idea was to pair the wine with all these three courses, therefore the dishes were rich in umami with lots of pickled flavors, and the wine was served in room temperature with the main dish while it was served chilled with the starter and the cheese plate. The pairing worked so well. Temperature difference did make the wine pairing great with these different food portions.

So on Wednesday morning, we received the barrel to our backyard. It was up to a 300 kg package and it did need at least 5-6 people to carry in. We got help from friends and also from our chefs. This was... Well... Fun... :D Here you can see some parts of it in the following videos, thanks to our cameraman and dear friend Jaakko for filming it :)

After a big effort to take it in, we located the barrel at the entrance of the restaurant, next to the our reception desk. One of the very hard parts of the event was done. The next was the prestige dinner with magnum bottles and of course, following days selling the wine :) It was also a question asked by many that how the wine would evolve with oxidation???.... It was absolutely benefiting and getting more and more complex during the following days.

Sebu meeting with the Finnish wine lovers

Ready for the Prestige Dinner

Prestige menu was: Starters: Slightly roasted salmon with pickled radish and beef tartar with unagi mayo&marinated mushrooms. These two starters were served together at the same time with wines, for salmon, Les Quarterons 2014 straight from the barrel and Akmenine 2010 for the tartar. Then this set was followed by the intermediate course, grilled octopus "Bouillabaisse" with fennel&clam mayo and paired with Sauletas 2010. Until now the wines were all white and 100% Sauvignon Blanc with different amounts of rotten grapes (Les Qu.20%, Akmenine 40%, Sauletas 60%) and this was giving every single one of them a more complex and distant character with flavor profile getting more complex and the body getting fuller. The main dish was grilled lamb chops with harissa sauce and cream cheese topped with pomegranate. Matching wine was a Pinot Noir, Raudonas 2011 with robust, fruity and acidic character, unfiltered, unrefined. Lamb and the slightly chilly effect of harissa sauce, cream cheese and the acidity of pomegranates, and of course the generous amount of parsley in this dish was pairing so well with the wine and it was really memorable. The final done by a selection of unpasteurized French cheese assortment, and paired with Sebu's sweet treat, Auksinis Tardif 2010. That was a great night for sure, and I had the chance to be one of the guests. Paul hosted the whole event for 3 full chef tables of 24 guests in Roster's chef table area.

Pulpo Fiction <3

After beers!

Next step was a natural wine panel and right before that, a sommelier tasting with Sebastien to where Henri invited many professionals from the industry. This event was right before the panel and went very smooth in the Chef's table in Roster.

...And the panel time came. Natural wine is a big thing in Finnish restaurant industry at the moment, as well as the Finnish monopoly getting more an more natural wines into their portfolio so also in the retail selection we see more and more natural wines on these days. So following all these, Paul came up with the idea of a panel and we invited professionals from the restaurant industry and importing companies as well as consumers, to discuss natural wine culture. After two weeks of emailing traffic, we were ready for the panel with the speakers who were sommeliers, importers, consumers and wine professionals; sommeliers Johan Borgar, and Katrina Laitinen, importing professionals Oskari Kaikkonen, Mika Vanne, Kim Moliis, our friend Tuomas Rahkamaa, and Sebastien Riffault. That was a very nice and informative conversation on natural wine and we also published the event on Facebook live. Again very big thanks to the speakers for their time.

A bunch of Finnish pros with Sebu

<3

After the panel I felt so relieved that everything went so smooth and nice, we did a great organization, very big thanks to the big Roster family and of course, to the big boss Paul Hickman :) for the great effort that he put in and made everything happen. Otherwise all these would just stay as an idea.

After that, the next and the biggest step was to sell all that wine of course but we did not do so much as it happened by itself, the guests did show very much interest and either with Barrel menu or any other dish they took, they did order the barrel wine and in a total of about 10 days we almost ran out of the wine. As Sebastien told us, we bottled the last liters of the barrel and still served to our customers. The performance of the wine did surprise us so much that it did keep so well and even did benefit during the time.

After getting all these done, of course we were stressed, tired, but relieved, so we decided to go to sauna. Sebastien and Henri left to see Linda in Restaurant Ask and we made a deal to meet&eat something and then go to Allas Sea Pool. Sebastien was performing so well in the snowy winter with sauna as you can see in the pictures :) We are very happy to sent Sebu back to France with some real Finnish experience :) We found ourselves in BasBas surrounded by great friends eating dinner together. No idea how we ended up there. Surprise :)

Very brave.

To BasBas or not to BasBas, that's the question.

On Friday evening Sebastien was our guest sommelier for a few hours serving his wine to the guests and telling the basics of his wine production, as well as meeting professionals who stopped by to meet him. And Saturday, of course, we went out after the service, and I saw the truth, that Sebu is such a disco king <3

So that is the story in a nutshell. Was it easy? No, not even close! But all in all, that was for sure quite an experience for all of us and we are proud of it that we got it done. Check! Roster Helsinki Crew did a great job.

May your glass be filled with some of the most interesting wines. Greetings.

It is here again: GRAND CHAMPAGNE HELSINKI 2017! (11-12-13.05.2017)

Same place, same style, same and even more excitement here again! This year in the middle of May, 11-12-13th of May, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 3 days of wine events full of bubbles, laughters, good mood and fun, Grand Champagne Helsinki is here again as a serious cultural event bringing some joy and life to Helsinki.

Essi Avellan MW presenting the program

I had the pleasure to be in the press release of 2017 event program on 19th of January in Vanha Ylioppilastalo, the always same premises of the main event. Many thanks to Taru, Essi and Christian for the invitation. We had gone through a nice set of Champagne tasting with snacks and got the information about the program. This year the event welcomes over 40 producers from Champagne region and many of them also giving Master Classes during Grand Champagne Helsinki 2017. Easy to register, reasonably priced and very interesting, please take a look at the Master Classes here:

http://grandchampagnehelsinki.fi/master-classes/

Samuil Angelov, one of the leading sommeliers of Finland, will be also lecturing during the events

One of the most smiley, funniest and energetic personalities in restaurant business, Savoy's and Roster Helsinki's Head Chef, one of my bosses, Kari "Kape" Aihinen is again the name behind the traditional Grand Champagne Dinner which is hold together with Champagne producers every year. You can also book a seat and join this dinner where you can have a first class dinner while having nice chats with Champagne producers tasting their Champagnes together with them. Take a look here at the link:

http://grandchampagnehelsinki.fi/gch-dinner/

Boss Chef Kari "Kape" Aihinen

WHY SHOULD YOU GO TO GRAND CHAMPAGNE HELSINKI 2017?

First of all, this event can be considered as a 3-day Champagne course. You will be tasting hundreds of different Champagnes from different houses and vintages, you will have a chance to talk to winemakers and cellar-masters and you will have a chance to meet all other wine professionals and enthusiasts in Finland. That is the personal part if you think about it as a self-study opportunity.

And hear hear my idea here! --> Do you have a girlfriend/boyfriend? Do you often take her/him out for a dinner? So here we go, a ticket to Grand Champagne Helsinki is a perfect way for an interesting and a really different kind of date with your beloved one! :) Who wouldn't love to have a partner who would do this for him/her? :) Or simply just with friends, come to Grand Champagne Helsinki and enjoy a great evening tasting and talking to producers, this is a great event to experience and it is not happening every week in Finland!!!

And after all, it is a great chance for you to spend some good time with bubbles and wine knowledge spreading all around all these three days. We need more of these events in Finland and so far Grand Champagne Helsinki is absolutely one of the most professional and well organized events ever set in Helsinki.

Meanwhile, anytime during the event dates you are welcome to Roster Helsinki where I work as the assistant sommelier, we will be popping up several Champagne bottles as always and even more bottles during these 3 days! Me, Olli and Big Boss Paul Hickman and any of our colleagues in Roster will be more than happy to serve you a glass of Champagne!


May your glasses be filled with good Champagne and ears with sweet laughters! Greetings.

Also Check out the digital tasting tickets!

The tasting set up of the day

COGITO CATERING (Wine Events, Workshops, Private Cooking Services)

If you are interested in a private dinner with your friends and family or a tasting event to share and learn more about wine or looking for catering services, feel free to contact

cogitowine@gmail.com

 I will be more than happy to do my best to help you. Thank you/ Kiitos.

Like the Facebook page and see the photos, just click HERE

From one of my events in Helsinki

"Chef", a French word that means "Cook", the person who is performing the cooking process of the food materials. For some reason some people take this word "Chef" so serious which make it so hard to understand and it is even worse if these people have no idea about cooking or the restaurant business at all, and they think they have a right to teach you what "Chef" means, regardless of the lack of confidence they have. They think, when you say the word in French, it becomes a "label". (Nothing against the beautiful French culture and language though).

Because of the reasons related to this issue, I am proud to call myself "a simple cook", after I have seen such people call themselves "chef" without any experience and knowledge, more of these, without creativity "the most important". Only some people I know really deserve "the label meaning" of the word "Chef" and they are such humble and kind people that they mostly refuse this labeling and prefer to call themselves "A Cook".

I decided to become a cook after I got into wine culture and since then always have wanted to be a cook working on recipes to design specific flavors to match with specific wines, so as being a simple cook specializing to highlight the wine culture, I started my own private company and since then I do catering of wine events, beer events and other beverage events as well and cooked many dinners for private diners too.

So if you are interested to book, contact: cogitowine@gmail.com

 I will be more than happy to do my best to help you. Thank you/ Kiitos.

Like the Facebook page and see the photos, just click HERE

IMPORTANT NOTE: Cogito is not a company that is selling wines. Sales, service and charge of alcoholic beverages are prohibited according to Finnish Alcohol Act if it is done out of a licensed premise which is open to public. Cogito applies all its services according to the Finnish Alcohol Act. Cogito aims to give catering services which are fun and informative, and wine service only would be a small part of the whole event with all the food, presentations and consultancy. Cogito never aims to advise and raise the alcohol consumption. Contact for more information.

For more info please continue to read:

Cogito is a small catering company highlighting wine and wine culture.

What does Cogito mean? 

We are living in an era which very big crowds of people had forgotten to think about what they drink and eat. Spending less time in the kitchen with the rush of the daily-urban life and slowly getting used to lose the sense of taste by consuming the industrial chemical vegetables, fruits and other products made us not to sense, therefore not to think about what we drink and eat. But once the wiseman said "COGITO, ergo sum. / I THINK, therefore I am. ". According to him, the existence came up with conscience. A quick analyze of this one of the most famous phrases of the philosophy history with today's nutrition-wise vision just brings up the idea of losing conscience hence existence. When we don't think about what we drink and eat, lack of thinking brings the question of nonexistence, that easily connects to the idea of "you are what you eat" too, an interesting and clear connection to what the wiseman said about existence. So dreaming about setting dinners and tastings where people have fun while thinking and discussing about the food, wine and other matching beverages made me start my company and think everyday about flavors and pairings. So much things to try, experience and learn. An expertise of wine&food is just simply impossible for a human life. So I read, learn and think. As much as I do, I realize how less I know. As I realize that, my hunger for knowledge grows bigger and I read, learn, and THINK more. Therefore COGITO!

Developing an interest in culinary arts and the passion of wine made me come up with an idea of setting up different wine events which for instance we taste red wine with fish and white wine with beef, compare wine to beer for cheese pairing and setting up many other events with the "out of the box" ideas while thinking and discussing with guests in a cozy, spontaneous and cheerful atmosphere. My type of wine tasting is a family dinner concept, funny, cheerful, friendly, rather than a silent, serious tasting like a business meeting. As Larry Stone said, wine is a comfort food, so put more wine on the table. Think winewise!

The very simple cook and the wine blogger behind Cogito

Contact via email - cogitowine@gmail.com - 

for more info and bookings. Private dinners, private tastings, parties and all kind of activities

Like the Facebook Page and see photos, just click HERE