Exploring Italian Wine One Grape at a Time
So this is Christmas…we are almost there. For me, being in Sweden now, it is all happening today at Christmas Eve, so we are soon prepared to head off to drink some mulled wine with friends and thereafter having dinner all together. However, just before starting to enjoy all the Christmas food and wine, I … Read more
Last week Lorenzo, the president of Fisar Firenze asked me if I wanted to come along with another two fellow sommeliers to visit the winery Val delle Corti in Radda in Chianti. Of course, I said yes, even though I then realized I knew next to nothing about the winery…yet. So I asked Lorenzo, who … Read more
Last night we had our first #WinesOfItaly Blab, and apart from a couple of smaller glitches it went quite well for being the first time I hosted a blab on my own. I am very happy about and grateful to the people who joined the discussion yesterday, and I hope you will all come back … Read more
Next Tuesday, on November 24th, I will do my first true wine blab about Italian wine, namely Wines Of Italy. I am organizing it together with the help of some friends, such as Robert Moore, Kelly Hungerford, Valentina Mecca, Laura Maggi and Lorenzo Sieni. Our idea is to try and create a wine community where we … Read more
A couple of days ago I was invited to attend the press conference of the Associazione Viticoltori Montefioralle, which is an association of wine producers in the area around the village Montefioralle (a district of Greve in Chianti) in Tuscany, that has recently been founded. All the producers are members of the Consorzio del Chianti … Read more
Today at the yearly Sommelier Challenge of Fisar Firenze our team, The Winetrotters, won and took home the ‘gold medal‘ so to say. So, sorry if the first part of this post will talk a lot about ‘our team’ and our victory in this wine competition which is mostly for fun and an excuse to … Read more
Last Friday I started a mini-course about wine, a sort of an ABC of wine and wine tasting with my friend and sommelier Nadia Padrin. We have been offered the possibility to do a small introduction to wine and wine tasting at a local wine bar here in Florence (Uva Nera). So for the next … Read more
A couple of weeks ago, Vieri, a friend of mine asked me to come along to an informal inauguration of a wine bar of friends of his. Being passionate about wine, as you all probably know by now, I went along, of course, and brought some other friends, too. Uva Nera, the name of the … Read more
On Easter Friday, we were a group of friends meeting up in the evening to drink, eat, chat, and hang out in the centre of Florence. We had chosen a quite new and very trendy wine bar in Florence, the Spumantino, owned by Castello di Verrazzano. It is situated beautifully in front of Ponte Vecchio and with a view of the river Arno. You can sip a glass of Verrazzano’s own sparkling wine while watching the sunset over the Arno. So how do wine, Easter, bowties, the Fifth Canto of the Second Circle of Hell in Dante’s Divina Commedia, selfies, and sushi, etc. all go together in one evening? Well, read on to find out more about our evening at this fantastic place in the heart of Florence.