Kurtis's Blog

So check out http://www.vindata.se (in english). Register and manage your wine cellar and your tasting notes. I wanted to have a cellar and tasteing management tool. I just couldn't find one that worked. So I took some tools from the net as ideas and base and developed a lot more around it to handle all you want for your tastings.

Check it out, register and please join the mailinglist and post ideas, thoughts, bug reports etc...

- kurtis -

Went up to Napa valley with some friends and did a few winetastings.

We started out with Neibaum-Coppola, or the Rubicon estate as it's now known. They have redone their concept so instead of walking around you pay $25 and get a winetasting of 5 wines and a tour. Unfortunately the tour's only leaves once an hour. I kind of preferred the old concept. As for the wines, they also have a new conecept with 'Captain's reserve' as the lower class wines, and I guess they are replacing the Diamond series. They had quite large variation of class. See http://www.vindata.se for all my tasting notes. They should be up soon. The higher end Rubicon wines are still high quality. I was a bit surprised as the Dimond series wines for a long time was my pick for price/performance out of Napa. Let's see if they can get back there, because the samplings we had where not where it used to be.

We then headed for Freemark Abbey. They still make a really good Viognier. Their estate Cabarnet Sauvingnon was also still really good. We finnished of with lunch at the brewery next door.

We then went down to Robert Mondavi for a tour of the wineyard and vinery as the others's hadn't done that before. They seemed to have enoyed it. We again finnished off with a tasting. I always thought that the Mondavi wines where overrated. This time especially the last wine, their Muscat clearly struck me as peering quite poorly made. This reminded me that I have two bottles of that at home since some years. Perhaps I need to pull those out and sample one of them...

We after that headed over to Opus One. An amzing architecture and we got to see the Napa valley from it's best side. We also sampled a glass that we shared. $25 a glass kind of helps to keep the quanity down. I still think this is one of the best wines out of Napa and a clear favorite.

Last we drove up to Beringer. While we didn't taste the wines I couldn't resist the urge to buy some of their Nightingale sweet wines and three bottles of their Port Wine. I wasn't going ot buy anything....

On the way back we stopped by Bill Woodcock's BBQ party in Berkley and then headed down to San Jose, to finnish the day with dinner at La Fondue in Paolo Alto.

Next time I really want to make it up to Chateaux Mount Helena in the morning. They Chardonnay is really good...

Back in Amsterdam I of course had to go to Shivas, one of the best Indian restaurants I have ever been there. As I haven't been in Amsterdam for a long time, I was a bit surprised when I found out that it had been completely renovated. The best Indian restaurant in town, now has among the most ambient interior decrations. A good restaurant just got even better!

Shivas, Regulierdwarsstraat 72, 020-624 87 13. Make sure to get a reservation!

So this weekend saw the Gentianne picking and making of the year. Last year we made 3 barrels of 128 litres. Which in the end led to 32 litres of Gentianne. This year we had decided to go for a single small barrel as we still have quite a lot left from last year. In the end we picked a bit too much, so with some addition to be done by Pierre, we will get one large barrel or around 10 litres of Gentianne.

So due to the forecast we skipped trekking and instead spent almost 4h's at Glenfiddich distillery. It was a really interesting tour and I was struck with the similarities to Winemaking. Not all the same but a lot of the mentality seems to be the same. I guess I should not be surprised, but still it's just something that stuck with me.

We finnished off with a tasting session that was really interesting as well. To be honest, I had always seen Glenfiddich as one of the mass producers, and they are the largest single malt distillery in the world but they also do quite a few specialist whiskys.

The day ended back at the hotel, that apparently had one of the best whisky bars in the world. Actually the staff recommendations and knowledge combined with Jim gave us a really interesting evening trying out various whiskys. I think I ended up winning with the 1966 36 year old Banff. Unfortunately it was only made in 160 something bottles....

Staying at Meterologen ski lodge for this week, we are sure to go through some of Patrik's great wines. Last night we had a really nice Chablis Viellie Vignes with the Salmon tartar starter. With the duck for maincourse we had a Cloudy Bay Pinot Noir 2004. While still a bit young, it fitted perfectly with the duck and the red wine sauce.

After this we did cheese with Grahams LBV 2000. Also, young it had started to develop some nice richness. We have bought that bottle to keep for the rest of the week :)

With the chocolate fondant we had a Bonny Doon vin des Glacier, my favourite sweet wine.

However, the most interesting drink of the evening came with coffee, a brandy made by Torres. It was fullbodied, but yet round and with some sweetness. It was a very pleasant experience, to the point that I think I will have to find a bottle for myself when I come back to Stockholm or Verbier.

This morning started out as rainy in our heads as outside. It was pouring down. Jonathan had originally planned for us to go climbing in Narvik indoors, but of course this was May 17th, the Norweigan national day, so everything was closed. We still made an attempt to reach the summit of Kopparfjellet, the probably second most reached summit after Vassi north as it is quite easy. Today though, the heavy rain and really strong winds as we where 1000m from the summit made us turn back.

Once back in Riksgränsen we skied with Jonathan at some of the close of piste runs, but soon realised we where not wearing any dry clothes gave up.

In the evening we had invited Jonathan over for dinner at Meterologen and decided to make our own gala-dinner. 'Strumpan' supplied us with a small flight of wines for the starters, followed by 1995 Penfolds Grange for the main-course and then again two flights of wines for cheese and dessert.

The day turned out quite nice in the end!

I have been collecting wine on and off for 10 years and have a small collection by now. Unfortunately (or fortunately, I don't know) I never get around to taking much bottles from it for drinking. Especially older ones.

Last night I decided it was time for one of these rare moments. A nice home made dinner with pheasant pâté together with a glass of Orballo 2006 from the grape Albariño started the event. This was then followed by a filet of deer. To this I had the pick from my cellar, the Mas de la Rouvière 1993. This Bandol I bought by a small merchant in Nice old town years ago. I decanted it approximately an hour before dinner and it was a truly splendid wine. It still had acidity and tannins. It probably would have lasted for a few more years before peaking. It started with leader and salami and transferred to very rich wine. More forest mushrooms and leaves. It was one of the best wines I have had this year! It truly made my day!

The dinner was finished off with cheeses and some 2003 Domaine Pouderoux. This wine is interesting in that its a sweetish red French wine. It was an excellent pairing with the hard cheeses I had bought.

It's been pretty quiet here for a while. I was pretty busy in the weeks leading up to the Christmas holidays. At Netnod we announced another 20% price cut, and this triggered quite a number of new customer orders. We are now gearing up to provision these and are also working on some other more news for the first quarter.

For Christmas and New Years I was in Verbier, where we have a great start of the season. For a week I did more off-pist skiing on Mt Gele than I think I have done all winters previously (Mt Gele is normally closed due to lack of snow or avalange danger). I also did a ski tour with Pette. We walked 2.5hs up the east ridge to Mt Rougneux from Bruson and then had a great cold snow run down the east side. It was well worth it!

As for New Year, I picked up a bottle of 1999 Pommard 1er Cru that was fantastic! I always like it when I find these small things in the wine cellar. Especially when I know there are 3 bottles left..:)

Happy New Year!

So last night me and a friend decided to try out Markus Samuelssons Aquavit branch in Stockholm. This is a new restaurant, located in the new Clarion Sign hotel. As a matter of fact it was only the third night they where open. And you could still not reserve a table. Also, it's note quite a branch of the famous New York restaurant. It's done with it's brand, but only under this 'guidance'.

The service was chaotic as was the almost hour long wait. The wine list of per glass in the hotel bar could be better - but compared to any random international conference hotel I guess it was quite ok (and I have tried a few).

The service at the restaurant where still trying to find their ways, and the under dimensioned bar led to long waits for customers in both the restaurant and waiting to be served at the bar. One thing I really disliked was the fact that the wine menu had an american sorting - i.e per grape. Still the selection was mostly European wines which led to a quite long "Blended" list. The other 'americanism' was the collapsable tables that the waiters apparently where expected to carry with them. Our waiter duly carried his with him, put it down and then served us from the tray...

Anyway, the food - was fantastic. Probably some of the better I have had in Stockholm. The starter we had was a sausage made of scallops, with a fendat like foie de gras. Just amazing.

For main course we had Tuna and scallops with soft boiled beans and salad. My beans was a bit under cooked, but that was all I had to complain about.

I am definitely looking forward to a re-vistit a bit later to see if they can keep the high standard and if the service has improved.

On a recent flight back from the US I flew Air France and got offered this years Beaujolais Nuvo. I have to make an admission - I can'r remember if I ever had a Beaujolais Nuvo before. I think so, but this one trigged my senses and so on Monday I went to the Swedish Alcohol monopoly and bought three bottles of Beaujolais Nouveau Villages Cuvée non Filtrée from Pierre Dupont. Now I am regretting not buying more. But that can always be fixed :-).

Futher, I had a small dinner tonight and decided to take something from the cellar at home and to my surprise found a Francis Ford Coppola Claret from 2002. It was magnificent! What made me even happer is that I have two more! An amazing wine!!!!!! And there is more! Now I just need to finnish my glass of Beaujolais Nuvo and go to bed...

I have read for a while of the excellent butcher, Taylor and Jones in Stockholm. Yesterday a colleague of mine also started going on about how good they are....so I had make this weekend their test.

Last night my dinner was three sausages from there, Duck breast with Lemon, Cumberland Pork and a Chorizo. I really liked the Cumberand, the Duckbreast and Lemon second. I wasn't that happy with the Chorizo, but it was still good.

For breakfast this morning I bought real bacon...

I have never understood why it's impossible to find real bacon outside the UK. Ok, Ireland is not so bad, but apart from the UK and Ireland - it just doesn't exist. Until now. The bacon from Talor and Jones was as good. Finally! It was even more than that, it was at par with some of the best bacon I have ever had. I was greatly impressed. Luckily there are a few slices left for tomorrows breakfast...

I have saved the last test for dinner tonight, a large really nice looking Entrecote. Report to follow.

I wrote yesterday that I was going to have the last test for Taylor and Jones last night for dinner. So I did, but I forgot the photo. But it was fantastic. Really, really good! I made some rice and mushroom sauce with it. An enjoyable evening alone...wellI shared it with some Marchese...