Hello; Xina and lindgren one all went to the Southern outskirts of Copenhagen, quite how out-skirty we did not know in advacne, because then we might have dropped the project (cost of elephants and camels alone was frightening), but, anyhow, in what from a distance appeared to be a gardening centre but on approach proved to be one of Sjaellands 6 vineyards, we found, in a green-house, the Languedoc-Rousillon winefestival where about 30 smaller and larger importers presented their wines and wares. Initial ambition to start with the whites from each presenter folded at the realisation that that would be a logistic nightmare, so, we decided to take each booth in its proper order, only to leave the stickies to last (we are not big on fortified stickies). HAving reached this decision, we then decided to skip the hawkers based outside the general Copenhagen area. OK. Ready to go. In Denmark, a certain type of Southern French red (fruity, little taninns, slight perception of resdiual sugar - a "quaff and forget" that goes passably with pork roast, one of the staples of Danish gastronomy) has been popular the last 15-20 years - generally you will find them on saertilbud (promotion) close to Xmas in the supermarkets. Here, it appeared as though the importers were trying to push the envelope a bit. A lot of the presented reds (and reds/whites were, oh, 10/1) were blends of dominant Syrah, smaller amounts of Grenache, Cinsault, Carignan, or Mouvedre. This, coupled with what I would guess could be called terroir, gave a certain uniformity to them - not unpleasant, but a bit uniform. We found discrete syrah-dominated noses, with pork roast and blackberries more than Northern Rhone pepper, medium tannins with some staying power and pleasant fruityness inviting you to skip that tedious cellaring process and go right ahead and drink `em now. Compared to ole "quaff and forget" they packed a great deal of style, and, I might add, at competitive prices. Very few of the reds went over the EU 20 limit, and lots of them were hovering around EU 10. Several of the presenters had wines from Pic de St. Loup, which were uniformly of good quality. Others who have visited Languedoc will know more about that district (which is easy. I know NOTHING), but I got the idea that a visit to vineyards thereabout could be a good thing. The whites, if we subtract the ubiquitous (sp?) and, to my mind, rather pedestrian Chardonnays, were few and far between, but, here we also found a certain uniformity, even though the grapes varied from pure viognier to bouboulenc to weird blends of grenache blanc, grenache gris, and macabeu. Very floral and aromatic noses, aromatic also on palate with good concetration, little or no acids. Prices generally less than EU 10 which makes an acceptable QPR. Reminiscent of a white Luberon we had this summer in L´Âne Rouge from Val Ioannis, but better QPR, since that one cost EU 12. As for stickies, well, we found a Banyuls hors d´age which we will try with Gorgonzola sometime, and a Muscat de Rivesalte which will be featured with the dessert on Xmas lunch.
In the end, we found that we had tasted 55 wines. Danes think spittoons are for sissies. My notes were getting slightly undecipherable at the end, I´m afraid, and detailed tasting notes were not possible - they consisted in variuos number of +´s for [N]ose and [P]alate, and markers for 'might buy', 'should buy', and 'must buy'.
What I said near the top about pushing the envelope: I think these importers are trying to introduce a little more complexity in the Danish (and Scandinavian) wine consciousness, at prices that appears to be affordable to most. More power to them, says I, and particularly to M. Marc Polo (REALLY? YES!), a garage importer born in Rousillon who imports wines from Rousillon exclusively and was in the last booth we visited. A really nice guy who even appeared to understand our version of French. Also to Sir John from Kjaer & Sommerfeldt, where we are regulars, who took us on a guided tour with lots of commentaries about each of their wines.
Cheers
Nils Gustaf
-- Respond to nils dot lindgren at drchips dot se