We have not had the July we deserved, weather wise, so it is allowed to indulge a little bit. And when you want to indulge you find a good bottle of Pinot Noir from Burgundy! This week’s wine is a Noble one from one of the best sellers in Norway the last few years. 

​The history of Maison Vincent Girardin is relatively recent. In 1980, at the age of 19, Vincent Girardin, the son of a family of winegrowers based in Santenay since the 17th century, decided to strike out on his own and began producing wine from five acres of vines that he had inherited from his parents. From his earliest youth, Vincent had a passion for working with vines and great respect for the potential that they represent, and his ambition was to produce his own wine. The quality of his wines was quickly recognized by connoisseurs all over the world, and this enabled him to expand his activity, focusing primarily on the great white and red wines of the Côte de Beaune.

Girardin Bourgogne Terroir Noble Pinot Noir 2017 232,- kr
 
Beautiful Pinot! Smooth and long with good complexity. Cherry and raspberries on the nose. Good acidity and minerality with red berries dominating in the mouth. Great value Burgundy.
This is perfect with fowl and chicken. As most Burgundy wines it's also great with game. With the great acidity it also has the power to handle rich and fat sauces.

Brilliance often comes from Piemonte and often in the shape of a bottle. Last week we recommended you a perfect match for your summer berries and this week we stick with the same producer, but look at their white wine.

Vietti is a solid producer with long traditions in Italy's finest wine region. Their white wine is produced using the Arneis grape, which makes remarkable wines in Piemonte. It's a versatile grape that makes very fruit driven and aromatic wines, and that often pairs excellent with food.
For this wine Vietti uses old vines, with a very low yield. This gives each grape excellent concentration and by only using steel tanks, they strive to preserve the great acidity natural to these grapes.

​It’s mid-summer and for a few weeks now Norwegian strawberries have been available in the shops all around the country. There is nothing better than Norwegian strawberries! They are sweeter and more succulent than any I have tasted all over the world. The slow ripening and long hours of sunshine really gives them an intense flavour unique to our shores. This weeks wine is the perfect accompaniment to the seasons berries.

​The Moscato d’Asti grape often gets a bad rep because of the cheap wines that people have gotten on holiday or at parties. But done right it can be amazing. Vietti is a producer more known for it’s great Barolos and Barberas. But they also make a superb Moscato which is superbly priced at only 199,90.kr. It isn’t in all of the vinmonopols so you might have to order it, but it is worth the wait!

Vietti Moscato d’Asti Cascinetta 2018 - 199,90 kr

​Smells of roses, peaches, and ginger. It’s frizzante so there are very delicate and fine bubbles which help to make the wine feel so, so fresh. In the mouth you at first sense the sweetness, but soon a great acidity kicks in to make this a perfectly balanced wine. It tastes of fresh peaches, strawberries and makes you think of long, long summer nights. So good! 

We were invited to a propper Spanish fiesta in the Penedès region, about an hour drive south of Barcelona. We were visiting Maria Barrena, doing a story on her fabulous Cava "Funambul". A truly brilliant winemaker with a passion for her region. We had just wrapped filming, but upon arriving at the fiesta we realised we had to keep rolling.

​You can watch the Cava story here:

At this fantastic fiesta we were served generous amounts of Paella and a brilliant white wine, which is our wine of the week. This playful bottle is Maria's proud white wine project, with grapes from 80 year old vines. This is a single vineyard wine, located 250 meters above sea level. The grape variety is 100% Xarel-lo and it's spontaneously fermented in steel tanks, and ripened for 6 months before bottling. 
It's a fantastic and refreshing wine, with good acidity, making it an excellent food wine.
This one of the best bargains at Vinmonopolet at the moment.

​With the strict restrictions on traveling that we have now because of the Covid-19 pandemic we here in Norway have been encouraged to take our holidays at home in Norway. We are lucky to live in a country with great natural beauty and fantastic places to visit all over our long and varied country. And we also have a lot of great places that offer fantastic food and drink. And this week’s recommendation is a sider and a cruise!

​As regular readers of this blog will already know we LOVE Norwegian sider here. You can read our blog on Alde, Hardangergutane and Edel already. These farms along with this weeks recommendation, Aga, now have a sider cruise that starts every day in Odda and takes you on a fantastic trip up the South Fjord with stops on the farms and tasting along the way. Highly recommended as a perfect mix of great scenery and sider.

Bøddel Sider 184,90 kr
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This week’s recommendation has a slightly ominous name, Bøddel, Executioner in Norwegian. It is named after Samson Isberg, on of the last executioners in Norway who was born and lived his early life on the far Isberg just south of Aga. The sider is a strong 9 % and perfectly dry, but has a perfect balance of sweetness from the apples and acidity to make so, so easy to drink. It also has the weight to handle almost everything you put on the grill and will also be great with fish. Try it with sushi – it’s a match made in Hardanger!

We've picked two of our absolute favourite red wines to go with your grilled delights this summer. Both from Argentina and from our resent trip to this beautiful country.
Beef and red wine is what the country is best know for, and we've picked one done on the remarkable Malbec grape and one on the classic Cabernet Sauvignon grape.

​If you want to indulge and learn about the Argentinean way of cooking and drinking, check out our two part episode here:

​Summer is definitely here, and the temperatures are soaring! It is time to get out into the sun and soak up some vitamin D. There will be swimming in the fjords and grilling by the seaside I am sure. And for these delightful day’s and night’s this week’s wine is simply perfect.

​Nervi is the oldest wine house in the DOCG Gattinara area in Piemonte. Here in Norway it is famous for being owned by Norwegians from 2011 to 2018, when it was sold Roberto Conterno, one of the most famous winemakers in Piemonte, if not all of Italy. The Rosé they make have been popular for a while now in Norway in this year it is the 2018 vintage that you will find in the Vinmonopol. 

Nervi Rosato 2018 - 199,90 kr
Fine salmon pink colour. Light red fruits on the nose, strawberries, and raspberries, but also some white flowers and lime. Exceptionally good structure in the mouth. A fine acidity that cleans the palate but does not get in the way of the fine and delicate red berries on the flavour.
Great to drink alone but has the structure and acidity to handle grilled fish, chicken, and vegetables.

There's something about Jura. This mountainous region on the eastern border of France, has long traditions in producing very tasty stuff. World class cheeses and top level wines.
Our wine of the week is a great bottle of Chardonnay, from a producer we've talked about before. 

Winemaker Florent Rouve at Domaine Rijckaert greeted us welcome a few years back. It was our first visit at a producer fermenting wines in the barrel, not in steel tanks as most do. He used old barrels not to over power the flavours with wood, and to benefit from what live material like wood does to the winemaking process.
It had sort of a natural wine thinking to it, but done in a traditional way. Building on hundreds of years of winemaking history, and adding strict modern thoughts to it.
The result is outstanding wines at a fairly reasonable price :)

Rijckaert's vineyards stands on mostly clay and limestone soil.

Winemaker Florent Rouve and John Kaare tasting the range of Rijckaert's wines.

You can watch our visit our trip to the vinery here. Sequence starts at 10:30

We’ve had some fine first days of summer and the warm weather has been a welcome change to the strange and monotonous life we have been living during covid-19. And to celebrate The oncoming summer we have found a gem from one of our favourite regions, Burgundy.

A little over a year ago we actually had the Chardonnay from the Maison Roche de Bellene as our wine of the week but this week we have gone for their Pinot Noir. At 199,90 NOK it is a great price for a wine from the most expensive wine region In the world and their quality really shines through.

Maison Roche de Bellene Pinot Noir Vieilles Vignes - 199,90 kr

Beautiful bouquet with fresh strawberries dominating, hints of raspberries and red berries from the Forrest as well. Great minerality and good structure in the mouth. It is very fresh and fruity and so easy to drink. A great wine to enjoy blin good company!

If I where you, I would consider stop reading right now and head to Vinmonopolets app and order this bottle. Last time we checked the production of this beauty was limited to 7-800 bottles, and the price is only 249kr. They will run out soon! This is the best kept secret at Vinmonopolet. This is a 15 year old Cremant priced ridiculously low :)

Ok, so this is a rare find. We've tasted it once before, when visiting this producer in Burgundy, some years back. They produce millions of excellent Cremants every year, but only a handfull of these vintage bottles. "The market is too small for vintage Cremants", they told us. So focus is good quality for the masses, and making some of these just for fun.

You could check out our Cremant story here:

The thing is, as we talk about in the film, that Burgundy produces the highest quality still wine in the world, so chances are that sparkling Burgundy should be pretty good.

As John Kaare says in the story: "In my opinion a vintage Cremant from Burgundy, is better than a vintage Champagne". And this is coming from a guy who knows his bubbles.