If I want to give opinions about wines, first you should know what I think about the famous guys's opinions on them. My intention in this blog is simply to release all those feelings I keep about the wines I taste, wineries I occasionally visit and winegrowers that I often meet in the course of my business.
The number of readers in this blog, the size and pedigree of the wineries I will review do not matter.
My enormous privilege is to be able to rate wines and describe them without analysing if those wines are largely available or not in supermarkets, if that winery is likely to advertise or not, if other journalists have rated that wine better or worse.
I don't taste wines everyday like specialised journalists do but, I have many occasions to taste them in different countries, in different fairs, tastings, events in which I meet winemakers from all around the world.
Therefore, if you want to join me and converse about those wines and people behind them, I will be delighted to do so.
Also, all along those years in the wine trade, I've had the chance to know and spend time with some of those journalists, particularly the british who remain the reference from my point of view.
The americans like Parker, Wine Spec, Wine Enth or Tanzer might be very good at coordinating their appreciations with the US market and making sure every consumer has a lead when they enter any wine store but, they operate from their offices mainly cause their business requires so.
The brits like Stephen Spurrier, Andrew Jefford, Rosemary George and my favourite: Tim Atkin link business and passion and never give a word on any wine without knowing the land, the men behind, the winemaking, the UK importer's profile. Still, they have to mantain a high proportion of their reviews within supermarket portfolios otherwise Guardian, Observer or Times would get rid of their space in the papers. This is why they created The Wine Gang, for instance, where a bunch of them can speak in depth about wines they love without thinking twice about their distribution.
As said, my limits are zero in those aspects and I will soon start quoting wines. The first review will come from Germany soon as I man my stand (yes, I work as export manager for a winery which I won't review in my pages as long as I work there) and will be surrounded by superb producers from all corners of the planet in Hamburg next week end.
The event will be Rindchen Weinkontor's annual tasting called Vinorell. Please, have a look at http://www.rindchen.de/
That's all for now folks. Hope you will come up with some opinions as well. In my next appearances, I will explain how I rate the wines and how they will be recorded in my files. You can write down in any language you prefer. For those languages I don't speak, Google translator will try to do the job for me.
In the meantime...Try to find the vineyards in the Bidasoa river banks!!!!
Agur
Fabián Olaiz
