Grasă de Cotnari

Back in the 1990s, in Brussels, I met a Romanian wine merchant at Megavino, the big annual wine fair held every autumn. He had some really nice sweet white wine, and I bought a few bottles. Later on, I attended some tastings at his home–he did not have a shop, as his clients were mostly restaurants. So he operated out of a rented garage, and when someone wanted to come and taste the wine, it took place in his living room. He had come to Belgium some time during the 1980s, and following the fall of the Caucescu regime in 1989, he started driving down to Romania once a month and bringing wine with him to sell in Belgium. A real small enterprise, in other words.

Fast forward to 2012. I have recently discovered a Romanian shop in Alicante, near the old bus station. They have a nice range of Polish products as well, which is what attracted me in the first place. But the other day I looked at the wines, and ended up buying a 2005 Grasa de Contari for the princely sum of €4.50. This has so be one of the best wine bargains in the world. The sweetness is subtle and refined, the bouquet is rich, and the wine is simply heavenly in the mouth. And all this for €4.50! You can get some basic information about the region here. And if you can get your hands on white wine from this region, do not hesitate. The wine is made using the “noble rot” method used in Sauternes, but at prices that are a fraction of even the second wine of Ch. de Yquem.

 

 

Argentina delight

Tonight’s tipple is a wine from Argentina. We had a tasting of Argentine wines at the office a couple of months ago. Argentine wines are widely available in Europe, especially the Malbec variety. A typical Malbec is OK, but nothing more. But here was something different. A grape called Bonarda, which I had never heard of before. It is not native to Argentina, but apparently it likes the climate and soil there, because the wine I am drinking as I write this is very nice. It is called La Linda 2009 and comes from Bodega Luigi Bosca.

It is a wine with balls–14.5% alcohol, but more importantly, tons of body and flavour. The rear label says it is a good wine to go with steak–not surprising, considering that it comes from one of the world’s main beef-producing countries–but it is also delicious on its own.

Yet another example why lesser-known grapes are always worth trying.

Alsace in Spain…almost

Spain produces many interesting wines, many of which are not exported, and I thoroughly enjoy tasting the variety on offer here. But sometimes I miss some of the wines I used to enjoy when I lived further north, especially the magnificent Rieslings and Gewürztraminers from Alsace, which are almost impossible to find here in Alicante.

Some Spanish vineyards do produce Rieslings, but until now none of the ones I have tasted have come close to the real thing from Alsace or Germany. Much to my delight, recently my friends at Vinospe announced the availability of two wines from Viñas del Vero, a 2010 Riesling and a 2009 Gewürztraminer. Viñas del Vero is in the little-known D.O. Somontano, at the foothills of the Pyrenees near the French border.

These two wines are reasonably priced (around €9), and while they are not up to the standards of their Alsace equivalents, they are the closest I have yet tasted here in Spain. The Gewürztraminer is especially pleasing; the floral nose and taste one gets from this grape are a bit muted here compared to my Alsace favourites such as the wines from Bernard Schwach or Hugel. I am not sure if the wine from Viñas del Vero would stand up to my curry (this is the traditional use for a Gewürztraminer) but it is certainly a pleasure to drink.

As I am writing this, I am tasting the Riesling. Here, the wine is almost perfect, like a good Kabinett from Germany. I am missing the “diesel” nose, but in the mouth the wine is deliciously buttery and has all the nuances one expects from a good Riesling. This wine clearly needs to breathe for half an hour to an hour to fully reveal its delights. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Enrique Mendoza at El Portal

I have decided to post brief reviews of wines I try, both to share my impressions with others and to keep a “notebook” for my own use. Sometimes it is a wine I try in a restaurant or at a tasting, or simply at home.

Friday night I was hosting a dinner for visiting colleagues from the UK at the El Portal restaurant in the centre of Alicante, and of course one of the important decisions was the choice of wine. When hosting visitors, I always try to highlight our local products, and so I selected the Shiraz from Enrique Mendoza, a well known producer here in Alicante province. The price was reasonable for a restaurant, €21 a bottle, and it won universal acclaim around the table. It is a nice expression of the Shiraz grape, in my opinion every bit as good as one gets from Australia.

One never goes wrong with wines from Mendoza.

Peanut Butter Princess

My daughter is a wonderful, thoughtful 17-year old. She has been vegan for a couple of years, based on conviction and ethical considerations, and she has a great blog, mainly about food but also, indirectly, much else. Check out the link in the blogroll on the right. I am very proud of her.

 

Bah, humbug – some reflections at Christmas time

I. Jesus the Pinko

Today is Boxing Day, or 2^nd Christmas Day as it is known in Denmark where I grew up. Although I am not Christian, I was the victim of a Catholic education and thus have read both parts of the Bible extensively. I and my Christian, left wing friends have sometimes discussed the political implications of the Bible, particularly of the teachings of Jesus and his disciples. There was little doubt in our minds that Jesus, as described in the New Testament, was a socialist. Indeed, already in the Old Testament, there are clear indications that both the Jewish and Christian holy books are decidedly left-of-centre. Consider some quotes:

 ”If a man shuts his ears to the cry of the poor, he too will cry out and not be answered.”

-Proverbs 21:13

 ”Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.”

-Proverbs 31:8-9

 ”Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘I tell you the truth, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.’”

-Matthew 19:23-24

 ”Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least among you, you did not do for me.’”

-Matthew 25:41-45

 ”Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.”

-1 Timothy 6:17-19

 ”The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern.”

-Proverbs 29:7

I find particularly the last quote very telling: it does not talk about charity, i.e. about personal generosity towards the poor. No, it uses the term justice, clearly implying that we should be concerned about constructing a just society, not merely giving handouts to the poor we happen upon.

In this context, the Christian church as it exists today can only be described as an abomination. The two main strands of Christianity are the Catholic church and the various strands of Protestantism. If we start with the Catholics, then the Vatican is an obvious place to look. How can the enormous accumulation of wealth in Rome for the past 1500 years be justified? The opulence, the power and the greed of the Vatican is simply obscene.

The Protestants are a more complex lot. There is no Protestant Vatican, and there are many different flavours of this strand of Christianity, ranging from liberal Scandinavian Lutherans who even perform same-sex wedding ceremonies in their usually stark and modest churches, to the American evangelical preachers in their megachurches, spewing the most extreme version of right-wing ideology. But if we are to go by numbers, then the USA must be the heartland of Protestant Christianity. South America is mostly Catholic, and Europe is mostly indifferent, so by default America is the main Protestant nation. And what do we see there? Huge churches, TV preachers imploring pensioners to send them part of their Social Security checks so that they can “spread the word of God”—in short, the level of obscenity rivals the Vatican. Perhaps there is less child molestation among the Protestants since they do not require their clergy to be celibate.

I visited the USA a few weeks ago. One day, I had some time to kill at Washington’s Union Station, waiting for a train to Philadelphia. So, of course, I browsed the bookstore at the station. One title that caught my eye was “Radical” by David Platt, with the subtitle “Taking back your faith from the American Dream.” Looking at the back cover, skimming the foreword, the book looked promising. I thought, here is an American preacher who has come to his senses and who takes the concept of social justice seriously. So I bought the book. And I read it on the train to Philadelphia, and on the train back to Washington the next day.

Now, I have a great respect for the written word. I rarely throw away books. It just seems wrong, almost as wrong as burning them (I make an exception for computer books and similar technical literature which obviously becomes obsolete after a few years and has no intrinsic value). Yet, I am about to put Platt’s book in the recycling bin. Why? Because rather than drawing the logical political conclusions from his faith and its main book, Platt focuses purely on the personal: make sacrifices, give to charity, go and spread the faith in foreign countries, etc. But nothing about the political issues of the day, about the growing income inequality in the USA and other countries,  about the immorality inherent in the winner-take-all capitalism championed by the dominant political force, the Republican Party. Bitterly disappointing. In the bin.

II. Religion—good or bad?

I am 51. In terms of religious affiliation, I will describe myself as agnostic on some days and atheist on other days; until now, mostly the former. Traditionally, as people get older and the issue of one’s mortality becomes more pertinent, they tend to become religious. Yet with me, the movement is more in the opposite direction. The more I think about faith, and especially the way faith manifests itself in today’s world, the more convinced I am that humanity would have been better off if religion had never been invented.

Consider the news this Christmas: 35 Christians killed by Muslims in Nigeria, no doubt to be followed by retaliation. Most religions keep their followers backward, oppress women, promote hatred and intolerance towards people who believe in something else. Spectacular incidents like the Nigerian killings are relatively rare, but the insidious influence of religion is perhaps even more harmful in the less dramatic aspects of daily life: the closed minds, the greed at the top echelons of Christianity in particular, the fanatics who settle in the occupied West Bank because of old fairy tales, the segregation in Northern Ireland, the hatred taught to millions of Muslim children every day…I could go on, but it is just too depressing.

So, my friends, happy solstice. I shall become either Buddhist or pagan, I think.

 

What’s wrong with Spain

I often tell my local friends that there is not a lot Spain can do in the short term to reduce its high unemployment. The economy here will improve when the wider European crisis is solved. But beyond the short term, there are a lot of things this country can do. Of all the places I have lived, it has the most inefficient public sector–overstaffed, full of red tape, slow. Some examples:

The World Bank survey of “ease of doing business” ranks Spain in 44th place overall, very poor for a rich country, and in the key category of “ease of starting a business” in a shocking 133rd place (out of 183 countries). The main reason is the large number of procedures, not the cost or corruption.

When I moved from Switzerland to the Netherlands in 2003, all the formalities related to having my car inspected and registered in the new country were done in place and took a couple of hours. When I moved to Spain in 2007, to switch registration from Dutch to Spanish involved: a visit to the tax office to get a piece of paper stating how much I had to pay; a visit to a bank to actually pay that amount; another visit to the tax office to hand in the payment receipt and get some other piece of paper which needed to be taken to the inspection; the inspection itself; and finally a visit to the dreaded Tráfico office to apply for Spanish license plates. Altogether a couple of DAYS.

The final example involves something rather more important. There was a general election here on 20th November. The Spanish equivalent of the Tories, Partido Popular, won an absolute majority in parliament. So no need to negotiate a coalition with other parties. You would think that given the current crisis, a new government would take over within a day or two of the election. But no, this is Spain. For some obscure reason a number of rituals have to be performed first so that the new government will take over only just before Christmas, more than a month after the election. In the meantime we have the defeated Socialists running a caretaker administration. It would be funny, but actually it is rather serious.

Fixing these problems does not take a lot of money. In fact, simplifying procedures and streamlining rules will usually save money. The losers will be the unneeded public sector employees and the various notaries and other parasites who make a living by putting stamps on useless documents.

For reference, here is a ranking of the efficiency of the public sector in the countries where I have lived as an adult, based on my personal experience when dealing with the various administrations. From best to worst:

1. Netherlands
2. Denmark
3. Switzerland
4. Belgium
5. USA
6. Spain

A connection across time and distance…

My mother died on 21 April 2001 and was buried in Copenhagen, where my parents lived. This is her grave at Vestre Kirkegård:

At the time of my mother’s death, I lived in Switzerland and my sister in Poland. We resolved to meet every year at her grave in Copenhagen, and have so far kept it up for 10 years. Every 21 April we meet in Copenhagen. I later moved to the Netherlands and then to Spain, but no matter. We still meet every April.

My sister and brother-in-law made this bench for my father so that he could sit and think there when he came to visit the grave, which he did very often, for the next 3 years, until he passed away in November 2004.

Since then, I have been coming to Copenhagen every year in November as well. Now I have two graves to visit. Since I now live in Spain, going to Denmark means flying and the baggage restrictions this implies. My sister still lives in Poland, and when she comes for her annual April visit, she comes by car and so can bring more stuff with her, including the candles we put on our parents’ graves:

When I come each November, I always go to my mother’s grave first. There, in the bench, my sister leaves extra candles and other supplies for me:

I stand a bit at my mother’s grave, take a stone and a candle, and then go the neighbouring Jewish Cemetery where my father is buried. I place the stone on his grave per Jewish custom, and light the candle my sister has left for me six months earlier.

And so it goes, year after year.

A bond exists between Wrocław in Poland, Alicante in Spain, and Copenhagen in Denmark. And between the two graves. Sustained by my sister’s and mine love for each other and the precious memory of our parents.

 

Good news from the world of high finance

Quote from a recent article in The Economist:

“Like the bloke in a bar who methodically offers to buy each of the single women a drink, investment bankers are optimists at heart. Not any more. They are now almost universally despondent as the combined effect of new regulations, sluggish economies and skittish markets threaten swingeing cuts to their profits, their pay and, for many, their jobs.”

This exactly what is needed. We need fewer investment bankers. These are highly educated people, many of them in their 30s and 40s, and they should be perfectly capable of getting jobs in the real, productive economy where they would do something useful. Meanwhile, the banking sector can usefully be staffed with retired accountants and return to its core mission of taking deposits and making loans.

Taiwan

I am fortunate to have travelled quite a bit in the past year, to some interesting and faraway places, including Tokyo in December 2010, San Francisco in May 2011, and now Taiwan earlier this month. While I had been to Tokyo and San Francisco before (albeit more than 15 years ago in both cases), the visit to Taiwan was a first for me–and I was completely blown away by this wonderful place.

Now, I am aware that most places look better to a visitor (especially if one is staying at a nice hotel) than they do to the people who actually live there. Still, there was something about Taiwan that captivated me like no other place I have visited in recent years. Taipei is simply a delightful city, combining fantastic modern architecture with traditional, narrow alleys, temples that are a riot of colours, the best street food I have eaten anywhere. Lonely Planet describes Taipei as one giant buffet, and it is hard to argue with that. The night markets are simply brilliant. And best of all–it is all surprisingly cheap. On several occasions I spent 2-3 Euros on a filling and delicious meal. The culinary highlight was chou doufu, or stinky tofu, an aquired taste which I very much acquired.

Taipei is also easy to get around even if you do not read Chinese. All streets signs, all information panels etc. are in English as well, and the metro system is clean, efficient, easy to use and inexpensive (20 Taiwan $ for a ride in the city, or 0.50 €). And most importantly: the people. Friendly, open, always ready to help–that is how I experienced Taipei.

If it sounds like I have fallen in love with the place, I have. My newfound love for Taiwan is tinged with a hint of sadness, though. I could not help thinking about the bad guys across the Taiwan Strait with their hundreds of missiles pointed at the island. Why is it that the only 23 countries have diplomatic relations with Taiwan? The world simply has no moral backbone.

Until now, the United States has guaranteed Taiwan’s security, but for how long? I am afraid that Americans care more about being able to buy cheap DVD players at Walmart than about the fate of the only democratic China there is. I hope I am wrong. And I will definitely be back in Taiwan some day. In the meantime, please have a look at my pictures from beautiful Taipei.