The Wineagency announced that vintage 2012 of The Per Gessle Selection’s successful Kurt & Lisa wine will be available for order at Systembolaget.
Mr. G posted about the samples and testing of this vintage in July and August 2015. Per said it was hard to choose between the last 2 samples, because both were awesome and he said it might be the best Kurt & Lisa so far.
Wine lovers will surely find it out soon and the collectors can be happy too, because the wine is out with a new label, of course. As Mr. G told in the Allt om Vin interview, this new label for each vintage thing was inspired by the American Sine Qua Non winery, which each year has new fun designs and names for each vintage.
In June this year Per announced on Facebook that The Per Gessle Selection would grow by three bottles of champagne. The bottles were supposed to hit the stores (or Systembolaget) in November. We have been looking forward to this “release” and finally the champagnes are here including very cool stickers.
The Pleaser – a blend of grape varieties 40% pinot noir and 60% chardonnay – is available at Systembolaget for 308 SEK.
The Convincer – a rosé blend of 50% pinot noir and 50% chardonnay – is available at Systembolaget for 325 SEK.
The Improver is a cuvée produced in partnership with Blanc de Blancs producer Pierre Peters from Le Mesnil-sur-Oger in Cotes du Blancs and consists of 15 different vintages – even back to 1988. Only a few hundred bottles (the initial information was 500) have been produced. The champagne will be sold at Hotel Tylösand – no further information regarding how to buy it otherwise though.
Besides these three champagnes, Kurt & Lisa 2011 is available at Systembolaget since early December as well. Rumour has it that it’s the best so far (so just watch out when you buy it, some stores still have the 2010 and want to sell that one before putting the new one on the shelves. I was even told at one of the stores early December that the year doesn’t matter, that I should get the 2010 because they are the same……no comment). The sticker has been updated with a new colour too.
And last but not least, I finally had the opportunity to drink Fru Nordinwhite and I must say – well done! The non-alcoholic wines I had tasted so far were rather dry and acid. This one is milder, but it tastes more like wine and fruty. Very yummie. The WineAgency has also published a recipe for a white wine glögg – without alcohol, that is. Check it out! You may get inspired.
So if you live in Sweden (or happen to be there) head to Systembolaget and grab some of the Per Gessle Selection bottles for the upcoming Christmas and New Year’s Eve parties! Welcoming 2015 with one of these champagnes will surely be special (seems I was in Sweden too early this month).
Skål!
Fru Nordin VittThe PleaserThe ImproverThe ConvincerKurt & Lisa 2011
The Per Gessle Selection gets a very nice promotion on Expressen’s website. The ad page consists of 5 PR articles about Per’s wines in Swedish.
One article is about Sommartider rosé, the unbeatable picnic wine. About rosé wines Per says they fit as soon as it is a bit warm outside. He himself drinks it throughout the year, even in winter if he finds himself in a warmer climate abroad. According to Per, rosé goes well with almost anything, but it must be drunk cold – always!
Another article is about Sommartider white wine which goes well with seafood. In the third article you get the recipe of Leif’s Bar & Grill’s Kingcrab pizza.
The fourth article is about how The Per Gessle Selection project started when they wanted to serve their own house wines at Hotel Tylösand and Kurt & Lisa and Furet became the first 2 items in the selection.
From the fifth article you get to know more about Per’s relation to wines. When he turned 30, he got a box of Malartic-Lagraviere 1982 wine as a present. He says it changed his view on wines forever. In his twenties other drinks mattered. He didn’t drink too much wine at those times and it was mostly a few glasses of Le Cardinal or Blue Nun to his Pizza Hawaii. Today his name is well-known and respected in the wine industry. He really likes Bordeaux and Burgundy wines, as well as Italian wines from both Barolo and Tuscany.
The passion for good wine he shares with his wife, Åsa. Travelling around the world, they have many memorable culinary experiences together, but the biggest they had at a dinner at home. They had invited some friends to celebrate the Millennium and Per had managed to get hold of two half bottles of Chateau d’Yqem from 1900. They served it before midnight and he says it was a memory for life.
According to Per, a wine cellar is not really necessary. The main thing is that the temperature is fairly constant and that the bottle is not exposed to strong sunlight. All in all, wines are not as complicated as many people think. It is actually about one thing: to find and follow your taste; he says.
All wines in The Per Gessle Selection – Kurt & Lisa and Furet launched in October 2012, Sommartider in April 2013 – were warmly welcomed on the wine market.
2013 was a perfect year for the Gyllene Tider comeback and launching Sommartider wines. Sommartider became a quite evident component of tons of picnic baskets during the tour in Sweden.
At the same time, all TPGS wines were travelling the world, since many fans brought some bottles / boxes with themselves home after the tour. If you’ve been checking the Facebook page of Per’s wines, you could see that many bottles and boxes were opened already during summer, but lots of fans were waiting patiently to open them on special days, like a birthday or at Xmas.
As the blog ”Ett eko av mat och vin” informs, according to Systembolaget’s sales in liters in 2013, Mr G’s wines are the 3rd best selling celebrity wines. Here is the complete list:
Celebrity
Sales 2013 (litre)
Per Morberg
1479283
Tina Nordström
114812
Per Gessle
111134
Petter
88312
Bo Hagström
85658
Elvis Presley
68528
Motörhead
59088
Bengt Frithiofsson
56832
KISS
54688
Maria Montazami
45272
Ernst Kirchsteiger
32747
Lasse Stafanz
16968
Richard Juhlin
7442
Tomas Ledin
3737
Robert Gustafsson
2650
Slayer
2276
Lill-Babs
2162
Rolling Stones
2019
Sweden Rock
2000
Ernie Els
1816
Ulf Wagner
1604
Carl Jan Granqvist
1418
Kent
1344
Leif Mannerström
1331
David Bowie
749
Rocky
745
Hammerfall
696
Nils Liedholm
469
Francis Ford Coppola
442
Glenn Strömberg
429
Coldplay
367
Penélope Cruz
237
Erik Lallerstedt
180
Marilyn Monroe
134
Plura
22
Markus Aujalay
14
Ernst Billgren
5
Swedish House Maffia
2
Laila Bagge Wahlgrens
0
Total celebrity wine sales 2013:
2247607
So 111,134 liters of TPGS wines were sold last year. Wow! Congrats! No real surprise, but 95% of it was Sommartider rosé and white. Sommartider rosé boxed wine even made it to the Top50 rosé wines at Systembolaget, landing at the 48th place with the sales of 55,954 litres.
Elvis Presley is also selling well, but it seems that Swedes are no fan of David Bowie when it comes to his wine. Whatever. A kind of boost in TPGS sales is surely coming in February, March and April when fans are in Sweden for the Marie Fredriksson tour. Hopefully, Systembolaget is well-prepared for that in the concert cities.
As SvD.se informs, Kurt & Lisa, Furet and Sommartider wines are just the beginning of a brilliant wine career of Per Gessle. Next project in The Per Gessle Selection is a champagne, a real blanc de blanc (champagne made from 100% Chardonnay).
New red wines are also coming soon, most probably from South Africa. You might remember that when Roxette was in South Africa in June, 2012, they visited a winery there (Rust en Vrede, Stellenbosch). So, the new red wines might come from there. We’ll see.
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