Wine

Per Gessle’s champagnes are out in November

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PGAs it was already announced, 3 champagnes will be added to The Per Gessle Selection this year. After launching his great red wines Kurt & Lisa and Furet, as well as the summery rosé and white Sommartider wines, Per is now launching alcohol-free white and rosé wines under the fancy name Klunk. The rosé item is available only at Hotel Tylösand this year, in Systembolaget’s assortment only in 2015; white is available at Systembolaget from 1st September, until then you can taste it at Hotel Tylösand.

Articles are continuously added to the promo page on Expressen’s website and one of the new articles shares more info about the long­-awaited champagnes that will most probably become New Year’s Eve champagnes for many Roxers. 3 items are launched as of November 2014.

 

The_ImproverThe first, The Pleaser is made from a blend of grape varieties Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. It will be available in Systembolaget’s regular assortment and will cost appr. 300 SEK.

The second, The Convincer is a red fruity rosé champagne, which will be available in Systembolaget’s ordering catalog for 349 SEK.

The third, The Improver is exclusively produced in partnership with Blanc de Blancs producer Pierre Peters. This champagne will be an extremely limited edition of 500 bottles, and will be sold primarily at Hotel Tylösand, but early birds can also order it through private imports. The price will be around 599 SEK.

Per says his aim is not making The Per Gessle Selection the biggest, but the best. What else could you expect from a PERfectionist?

I hope to be able to expand the range slowly but surely so that there are wines in even more quality and price groups in the future.

 

The Per Gessle Selection – ad page on Expressen

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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.

PG_Sommartider_launchFrom 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.

Great promotion!

 

Per Gessle’s Sommartider wines get promoted

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Vinkompassen has just shared an advertisement of Sommartider wines from The Per Gessle Selection. More than that, if you are in Sweden and you are among the first 200 who order a case of 12 bottles from the deliciously refreshing Sommartider rosé or the summery Sommartider white, you get a personal greeting from Per himself. If anyone of you is getting that personal greeting, let us know what it is – if it’s not too personal. 😉

 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjGldtRbB_E

Gessle wines are the 3rd best selling celebrity wines

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Photo is from TPGS Facebook page
Photo is from TPGS Facebook page

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.

Let’s see what kind of new items 2014 brings to all wine and champagne lover Gessle fans. Until then, some new short video ads like these for Sommartider wines during Vintertider would be fun, don’t you think? 😉

 

Long interview with Per Gessle in Livets Goda

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As Per already informed us some time ago, Livets Goda did a very long and veeery nice interview with Mr G. The December issue contains 16 pages of Per Gessle: awesome interview, 20 important songs, some wine tasting and hot photos of Per. Interview by Anders Enquist, photos by Erik Dahlström.

The magazine is available in Sweden at the newsstands from 10th December, but you can also have your own copy even if you don’t live in Sweden. Here you can buy the pdf version online for 50 SEK. (You can pay even via PayPal.) It is really worth it!

The interview is mainly about Per’s career in the music business, stories about how Gyllene Tider and Roxette started out, his solo projects, the 80’s when he met Åsa (he says it was the best thing that happened back then), The Look, the US, It Must Have Been Love, the Billboard, EMI, later years, Roxette comeback, GT comeback, how he became interested in wines, so briefly, kind of the whole story of his life so far. There are not too many real news in the interview, but it’s always nice to read Per Gessle’s thoughts and what he is saying about different songs, for example.

Per_Gessle_Livets_Goda_2013

THERE IS SOMETHING NEW: Per would like to record an acoustic album with some of his old songs.

Great news! 😉

You surely remember Mr Gessle was talking about the Top20 songs he was setting up for this article in Livets Goda. These are not his all time fave songs, but the ones meaning a lot to him. Here is the list:

1. Nina Simone: Wild Is The Wind
2. Heart: Love Alive
3. Air: Le Femme D’argent
4. Caitlin Rose: For The Rabbits
5. Big Star: September Gurls
6. The Young Rascals: How Can I Be Sure
7. Fleetwood Mac: That’s Alright
8. John Holm: Den Öde Stranden
9. The Beatles: Hey Jude
10. Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: Refugee
11. David Bowie: Lady Grinning Soul
12. Lorde: Royals
13. The Tornados: Telstar
14. Docent Död: Solglasögon
15. Divinyls: Pleasure And Pain
16. Joni Mitchell: Rainy Night House
17. Kenny Rogers: Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town
18. Frank Sinatra: It Was A Very Good Year
19. Lee Hazlewood & Nancy Sinatra: Summer Wine
20. The Buzzcocks: Ever Fallen In Love

 

Some probably think that I’m a super-capitalist who is just sitting there and earns a lot of money on nothing, while others think I’m a talented pop craftsman who knows far too much about pop music, a nerd … I don’t know …

There are many things I’m not talented in, but I’m good at melodies and writing songs. That’s what I can do, so I need people who are doing all the other stuff I can’t.

 

He also mentions in the interview that he always thought Marie is the world’s best singer since they met for the first time.

Per’s 5 favourite Roxette songs which are lesser-known (with his comments):
1. I’m Sorry – Great chorus, a hit in Brazil.
2. My World, My Love My Life – A damn good song.
3. It Takes You No Time To Get Here – Some country text and feeling.
4. Opportunity Nox – Our best pop wallop.
5. Sleeping Single – Marie sings amazing. She makes the album.

 

I have no idea why Roxette is still so big. Maybe it’s because of the songs, maybe there is a certain timelessness in many of the songs’ melodies. But why exactly us? Maybe it’s my Swedish poor self-confidence that makes me unable to respond to it …

Regarding the next Roxette tour he says that first Marie goes on tour, but sooner or later there will probably be a major Roxette tour. Bring it on!