The Per Gessle Selection champagnes and 2011 Kurt & Lisa are out

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 Nordin white 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 Vitt
Fru Nordin Vitt
The Pleaser
The Pleaser
The Improver
The Improver
The Convincer
The Convincer
Kurt&Lisa 2011
Kurt & Lisa 2011

 

 

 

 

Per Gessle’s golden wines

Mikael Mölstad from Allt om Vin interviewed Per Gessle. They were talking about Per’s passion about wines. Per drinks more expensive wines than many others, but it’s mostly because he can afford it. He believes that good wine experiences are available in most price segments anyway.

To the question about his first wine experience he replied:

Oj, it was when I started touring when I was around 20. Before that I drank almost nothing at all. This was in the late ’70s and I had read that Keith Richards drank Blue Nun, so I would of course try. I knew nothing about wines, but thought if Keith did something I should do the same. But oh, what a disappointment it was – it was just disgustingly sweet. The first real wine experience I had when I turned 30 and I got a Château Malartic-Lagravière 1982 from Thomas Johansson, our concert organizer. That wine opened a new world for me.

PG_wine_Allt_om_VinPer was asked about his greatest wine experience. He says it’s almost impossible to answer, but he would say his last great acquaintance, a Cheval Blanc 1986. He talks about he started with Bordeaux wines, then more Californian and Italian wines. He also became more curious about Burgundy. Per says, the older he gets, the less he likes New World wines. They are a little too sweet and have a bit too much alcohol.

About the best wine and meal experience he says there are some. He mentions a lunch in Verona with good pizzas and a champagne, Billecart Salmon Rosé. Another experience he mentions is a bottle of Ornellaia with caprese, prosciutto and classic Italian meals at one of his favorite taverns in Tuscany.

Per’s favourite everyday wine is his own Kurt & Lisa. A dream wine tasting he would love to participate in is a vertical tasting [where you have a number of bottles from the same winery, that are spread out over a number of vintages] of Château Petrus or Latour with some of his best wine friends.

To the question which wine region he would happily return to he replied he is very fond of Tuscany, so it is always his first choice. A wine region he is longing to visit is Napa Valley, for he hasn’t been there yet. Per says it would be great to experience some of his favorite Californian wines on site, such as Bond and Harlan Estate.

Mr G’s favourite red wine grape is Pinot Noir. He wants to learn more about Burgundy and he hopes soon to experience some great wines from there. Per’s favourite green-skinned grape is Chardonnay, blanc de blancs from Champagne or from Southern Burgundy.

Per tells Allt om Vin that some wines he buys from each year, e.g. Ornellaia and Solaia. Otherwise he gladly buys champagne. His last purchase was a Larrivet Haut-Brion. He prefers keeping older wines in his wine cellar and he likes to go back to wines from the ’80s and ’90s. Per says one can’t experience such wine tastes these days.

At the end of the interview Per says he is proud of making his own wine and then get to experience surreptitiously how people like it in a restaurant. Although he hasn’t trod the grapes, he still helped to create the blend. [Mr G treading grapes is definitely something we would love to see one day, isn’t it?]

On a side note next to the interview you can read besides some other well-known details that Per’s hidden talent is being a hell of a table hockey player.

The fabulous PG photo in the article is by Anders Roos.

Per Gessle’s champagnes are out in November

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.

 

Champagne in The Per Gessle Selection

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.

 

http://www.winepictures.com/