Passion for Wine and Culture

My approach to wine and wine tasting is sort of semi-professional. First of all I am an amateur. I enjoy drinking wine, but I am not educated as a sommelier or working in the wine business. Tasting and writing notes is not my full time job. By the way, if you think about the origin of the word amateur it comes from the Latin “amara”, meaning love. An amateur love what he or she is doing. And I am not afraid to admit, that I love tasting and drinking wine. Wine is a passion for me.

On the other hand I am a journalist, and among other things I do write about wine. It has not been like that for many years, but slowly my interest increased. I have been doing radio programs about wine, I have written articles about wine for newspapers and magazines, and I have a couple of blogs where wine is among the topics – this one in English and another one in Danish called “Portugal – my second homeland” (http://mit2hjemland.blogspot.dk/) about Portuguese history, culture and wine.

Of course wine is far from being the only topic I deal with as a journalist. And I guess that my approach to writing about wine is based on the fact, that I have been a cultural journalist for many years. I like history, I like art, I like literature etc. Because of that I am interested in the stories and the history behind a wine.

Too give an example; I can mention that Ramos Pinto is my favourite port brand. They are making splendid port – good vintages and very good tawny with indication of age. But that is not the only reason. The Company has two main interests: winemaking and culture. They are having museums in both Vila Nova de Gaia and at Quinta de Ervamoira. And the founder of the Company, Adriano Ramos Pinto, was interested in art and public relation, so he ordered international artists to create advertising posters – like “The Kiss”. You can read more about it in an article I wrote for the newsletter For The Love Of Port:  http://www.fortheloveofport.com/guest-corner-articles/ramos-pinto-the-kiss

I am not always lucky that I can combine my passion for culture and my passion for wine directly like in the case of Ramos Pinto. But somehow they often work together. I do write notes and I am trying to develop my skills for tasting and putting words together afterwards. But more often I tell stories and give information or make interviews with the people behind the wine. That – and hopefully a lot of tasting notes – is what I hope to publish here in the future.