Who would have thought Sweden could produce wine? But here we are, a delightful surprise amidst changing climates. Let’s toast to the unexpected and savor the journey of discovery.
🍷Whatcha drinking?
https://www.goodpairdays.com/au/wines/details/pandolfa-federico-sangiovese-2018/
📖Learn more about Swedish wine:
https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/08/21/swedish-wine-how-global-warming-is-shifting-europes-vineyards-northwards
https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20220831-the-arctic-circle-a-new-frontier-for-sustainable-wine
https://quench.me/longform/wine-production-in-sweden/
//Up and coming producers:
https://www.langmyrevineri.com
https://www.thoravingard.com
// FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM
//www.instagram.com/sip_and_wine/
📕 TABLE OF CONTENTS 📕
00:00 not a video about climate change 🙅🏼♀️
00:58 whatcha drinking 🍷?
01:51 Sweden & wine? Yep you heard that right!
02:19 History of Swedish winemaking 📖
05:28 Where is Sweden?📍
06:36 regions
08:13 Piwi grapes🍇
12:16 2021 vintage
13:37 producers
16:18 challenges
//ABOUT ME
Hey there, I’m Lucy—a wine aficionado on a mission to uncover the best-kept secrets of the wine world. As a certified sommelier, my passion for learning about wine knows no bounds.
I think you noticed that with Rising
temperature seasonal Shuffle and weather
changes people are facing a challenges
they’ve never faced before wait this is
not a video about climate change well
maybe a little but with so many changes
it’s amazing to see a group of wine
makers which are dedicated to roll with
the pantes and bring some Innovation to
the table today we are going to be
talking about a Swedish wine
making hello everyone welcome to my
channel Sip and wine where we explore
red grapes fun wine stories uh countries
which you’ve never heard before that
make wine just I am giving you an
approachable way how to learn a little
bit about wine so let’s Backle up and
prepare yourself to learn about the
Sweden like never before but before we
dive into the Swedish wine making let me
introduce to a one wine which I grabbed
to the in the liquor store uh this week
it’s from a producers from Emilia Roman
Panda it has super rich history it’s a
for generation of the wine maker it’s
small Winery just had 90 hectares of uh
farming lands and it’s not just wine
they are growing olives as well this
wine is 100 centa it’s super
approachable uh medium B it’s delicious
and actually I went for this wine
because of the
label super fun right leave in the
comments what you are drinking tonight
and let’s take a deep dive cheers Sweden
is known for its super approachable cool
furniture like Ikea cars like wo and pop
music like ABA but in recent years it’s
um making boom in the wine uh the last
time I was talking to my colleague about
this and he was super confused about
Sweden making wine and he was like how
is it possible we can thank for this to
a climate change let’s talk about
history of Swedish wine making while
wine making in Sweden does not carry so
much tradition like France or Italy
historically the northern latitude and a
cool climing in Sweden give a lot of
headaches and a lot of challenges to
grow wine and to do wine making however
evidence suggest that the wine making in
Sweden dates back to medevial times
mostly for religion purposes but first
let’s talk about the Vikings have they
been winding iners the last evidence
which was found says yes don’t forget to
check out my video about the meat it has
a little bit of history about the
Vikings as well while Vikings were known
for their drinking habits and lavage
drinking of meat and beer mostly recent
discoveries suggest that they might
double into little bit into a wine
making as well archaeologists actually
found the grape uh near Denmark which
suggests that Vikings were making wine
for Vikings the wine as the meat was a
symbol of power and wealth and the wine
were drunk by the leaders now let’s Jump
Ahead to the 17th century Sweden saw a
lot of uh figures trying to push the
wines and trying to push the wine making
for example King Cara 11 and his
successors pushed a new wine making
methods a little bit of innovation and
new grapes which they were they were
hoping that these tools are going to
help people make grapes uh but
unfortunately a chili weather and the
little bit of knowhow did not make this
sucessful then in the 19th century the
wine making faced the challenges of
imported wines people started importing
to Sweden and wine makers as in every
other countries uh started to replacing
the wines with another crops in 1917
system batan was born uh which is
basically a government body which is
influencing the sell of Al selling of
Alcohol and Other uh rules uh for making
wine and making uh boo unfortunately
only wineries established before 1917
before the birth of cister gaten could
make wine the resulted that many wine
marries had to close the door and uh
just went out of business then in 1933
systemat and said the beverages made
from berries and fruit cannot be called
wine anymore which was another blow for
the industry the whole priced in the
’90s a new technology new grapes new
wine makers came into a play the green
light was given to wine makers to
establish the wineries nowadays uh they
have over 30 wine makers and some of the
wineries are getting into a large scale
of wi making which is amazing where
exactly is Sweden Sweden is uh in
northern Europe on the Scandinavian
Peninsula nestled by Finland on the
northeast uh then we have a Norway on
the west and then we have a Baltic Sea
on the south while the countries like
France and Italy are facing their own
challenges with the climate change we
can see a rise up in Sweden for the wine
making uh because of the climate change
it’s fascinating to see and to read on
different websites which you can see the
links below about Swedish wine making
how these producers are facing the
challenges and they are evolving and
they’re bringing Innovations to the
table and they’re coming from a small
scale producers uh which are evolving to
a bigger players in the wine industry
but now let’s go back to the location
and let’s talk about of four different
regions where Swedish people make wine
we have four appalation in Sweden and
first one is can then we have a gotland
Stockholm archipelagos and Thea first up
we have scan scan is appalation located
on the south of Sweden this appalation
has the mildest temperatures and it’s
well suitable for a wi making this
appalation does benefit fet from the
proximity to the Baltic Sea uh which
makes the temperature more approachable
and there is a little bit of wind um and
it’s a little bit warmer next uh we
venture to the gutland which is the
biggest island in the Sweden and it’s
located in the Baltic Sea here wine
makers benefits uh from the mine climate
uh they’re making mostly crisp wines and
sparkling wines which benefits from
sunny microclimate and Limestone Rich
Limestone rich soil let’s not Overlook
Stockholm archipelago uh this appalation
is little bit uh Northern in Sweden it
does benefit from a rocky ter and a
little bit of coastal Breezies this
appalation is basically uh the proof
that delicious wine come from the most
unexpected regions last but not least
Thea which is in uh Central Sweden it’s
one of the I think one of the biggest
regions it has a lot of sunny days and
uh great soils uh which makes a great
wine okay now let’s talk about the
grapes Sweden has a quite Innovative
approach to the grapes they do kind of
grow like pin Noir and the
shardon like Pion varieties but they do
have their own varieties uh for a
specific reason these varieties are
called py varieties uh which is
basically a crossing of with is minera
with the hybrid these Crossings come
from viito in Northern Italy mostly
these grips are super important because
they are great for the Swedish climate
and they are resistant to diseases but
why they are really using these
varieties if the climate is changing uh
why they’re not using people pinion
varieties like they’re using they
started using in England it’s really
interesting um because the PE varieties
do not require any chemical treatment
therefore the agriculture is sustainable
and friendly uh so therefore they are
not compromising the quality of the
grapes which is fantastic but again they
are growing their own varieties which
are mostly locally known but I mean
there is some advantages and some
disadvantages if they don’t have to use
the chemical treatments why not words
always changing and they can use
whatever they want and um I feel like
the grapes are delicious either way for
example in my country we do have our own
grapes which are mostly locally known
but they are really slowly coming to the
market and people are getting to know
them
right wine is about exploring and
learning new things in addition what I
was talking about PES and that they
don’t have to use a chemical treatment
they are super adaptable to the Nordic
climate in Sweden uh the weather can go
down to minus 25 degrees
Celsius uh which can be difficult for
many wines uh but this few varieties are
able to survive in this weather but they
do have a one thing which they are
struggling with it’s a bat cracking and
the early spring Frost right so we will
be talking about two P grapes uh one
white and one red uh which are Super
Famous in Sweden first let’s talk about
Solaris Solaris was developed in
1975 in Germany Solaris is like a
national grape uh in Sweden Solaris is a
white grape uh which make wines uh with
a lot of uh Green Apple notes uh
tropical fruits and lemon and little bit
of honey uh this grape has a higher M uh
it is used most of the time for sparing
wine in other countries like England but
in Sweden they do use it for making wide
wi small the wines are are concentrated
and strong and uh it has a nice body
it’s usually ranging from 13 to 14 um%
of alcohol and lot of times they do wine
makers they do uh blend it with the
different grapes as well another popular
grape is called Ronda and it’s mostly
planted red grape it was created in
1964 by Professor Krauss in
Czechoslovakia the grapes are super dark
with a super concentrated red lot of
with a lot of Harmony lot of red and
black fruit medium B medium tining and
long finish let’s talk about a little
bit about uh 2021 vintage and let’s
compare it with the countries as France
or Italy so in 2021 Swedish R makers it
was one of the best VES they’ve ever
seen a lot of the new wine makers they
do have uh new plants which they cannot
really compare with other but this is
what we have this is what we have to
work with so in 2021 it was a lot of sun
no spring Frost regular rain and warm
conditions so the wines had lot of
things coming to them and they were
fantastic in comparison 2021 vintage in
France it was not that great there was a
lot of spring frost a lot of flooding
lot of uh heat Dem
super hot vintage which is not great for
wines for some of the countries and for
some of the producers they lost almost
70% of the product which is devastating
and it’s devastating for a lot of small
producers but let’s not forget again
Sweden is a really young Wine Country
they do not know how the weather
patterns goes or they don’t have so much
information about it uh the wines are
really young and they do have a lot of
things coming and lot of great vintages
hopefully now let’s talk about two uh
wineries one really micro and one little
bit bigger in Sweden first Tora vineard
this Wier is located on Bara Peninsula
the owners are oberg family uh which
purchased this land and in
2014 uh so auberg family built a small
Winery which was initially just 300
plantings of pinor nowadays they do have
a lot of pinor shardon they’re starting
to gr G and U Shen blang as well so this
Winery is most mostly to the traditional
with minif GP and they are doing great
they do have two wine makers both from
France Emma grew up in aen in a Swedish
SL FR France family and she studied wine
making and she worked in houses like uh
sh 16 or domain dep Castel then we have
a Roma who grew up in a small place bco
in France he had a little bit of
different path uh he was mostly wine
maker in sou of France he is the one who
brought a little bit of biodynamic wine
making into the Tor wyard uh be
Peninsula it’s well known for its wine
making tradition proximity to the Sea
and first time wi in the T Vineyard the
grips are hand harvested fermented and
then they are put into a Swedish and
French Oaks Lang Mir viny it’s located
on the biggest island goland um in
Sweden it is located in the middle of
the sea so it does have a lot of sea
breezes it has a lot of sunny days and
what’s interesting it has Limestone soil
which is really similar to shab or
champagne the L Mar Winery is a story of
two people who fell in love a wine maker
from Salo and his Swedish girlfriend
Guera is an Italian wine maker from
Salma who was making wine in the south
of Italy and then he moved to tasky
where he uh met his girlfriend Emma Emma
is originally from Sweden and they were
talking and they were like well we want
to make wine but we don’t really know
where to go because because the weather
is as it is they were like let’s go a
little bit north but they never thought
that they would end up in Sweden today
the wiard is Tiny just five hectares and
it is um mostly planted to five b
varieties the last thing I want to talk
about is challenges in Sweden and in
Swedish wine making while the wine
makers have so much going on and so much
good things coming to them they do have
a couple of challenges which have to
become come which have to be brought to
the light so the wine making cycle in
Sweden is a little bit different than in
France and Europe it’s a big challenge
during summer because they do get so
many sunny days uh that the wine grow
quickly photosynthesis is super strong
so the wine makers are still trying to
figure it out the New Balance uh in the
growing cycle now after they faced the
challenge of growing environment uh then
there is another challenge uh how to get
the wine into our glass that’s the
reason I couldn’t get any Swedish wine
and I don’t think you can get any
Swedish wine unless you’re in the
country but uh what I’m talking about is
about the system bathan uh which is the
body which is influencing all of the
sales in Sweden of the boo in Sweden uh
the only way how you can get the wine is
in a couple of those small liquor store
from system boen uh but the wineries are
forbidden to do a to do a direct sell
and uh you can get the wines straight
from the wineries or you can get the
wines sometimes in restaurants the last
thing they are challenging is that the
the cost of production is super high and
the wines a BT 750 m of B wine uh is
more than 20
which is super expensive okay guys this
is all from me for tonight uh thank you
for watching I hope you enjoy it please
leave a comment what you are drinking
tonight what would you want to see on my
channel like And subscribe and I’ll see
you next time
1 Comment
Thank you so much for a very interesting lecture on Swedish wine making – something I've never heard of before and never imagined.