Kerstin Anlen is a wine enthusiast and WSET Diploma holder who lives in Oslo, Norway
Hi guys, this is my first contribution to the incredibly cool guys from Viini TV, hopefully not the last one! These are some thoughts from my reality which are somewhat altered from my normal point of view…
Sitting in the office, looking out of the window into an inferno of snow rushing to the ground out-side, it’s easy to get a bit side tracked and loose focus on boring paperwork. Even after spending over a month in South America over Christmas with lovely sun and warmth, it’s long since forgotten and this endless winter wonderland is starting to take its toll on me. They say that we Scandinavians have a special gene to make us last the dark half of the year but I’m telling you, that is not always the case.
Right now I also had other plans in mind if we rewind the tape a bit more than six month. I was planning to work my ass off in the cellar of Eben Sadie in the baking hot area of Swartland in South Africa. Very pleased to be accepted as the first female cellar hand into the bone hard reality of Eben’s world, I almost got as far as to ask permission to leave for one month from my boss when I found out that two would become three. Very pleased of becoming a mother but also a bit thrown out of balance as to what this would mean to my reality I had to cancel my South Africa dream for a while.
I was less cooperative when it came to cancelling my long planned stay in Volnay, Burgundy when harvest 2009 came up. But at that point I was of no good to anyone, least of all to Thiebault Huber from Huber-Verdereau where I was supposed to work for the second year in a row. At that time I was busy trying to put a brave face to my new, flattering, green face color and try to manage to get out of bed at all in the mornings. Many emotions swept through me when I realized I just couldn’t go. Thiebault was less thrown (I suppose having four kids give you quite an expertise on the area), his comment was something like: “I guess the smell of coffee, mustard and Époisse might be a bit challenging for you now. Well, I hope to see you next year in that case!”
My conclusion is that men are truly lucky being able to avoid all these less attractive sides of pregnancy. If their belly goes flabby it’s just to blame the foie gras and the excess of wine! In both cases I guess we can talk about the curve of happiness.
By now I have about one and a half month left until this person number three and soon to become person nr.1 arrives. Being a “Wine Lady” all aspects of my reality changed drastically as soon as we knew about his existence. Going from eating cheese at the edge of walking by themselves and always tasting, trying and discovering new wines, to “where do they have the best apple juice” and “do you think they put the meat in the deep-freezer here?” has been challenging. My taste has improved but also thrown all my references down the drain. Astringency has become a nuisance, alcohol a big problem and acidity a god sent gift. Needless to say some types of wine suffer unnecessarily under this new regime but luckily at least one type of wine has stayed unaltered at the top of my pyramid, Riesling, and preferably the low alcohol kind from Mosel. At least one type of wine that I still recognize and still have references on. What a bliss!
I wonder if I will be back to square one again once the baby is born after spending 9 months trying to calibrate my senses in this warp-speed mode? I’ll get back to you on that… Talked to a wonderful lady from Trentino in northern Italy about this a week ago. Elisabetta Foradori, the “Queen” of Teroldego Rotaliano, managed to plan her four pregnancies so well that one harvest she had a new-born and two harvests she was at bursting point. Her opinion is that she has never been better at tasting than during this time. I give her a lot of credit for managing so well. Knowing the amount of labor that takes place in the cellar, I can only say “Girl Power” to Elisabetta. I wish I was that strong!! And the bottom line is; everything is possible!! Good though to linger on when reality knocks on your door.
Cheers,
Kerstin
