Scandinavian wines have received a great deal of attention in the international press lately. Like most other journalists, Eric Asimov, in his long article in the New York Times, points out that climate change makes it possible to commercially make wine in Scandinavia. But he also admits that this doesn’t make it easy. Climate change also means more and more unpredictable weather.
Asimov has travelled to Denmark, Sweden and Norway and interviewed growers. Denmark currently has 90 commercial wineries. 15 years ago, they had two. There are around 40 in Sweden. Even Norway has almost a dozen. According to the article, Denmark and Sweden have the EU’s permission to grow around 400 hectares. But the high prices of the wines and the, sometimes, debatable quality makes it evident that it is not easy to grow wine in the cool/cold Nordic countries.
“People are happy as long as they can produce something that is drinkable,” says Sveneric Svensson, chairman of the Swedish Wine Association, in the article. Asimov found that already now some crisp, structured wines with fresh acidity are made in Scandinavia. Read more about Scandinavian wines here nytimes
Correction / clarification: The quote above does indeed come from the article. However, Sveneric Svensson has contacted us and informs us that it is an incorrect quote. On the contrary, he says “Swedish commercial wine-growers today make wines of high international quality”.
The French television channel France 3 has also discovered Swedish wine in a feature called “Sweden, the other wine country”. French wine producer will listen with envy to one of the comments, “in Sweden people even pay to participate in the harvest”. In France, recruiting harvesters is more and more difficult.
BKWine Magazine has also recently featured Swedish wine in an article.
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