Copenhagen Natural Wine Chronicles
A series of podcasts exploring the influence of the Danish capital on natural wine culture. In Part I: importer Sune Rosforth, winemaker Anders Frederik Steen, and sommelier-restaurateur Martin Ho.
Why pay any attention to what’s going on in Copenhagen, far from where natural wine is made?
So went my thought process during the 2010s, when my explorations in natural wine led me always south from Paris, never north. I perceived, dimly, an incipient Nordic influence throughout Parisian natural wine spots of the era - Saturne, Septime, and Le Dauphin spring to mind - but the significance of this vector of influence largely escaped me for many years. Since finally visiting the Danish capital in fall 2021, I’ve come to recognize the critical role that Copenhagen’s farsighted importers, restaurateurs, and sommeliers have played over the last two decades in validating - for vignerons, as well as consumers; for the Parisian market, as well as further afield - the aesthetic appeal and the commercial viability of natural wine.
There is a Biblical proverb invoked often by natural vignerons and wine resellers worldwide, to the effect of, “No one is accepted as a prophet in their own land.” Whatever difficulties they may have faced within Denmark, the key Danish natural wine personalities of the 21st-century made for credible and influential prophets for wine drinkers abroad, as Copenhagen’s emergence as a global dining destination paralleled the rise in natural wine awareness worldwide.
These Copenhagen wine personalities are the subject of Series IV of the NOT DRINKING POISON podcast.1 Part One contains interviews with:
Pioneering Danish natural wine importer and restaurateur SUNE ROSFORTH of ROSFORTH & ROSFORTH, who, with his wife Veronica, runs nearby natural wine bar destination DEN VANDRETTE, as well as the popular wine shop-slash-office space known as UNDER THE BRIDGE. Listen here.
Sommelier turned négociant-vigneron ANDERS FREDERIK STEEN, whose career in natural wine has taken him from wine service at NOMA to opening RELAE and MANFRED’S to becoming a winemaker in his own right alongside his wife Anne Bruun Blauert in southern ARDECHE. Listen here. (No paywall.)
Globe-trotting sommelier turned Copenhagen restaurateur MARTIN HO, who put in memorable turns in wine service in PARIS (Roseval, Restaurant Tondo) and NEW YORK (Contra, Wildair, Una Pizza Napolitano) before returning to his hometown to open the radical and deceptively simple wine bar POMPETTE (and sister restaurants Poulette and Villette). Listen here.
Look out for Part II of this series in late May. In the meantime, if you happen to be in Copenhagen on May 19th, be sure not to miss Fri Vin, an epic-scale natural wine salon collaboratively organized by four prominent Denmark natural wine companies: Rosforth & Rosforth, Terroiristen, Pétillant, and Lieu-Dit. I’ll be there signing copies of The World of Natural Wine and opening a few bottles of my Languedoc garage wines from abandoned vines.
Skål! Many thanks as always, for reading and for listening!
FURTHER READING & LISTENING
Noma’s Mixed Message
Dining on the Wine Trail: Omegn & Venner, Copenhagen
Lisa Abend & Lars Bjerregard’s Substack, BORD, features a comprehensive history of natural wine in Copenhagen.
Podcast Series III: Les Emigré(e)s - Expat Natural Winemakers in France, Part I
Podcast Series III: Les Emigré(e)s - Expat Natural Winemakers in France, Part II
Podcast Series II: Contemporary Paris Natural Wine, Part I
Podcast Series II: Contemporary Paris Natural Wine, Part II
Podcast Series I: Paris Natural Wine Lifers, Part I
Podcast Series I: Paris Natural Wine Lifers, Part II
Series I, II, and III are actually still ongoing. I’ll add to them whenever the opportunities arise.
It sure seems like you have reduced your writing and increased the podcasting since your book came out. I, for one, miss the articles and don't have time to listen to many podcasts. I believe the articles had more condensed information that made them more efficent to consume.