A dozen man-high tents have been standing on the grounds of a winery in Skåne since this summer. A crazy place in southern Sweden. Is it even possible to produce wines so far north?
“It’s the most natural thing in the world,” says Annette Ivarsson, whom I met at dinner the night before Arilds Vingard met. In 2006, the former biology and chemistry teacher and her husband Jonas had the idea of turning an old farmhouse into a winery just one kilometer from the coast. A year later they planted the first vines. Today the couple farms an area of 20 hectares. Shortly thereafter, they opened their restaurant and hotel in the thatched stable from 1868.
During her viticulture studies in Germany, Annette got to know the Solaris grape variety at the state viticulture institute in Freiburg, which flowers and ripens early. Today the grape is one of the most cultivated in southern Sweden, as there are now 35 wineries in Skåne. In the glass, however, this slightly greenish white wine does not unfold the breadth of taste that we know from Riesling. In the case of the Solaris, acidity dominates rather than complexity. “We decided to only grow vines that are not sprayed,” says Annette. She relies on organic cultivation and does not spray with copper solutions as a remedy against possible mold growth.
Sparkling steel tanks in the vault
What might the wine cellar of such a young winery look like? Annette leads me underground through an old door. We are standing in a room with sparkling steel tanks, from which two vaults branch off, in which the oak barrels and riddling boards with champagne bottles are stored. “We regularly rotate the bottles by hand,” she explains. This wine cellar, which is only ten years old, makes an ancient impression on me. “We got all the bricks from an old chimney that was torn down,” she tells me.
There are 23 rooms under the roofs of the half-timbered houses. But in the summer season they are far from enough. The Kullen Peninsula is a popular holiday region. Therefore, in the summer of 2019, the Ivarssons set up thirteen tents with comfortable double beds for guests. “Since then, many young people have come and stayed with us,” says Annette.
The white tops of the tents jut out over the vines. In your bathrobe, you walk down a wooden walkway to the wash van with warm showers. At night the stars twinkle as you walk from the restaurant to the tents in five minutes. But there is one disadvantage here: you cannot buy liquid souvenirs at Arilds Vingård. Because of the state control of alcohol sales, the bottles may only be sold in Systembolaget stores.