The Future of Wine Lies in Sweden
Meet the Pioneer Vine Grower Percy Månsson of Domän Sånana
Recently, I got the article Meet Swedish Wine’s Top Trailblazer Percy Månsson From Domän Sånana published in The Vintner Project. It talks about Percy Månsson in southernmost Sweden who was the first to plant vines in Sweden in modern times. I discuss how climate change has altered the conditions for viticulture where more northern regions such as Scandinavia become the future of winemaking.
Skåne is the southernmost region in Sweden. It’s also where modern-day viticulture and winemaking in Sweden started out in the mid-1990s. The traditionally fertile soil (boulder clay inland and more sandy and rocky soil by the coast) and the mild coastal climate make it an excellent area for farming, and now – thanks to the rise of global temperatures – viticulture. The long summer days and strong diurnal shifts create favorable conditions for grape ripening and for making balanced wines with good acidity and lots of character, even more so in the last two decades with warmer winters and a longer growing season. Climatologists predict that the world wine map will have changed dramatically by 2050, with growers moving their vineyards north toward Scandinavia and Russia or south to Argentina and Chile.
Percy Månsson has a very interesting story about how he got the idea of planting vines in the mid-1990s. It is not easy to be a winemaker in Sweden though as the monopoly for alcoholic beverages makes it quite difficult for them. See also the article on my blog More About Swedish Wine’s Groundbreaker Percy Månsson from Domän Sånana.
Sparkling Sånana 2019 from Domän Sånana
Last year, when I was at home in southern Sweden, not looking for lost time but for the development of some wineries in the area. My mother and brother came with me, also curious to make some wine discoveries. We headed towards Skillinge along the southernmost coast of Sweden where Domän Sånana by Percy Månsson is located. He was practically the first in Sweden, in modern times, to plant vineyards in 1994 as a hobby and to start making wine. His most recent label is a classic method sparkling wine – Sånana Sparkling – made with Solaris and Souvignier Gris grapes from the 2019 harvest. In May 2021, he made an initial disgorgement test of about 100 bottles after a year on the yeasts that I was lucky enough to taste together with Percy.
Sånana Sparkling was a beautiful surprise with its nice acidity, notes of bread crust, citrus, green apple, and the tanginess of the nearby sea. On the palate, it has a nice freshness and structure. Here we are just a few feet (300 meters) from a wonderful sea with sand dunes such as those of Campomarino in Puglia, for example. (That’s right, I am not joking!) In fact, the word ‘Sånana‘ is a word in our dialect to mean that the ground is very sandy. It is a sandy soil that flies and in the past, it was a common problem for farmers to sow vegetables or grains only to find that everything had flown away to the neighbor’s field.