PM & Vänner (ENG)

PM & Vänner

Late summer is here and me and my life partner Miss E got in the car and steered our way towards Växjö, Småland. We of course headed for PM & Vänner, a restaurant everyone knows about and has a relationship to.

We picked up two of our best friends and strolled down Main street Växjö with our aim set for that sweet and cool street corner that is PM & Vänner.  A huge lovely porch, unfortunetly only half full due to the declining summer making people going back to work. As always I have in less than a minute greated all the staff and gotten a resounding welcome.

The Bible (or ”winelist”) arrives in the wink of an eye. So here we go again, me going in to anti-social mode in order to refresh myself with all the wine at PM. I wish I hade the knowledge required to really appreciate just how good this winelist is, but I will probably get it in the end anyway. This is the best sommerlier in Sweden who, with the helpfull  guidence of  Per Bengtssons and Andreas Larsson, under the range of years have build up the best wine cellar in the country in a fenomenal way! This warm evening in late sommer I am as usually craving Austria and one of my favorites are Fx Pichlers wine from Wachau. In order not to die of thirst and bore my firends and my love more than neccesary it hade to be the first bottle of the evening. 2007 Riesling Smaragd Loibner Oberhauser.

Pichler, this genius of a wine maker, delivers wine of absolute top range. For all of us with a bit of Riesling knowledge we know that this farm winery produces cult classic wines year after year. The colour is straw yellow and it has just passed over in to it’s first ripe fase. The scent is crispy, alert, flirty and fruity. Really young wines from Pichler always have a fresh scent and a taste of sun riped young grapefruit, and the scent is in this as well, although not an obvious one. The taste is similar to the scent, the wonderfull minerals and the long lasting taste immediately get us in extas.

In order not to perish from hunger we ordered a sizeable plate of oysters Fine de Claires with its accessory lemon and shallot vinaigrette. Perfect meaty and hefty, the saltiness rasps as an open sea together with the ripeness of the wine. The vinaigrette haswell harmonized acidity that never takes over but merely compliments the saltiness. A very fine start to this dinner.

For a more småländsk feel to the wine we are also served herring on bread. A juicy slice of sour dough bread with new potato, spiced herring, pickled red onion and carrot. There is a good taste with the spicy and salty herring, the acidity from the onion, the carrot and the shy carbohydrates from the potatoes. The wine is like fish to water together with both the oysters and the herring.

The ladies wanted to continue with thw white and I didn't say no to that. The next wine was going to be a bit more modern and greasy, so we went for a bottle of a 2008 Alysian från Cresta Ridge Vineyard Taurin Block, situated in the Russian River Valley. A wine easy to like - beautiful gold appearance and a clear core with a grand scent of fresh exotic fruit. The corn fields stretches out in front of me and is is a bit like crashing head first in to a bowl of butter flavoured popcorn. The taste is similar to the scent with good minerals and acidity. And thanks to the crispness in the wine it doesn’t get to heavy or sprawl. In the end only one question remains, will it suit well with PM & Vänners steak tartare with classic garniture?

PM & Vänners steak tartare fulfilled all my wishes. Perfect texture on the meat and the temperature on the ox is good. The freedom to choose the amount of garniture to each bite is exactly as it should be, together with perfectly salted french fries. This dish complemented the wine perfect. The protein in the meat has a thing for deconstructing cocky acids and big fatty fruits in the wine, which lead to the best teamwork ever wine and food combined. That I myself is sucker for mustard an that mustard never works with wine is for me impenetrable! I am still though, looking for the best steak tartare.

Our friend Mr. B yearn for more wine, Miss B had rounded off her wine drinking and had started on more fruity cocktails – another one of PM & Vänners specialties. The rest of us though askes the sommelier Johan to, with all our preferences in mind, bring in a wine to paus with. In comes a bottle of a 2008 Côte du Rhône Domaine A. Clape. A small estate of 7 hectare, with 5 hectare in central Cornas. The wine-making is done all in classic manners, open tub fermenting, a long time to ripe in big barrels, bottled without filtering or clarification. For me personally this is one of the top 5 producers in Cornas. Deep red colour, slightly cloudy, and no core – I thank the careful bottling for that. The scent is ripe of late red summer berries, a light touch of white pepper tickles my nose, the old oak barrels have works their magic in balancing the wine. A sterling power to the roof of the mouth with tinnin acid, fruit and a height to the wine. This bottle I with joy will put up with!

Always finish on top, something I alway try to do, so one last glass to the table, and that a sweet one. A 1989 Château Suduriaut, Bordeaux, Sauternes! Wines that are for a lot of people forgotten. In these times it seems that there is more enjoyment in drinking suger sweet and fruit driven wines from the new world, but when a piece of wine history is served the tables often become quite. It is a lot of feel from the tide of history in there wines. With a gold and ripe thatch like tone the wine is beautiful just to look at. The scent of saffran, peach and sultanas is magic. The flavour is divine, young and lovely minerals, it just gets deeper and squishes my taste buds and I am in a wine experience unlike any other. It is together with this wine a dinner should end. I can only thank PM & Vänner for a really nice evening. I hope it won’t will be to long until next time, but next time I’ll be sitting inside enjoying the Fine Dining.