"Cheers!” I’m sitting snuggled up on the couch in my favourite corner with a glass of wine, which I raise to my husband. He has surprised me. With a bottle of red wine. He pours himself a glass, swhirls it around, sniffs it and, before tasting, he takes a look at the label. A new discovery. Biodynamic. I sip my wine. He mutters something about the site, the wine estate. “Haven’t got a clue”, he says, “try it”. I nod. Biological-dynamic is important to me. But at the moment, bio-dynamically I’ve hit rock bottom. I’m worn out. One meeting after another. And now it’s time to relax. With my dearest, and my favourite wine. And it happens to be red. Red beats white.

 

In this my husband and I are at one. Only my son prefers white. And now and again he convinces me with two or three varieties. “Well?” My husband asks and looks at me in anticipation. Neither of us has managed to become a real expert to date. But we do enjoy indulging ourselves. I take another sip. Keep it in my mouth for a moment. “Ah...,” I say “...nice”. And I know from experience, from what I know of my taste nerves, that this red wine will grow on me during the evening. An evening I’m so looking forward to (the aroma from the kitchen is fantastic, HE is cooking). I put my nose into the glass. The aroma is a promise. I breathe deeply. I either like a wine immediately or not at all. In the restaurant I don’t look for the most expensive wine in the list. It must please me at the first taste, then I know I’ll like it more and more. Sip after sip. I’m a chef, not a wine waitress. But I love full-bodied red wines. And it’s not necessary to be an expert to love a wine. Usually it remains a mystery why a man or woman loves something. And it’s best that way. In this spirit I contemplate my half-full glass and my husband. He smiles at me. Yes, the red wines. They really can win you over. “It’s addictive”, I say and raise my glass again. There is of course something in the proverb: In vino veritas – truth lurks in wine.


Contagiously authentic. When Sarah Wiener is convinced of something – whatever it may be – one simply accepts it, for she commits herself unconditionally to her causes. And here we are in luck, for her passion is eating. And passionate eaters should also be passionate cooks. She is no enthusiast of the recent trend towards intellectualising cooking, of pondering and philosophising about indulgence. She is rather more interested in cooking for you and me, cooking for normal people using ingredients which we can all pronounce. Sarah Wiener’s main concern is quality – in this respect she is stubborn. This concerns both what is served on the plate and in the glass. And this brings us to wine from Manincor.

Brief biography: cook, business woman, actress, book author. Many of these roles came about by ...chance, many happened because they were necessary but mostly because Sarah Wiener wanted them to come about. She left school at 17, travelled, ended up in with her son in Berlin and faced cold reality aged 24. She worked as a waitress, pastry chef and as a cook for an advertising agency. With this job she added a new facet to her career. For Sarah Wiener now runs a Europe-wide company specialised in event catering, as well as several restaurants and cafés. Find out more at www.sarahwiener.de.