9 meters under the ground level. This is an over 100 years old wine cellar with thousands of meters of corridors and more than 1.500.000 bottles waiting to see the light of the day in some months or years. I look around with an admiring curiosity and walk slowly behind my French long-time friend who, as an educated wine specialist, is familiar with this kind of environment. But for someone like me who has grown up in Eastern Finland in the middle of the pine woods, thousands of kilometres away from the nearest wine region, it doesn’t go that fast to get used to these ultimate wine experiences.

We are in Catalunya, Sant Sadurní d’Anoia, in the cava house Recaredo’s cellar where we are about to taste their Reserva Particular from 2004. Our host shows us the way as we approach a dim corner and a table where several glasses are lined up.

Then he introduces us to a man who will show us the disgorgement of the bottle before the tasting; here at Recaredo this important step of cava production – opening the cava bottle and removing the sediment – is done manually for each 250.000 bottles they release every year. We witness a convincing demonstration of this unique task.

I get the filled glass into my hand and lift it closer to my eyes. “In 2004”, I’m thinking, “I had just started my music studies in Sweden”. It’s fascinating how wine can connect the present moment with the past. I let the aromas from the glass rise into my nose. So many impressions! A talented poet could certainly turn this bouguet into several pages of beautiful text. But I do what I’ve been doing for some years now; I take my little music note-book from my pocket, nose the wine again and start to write music.

My first impression of Reserva Particular 2004 just after the disgorgement.

How did I end up to this Catalonian wine cellar to taste one of the world’s finest cavas? Why in the world am I writing music about… a wine? Can I possibly be serious?

On this blog me and Matthieu (the French wine guy mentioned above) will tell you why we consider music as a fantastic tool for describing, explaining and understanding wine and the wine culture. You’ll find out what has happened since we decided to try composing music based on different wines, and how the idea has led us to many wonderful meetings and discoveries. And above all, we want to invite you to follow our project today as well as to join our tastings and concerts. Welcome!

Tuomas A. Turunen | TheWineComposer 2015

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