5 Danes and Mariza (no ugly duckling)!

2005 was the bicentennial of the birth of the Danish storyteller Hans Christian Andersen. To assist with the worldwide celebrations, the Danish ambassador to Portugal at the time and a personal friend of ours, Ambassador Theis Truelsen, asked us to help come up with a special commemorative wine which could be used for the celebrations of the event in Portugal.  Hans had just the wine, a specially selected  lot of Syrah (100%) from the 2003 vintage. Luckily our label designer Karen Blincoe (who happens to be Hans’ cousin), a renowned graphic artist and her daughter Anna Blincoe,  (the fine artist behind the stunning illustrations on all our labels), were happy to meet the challenge to come up with a special label for the cause.  Anna Blincoe painted a portrait of Hans Christian Andersen based on an Andy Warhol sketch, and her mother Karen Blincoe combined it with the text from a story which Hans Christian Andersen wrote during his visit to Portugal in 1866, called ‘The Toad‘ (original title - Skrubtudsen).  Hans Christian Andersen, who travelled extensively through Europe in the mid 1800’s, actually stayed in Portugal for 3 months, and referred to the country as ‘the earthly paradise’. He found inspiration for many of his stories here. Mariza, the fabulous Portuguese fado singer was honorably nominated ‘Hans Christian Andersen Ambassador’ to Portugal for the yearlong celebrations in 2005.

During her inaugural ceremony, she revealed that the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales which had been told to her as a child, were inspiration for many of her songs. The wine served during this ceremony with Mariza was of course, our special Homenagem to Hans Christian Andersen wine, created for the event. So 5 Danes joined forces to create this special wine – Hans Christian the storyteller, Hans Kristian the winemaker, Karen the designer, Anna the artist, and Theis the Ambassador, plus Mariza of course! Due to popular demand, we continue to launch the brand ‘Homangen to Hans Christian Andersen‘ every time we have a special lot of 100% varietal Syrah,  of a quality level between our entry level Syrah and our high end Incógnito i.e. in 2003, 2004 and now again in 2007.