Many of the world’s great cities have landmarks that are central to their images. Tourists and locals alike gather at the Eifel Tower, Big Ben, the Coliseum and Time Square. Other cities without such internationally known monuments offer something different; they’re great hanging out cities. San Diego is one; so are Milan, Amsterdam and Madrid. Let us introduce you to yet another, Copenhagen, and in particular a wine taster’s destination bar known by its address, ved Stranden 10.
First about the city. The most famous locale in Copenhagen is Nyhavn, which is a long harbor, mostly for fishing and tourism boats. All the buildings along the harbor are brightly colored and alongside is a long row of cafes under welcoming umbrellas. Of course it’s full of tourists, but you find Danes there as well, especially at night. As we said, it’s a great place to hang out. But so are the sidewalk restaurants on Gothersgade; the big square in the fashionable shopping district, in the middle of Højbro Plads (or Place); and the Street Food center across the main harbor.
Nyhavn, Copenhagen’s “new harbor”, only 300 years old
Which brings us to ved Stranden 10 (http://www.vedstranden10.dk/). It’s located alongside a canal and from the outside, it’s an unassuming building on a quiet little street. In warm weather, they have tables outside along the canal. Ved Stranden 10 is a wine store and also a wine bar. Inside, there’s a very small bar up front with pourers, waiters and customers scurrying about like mad. There are a few tables and stools along one wall, but for the most part all you can do in the bar is stand and order. There are several more rooms that are far more like someone’s rather chic Danish Modern living room than a wine bar.
So far, so nice. What differentiates ved Stranden 10 from all other wine bars we’ve ever been to, is that most of the waiters are sommeliers and that there is no wine list! Instead, you negotiate with your waiter. He or she will ask, “What do you feel like drinking?”. Maybe one wants a light white, somewhat austere, not very fruit forward and the other a robust red, chewy and full of fruit. (That would be Lucie and Steve, respectively.) The waiter will get a few glasses and bottles and pour little tastes. “Does this work for you?” If so, your glass will be filled. If not, he or she will go get something else. No one goes away disappointed.
Inside ved Stranden 10
You can’t say, “I’ll have a Pinot Noir” or a Bordeaux or a Sauvignon Blanc. They don’t work that way. You tell them you like Bordeaux but they don’t carry Bordeaux. They will bring you a taste of what they think is similar to Bordeaux. They have a lot of wines from obscure places, like Serbia or Turkey or some valley in Italy you’ve never heard of. So the light white wine came from Sardinia and the big red was a Blaufrankisch from Austria. We might have ordered those ourselves, but if there were something on a list that was more familiar, we never would have gotten to these wines. The result is that we both got to drink some wines we weren’t familiar with, that met our taste preferences at that moment.
A word about the glasses. If you choose to sit outside, they will use very nice glassware, but nothing you’d notice one way or the other. But inside, they use some of the most delicate stemware we’ve ever drunk from. The glasses are very light and the stems are so thin you feel like you’re going to snap them with your fingers. (We didn’t.) They don’t use them outside because the slightest breeze would knock them over.
Fair warning: you’ll have such a good time at ved Stranden 10 that when it’s time to sum up and pay, because you have no idea what the cost was of that glass of wine that you just ordered (remember, no wine list), you’ll find that you had so many wines that the bill is bigger than you thought it would be. You’ll probably conclude that it was money well spent, like we did.