I did a double take too when I heard this news. And no, it’s not about Mead, the stuff that grumpy giants with horned helmets made from fermented honey to fire up their hump fests en route to Valhalla. Another immediate association was that they must be talking about Ice Wine, and understandably so. Cold country, grapes, and harsh winters surely meant that these Swedes simply waited until everything froze over and then called it a great vintage.
But Swedish wine’s new trick is almost the opposite. The country’s emerging stars are mostly serious dry white wines, made from grapes that producers would prefer not to find frozen solid. More alarmingly for the French and Italians, some of these new labels are apparently becoming quite good. For now though, the established wine kings can relax, as there are no Swedish reds in the pipeline. Oenology, grape hybrids, and nature can only be pushed so far.
In essence, the whole thing is a reversal of centuries of Scandinavia’s relationship with wine. For most of it, Vikings sailed south, pillaging as they did, including vineyards, then decided to carry the stuff home to warm up during their brutal winters. This bitter northern cold has gone from being the defining feature of impossible winemaking to something their winemakers have had to learn to work around. The ambition is no longer to make a delicious dessert wine because winter arrived. Instead, it is to make a bottle good enough to beat established European wines before frost gets anywhere near their vineyards.
Swedish commercial wine is remarkably young. The EU approved Sweden and Denmark for commercial production only in 1999. Today Sweden has around 50 commercial wineries, a microscopic number when compared to France, Italy, or Spain. But large enough to establish that this is far more than a boatload of Vikings stomping on grapes in a shed. In the process, Sweden’s southern Skåne region has even acquired the very optimistic nickname of “Nordic Tuscany,” with its rolling fields, ambitious restaurants, and professionally run vineyards. The cypresses and Chianti bottles are missing, but the comparison no longer sounds ridiculous.
That breakthrough came spectacularly in August 2024 at The Swedish Wine Tasting, a nod to the legendary Judgment of Paris (spelling intentional, look it up). Twelve Swedish wines were put up blind against twelve European counterparts before an eighteen-strong international jury. Immelen 2021 from Kullabergs finished first, ahead of Louis Jadot’s Pouilly-Fuissé 2022, and was subsequently served up at a Nobel Prize winners’ banquet. This is about as close as a bottle can get to receiving a medal itself.
The interesting question for oenologists is why Swedish wine works at all. Climate change is a reason, but not the whole story. Southern Sweden is indeed warmer than it once was, extending the possibilities for viticulture. Yet warmer does not mean easier — growing seasons become less predictable, with frost, rain and temperature swings capable of ruining even a hardened Viking’s spirit.
But Sweden does possess one unusual advantage, extraordinarily long summer days. Grapes receive abundant light while temperatures remain relatively cool, allowing them to ripen slowly while retaining acidity. That combination is precisely what many warmer wine regions often struggle to achieve. The grape varieties are different too. Forget Cabernet Sauvignon sunbathing beside a Swedish farmhouse. The star is Solaris, a cold-resistant variety developed in Germany in the 1970s, with Riesling and Pinot Gris among its ancestry. Kullabergs’ Immelen combines Solaris with Souvignier Gris and Muscaris, producing something much more substantial than the thin, aggressively acidic northern wine one might expect.
Even Sweden’s famously restrictive alcohol system has helped. Systembolaget, the state retail monopoly, makes life difficult for small wineries but also forces producers seeking national distribution to demonstrate consistency and quality. In effect, this is a quality control mechanism, which has served the industry well.
Sweden’s wineries are not challenging the big established players. Their opportunity lies in being small, distinctive and improbable. No ice required.
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