“If you want to be recognized, be understood!” Mārtņš Barkāns on the characteristics of Latvian winemaking

During interviews, I am always pleasantly surprised to find that time and again, winemakers are ready to talk about their work, how passionate and happy they are. And always passionate, even those events that make you tear your hair out in despair and want to throw everything aside. Such moments happen much more often than we think, because only from the outside, the world of wine can seem snobbish, perhaps too refined and complex for some. Inaccessible and incomprehensible. Stop! There is no such thing! “If you want to be recognized, you can’t be weird, you have to be understandable. Only when you prove that you can create something understandable, there is room to create something more interesting and weird. This is the main lesson we have learned over the years,” says Martiņš Barkāns, owner of the “Abavas dārzī” winery.

Martinas and I have known each other for a long time, since we worked at the national news agency LETA. I will not hide that I was very surprised when I learned that Martinas turned to… viticulture. It happened that he was interviewed in the early stages of this activity, when the romantic story of this idea born in Tuscany was relevant, and then there was the news that his wines were chosen for the President’s table. The topic this time was the prestigious “Decanter” medal, which was the first time that a wine from the Baltic region received it.