the entrance to the wine hill of Sabile
Sabile is home to the Pedvāle Art Park. This sculpture garden was founded by Ojars Feldbergs, a Latvian sculptor, who not only sculpts, but also arranges symposiums and workshops where other sculpturers from all over the world sculpt – and their collective production is being exhibited in the garden. I suppose there are few individual top works of art – perhaps with the exception of the blue chair built up from empty oil drums -, and despite the variety of artists much of the work is a bit repetitive, no doubt the result of the teacher’s influence on his pupils. But the experience, the walk of well over an hour past so many art works, and that only for the first half of the exposition, is very nice, and Ojars is delightful to talk to. In fact, he was disappointed that we had to leave again, and couldn’t spend the whole rest of the day in the park. But with our fully packed programme…
the entrance to the Pedvale Art Park
and its most famous piece of art, the Sky Chair, made from blue-painted oil drums
view of Sabile on the Abava river
Because there is more to Sabile. Another local artist, Daina Kučera, has filled her roadside garden with over 200 straw dolls dressed as people of all ages and walks of life. There are children dancing, a rock band, policemen and military, armed with wooden guns, all types of people, accompanied by a motor bike, computers, transistor radios. Diana herself is also present, sitting in the back of the garden in a car. Unfortunately, communication is limited because of a severe language barrier – even my travel companion is at a loss.
a garden full of straw dolls
some really cute
like this rock band
an armed guerilla fighter is part of the collection
some historical objects added to the scene
and the local artist, Daina Kučera, overseeing her creation
attractive autumn colours on the way to wine hill
the local grape, Zilga, present in abundance
And that is it, as far as Sabile goes. Except, that Sabile is located along the Abava Valley, the wine growing centre of Latvia! In the town itself is the Sabile Vina Kals, the wine hill of Sabile, at some 57oN locally claimed to be the most northern wine region of the world (although I believe a Norwegian winery has more right to that claim). The hill itself is 33 m above the valley and the town, altogether 115 m above sea level, and it apparently has over 30 varieties of grapes, none of which I have ever heard of. The Zilga, apparently, is the most popular.
the local cidre and wine facility
the labels should have put me off already….
with the bottles inside
So we have to check out the local winery, which in fact is specialised in ciders. So-called grape wine is not very common – the hill is rather small, after all -, but rhubarb wine, blackcurrent wine, strawberry wine, indeed very sweet, and lots of other fruit varieties are widely available. No, we cannot taste the grape wine, no open bottle, but what about the apple wine? Not my favourite, and that should have been it. Unlike the fruit varieties, grape vine is actually not cheap, at 20 Euros a bottle. But curiosity gets the better of cost consciousness, and I buy two bottles, of which we open one the same evening, in our apartment. Undrinkable; we pour the whole 20 Euros through the sink. Obviously not the Zilga!
What did our Latvian friend in Riga said again, about Latvian wine? Politely, “it is not very good and is very expensive”. Why can I not just listen to people?
Next: Liepaja.
