Battling the elements: the secrets behind Hållfjället’s award-winning wine list
The remote location of Sweden’s Best Newcomer List has not stopped Linda and Rodrigo Pérez from creating a wine list that will surprise and delight their guests – even if they need helicopters to do it.
“We opened this winter, actually,” says Linda Pérez, of Hållfjället. “The place is fun, it’s in the middle of nowhere up in the mountains, in roadless country. You need to go like nine kilometers by skis or snowmobile or helicopter to get there. So it’s a beautiful place – a beautiful place to drink wine.”
Linda accepted the Gold Star for the Best Newcomer List from Star Wine List’s Krister Bengtsson at Star Wine List of the Year Sweden 2026, at The Winery Hotel in Solna this week.
The mountain retreat was praised by judge Emma Ziemann, who said “it is enjoyable to see a new collection presented that already feels balanced, versatile, and shows personality in its selections while, simultaneously, building up a certain amount of positive anticipation as to how it will continue to grow.”
Linda has a wine-writing background but started out in restaurants, working as a sommelier at renowned establishments such as the former Michelin-starred Esperanto in Stockholm.
“It feels like I’m back on track in some way,” Linda told us. “I started off in the restaurant business many years ago, I think 20 years ago. And then I’ve been writing about wine for 12 years. And then I got this opportunity to get back in the restaurant business and that felt so so wonderful. So I’m back again.”
She works alongside partner Rodrigo, a well-known Michelin star chef in Sweden and previously Head Chef at Ekstedt, Stockholm.
“We have the same vision, we work together really well, and we have the same idea around it.”
The philosophy behind the wine list is, she says, simply “really good wines. We started off like, ‘do people want to go up here to drink good wines?’ And I thought yes, because I think the idea of having great wines in an environment that is really inclusive – that should be so fantastic. So the idea is good wines, mostly about small artisanal producers. I like small allocations. We don’t have so many bottles of everything, but we get like six bottles of this or that, and I pick them really, really carefully. I would like every bottle to be really good, so I can stand behind every one – mostly elegant bottles from Europe, but still also New World.”
And each one of those bottles doesn’t just have to be picked out individually, but transported up to Hållfjället’s remote location – by hand. Or by helicopter, of course.
“We started filling the wine cellar in September this year, and that was by helicopter. So it was like, the helicopter going up with every bottle. It was like, six bottles of everything carefully, and so yes, of course it needs to be perfect. But the idea of having those bottles in the middle of nowhere is fantastic.
“I was nervous because filling this wine cellar with a lot of wines, we didn’t know – maybe people wouldn’t like it. We have wine tastings every evening because people want to taste, to try the wines and go into the cellar, and pick bottles. And so the interest is so huge, and we love that.”
Alongside a menu of largely estate-grown food, this has proved a winning formula. And customers are now broadening from locals to intrepid travellers.
“Now, since we’re a ‘gastronomic’ place, more and more people that don’t know the place are coming to us, so we need to help them to bring them out. And we had two French winemakers last week from Beaujolais and Loire, and they were so amazed that we brought them up with a snowmobile and a pulka. And they were just laughing all the time, and then they came up and they had good wines or a perfectly stirred dry martini – spirits are also very important to us – so it’s nice.”
Hållfjället now goes into our Global Final, to compete against other newcomers from around the world. The winners will be revealed in June 2026, at an awards event supported by Terra Skåne.
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