Richar Juhlin contemplates on his love for Madrid. [ read the full champagne story ]
Estimated reading time: 16 minutes
It has probably not escaped any of my readers that I, like all true wine connoisseurs, am a high-octane Francophile and also an almost equally great admirer of Italy and its culture. I am also extremely shaped by my upbringing as a proud Swede and Nordic. Therefore, it may seem strange that the team that currently makes my heart beat the strongest is Spanish. How could it be like this?
Let me start this strange story from the beginning …
I come from a very committed sports family that is known for our passionate expressions of emotion in front of the TV screen when sports are on. My grandfather won two Swedish Championship silver medals in boxing and both my father and grandfather were Sweden’s fastest sprinters as teenagers. My sister was a national gymnast and I myself have won boys’ Swedish Championship gold medals in both football and volleyball, not to mention sporadic appearances from the bench. I have also managed to win Swedish Championship gold in veteran sprinting in the old days. My wife was one of the biggest stars of Norwegian dressage riding before she switched to acting and later ballet, and all five of my children play sports or used to play sports at a fairly high level.
When my dad met my mom at a school dance and offered her a soda, she insisted that he meet her parents instead of kissing in the doorway of Essingen, where my right-hand man in The Champagne Club Björnstierne lives today, and that was when dad made a success. He wasn’t just the coolest sports guy in the area, he also cheered for AIK. Something that was a must for my grandfather Bertil. Dad passed with flying colors and that’s how it is. You could say, a little pointedly, that I have AIK to thank for my existence. As early as 7 years old, I got to accompany my grandfather and dad to a derby at Råsunda where the black and yellow tuxedo players beat arch-rivals Djurgården by the odd goal and after that I was a “rodent”. Throughout my school days, we were a bunch of AIK fans in the minority and I followed the team in my heart via the scant reports on Sportspegeln twice a week where AIK’s results were discussed with a scoreboard or, at best, with a two-minute clip. All Thursday and Sunday I was nervous about how tonight’s game would end. I was that way all year round because the football season started when the hockey Allsvenskan serie ended.
I myself chose football and when I was 16 I was recruited to Sweden’s best youth team AIK where I played for four years before illnesses and an overly sensitive psyche put an end to my career at the highest level. My biggest AIK idol was touchingly enough the world star Ulf “Lill-Pröjsarn” Nilsson, a player whom I always imitated during my many training hours on the ice hockey rink. Many years later we became friends for life, united by sport and the love of food and wine as well as by the understanding of the determination required to reach the world top that we both reached in our respective professional fields. Imagine if I had known that when I was practicing backhand shots with a right grip on the public skating rink at Lidingövallen.
The Swedish national team
To be honest, the Swedish national team has always been even more important than AIK’s achievements for our family. Several of my friends were both shocked and fascinated by how my father and I, in particular, transformed from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde when Sweden played against the Russians or the Czechs in the hockey World Cup or when Björn Borg was in the Wimbledon final again. In front of the same TV, my now 90-year-old vital father sits, gaping and screaming his hoarse as his new darling Alcaraz beats Sinner. Strangely enough, he has apparently also fasted for a Spanish matador. The greatest sporting moment of my life was when, together with 60,000 Swedes who had traveled to see him, I saw Fredrik Ljungberg head the winning goal against Paraguay in Berlin at the 2006 World Cup. Something that naturally delighted Fredrik when we toasted together in my champagne bar a couple of years ago.
Okay then Richard, but how did we end up in the Spanish capital Madrid?
I think an important factor is the availability of world-class football on TV. Nowadays you can follow your favorite players several times a week regardless of whether they play in the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A or Bundesliga. The level of the Allsvenskan is simply too low for the commitment to be as strong if even your favorite team is not fighting for the league title and you are there and really smell the grass and sweat. For me, the foreign interest started with the fact that I could follow Swedish stars who were successful abroad and it mattered less which team they played for. As a chauvinistic sports Swede, I was always proud of the Swedish players. Patrik Andersson, Anders Limpar and Henke Larsson to all credit, but it was still the jump around Zlatan Ibrahimovic who got to personify the individualization of the world’s biggest sport. This artist and virtuoso captivated more than the team he played for. He was the champion of every team he joined and it is almost unreal that he has played in and won with all three of Italy’s biggest and most rival clubs without being lynched in a country where football is a religion. The closest thing he has come to angry fans is having his statue nose vandalized. I personally hope that this particular body part will not be affected if I ever stand as a statue at the Wine and Spirits Museum or on some street in Champagne now that we are developing my avatar doppelganger “The Nose”.
Real Madrid
My daughter Stella, who is the only one of us who still goes to almost every home game that today’s boring AIK plays, got to see her first match during a trip to London with her father when she was 10 years old. It was impressive, but the gourmet restaurants and Madame Tussauds probably made an even bigger impression than West Ham United. When my first-born son, football-crazy calendar-biter Henrik, was going to see a real football match for the first time at the age of 9, we went big. Round of 16 between Real Madrid and Bayern Munich at the Santiago Bernabeu. It was my first time in Madrid and I will never forget Henrik’s astonished look when we stepped in from the culverts and entered the boiling cauldron of 80,000 people united in tense anticipation that made the air vibrate. The sound level was colossal and the colors, the speed, the excitement and the orgasmic explosions at the five goals are forever etched in our Juhlin bodies. Henrik was more than saved and quickly became a Madridista who could not only rant about the players in the team but also the management team, the results in the 50’s, etc. His boy’s room was soon filled with Real accessories and the walls were adorned with posters of Raul, Zidane and Beckham. I, who actually had more sympathy for Bayern Munich when we went to the Santiago Bernabeu, was drawn into my son’s enthusiasm. I was still open-minded, I could easily let Real Madrid be my favorite team in Spain, but I couldn’t dream of it now in 2025 being the only team I can rant about the lineup of and follow every single minute played.
The biggest football talent in the family was not me but my middle son Melker who was on his way to AIK’s antagonist club Djurgården when he was hit by a nasty tapeworm during one of our training trips to the Bahamas which caused him to lose a couple of years in his development. Even though he is an AIK fan he didn’t see it as problematic to play for Djurgården, but I don’t think he could have ever imagined playing for Atletico Madrid even if his career had taken off, so strong is his connection to the Real Madrid that his big brother introduced him to. Every single Champions League final Real has played in, and there are many, we have watched together and the happy moments and memories are now part of our Juhlin DNA. Of course we have often returned to Madrid and seen Los Galacticos live on several occasions. But sometimes life gets in the way and we hadn’t been there for several years when Stella suddenly demanded to go there with us. Said and done. In November 2025, it was finally time to see the new ultra-modern stadium and Mbappé and Bellingham from the front row of the bench. Suddenly, I was sitting there with my three adult children in a euphoric rush of happiness. The players were so close that the grass splashed up on our row when Huijsen’s 196-centimeter body came flying and made a silent sliding tackle. Rodrygo’s relaxed acceleration jerk with the ball under perfect control was like witnessing a pirouette by Nureyev or listening to the most beautiful symphony by Berlioz. Most impressive of all was seeing how the whole team was united and moved like a dancing organism of synchronized matadors who always made the right decision and who at the last moment avoided the Valencia players’ attempts to conquer the ball. 4-0 and a dream goal by the new star with a name worthy of a grandiose opera diva, Alvaro Carreras, and a shot straight in the top corner where we were sitting almost made the spectacle too perfect.
At the gym
When I got home, a bitter man at the gym told me that it’s easy to cheer for a winner, and of course he’s right. It could certainly be that part of the strong sympathies lies in the fact that the disappointments when you’re a Real supporter are significantly fewer than as an AIK fan or in life in general. But I believe even more that the beauty of people being able to create something so beautiful with their bodies and a ball in an unpredictable spectacle is an even greater reason for our passionate interest in the beautiful team from the proud Spanish capital. Such a strong experience also means that we as a family can sit in different places in our everyday lives and only meet by watching the same match on TV and texting expressions of emotion and analysis when the players we’ve seen up close dance in the ring once again. A wonderful feeling of community and belonging. An emotional glue that unites us when we now live in different places.
It may seem silly to care so much about something that is actually so unimportant, but it is a human need to feel a sense of belonging and meaning that drives us. We should be happy that a peaceful, albeit serious game has replaced war and clan conflicts, which were previously the way people protected their group and which are still a sad reality in many parts of the world today. Perhaps the fact that we in Sweden have lived in peace for so long and have not felt threatened as a group has made us more committed to our national team than many others, even though we are fundamentally not as nationalistic as our neighboring countries, which are much closer to war memories and real threats. Protecting group belonging and good values is always important and unfortunately far too stigmatized today. From a philosophical perspective, I would argue that the committed football supporter strives to find a meaning in life. Commitment and caring are cornerstones in moving forward and in keeping meaninglessness and depression away. Too often I hear my youngest children and their cell phone-damaged friends say, as a matter of course, “I don’t care” as a defense in every uncomfortable situation. I think it’s an extremely dangerous attitude towards those around us and towards ourselves. The day we really stop caring, we might as well lie down and die. When I hear Dad’s detailed and committed descriptions of every single ball in Alcaraz’s latest match, I’m convinced that this very ability to care about the little things in life is one reason why he has the energy to strive towards his 100th birthday despite both his heart and legs failing.
I stop and think about how dad went from cheering for Janne Lundqvist via Björn Borg, Mats Wilander, Roger Federer to the Spaniard Alcaraz as they replaced each other over time. However, he has always been loyal to AIK, where I have lost a little bit and let my heart be filled with strong Real passion. Maybe it is that life’s inevitable change makes it almost impossible to be monogamous when it comes to all forms of belonging? If you have five children with three wives, like me, you know that life has different stages of commitment and belonging. My sister left the northern suburbs early and moved to Södermalm in Stockholm. There her sons came to play football and what seemed impossible when we were growing up had unnoticed become a reality. She had gone and become a Hammarby fan. A betrayal of the family? No, just a natural process of changed conditions. In conclusion, you might be wondering who is the best athlete in the entire large family? Don’t you think that one of my cousins with national team achievements in rugby has married one of the world’s best rugby players of all time? Oriol Ripol, a kind of rugby’s Maradona or Messi who, with his short, compact muscular body and nimble feet, ran through the concrete walls of the bulls. Where do you think he comes from? Spain!! But if you ask him, he says that he is not Spanish but Catalan and from Real’s arch-rival Barcelona.
OTHER THINGS TO DO IN MADRID
If Barcelona was the hyped city of the 90s, Madrid is currently the hottest tourist destination among the major metropolises in Europe. At a time when Paris and London have become less safe and are struggling with major problems, Madrid has become more modern and cozier with an increasingly international feel without losing its Spanish essence. The parade streets and monuments are almost as impressive as the Champs Elysées and Big Ben. The shopping streets are ultra-elegant and everywhere there is an “Official Real Madrid Store” with gigantic pictures of the city’s proud heroes. Only Napoli can show an even stronger presence of the city’s football team in every block. The Prado Museum plays in the same league as the Louvre and MoMa and in the Reina Sofia you can see the original painting Guernica. The tapas bars are of course countless and the best Bellota producers from nearby Salamanca have their headquarters in Madrid’s city center where you can choose from all conceivable levels of quality in a condition that you can’t possibly get at home.
The city’s lung, Retiro Park, is even more impressive than Hyde Park or Central Park with fantastic architecture, a large pond in the middle as it should be and a well-planned grid of green grass areas where we have often lazed around with a football and done interval training between the oases. Here and throughout the central part of the city, there is a nice, well-mannered calm. People show respect in the crowds and safety feels much more natural here than in our hometown of Stockholm. Despite the ultra-fast language and aggressive, fiery cultural expressions such as flamenco and bullfighting, the Spaniards are significantly calmer and more reserved than, for example, the Italians. The climate can certainly be tough in the middle of winter with the strong inland effect and many complain about scorching July days, but for the most part the weather is pure pleasure throughout central Spain. When we were there in November, we were the only ones sitting and sunbathing in the park with just our upper bodies, but oh how wonderful it was to get one last sigh of summer feeling before the Christmas spirit rolls in across the country and the elves take over here at home.
Spanish gastronomy
Spanish gastronomy has been world-class ever since Ferran Adria at El Bulli revolutionized the entire world gastronomy with his molecular concept. Catalonia and the Basque Country have led this development but Madrid is catching up. In my entire home country of Sweden we have 23 restaurants with stars in the Michelin Guide while the city of Madrid has 29. DiverXO is the only one with three stars and we thought we would try it this time. Unfortunately it was full so we had to invest in a proper deep dive in the city’s second best gastronomic temple, the two-star Deessa, housed in the most magnificent dining room the country has to offer. The historic Hotel Ritz has been renovated a couple of years ago and has become the city’s delicacy Mandarin Oriental Ritz. We stayed here 10 years ago and were already very impressed then, but if you have the time and money I think it is an even more ultra-luxurious experience to stay there under the protection of the oriental wings. We saved on accommodation and checked into the more ordinary Exe Moncloa which also had the two most important facilities for us this time. A gym and a Champagne Hiking balcony with stunning views for our Bollinger RD and Piper Rare.
Deessa impressed greatly, not only with the grand venue and world-class interior. No, every step from the service to the last bite via the wine list and the atmosphere was stumbling close to a third star. Deessa’s dining room Alfonso XIII Salon has a nice view of the garden where El Jardin del Ritz offers fantastic outdoor lunches all year round. Something we noticed on the last day before our flight home. Three-star chef Quique Dacosta in Dénia has created the menus that are completed by head chef Domenico Vildacci. We took the menu that is almost an exact copy of what Dacosta does outside Valencia. Everything was incredibly colorful and beautiful. New techniques were tastefully mixed with more classic elements and the style suited us and our champagnes from Bollinger and Paul Bara like a glove. The highlights were a nicely spiced tomato timbale, an improbably good bread, an extensive caviar tasting and a fabulously delicious veal tenderloin with black truffle, parmesan and onion sauce. Even the desserts, which I usually skip when I drink wine, were extremely delicious and low in sugar. All with a fresh citrus scent as a common denominator.
On the last night we tried the city’s most famous meat restaurant Sua. I don’t really know if it lived up to that epithet, considering the fantastic meat culture that exists in the city. A blood-curdling red wine from Alvaro Palacios and an elegant Flor de Pingus paired with one of the world’s finest tender meats, Galicia’s free-range Rubia Gallega, was exactly what we wanted, even though the service was conspicuous by its absence and the other accompaniments were more ordinary. The city’s patata fritta with its deep yellow color is otherwise a real favorite. The best ones this time Melker and I found, a little surprisingly, in one of the world’s most beautiful squares, Plaza Mayor, just the right size to be both grand and cozy, enclosed and cozy. In one of the tourist traps where beer costs a fortune and the steaks are dry as shoe soles, a plate of fine Bellotta and an even more impressive Spanish fries that would have made both Parisians and Brussels residents blush with envy suddenly appeared.
We will return there the next time we see our beloved Real players live again. Hopefully in the near future and next time I will make sure to book DiverXO with young rising star Dabiz Muñoz who cooks in a style that goes far into the experimental without losing his footing in the Mugariz way. I don’t know if it’s a warning sign or a proof of quality, but the restaurant is currently 4th on the San Pellegrino list “50 best restaurants in the world”. Personally, I trust the Michelin Guide much more than the trend-sensitive and sensationalist challenger. Otherwise, the most accurate is La Liste, but unfortunately they have too small a tasting staff to be comprehensive, but if they have visited a restaurant you can almost 100 percent trust the review.
MY PERSONAL RATINGS ON MADRID’S HOTELS AND RESTAURANTS
| Restaurants | |
| Deessa, Madrid | 96 (Spain) |
| La Broche, Madrid | 94 (Spain) |
| Smoked Room, Madrid | 93 (Spain) |
| La Terraza del Casino, Madrid | 92 (Spain) |
| Zaranda, Madrid | 91 (Spain) |
| Goya at Ritz, Madrid | 91 (Spain) |
| Albora, Madrid | 91 (Spain) |
| Cebo, Madrid | 90 (Spain) |
| El Jardin del Ritz, Madrid | 89 (Spain) |
| Sua, Madrid | 88 (Spain) |
| Montmartre, Madrid | 87 (Spain) |
| Soportal, Madrid | 87 (Spain) |
| Botin, Madrid | 86 (Spain) |
| Malatesta, Madrid | 86 (Spain) |
| La Lonia, Madrid | 85 (Spain) |
| Manolo, Madrid | 84 (Spain) |
| Hotel | |
| Ritz, Madrid | 96 (Spain) |
| Grand Hotel Conde Doque, Madrid | 85 (Spain) |
| Exe Moncloa, Madrid | 80 (Spain) |
