In Oskar Thuis’s wine cellar, aka @dandywithwine

In search of lost wine

Oskar lives in the southern part of the Netherlands, in the ultra-foodie province of North Brabant, in 's-Hertogenbosch, more commonly known as Den Bosch. Here, Oskar is steeped in the creative spirit of young designers and cutting-edge, on-trend chefs. This bastion of good taste quite clearly sparked in him a passion for wine at a very early age when one of his friend’s parents made it their mission for him to taste every wine area of Bordeaux, in a single dinner! This is how his passion was born, in a family that loved wine and was always on the lookout for that rarest of gems.

The eureka moment with a Super Tuscan

Perhaps Oskar’s passion for wine really began in Switzerland, though, during a skiing trip a few years ago which turned into a completely different adventure when the resort closed due to Covid. As they were stranded, Oskar’s group of friends decided to celebrate the occasion with an incredibly rare wine: “We ordered my very first bottle of Sassicaia, the 2014 vintage. I was just blown away by the wine’s journey that evening. The nose and flavour would change with every mouthful. It started slightly firm and shy then became an expressive, complex wine. It was quite simply incredible”. This true gem of a wine, known as a Super Tuscan, was designed by Marchese Mario Incisa della Rochetta in the 1970s. It became legendary such was its intention to outcompete the finest classified Bordeaux with its single-minded focus on Bordeaux varietals. Sassicaia, the fine wine from Bolgheri, therefore cemented Oskar’s taste in fine wines.

Then came the collector…

Oskar Thuis subsequently entered the realms of the collectors and embarked on a quest for vinous marvels. His enthusiasm immediately struck a chord when he decided to share his discoveries and write about them on social media, thus creating his own community on Instagram. “I am not a great ‘Instagramer’ but I knew that exclusive, valuable and unconventional content often attracts more attention. So I needed a flashy, mysterious, cool name and I chose Dandy. It’s also a joke, and a way of not taking myself too seriously, especially on Instagram”. Very soon, friends would turn into a broad-ranging audience of 16,000 followers hanging on every Dandywithwine post, valued for its heads up on the finest wines of the moment and trends to be tapped into.

A liquid library

After some intense searching, the obvious solution was to purchase a wine cabinet from the EuroCave store in the Netherlands. Keen wine enthusiast Oskar could finally store his white wines in the best possible conditions, particularly his huge collection of Burgundy through to Italian pours that he had painstakingly built up over the years. His aim was to create a space that could be shared by his favourite labels – his lightly oaked, mineral Chardonnay white wines with their balanced aromas of cinnamon, grilled almond and toast, which according to Oskar will improve over time; and his red wines where the challenge is to store more robust wines with riper tannins and higher alcohol content. Here, he opts for superb Napa Valley Cabernets, top age-worthy Bordeaux and, his absolute favourites, Italian wines from Bolgheri. This truly global wine library earned him the title of young EuroCave ambassador  in the Netherlands nearly six months ago.

Invariably within drinking distance

Oskar goes to great lengths to secure the most unique vintages and labels, but he also spares no effort when it comes to ensuring his cabinet is ready at all times for enjoying wine with his friends. He believes that for age-worthy wines and top-flight pours, it is essential that the temperature remain constant, that humidity should range from 60% to 70% and that there should be little or no daylight. Hence his choice of a wine cabinet with a single temperature so that white wines are ideal for drinking when they are taken out of the cabinet, and reds can be savoured a few hours later. As a genuine connoisseur, he has arranged the bottles in the following order: on the presentation rack are the wines that are ready to drink. Below are several shelves of red wines, arranged by country. The same is true of the shelves underneath for white wines, primarily from Burgundy but there are also some from Austria, Spain, the United States and Italy.

Some bubbly exceptions

Oskar’s cabinet also features around 24 bottles of Champagne, ready to be opened with a sabre on very special occasions. “In my opinion, Champagne need at least some years of cellaring, to optimal enjoy it, when it becomes less sparkling, the colour is slightly deeper and the flavour is more expressive. The perfect Champagne for me is light with fine bubbles, brioche, crisp fruits, toast and almond aromatics. Usually, unique occasions make wine even more special! But if I had to choose my favourite wines, they would be ones for celebrating these occasions with friends and like-minded wine connoisseurs, like the time when we managed to find a 2020 Vosne-Romanée 1er Cru by Romanée-Conti on a restaurant wine list. It was unforgettable”.