“We were in Porto and while we were waiting for a sound check we walked around Vila Nova de Gaia tasting things. “Satyricon were touring Europe in the beginning of 2003, and I remember getting more and more interested,” he recalls, giving a couple of specific examples. He says that between 19 this latent interest grew, and touring with Satyricon helped provide opportunities to explore wine further. Drinking transitioned from being something done for the sake of partying when in his early 20s he tasted wines he actually liked. For most people, though, a serious wine habit is the result of a chain of events, each a nudge further along the path: this is true for Sigurd Wongraven. “At the start I made 1500 bottles and I worried about what would happen if people didn’t like the wine: what would I do with 1500 bottles of wine? But it went well at the beginning and I have never looked back.” ‍Ī lot of people claim that their love for wine was ignited by a single, special bottle. “When I started doing this ten years ago I never foresaw selling in excess of a million litres annually,” he says. Wongraven has an in-depth knowledge of wine, and is able to work on a peer-to-peer level with his winemaker partners. It’s not unusual for celebrities to get involved in wine projects, but Sigurd’s project is anything but one of those ventures where someone well known just puts their name to a wine. It’s one of the few wine companies that has been able to combine mainstream commercial success with trustworthiness in the wine geek community.

Wongraven Wines has become one of the most prominent brands in the Norwegian wine market.

But over the last 10 years he has also built up a unique wine production company, in addition to traveling the world with the band. Most people will know him for his role as singer and songwriter for Black Metal band Satyricon. Sigurd Wongraven has two parallel careers.

Von graven