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Published: March 4th 2011
Paella
Bring your appetite. When paella's not on the menu, the cooking pot picks up satellite TV. [:)]“Fine wine and delicious food.” That describes the last three weeks for us. Through a website called
Workaway, we arranged to volunteer with a man named Anthony who lives south of Barcelona in Spain seven kilometers from the nearest village. His business is called Wine Pleasures and he was hosting a wine workshop where hand-picked buyers from all over the world came to Barcelona to meet small wine producers from Spain, Portugal and France. The workshop itself was five days towards the end of the three weeks we spent with him. Prior to that we helped him prepare for the workshop and do household chores. A typical day at the house saw me writing blog entries for Anthony’s website, John chopping firewood and both of us washing dishes. In exchange we got great food, a place to sleep and lots of wonderful Spanish wine. We had weekends free and we spent one Saturday in the nearest town and the next weekend in Barcelona seeing the sights.
But it was the workshop I want to tell you about. It was held at a four star hotel near Barcelona. The wine producers each had a table in the large ballroom where they
Ready for Tasting
Each table represents a winery. Almost like speed dating, producers and buyers would meet for only 25 minutes. set out their wines and met with the buyers. After the keynote speaker gave a presentation to the wine buyers, the producers left the room and the buyers wandered around tasting whatever they wanted. And, as official staff, so did we!
Remember the scene from "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" where they enter a giant room where everything is candy and they can eat whatever they want? That is what this felt like. There were 45 tables and each had three open bottles of wine. We had a wine glass and could try anything we wanted. It was amazing. John was schmoozing with one of the buyers and was soon getting understandable reviews of each wine. I just focused on the cavas (Spanish sparkling wines) and then moved to the dessert wines. This paradise lasted about 45 minutes then the producers came in. It was still fun then because then they could tell us about the wines. After another 45 minutes it was time to clean up and go to dinner.
For dinner (and both lunch and dinner the next two days), all of the producers brought their wine and each table had at least 12 bottles
Morning Constitutional
Almost every morning we explored the Spanish countryside by walking a few kilometers before breakfast. of wine on it. It allowed the buyers to taste the wine with food. It also allowed us strap-hangers to have wine with our meal. After dinner we spent the evening tasting (and drinking) lots of different dessert wines.
The second day was delicious with plenty of wine but nothing exciting. We spent our time answering questions and washing wine glasses.
The first part of the workshop ended on day three and we helped clean up. Amazingly, there was a tremendous amount of wine left over. The hotel staff came through emptying the wine remaining in open bottles into a container on wheels the size of a small couch and putting the bottles in the recycle bin. There were literally hundreds of them to empty and recycle. We, however, concentrated on finding unopened bottles and it felt like looking for Easter eggs. We would turn over boxes or search tables and find two or three bottles at a time. We found at least 60 unopened bottles of wine along with cork screws and wine glasses. The fruits of our search will stock Anthony’s wine cellar for the next year.
The second part of the workshop started that
Anthony of Wine Pleasures
Relaxing after a day of running the workshop. evening with a visit to a nearby winery. The buyers got a tour and tasted the wine and cava. This was followed by a spread of tapas (Spanish appetizers) which was our dinner. The food was good and the wine was fantastic. We then rode a bus for about an hour to the seaside town of Calafell which was to be our home base for the next two days. After checking into the hotel about half the group went out to a bar for a beer. Yes, these wine experts relax and refresh their palates by having a beer.
The next day we visited two wineries; one in the morning and the other in the late afternoon. After the morning visit of a cellar tour and wine tasting, we rode the bus to a town where the winery hosted us for a lunch of traditional Catalan (this region of Spain is called Catalonya) foods in the vaulted cellar of a nice restaurant. John and I both had roast leg of kid goat which was similar to lamb but less gamy; it was delicious. Of course the meal was accompanied by our hosts’ wines.
The next bus ride was
Anthony's Son
As Beth quoted a few times from a movie, 'He's ten and he's good at it'. He's a good kid. 1.5 hours during which most people slept (several were even snoring). Our afternoon winery was at one of the highest wineries in Spain at an altitude of 900 meters (2700 feet). We started with a cellar tour then rode in 4wd vehicles to the vineyard. They drove us around the vineyard and showed us the soil which is mostly just broken shale with very little dirt. (For those readers in Colorado, it looked like the top of a Fourteener with grape vines.) Then they set up a table and we tasted two wines as the sun set. It was quite nice.
Upon returning they had a tasting of local olive oil and olives and two local mayors came to give speeches about the local products and local tourism. Then we started eating again. They provided a wonderful spread of food. The most interesting thing was calçots (pronounced cal-sots). These are new onions roasted over a fire until they are blackened on the outside. You then peel off the blackened layer and inside is a warm, soft, sweet, gooey onion which is dipped in a sauce and eaten whole. They were delicious but messy. They also served calçots fried like
Wine Flask
This flask is called a purro and is used to pour wine directly into the mouth without spilling. One way to measure skill level (and sobriety) is to see how far away you can hold the flask from your mouth and pour. tempura and spread with a chocolate balsamic sauce that was “plate-licking” good. In addition there were fried artichokes, lamb, sausage and, of course, wine. It was even better than lunch!
After dinner we re-boarded the bus and returned to the hotel. We met in the lobby of the hotel and drank cava and other wines. About 11:30 many of buyers headed out for more drinking but we headed to bed. We just don’t have the stamina of some of these professionals.
The next morning saw us visiting a fourth winery. We were met by the owner who gave us a 30 minute walking tour of the vineyard. It was cold and windy but beautiful in a desolate sort of way. To read Anthony’s evocative description of the visit, follow this
link. What Anthony failed to mention in his description was dessert. It was a thin fried pastry topped with sugar and tangerine olive oil. You read that right, tangerine olive oil. It was fantastic.
With Anthony’s encouragement, John asked for a bottle of each wine to take away to write tasting notes. I think they thought it was a scam but they gave it to us and
Sandy
Wine buyer from China. John and Anthony did write tasting notes and published then on two wine social networking sites.
Our final tasting was in the hotel. I was pretty tired of wine but John sat next to one of the experts as she wrote tasting notes, trying to understand how she and the others come up with this stuff. After the wine tasting the hotel served us a dinner of local foods including paella (rice and seafood).
Thus ended five days of gastronomic hedonism. It will probably be quite a while before we eat and drink like that again.
We spent two more days with Anthony wrapping up details and now we are on our own. The next three weeks we will be driving around Spain and Portugal. Since our day to day activities will once again be interesting you can anticipate more regular blog entries in the coming weeks.
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roni
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a dream vacation!
So I guess you both have seriously educated palettes now, I am envious, it sounds like you had a wonderful time there! Did you ship some cases back to CO? :) chocolate balsamic??? never would have put those twoflavors together but I'm totally intrigued and now have to try it!