A bird is a bird... no

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1-28-12 Saturday

Today we have five wines to test! After another clarification of the Chardonnay we took a ride to the Brazilian vineyard to test all of the Merlots. Danny drove us around from lot to lot as we sampled three different types of Merlot, the Nunez, Linea, and L. There are so many different kinds of birds here in Uruguay, on the way to a different lot there were these two birds the size of turkeys that they explained to be prehistoric, they definitely looked the part, which led to a fun game that we play with Danny. He says the name of the bird in Spanish and we try to guess what it is in English, and some how everything we guess has the answer “no”. For this one particular bird we guessed turkey, emu, roadrunner, turkey/roadrunner hybrid, mutant chicken, and velociraptor, which strangely enough was the longest pause before he answered no. We made our way back to the winery to test the samples and then we were finished.



Friends of Francisco were coming for the weekend so they would be arriving soon and we would make lunch for them. Francisco explained that they were from the countryside so we would make farm paella. We sautéed bacon and onions on the grill and then added the leeks and peppers and pork, after letting that brown we added rice and chicken stock and let cook for longer, we finished it with chicken and cream and peas, and while letting it cook we played a fun round of asshole, which was funny to try to explain why a card game was called asshole. After lunch, with a few bottles of merlot, we finished a 2006 Sust with some dulce de leche ice cream, I wouldn’t say it was the best pairing but I’ll take it. It was time for our siesta, but by four o’clock it was too hot to nap. I stayed in the hammock for a few hours sweating immensely, and finally peeled myself off of it around 6ish, I swear I could stay in that hammock all day. But I wanted to investigate the rest of the house especially the inside where is was much cooler. Under the kitchen lays a 2000 bottle wine cellar, which is almost full of wine. They have every bottle they made starting from 1979 to present day. There was so much mold on the bottles that it was hard to decipher what was what. WE were told that we would all go on a horseback ride to the Brazilian border around 6:30 You could definitely loose track of time here very quickly, and no one really wears a watch. I read in my little Latin American Phrase book that there is English time and Latin American time and a half hour difference between the two… We are definitely always on Latin American time here. Around 7 the horses were ready for the ride and the sun was just starting to set. It cast a golden hue on the tuffs of brown dry grass in the fields, which made them look like lanterns lit up sprinkled across the countryside. The horizon turned bright orange to pink then purple as the sunset through the woods surrounding the vineyard. There were little clouds in the sky, as if they were timed just right through out the day. In the morning there are few clouds over head, but just off in the distance to reflect the sun coming up, then by mid day they are over head to give the right amount of shade from the harsh sun. By sunset they disappear, to allow for the milky way an d all of the stars to shine. For the first few nights I didn’t see the moon in the sky, but tonight there was a bright sliver of silver over the woods, giving off just the right amount of light to see the out line of where you are going.



I arrived home first, as I made my way to the door I almost stepped on what I thought was a huge rock on out front step. I turned on the outdoor light to see that it was a huge bullfrog, which was ready to jump straight into our living room. That would have been a nice surprise, or if I step on it a gross surprise. I have noticed that both the animals and insects are a lot larger here, and definitely not scarred of humans. Hence the two frogs that live in our bathroom, one on the wall and one in the drain. It is off to bed, we have an extra hour to sleep in tomorrow and I am definitely taking advantage of that.

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