Cambados – Albariño Land

Cambados is on the Altantic Coast and it is a beautiful ride as we followed the coastline from Pontevedra to Cambados. Everything is green in the area, the hills, the fields, and the vineyards; we are in Green Spain. As we approached the town, we took a couple of side roads and spotted workers harvesting the grapes.

Tempranillo Blanco is alive and well

Tempranillo Blanco is a grape that mutated naturally. This happened in 1995 in the village of Murillo near Logrono, Spain.

Rene Barbier: the Robert Mondavi of the Priorat

In a beautiful setting, with the village of Gratallops as the backdrop, Rene Barbier explains that we are looking at a Garnacha vineyard like no other in the Priorat.

Kosher Wines – Celler de Capcanes

What is unique about this winery is that they produce 3 Kosher wines: Peraj Ha’abib, Flor del Flor de Primavera and Peraj petita. Even though Kosher wines account for only 2% of Capcanes’ production, these wines are highly sought after.

Bodegas Mas Alta

When we arrived for our visit at Bodegas Mas Alta, the winery was a filled with activity. The winery was experiencing the “crush” at full throttle. Grapes were being brought into the winery, sorted, and delivered to the fermenting tanks.

Spanish Pantry Wine Tasting in San Francisco

If you read our blogs you know that we recently returned from Argentina and Chile and are very impressed with the overall quality of their wines. We were also in Spain in 2007 and also enjoyed the Spanish wines and seek them out as often as we can. On Wednesday, we attended the Spanish Pantry, an exhibit of Spanish wine and food at the old Federal Reserve building in San Francisco on Battery Street near the Embarcadero.

This is the third year in a row for the Spanish Pantry event in San Francisco. The event is designed to showcase Spanish wineries and Spanish food companies. Most of the wineries and food companies are there to find importers or direct sales contacts. We attended to learn more about Spanish wines and to discover wineries that we might add to our Spanish Wine Country website. There were 33 wineries present and between the two of us we managed to hit each table and taste a number of wines.

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The Wine Traveler Looks Back as Spain

We are back in the good old USA after a fabulous four-week adventure in Spain. We would like to return again to experience more of the Spanish lifestyle and their wonderful food and wine. We have learned much on this trip and this will surely help us on our next Spanish adventure.

The wine region of La Rioja is one area where we would love to spend more time. We would spend at least three full days there, and stay in one of the small La Rioja towns. We missed out on the tour and tasting at the amazing Bodega Marques de Riscal. We would love to tour the inside of the Bodega Ysios (Photo).

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The Wine Traveler in Barcelona, The Land of Cava

Barcelona is the last leg of our four-week trip to Spain. We are staying at the Hotel Montecarlo located on one of the busiest streets in the world, La Rambla. Getting to Barcelona was easier than we expected. From San Sebastian we returned our car at the San Sebastian airport and hopped on a turbo jet to Barcelona. From the airport it is a 20-minute bus ride to the Placa Catalunya and then about a quarter mile walk with bags to the Hotel Montecarlo.

This is by far the most cosmopolitan city we have visited in Spain. There are tourists from all over the world. There is a constant stream of people on La Rambla and side streets. In the Barrio Gothic there are many narrow streets that intertwine and provide a great adventure.

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The Wine Traveler Visits the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao

A couple of blog posts back, we wrote about our visit to the Bodegas Marques de Riscal designed by Frank Gehry. We mentioned the word “gaudy”and suggested we did not care for the design of the Bodega. We have to admit that was a very premature judgment. After all, we did not see the bodega close up and were only able to view the top portion of the building.

After visiting the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao we have a much different opinion of the works of Frank Gehry. The Guggenheim in Bilbao is mesmerizing. The more you gaze at the structure, the more you are drawn to it. The titanium façade and various forms and shapes are almost hypnotic. Somehow Gehry’s ultra modern design fits perfectly into the landscape of the city. It is fascinating, astonishing, and beautiful.

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The Wine Traveler in San Sebastian

We have arrived in the northeast city of San Sebastian/Donostia. Since San Sebastian is in Basque country, like all city names, it has its Spanish version and its Basque version (Donostia). We have rented a four-bedroom apartment with easy access to the beach and the old part of town. Our apartment has a full kitchen and a comfortable living room. We will be spending four full days here relaxing and dining. The weather is not the greatest with days partly cloudy and some rain. The temperature is in the 70’s and it is quite humid.

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