So I got this invitation to a wine salon being hosted at Taberna Alabardero and thought I’d pop over to see which bodegas were showing there. Then I found out that Esteban and Jota were also on their way and… well… I should have known it was not going to end with me trying a few wines and then going to do my 10,000 step walk.

Jota, Jorge, Esteban, me!, Domingo

I actually don’t like going to these events alone, and so it was great to be following Esteban around, especially as he knows a lot about wines and also knows many of the producers. Then we bumped into a couple other of his friends, Domingo and Jorge, and somehow became a group of five moving from table to table.

Suddenly it was 3 pm and the salon was shutting down for lunch (it would reopen again at 6 pm) and I have to say that lunch was actually quite necessary at this point. Plans had been made in advance to go to Torre & García, a place I had only been to once and hadn’t really enjoyed, but what the heck. I was “de perdidso al río” (in for a penny…) by now. And it ended up being quite a nice lunch! I’m not sure if the restaurant has improved or if it was because fab front of house guy Alejandro was taking such good care of us.

After lunch the boys wanted to stop at a cocktail bar before heading back for the evening session at the wine salon. I went along for a while, wisely not having a cocktail myself, but then realised I had to get home for the Sherry Twitter Tasting. Eep. Got back just in time to set up my little sherry bottles and get online, but with one thing and another (basically the fact that I was already a bit tipsy) I could only taste a wee bit of each amontillado, and I also got very confused with the Twitter hashtags and kept losing the other people who were participating. So my participation ended up being rather limited, though it was interesting the following morning to read what the others had said about the wines.

I love spontaneous days like this, and I also met two new friends.  🙂

our front of house host Alejandro