Category Archives: sherry

an impromptu tapas tour

04 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by in food & drink, friends, sevilla, sherry, tapas, tapas bars, tapas tours

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , ,


Twitter strikes again. Someone I’ve known on Twitter/Instagram for ages – Michael @renoirguides – got in touch to see if I had a tour going on Monday that his friend could join. Which I didn’t (there’s a two-person minimum), but when I found out the friend lives in Gibraltar I said I’d be happy to meet him for a drink and give him some tapas tips. What started as a quick sherry and tapita turned into an impromptu tapas tour, with Frank and I hitting four of my favourite traditional bars, including a stop at my “happy place” – Rafael’s jamón cutting station at Las Teresas. Nice day.  🙂

birthday 2019

07 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by in birthdays, casa azahar, food & drink, friends, gastronomy, hope, sevilla, sherry, spam, tapas, tapas bars

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

, , ,

So yikes! I am 62 years old today. Like, how’d that happen?  😉  It’s a total cliché and absolute truth about time flying. And especially with all the cancer stuff, ten years ago now and hopefully completely in the past, it’s amazing I’ve made it this far. Unlike a lot of people, I’ve always loved my birthday, even though the getting older thing comes with some drawbacks (KNEES for example) it certainly beats not getting older! So I do like to do something special to celebrate still being here.

Today I met my friend (and colleague) Cinta @cintaromero75 for a fabulous seafood lunch at Cañabota. Great food and wine, and even better company. It was great catching up.

By chance Charlie & Sam, co-owners of @vinoveroleigh were arriving in Sevilla this afternoon, though too late to join us for lunch, so I met up with them afterwards for a penúltima.

I first met C & S in 2016, when mutual friends Phoebe and Ollie invited me to a rooftop dinner at their place in London. They came to Sevilla a few months later that same year, and are back for a quick getaway. After our cava I headed home, delighted to see the Christmas lights were still on! An excellent birthday.

lustau & albalá

28 Friday Dec 2018

Posted by in friends, gastronomy, getaways, restaurants, sherry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , , ,

Day two of the Jerez Getaway with Pam & Gord started off with a WHACK of hot crispy fried churros in front of the Central Market. After that, following THE PLAN IS THERE IS NO PLAN format we had been going with, we decided to see if we could go to Lustau for their Copa en Mano bodega visit. And there was still places available! So off we went after a quick visit to the market and cathedral.

I really enjoyed the concept of this tour. Usually people visit a bodega and then have a tasting at the end. With this one visitors start off with a glass of manzanilla and then taste their way around the various Lustau bodegas, finishing with sweet wines and then a bonus vermouth tasting in the shop. So it was a lot of fun, and we tasted some very special wines which I don’t think are included in the regular visit. And then it was time for lunch!

My friend Tomoko met us at Lustau, since (no plan, right?) we still weren’t sure where to go. From there I called one of my favourites, Albalá, and was told they were fully booked, but if we showed up we could go on a waiting list. Well, good enough for us! And sure enough, after a quick taxi ride, and about ten minutes after arriving and enjoying a drink at the bar, we got a table. Food was amazing, company even better. And afterwards we walked back into the centre for a penúltima. Then it was time for me to go. I didn’t have a return train ticket, leaving it open since THERE WAS NO PLAN. In the end I left Jerez at 7.15, and was home, unpacked, showered and with a load of laundry on by 9 pm. With my cats! It was a great getaway.

 

tradición & urium

27 Thursday Dec 2018

Posted by in andalucia, friends, gastronomy, getaways, sherry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

, , ,


The theme for this latest Jerez Getaway was… THE PLAN IS THERE IS NO PLAN. Obviously there were some inklings and ideas, a few wanna-dos and several would-like-tos, but in general everything happened almost by chance.

I left Sevilla with Pam & Gord in their rental car, and on the way to Jerez it became apparent that we would actually get there in time for the noon English bodega visit at Tracición. So I contacted them from the car and said we’d be there. We arrived two minutes before the tour started. Yay! As always, it was a great experience, visiting both the bodega and private art gallery, and tasting some amazing VOR (+20 years) and VORS (+30 years) sherries.

Meanwhile, I was also hoping to stop in at Urium. I’d been in touch with Rocío and she said her dad Alonso was planning to be at the bodega around 5.30, which was perfect as it would give us time to check into our accommodations after Tradición and have a quick lunch. Then I got a message from Rocío saying that Alonso was meeting his friends at the bodega at 3 pm… okey dokey.

This actually gave us plenty of extra time to do our check-ins, but it also meant I had to see if my other friends Anne & Paul could meet us at Urium earlier. It also meant we wouldn’t have time for lunch between bodega visits. Oh well!Turned out no lunch wasn’t a big issue as the other group of friends that Alonso had invited showed up with whacks of food, as did Anne & Paul. And suddenly it was a party.

Just so you know, Bodegas Urium do not offer visits to the public. This is a small family run bodega, with Papa Alonso, his daughter Rocío and her husband Mario taking care of pretty much everything. It also isn’t the type of bodega suited to tourist visits, simply because it is a unique experience that can’t be replicated on a daily basis. Each time it’s something different, which this time included everyone singing Christmas carols in both Spanish and English. So lovely. I feel very privileged that the Urium family includes me in their sherry family.