13 Friday May 2016
After two solid weeks of rain, the sun should finally be back tomorrow. Until then I’ll enjoy these last drops of Andalusian sunshine (aka Tío Pepe).
Missing a few wine meme days. So far there’s #finofriday #manzanillamonday #winewednesday #thirstythursday… any more I don’t yet know about?
12 Thursday May 2016
Not a bad way to spend a rainy Thursday afternoon. Unfortunately I only had an hour or so to “get through” 42 different bodegas worth of Spanish wines. I’d had a busy “admin” work morning, and an early tapas tour booked in the evening, and had to fit in lunch somewhere along the way. But it was the first time Sevilla was hosting this major wine event so I felt I should at least put in an appearance, and I’m glad I did. Ran into a LOT of people I hadn’t seen in ages, some literally in over a year or more, and so it was good to reconnect. Also good to see many of the local “usual suspects”… I HAVE A DREAM that if I keep seeing the same people at these things that one day I will remember their names and where I know them from. Until then, it’s the usual smiling and chatting and wondering who I am talking to. 🙂
10 Tuesday May 2016
I set off on Monday afternoon to meet up with my friend Anna Mayer for a tapita. She had just arrived in town for a short stay and I hadn’t seen her in ages. So we started off with a vermouth cocktail at Palabra de Bar, near my house. But I should have known by that mischievous look on Anna’s face that the day would take a turn or three.
After our lovely vermouth cocktails we were walking towards the centre of town and the skies suddenly opened. We ended up taking shelter at Casa Antonio Los Caracoles. As Anna pointed out – it was destiny! Snails are now in season and there is no better place in town to try them.
But since women can’t live on snails alone, we ordered a few other tapitas. Which we needed to fortify ourselves because…
…just before we met up, Anna had been invited to a Rías Baixas wine tasting event at the Hotel Alfonso XIII and this ended up including me. Thrilled! So after our hearty tapas lunch we headed over to the event.
Here’s Anna and I seriously tasting seriously lovely wines. But I should’ve either sat closer or brought my glasses because I couldn’t read the powerpoint thingy.
Long story short…. after the wine tasting there was a “salon de vinos” with I don’t remember how many bodegas offering their delicious wines and then one thing led to another. By this time Anna had gone home, and I stayed on with other friends, going out for tapas later on, and even later rolling home around 1 am (!!), about twelve hours after I’d left the house. I blame Anna. 😉
05 Thursday May 2016
I remember reading lately about how some wine experts couldn’t tell the difference between white and red wine during a blind tasting. Not sure if that’s true, but colour does influence how we taste things. Take this blue chardonnay by Marqués de Alcantara. The other day a barman in Jerez was very insistent about me trying it, so what the heck, I gave it a go. But although it actually tasted okay I decided I didn’t want to drink a whole glass of it. Somehow the colour and taste just didn’t go together in my mind. Weird, eh?
27 Wednesday Apr 2016
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It was an honour to be invited to this week’s 1st Province of Seville Wine Awards as one of the 10 judges. Our task was to blind taste 14 white and 16 red wines from various bodegas in the province and rate them. I was catador (taster) nº 10. Then our points were counted and the awards were given. The winners were…
Best white: El Mirlo Blanco 2015, Bodega Tierra Savia
Best red: Cocolubis 2013, Bodega La Margarita
More on the event coming up soon on the Azahar Sevilla blog.
casa azahar 