Category Archives: work

verema 2020

09 Monday Mar 2020

Posted by in sevilla, wine, work

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Had a great time at my third Verema event, held at the glorious Alfonso XIII Hotel, and featuring winemakers from all over Spain. I wondered if I should attend, what with the whole coronavirus threat, but somehow it only dawned on me after I was there that maybe this wasn’t the smartest move. Oh well, it’s done. At least I didn’t go back for the after-lunch session because I didn’t want to stress my sprained foot too much. It was great seeing old friends (the usual suspects) and meeting a few new ones too. Also got to know a few new wines. A good day.  🙂

ronda research

04 Wednesday Mar 2020

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What a day! Hot on the heels of my last Decanter Magazine article on Madrid, my pitch for Málaga was accepted so I am out and about doing bodega research this month. First stop… Ronda! I’ve been wanting to visit Bodegas Descalzos Viejos for years and I wasn’t disappointed. In fact it was one of the best bodega visits ever. I also got to visit Bodegas Melonera and Bodegas Schatz. All in one afternoon! More to come, but for now a few pics of these beautiful wineries. Next up… the Axarquía!

new wine tasting venue!

05 Thursday Sep 2019

Posted by in sevilla, sherry, wine, work

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How cool is this? It’s the ceiling of the patio inside the uber-cool hotel where my friend Javi Abascal has just relaunched his restaurant Lalola Taberna Gourmet. When I was there last week we not only had a fabulous time trying his new menu, we also talked about the possibility of me giving my wine tastings there. Turns out it’s perfect because it’s quite central and there’s a section of the restaurant that can be closed off for me, though for the most part the tastings will be held outside of usual dining hours.

We talked about what wines I wanted to present and he is going to organise the food, so that we have great little snacks to go with the wines. I’m really excited about this. I would actually love to do more tastings. So fingers crossed that these will start taking off!

my new p.a.!

24 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by in tapas, tapas tours, work

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This is very exciting – I may (finally!) have a PA to help me with organizing and growing We Love Tapas. At the moment we are doing a trial period and, if it works out, then Olga will join the WLT team as my very first personal assistant. I tried doing this a few years ago with another guide, but this time I think I’ll have much better luck as Olga has already shown a lot more enthusiasm and self motivation. And she has lots of great ideas too. Which in turn is getting me excited about new possibilities. So watch this space!

anchoa revived!

10 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by in computers, work

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In other home computer news… about two years after buying La Anchoa as a travel notebook option back in 2014 (instead of lugging my big 17″ guy around on trips) I began having problems with her screen. It starting flickering on one trip to Málaga, and in the end it got so bad I had to give up and just use my iphone. Then one day it went flickery-flickery-flickery and totally died. Damn. At the time I thought that it probably wouldn’t be worth taking her in to be fixed, but I also didn’t want to fork out for another small travel option. So oh well. It was adiós Anchoa and back to either taking massive laptop with me or working from the iPhone (NOT ideal) on trips.

Then the other day, while reading the specs on El Boquerón (shit, I’ve already named him!) I noticed that he has a touch screen, something I hadn’t noticed at the store. And then I thought… hey, Anchoa has a touch screen too. Hmmm, I wonder…

So after not having used her since 2016 I took my little Anchoa out of hibernation, revved her up, saw the old flickery-flickery thing start up… and then I TOUCHED THE SCREEN. And hey – problem solved! I mean, fucking DUH or what? Why hadn’t I thought of that before??

And the best thing? Picasa works just fine on her! I can upload my photos and they all show up, ready to be edited and sorted. Yay! There was a tense moment when suddenly Windows starting doing updates (well, it had been two years…) and I thought I might lose Picasa like I did on Sterling. But so far so good! Of course, editing photos is primarily why I want to have a nice big 17.3″ screen at home, so now having to do it on a tiny 11.6″ screen kind of defeats that purpose. But at least I can do it. So for now my little Anchoa is set up next to my desk, propped up on a stack of books, acting as my photo editing assistant.

Now I just have to decide if I’m keeping El Boquerón…