(From Brian)
Sunday was wine tasting...finally! We got up around 6:45a and made our way to the meeting point in the town plaza. We profiled our tour group as the bus boarded and decided that our fellow Americans were the most annoying people on the tour (but to be fair we can only judge those speaking English since we can't tell the difference between conversation and whining in other languages). As soon as we were on the bus this loud group of Americans started talking about how the wineries in Napa were superior to those in Spain…we were worried that we’d be in for a LONG day of wine tasting and we did our best to disassociate ourselves from that group!
The first stop was Jean Leon winery. We took a tour and learned a lot about the history of the winery. It was almost too much history. We took it upon ourselves to break away from the tour and explore the tasting room and select the bottles that we wanted to purchase. We felt a little bit like the kids in elementary school who misbehave on a museum field trip. We also had the bonus entertainment of a Korean man who took pictures of literally everything using "manual zoom". He got as close as he could to every framed picture, wine glass and grape leaf and just kept shooting. I think he took individual pictures of each person on the tour as they were handed their glass for tasting. At Jean Leon we tasted their Cabernet from a barrel and then tried the older version of the same wine (aged six years and ready for sale). Side note - We did not see a single Venturi in Spain and they don't know what they are missing. We liked the wine we tried though we ended up purchasing a tempranillo for 5e and a bottle opener in case we had to turn to drinking on the bus to tolerate the tour group. Wine is quite cheap here!
Our next stop was Torres Winery – the largest winery in Spain. Torres was like Disney World. We boarded a tram for a tour, complete with a hologram video in a room that puts out accompanying scents with the video. It was a bit of a production but interesting. Afterward we tasted a muscat, merlot and a cab/tempranillo blend along with a cheese pairing for each. When they tried to teach us about pairing wine with cheese properly, Lindsay concluded that she just likes cheese and will enjoy it regardless of the wine choice. We looked around the shop a bit and almost bought a half size bottle for 3 euro just to try something else…but then realized our selection was actually vinegar! We ended up getting a Cab called Atrium at Torres which turned out to be our favorite on the trip. From what we tasted many of the wines seem to taste a bit similar - very dry and less flavorful than we are used to. Perhaps this is why the Spaniards invented sangria!
After Torres we went to Frixinet which makes Cava. Cava is Spain’s version of champagne and Frixinet is Spain’s largest producer of cava. We took a tour though the caves where the cava is fermented and then had a chance to taste two different versions. We both found the Cavas they served to be too sweet, but really enjoyed the ham, cheese, bread and cookies during the tasting.
We both took a snooze on the 45 minute bus ride back to Barca.
After our wine tour we planned to hit up a couple of shops for souvenirs, gifts and to find the pantalones that Lindsay desperately seeks (it’s a style of baggy pants with a tapered leg that she did eventually find in Rotterdam). It turns out that most businesses are closed on Sundays. To recap they are closed on random midweek holidays, during siesta time in the afternoon and on Sundays. Sorry friends but this cut down on our gift options as we would be leaving Barca before anything opened the next morning.
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