The sun was just starting to shine through the windows facing east across the
Tarmac. It was peaceful and empty, a bit like a dream that was
exacerbated by the complete lack of sleep on the overnight flight from Seattle
to Lisbon. I've heard that Lisbon is a beautiful city, but sadly all we
saw was the airport. Modern, clean and very European. And
completely empty. Then we flew a short commuter flight to historic Oporto
to begin our quick tour of some key wines of Iberia.
Oporto is old, dirty and still very European. It made me wonder if they had heard of pressure washers, because the city really needed a good going over. Although it might take a century to finish and it would render the city completely unrecognizable. Across the Douro river from the city sit the large warehouses of Vila Nova de Gaia, the home to the port shippers and their untold bottles, barrels and years of one of the longest-lived wines. Large neon signs with familiar names lit up the sky; Sandeman, Taylor, Croft, Noval.
In the morning we went to visit Porto Barros. We walked past large barrels filled with old Colheitas going back to at least 1900, but sadly there was no officer to taste that rare nectar. Then up to a sun dappled room with large table to taste all the current bottlings of white port, tawnies, rubies, vintage dated, Late Bottled Vintage, a few more recent vintage Colheitas, and 10, 20 and 40-year tawny offerings. Barros is a Portuguese owned company, and unlike the British or internationally owned port houses that tend to focus on vintage and other ruby ports, the tawny wines and their finest expressions, single vintage dated Colheitas that are typically bottled after 30 years or more, are their favorite wines. But to be fair, Port for breakfast is a new experience for most, though it helped calm our nerves for the coming drive. We loaded into the van for the long and winding trip on the road up the Douro river valley to where the grapes that become these legendary wines grow.
The steep hillsides of the Douro River Valley are covered with vineyards on small farms, or Quintas. The vines are terraced with steps a meter or so up from the last, and often so narrow that no tractor of any kind could be used. For those slim shelves of earth, the grapes are harvested by hand and put in baskets, then carried to the end of the row to be picked up for transport to the small stone building used for the crush. Dozens of different grapes grow at different altitudes, with five main grapes used in most ports and often now in amazing table wines as well. At most Quintas there are large stone lagares where the grapes are crushed, often by foot, or in some cases with a machine that mimics the foot action and used silicone feet that are molded from real feet. From there the juice is put in tanks or barrels and then the winemaking begins. But we were there in February, so the vineyards were barren and windswept, with cold dusty breezes swirling up the terraces in the mid-day sun.
The roads along the edge of the valley are nearly as narrow as the vineyard terraces, and guard rails are not as common in the Douro as we would have liked, but our next destination was to continue up the Douro into Spain where the river originates and changes to be called the Duero, to the small town of Toro. There are not many towns around, but the large statue of a bull confirmed we were in the right place.
"The Rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain" is a well-known song from My Fair Lady, but it turns out to be not true of the region around Toro. (The Spanish phrase is “La lluvia en Sevilla es una maravilla” (The rain in Seville is a miracle). In the summer, the oppressive heat and winds turn out intense wines from low bush trained vines. In the past, the harvest was set to be a specific date, and had nothing to do with the ripeness of the grapes. Farmers would watch their grapes usually withering in the sun and produce high alcohol raisined wines from the local co-op. Or if a storm came right before harvest they would end up with plumped up, watered down lower alcohol very ordinary vino de tabla. But then the Farina Family led the charge to change the practice and start harvesting when the grapes were ready, and to make wines with balance and finesse. They call the grape Tinto de Toro, elsewhere in Spain known as Tempranillo, and while still robust and full bodied, the wines reflect the soils where they live.
Lunch at the winery was a bounty of local foods, with a beautiful stewed chicken dish with the feet sticking out to remind you that this was a homemade meal. Knowing that in Spain dinner starts very late, we felt comfort that we could eat heartily and rest for a good while before we'd be asked to eat again. And when we entered the restaurant in the nearby town of Zamora at eleven that night, we were still the first people to be seated. By midnight the restaurant was just starting to fill up and was completely packed as we headed home to sleep.
I wanted to be able to spend time in Madrid to see the sights, especially the famous Museo de Jamón, but when you are on a wine trip you rarely get to spend time in cities because that is where the wineries aren't. We got to see the airport and fly to Barcelona. But there it was our luck to get to actually have some free time.
We had half a day to spend in the city as we'd be going to visit the Cava producer nearby in the morning. We took the metro just as we would in any cosmopolitan city in Europe, and my limited Southern California learned Spanish was challenged by the Castilian Spanish pronunciations, and completely baffled by my first hearing Catalan. Catalan evolved directly from Latin, and sort of sounds like a cross between French and Spanish, though it is not. Thankfully riding the metro in a city with people from all over the world you can figure your way around by just following the maps and guides. We had time to visit the famous La Sagrada Familia cathedral started by Antoni Gaudi, which is still under construction a hundred and thirty plus years after they broke ground. Many other Gaudi designed buildings dot the city nearby. We ate dinner at a restaurant right on the water in the port, the first time I'd had little baby octopus (in my salad), among the many things that started my palate down a much more adventurous path in life.
The Cava producers in the surrounding Penedés region began producing sparkling wine with the same methods as their French counterparts in Champagne around 1860, but instead of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, they mostly use the local grapes Macabeu, Perellada and Xarel-lo. The Sumarroca Family produces both Cava and still wines, and after a tour and tasting we sat down at their large family dining table for a lunch of local foods, Jamón, house cured olives, roasted peppers, fresh cheese and other delights. Thankfully after all the food, all that was required of us was to get to the airport and fly south to Andalusia, the home to the wines now called Sherry.
Sherry is produced in an area that is in the triangle created by the towns of Jerez (from where we get the name "sherry"), Sanlucar de Barrameda, and El Puerto de Santa Maria. At the white washed and red tiled roofed guest house of Antonio Barbadillo we sat out on the veranda eating impossible piles of meltingly sweet and succulent Jamón Ibérico, bright and fresh olives, fragrant cheeses, and washed it down bottle of nicely chilled Palomino. Palomino is the grape used to make most Sherry wines. Not often seen outside of Spain due to its short aging potential, but in its natural state it is a light and refreshingly simple white wine. Chilled and perfect for an afternoon on a sun filled, dry and windswept hill overlooking the just starting to awaken for the spring vineyards.
We later toured the Barbadillo Bodega in the town of Sanlucar de Barrameda, the only town where certain bodegas with exposure to the salty air from the sea can produce the fresh, salty, and delicate sherry called Manzanilla. If another building is built between the sea and the bodega, the yeast called Flor that develops on the aging wine will not have the briny quality to become a Manzanilla, and will instead remain a delicious but less exciting Fino. An immense warehouse with high vaulted ceilings filled with thousands of barrels stacked high and far as we could see, with louvered windows to let in the breezes. Sherry is aged though a system called the Solera, where some wine to be bottled is taken out of the oldest barrel in the Solera, then some younger wine is taken out and put in the older barrel, and again at least a few more times from younger barrel to older barrel each time leaving some wine behind until you get to the youngest barrel where new wine is added to some of the previous. In essence, you get bits the oldest wine in every bottle, and many Soleras have been going for generations for the more full-bodied wines.
Most types of Sherry come about because of the Flor that grows on the top of the wine, as the barrels are not completely full. It is like a thick white blanket of yeast that changes the wines over time. And since the wines are fortified and oxidized by time, they are nearly immortal, the exceptions being the light Manzanilla and Fino wines that should be consumed within a week or so.
By contrast, the sticky and often sweet Pedro Ximenez Sherry, made from the grapes of the same name that are allowed to dry in the sun to concentrate the sugars and flavors, will last long after it is opened, and we had the chance to taste a 100-year-old example of it. A bit like molasses, or perhaps old motor oil, it was thick and viscous and really delicious. Especially when poured over a small bit of vanilla ice cream. The very old Fino we tasted was a bit more like drinking old brandy, but something that we were lucky to get to do. We also ran through the gamut of all their wines, from young not quite developed examples of the Sherries as they age for their first few years, and Amontillado, Oloroso, Cream, and every style of Sherry in between.
Dinner was even later than we had been eating so far, as it seems the farther south you go in Spain the later everything starts. We sat in a large banquet at a beachside bodega, with barrels of Manzanilla behind the bar from which they poured us numerous Copitas of the briny refreshing wine. A huge platter with an immense pile of large, head on shrimps started our meal. I'm not a big fan of shrimp, though if they tasted this fresh and clean and just caught from the ocean just across the beach every time I would be a huge fan. It was very late, and the young son of our tour guide fell asleep on the bench behind us, but we pressed on with a memorable serving of Rapé, the local name for Monkfish, served with a beautiful saffron infused sauce. That and more sherry made for a very late night.
Our trip was over but we took an extra day to spend in the city of Sevilla. Just being tourists, touring the cathedral and the Real Alcazar, and for some reason having pizza for dinner. I think we pushed our palates and bodies a bit too far with way too much Jamón, wine and travel. On our trip to the airport we noticed the streets were packed with people at six in the morning. We assumed they were up early, but then realized since it was Sunday morning, they were really just keeping the party going from the Saturday night before.
While there is still so much more to explore in both Portugal, such as Vinho Verde, Alentejo, Lisboa and the south, and certainly major regions in Spain to see, Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Rias Biaxas, Priorat, and countless others, we managed in one week to visit wineries that produce the four major wine types, Porto, Still Wines, Sparkling Wines, and Sherry. It was a great way to start to dip our toes into the wines of Iberia. But only just a start.
Oporto is old, dirty and still very European. It made me wonder if they had heard of pressure washers, because the city really needed a good going over. Although it might take a century to finish and it would render the city completely unrecognizable. Across the Douro river from the city sit the large warehouses of Vila Nova de Gaia, the home to the port shippers and their untold bottles, barrels and years of one of the longest-lived wines. Large neon signs with familiar names lit up the sky; Sandeman, Taylor, Croft, Noval.
In the morning we went to visit Porto Barros. We walked past large barrels filled with old Colheitas going back to at least 1900, but sadly there was no officer to taste that rare nectar. Then up to a sun dappled room with large table to taste all the current bottlings of white port, tawnies, rubies, vintage dated, Late Bottled Vintage, a few more recent vintage Colheitas, and 10, 20 and 40-year tawny offerings. Barros is a Portuguese owned company, and unlike the British or internationally owned port houses that tend to focus on vintage and other ruby ports, the tawny wines and their finest expressions, single vintage dated Colheitas that are typically bottled after 30 years or more, are their favorite wines. But to be fair, Port for breakfast is a new experience for most, though it helped calm our nerves for the coming drive. We loaded into the van for the long and winding trip on the road up the Douro river valley to where the grapes that become these legendary wines grow.
The steep hillsides of the Douro River Valley are covered with vineyards on small farms, or Quintas. The vines are terraced with steps a meter or so up from the last, and often so narrow that no tractor of any kind could be used. For those slim shelves of earth, the grapes are harvested by hand and put in baskets, then carried to the end of the row to be picked up for transport to the small stone building used for the crush. Dozens of different grapes grow at different altitudes, with five main grapes used in most ports and often now in amazing table wines as well. At most Quintas there are large stone lagares where the grapes are crushed, often by foot, or in some cases with a machine that mimics the foot action and used silicone feet that are molded from real feet. From there the juice is put in tanks or barrels and then the winemaking begins. But we were there in February, so the vineyards were barren and windswept, with cold dusty breezes swirling up the terraces in the mid-day sun.
The roads along the edge of the valley are nearly as narrow as the vineyard terraces, and guard rails are not as common in the Douro as we would have liked, but our next destination was to continue up the Douro into Spain where the river originates and changes to be called the Duero, to the small town of Toro. There are not many towns around, but the large statue of a bull confirmed we were in the right place.
"The Rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain" is a well-known song from My Fair Lady, but it turns out to be not true of the region around Toro. (The Spanish phrase is “La lluvia en Sevilla es una maravilla” (The rain in Seville is a miracle). In the summer, the oppressive heat and winds turn out intense wines from low bush trained vines. In the past, the harvest was set to be a specific date, and had nothing to do with the ripeness of the grapes. Farmers would watch their grapes usually withering in the sun and produce high alcohol raisined wines from the local co-op. Or if a storm came right before harvest they would end up with plumped up, watered down lower alcohol very ordinary vino de tabla. But then the Farina Family led the charge to change the practice and start harvesting when the grapes were ready, and to make wines with balance and finesse. They call the grape Tinto de Toro, elsewhere in Spain known as Tempranillo, and while still robust and full bodied, the wines reflect the soils where they live.
Lunch at the winery was a bounty of local foods, with a beautiful stewed chicken dish with the feet sticking out to remind you that this was a homemade meal. Knowing that in Spain dinner starts very late, we felt comfort that we could eat heartily and rest for a good while before we'd be asked to eat again. And when we entered the restaurant in the nearby town of Zamora at eleven that night, we were still the first people to be seated. By midnight the restaurant was just starting to fill up and was completely packed as we headed home to sleep.
I wanted to be able to spend time in Madrid to see the sights, especially the famous Museo de Jamón, but when you are on a wine trip you rarely get to spend time in cities because that is where the wineries aren't. We got to see the airport and fly to Barcelona. But there it was our luck to get to actually have some free time.
We had half a day to spend in the city as we'd be going to visit the Cava producer nearby in the morning. We took the metro just as we would in any cosmopolitan city in Europe, and my limited Southern California learned Spanish was challenged by the Castilian Spanish pronunciations, and completely baffled by my first hearing Catalan. Catalan evolved directly from Latin, and sort of sounds like a cross between French and Spanish, though it is not. Thankfully riding the metro in a city with people from all over the world you can figure your way around by just following the maps and guides. We had time to visit the famous La Sagrada Familia cathedral started by Antoni Gaudi, which is still under construction a hundred and thirty plus years after they broke ground. Many other Gaudi designed buildings dot the city nearby. We ate dinner at a restaurant right on the water in the port, the first time I'd had little baby octopus (in my salad), among the many things that started my palate down a much more adventurous path in life.
The Cava producers in the surrounding Penedés region began producing sparkling wine with the same methods as their French counterparts in Champagne around 1860, but instead of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, they mostly use the local grapes Macabeu, Perellada and Xarel-lo. The Sumarroca Family produces both Cava and still wines, and after a tour and tasting we sat down at their large family dining table for a lunch of local foods, Jamón, house cured olives, roasted peppers, fresh cheese and other delights. Thankfully after all the food, all that was required of us was to get to the airport and fly south to Andalusia, the home to the wines now called Sherry.
Sherry is produced in an area that is in the triangle created by the towns of Jerez (from where we get the name "sherry"), Sanlucar de Barrameda, and El Puerto de Santa Maria. At the white washed and red tiled roofed guest house of Antonio Barbadillo we sat out on the veranda eating impossible piles of meltingly sweet and succulent Jamón Ibérico, bright and fresh olives, fragrant cheeses, and washed it down bottle of nicely chilled Palomino. Palomino is the grape used to make most Sherry wines. Not often seen outside of Spain due to its short aging potential, but in its natural state it is a light and refreshingly simple white wine. Chilled and perfect for an afternoon on a sun filled, dry and windswept hill overlooking the just starting to awaken for the spring vineyards.
We later toured the Barbadillo Bodega in the town of Sanlucar de Barrameda, the only town where certain bodegas with exposure to the salty air from the sea can produce the fresh, salty, and delicate sherry called Manzanilla. If another building is built between the sea and the bodega, the yeast called Flor that develops on the aging wine will not have the briny quality to become a Manzanilla, and will instead remain a delicious but less exciting Fino. An immense warehouse with high vaulted ceilings filled with thousands of barrels stacked high and far as we could see, with louvered windows to let in the breezes. Sherry is aged though a system called the Solera, where some wine to be bottled is taken out of the oldest barrel in the Solera, then some younger wine is taken out and put in the older barrel, and again at least a few more times from younger barrel to older barrel each time leaving some wine behind until you get to the youngest barrel where new wine is added to some of the previous. In essence, you get bits the oldest wine in every bottle, and many Soleras have been going for generations for the more full-bodied wines.
Most types of Sherry come about because of the Flor that grows on the top of the wine, as the barrels are not completely full. It is like a thick white blanket of yeast that changes the wines over time. And since the wines are fortified and oxidized by time, they are nearly immortal, the exceptions being the light Manzanilla and Fino wines that should be consumed within a week or so.
By contrast, the sticky and often sweet Pedro Ximenez Sherry, made from the grapes of the same name that are allowed to dry in the sun to concentrate the sugars and flavors, will last long after it is opened, and we had the chance to taste a 100-year-old example of it. A bit like molasses, or perhaps old motor oil, it was thick and viscous and really delicious. Especially when poured over a small bit of vanilla ice cream. The very old Fino we tasted was a bit more like drinking old brandy, but something that we were lucky to get to do. We also ran through the gamut of all their wines, from young not quite developed examples of the Sherries as they age for their first few years, and Amontillado, Oloroso, Cream, and every style of Sherry in between.
Dinner was even later than we had been eating so far, as it seems the farther south you go in Spain the later everything starts. We sat in a large banquet at a beachside bodega, with barrels of Manzanilla behind the bar from which they poured us numerous Copitas of the briny refreshing wine. A huge platter with an immense pile of large, head on shrimps started our meal. I'm not a big fan of shrimp, though if they tasted this fresh and clean and just caught from the ocean just across the beach every time I would be a huge fan. It was very late, and the young son of our tour guide fell asleep on the bench behind us, but we pressed on with a memorable serving of Rapé, the local name for Monkfish, served with a beautiful saffron infused sauce. That and more sherry made for a very late night.
Our trip was over but we took an extra day to spend in the city of Sevilla. Just being tourists, touring the cathedral and the Real Alcazar, and for some reason having pizza for dinner. I think we pushed our palates and bodies a bit too far with way too much Jamón, wine and travel. On our trip to the airport we noticed the streets were packed with people at six in the morning. We assumed they were up early, but then realized since it was Sunday morning, they were really just keeping the party going from the Saturday night before.
While there is still so much more to explore in both Portugal, such as Vinho Verde, Alentejo, Lisboa and the south, and certainly major regions in Spain to see, Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Rias Biaxas, Priorat, and countless others, we managed in one week to visit wineries that produce the four major wine types, Porto, Still Wines, Sparkling Wines, and Sherry. It was a great way to start to dip our toes into the wines of Iberia. But only just a start.
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