A Question of Taste - Food & Wine Tours in Spain (www.aqot.com)

Asparagus and flamingos

2011-11-30T16:24:00.011+01:00

I spent most of last week with a wonderful group of people that included the owners of the Pisgah Inn in North Carolina and the head chef. The Inn which combines a hotel and restaurant is located at the Peak of the Blue Ridge Parkway which seems to be a beautiful spot; here's a link to the Inn's website.

The tour with the group included wine tasting, olive oil tasting, cheese tasting, a tapas tour, cooking classes, as well as excursions related to Iberian ham and red wine. There were a few memorable meals along the way as well.
Anyway, I left the group at Granada railway station quite early on Sunday morning (27th November) and headed back to Seville. Within the province of Granada I passed through the municipality of Huétor-Tájar which is famous throughout Spain for asparagus, for which it has an appellation. I stopped for breakfast and took some photos of the asparagus fields; below is one of them.

Continuing on my journey I stopped again, at the Laguna de Fuente Piedra. This is a salt water lagoon and is the largest in the south of Spain. It is also the site for the largest breeding ground of flamingos in the Iberian peninsular and the second largest in Europe. Below, is a photo which shows a group of the aforementioned birds in the lagoon.

Food & wine tours Spain

From blog to blog again

2011-11-15T08:11:00.004+01:00

Here is a link to a blog entry about a tour I organised for a group of nine people. The tour involved olive oil, red wine, great food and lots of laughing!

Olive oil and wine tour

2011-10-11T09:11:00.009+02:00

Yesterday, I took a group of nine people on a tour which combined a visit to an olive oil mill and to a boutique winery where we had lunch. The first two photos below show the olive varieties that are prevalent in the mountainous area of the province of Cadiz. The first one is of manzanilla olives and the second lechin olives. As can be seen some are already turning black. The mill will start to make extra virgin olive oil in about three weeks' time.

In the next photo the group are tasting two olive oils, the first a single varietal manzanilla oil and the second a coupage of manzanilla and lechin.

Leaving the mill we set off for the the winery, where just a few days before the last grapes had been picked. Due to the hot weather at the end of August and a lot of September, together with the prevalence of the hot levant wind, the vine foliage looks like it normally would at the end of November, not early October. This can be seen in the photo below.

The last photo shows bottling in action. At the winery we visited, I had never seen them bottling magnums before.

wine tour to Ronda
olive oil tour

Magazine and television

2011-07-08T12:25:00.005+02:00

In two posts that I put on my blog in May I talked about a trip I did to the Sierra of Aracena with a journalist and a photographer from Hong Kong. The journalist was going to write an article about the Iberian pig for a magazine called Next, which is published in Chinese. I was promised a copy of the magazine, but as has happened in the past the magazine did not arrive. Anyway, I did an Iberian ham tour a few days ago with two lawyers from Hong Kong who had read the article. Actually, they had brought the article with them and kindly gave it to me. As my knowledge of Chinese is zero, I have enjoyed looking at the photographs! They is one of me eating an Iberian pork rib!
On another note, I recevied an e-mail from the production company that were filming last year with the chef Rick Stein in Spain. In my blog entry of 27th October last year I mentioned that they had filmed me with Rick at El Rinconcillo in Seville. I said that the series was going to be called "Hidden Spain". In fact, it will be called "Rick Stein's Spain". Anyway, I was given the dates for the 4-part series which will be shown on BBC 2 in the UK. They are as follows:

Programme 1
Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Basque Country (San Sebastian)
Thursday 14th July 2011, 8.00pm

Programme 2
Cantabria, Basque Country, La Rioja, Navarra, Catalonia
Thursday 21st July 2011, 8.00pm

Programme 3
Catalonia, Valencia, Castilla-La Mancha
Thursday 28th July 2011, 8.00pm

Programme 4
Extremadura, Andalucia
Thursday 4th August 2011, 8.00pm

Each of the programmes is an hour in length. You should, hopefully, see me on the programme on 4th August.

Food and wine tours in Spain

Wine tour to Arcos de la Frontera

2011-06-19T19:39:00.013+02:00

I thought that it was time to write up on the wine tour that I run to Arcos de la Frontera, especially as I have been there quite a few times recently; on Thursday (16th June) I took two Australian women there. The winery that I go to is to the east of Arcos and is in a wonderful setting. The main grape that they grow is Syrah, along with smaller quantities of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and a local grape, Tintilla de Rota (related to the Graciano grape from La Rioja). In the first photo below you can see one of the vineyard workers doing some weeding.

In the second photo you can see some Syrah grapes which are already a good size.

The next photo is a view over the tops of the vines to a nearby reservoir.

The winery ferments its top wines in truncated cone vats made from French oak. These are more costly and involve a lot more labour, as during the alcoholic fermentation the skins that rise to the surface are punched down manually using a special stainless still device.

All of the winery's red wines are barrel aged. The period of ageing is from 5 months to around 17-18 months for the top wine. All the oak used is from France. Below is a photo of the barrel room.

The last photo in the winery shows my clients during the wine tasting at the end of the visit.

The beautiful white town of Arcos de la Frontera is situated on a ridge with cliffs on either side, giving it a very dramatic setting. Below are two photos taken from either side of the ridge.

We had lunch at a great local spot in Arcos before wandering around the narrow streets and enjoying the fantastic views from the Plaza del Cabildo and other look out points.

wine tour to Arcos de la Frontera

A recent visit to Jerez

2011-06-07T16:56:00.006+02:00

I meant to post an entry about a recent visit to Jerez a few days ago, but due to being out on tour so much I haven't got round to it until now. I spent two days with a group of five women from Hong Kong who did the tour to the Sierra of Aracena and the one to Jerez. In Jerez we visited two wineries and in the first photo below you can see fino sherry being taken out of the sherry butts. The wine is being taken out of butts that correspond to the second "criadera". The wine will subsequently be introduced into butts that compose the first "criadera". If this all sounds foreign to you, then you must come on a sherry tour with me!

In the second photo my clients are just starting the wine tasting at the end of the visit. I think they are just about to taste a manzanilla.

In the third photo, taken at the second winery, you can see my friend Andrés serving wine directly from the sherry butt using a "venencia". Andrés has worked in the sherry industry all his adult life and it is said that he has amontillado running throuhg his veins instead of blood!

wine tour to Jerez

Visit to the Sierra of Aracena Part 2

2011-05-18T10:40:00.010+02:00

Following on from yesterday's blog entry I want to comment on the meal that I had with the journalist and photographer from Hong Kong. On my Iberian ham tour we nearly always go to the same restaurant in Aracena. I have been going there to eat for the last 17 years and never order anything; we just sit down and food arrives! The food at the restaurant is nothing fancy, but is based on very fine raw material, which means everything tastes wonderful. Before sitting down to eat we went into the kitchen to say hello to José Vicente who is both the chef and the owner. He had a plentiful supply of local wild mushrooms. The first photo below is of Boletus aereus, often known locally as tentullo. The second photo is of chanterelle mushrooms with a few boletus thrown in.

Sitting down to eat, we started with some salchichón (see photo below), which is made like chorizo; but instead of paprika, whole peppercorns are used. The salchichón we tried was also marinated in oloroso wine. As you can probably guess it was very good.

Our next dish was thinly sliced raw boletus mushrooms with chopped parsley, balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil (photo below); a gastronomic delight.

Another mushroom dish followed with more thickly cut boletus cooked on a griddle, or in Spanish "a la plancha". Sprinkled with chopped flat-leaf parsley, this was yet another delicious dish (photo below).

Continuing with our meal, the next dish was a "revuelto". This consisted of chip-like potatoes, garlic and onion, cooked in oil at a much lower temperature than normal so all the ingredients were poached. These ingredients were then put into a pan which was heated up and eggs were broken over them and gently stirred in before being served with some acorn-fed Iberian ham on top. I don't think I even need to say how good this dish was (photo below).

Next up was a salad of baked red peppers with goats' milk cheese. This was another success with my friends from Hong Kong (photo below).

The next photo shows an Iberian pork rib. I don't think I or any of the people who have been on tours with me have ever tasted better ribs in their life.

Our last savoury dish was Iberian pork shoulder served with chanterelle mushrooms, green beans and a few chips, as can be seen below. Iberian pork cannot be compared to normal pork, as in my opinion it is far superior, especially if it comes from acorn-fed pigs, which is always the case in the restaurant we ate at.

To finish we had some local cherries followed by "turrón" ice-cream with chestnuts (see photos below).

As you can imagine we were all pretty full at the end of the meal. I for one did not need any dinner that evening. I look forward to receiving a copy of the magazine from Hong Kong with the article on the Iberian pig and all the good things that derive from it. I will enjoy looking at the photographs as reading Chinese characters is a little beyond me.

Iberian ham tours in Spain

Visit to the Sierra of Aracena Part 1

2011-05-17T12:29:00.006+02:00

At the end of last week, I took a journalist and photographer from Hong Kong to the Sierra of Aracena. The journalist, whose name is Ivy Ngan, is the travel editor for Next , Hong Kong's most widely circulated general interest magazine. She is writing an article on the Iberian ham and everything related to the Iberian pig and wanted me to take her and Gary, the photographer, on my Iberian ham tour.

We started by visiting the Iberian pig farm that I normally go to. Quite a few of the sows used for breeding had just given birth and so we had a chance to see the piglets getting their feed of milk from their mothers. Below is a short video showing one mother and her offspring.

The photo below shows José Antonio, the pig farmer, holding one of the recently-born piglets.

In the final photo at the farm José Antonio has just given food to some 6-month old Iberian pigs, with Ivy and Gary to the left of the photo.

After leaving the farm, we headed to one of the most important ham curing factories in Jabugo. After seeing thousands upon thousands of hams hanging up and chorizo being smoked, we were given a lesson in ham cutting by Rafael. As well as being in charge of the restaurant area and attending to visitors, he is a "maestro jamonero", a master ham cutter. In the short video below you can see him in action.

Tomorrow, I will continue with the second part of our trip with photos and comments on the lunch we had.

Iberian ham tour

Grapes in the Ronda area

2011-05-10T10:38:00.005+02:00

At the end of last week I ran a wine tour to the Ronda area and took some photos of the vines in one of the vineyards. You can see the bunches of grapes that are startin got form, although they are still quite small at the moment. The first photo is of Merlot grapes and the second Tempranillo. On my next wine tour to Ronda I'll take some more photos.

wine tours to Ronda

Sierra of Aracena in spring

2011-04-14T09:01:00.007+02:00

Last week I ran several tours to the Sierra of Aracena. The main theme of this tour is the Iberian pig and the wonderful acorn-fed Iberian ham that comes from it. After the rain we had over the autumn and winter the coutryside is looking fantastic at the moment. Below is a photograph taken at the farm that we visit. The yellow flowers of the broom shrub can be seen everywhere.

In the second photo you can see the initial stages of the formation of holm oak acorns. These are one of the two kinds of acorns that the Iberian pigs gorge on during the acorn season, the other being the acorns from the cork oak.

The last photo is of a very pregant Iberian sow that will be giving birth in early May.

Iberian ham tour

Destilling anisette in the mountains of Seville

2011-01-31T09:58:00.013+01:00

On Friday of last week I went to the towns of Cazalla de la Sierra and Constantina, both situated in the Sierra or mountainous region in the north of the province of Seville. My reason for going to them was to visit a few of the distilleries that continue to produce anisette and anisette-based liqueurs made with wild cherries. I am planning on adding a new route to those offered by my company "A Question of Taste". This new route will include a visit to an artisanal producer of superlative goats' cheese and then to one of the anisette distilleries. I visited the cheesemaker last Wednesday but stupidly left my camera at home.
I visited Cazalla de la Sierra first, a beautiful white town, with its share of historic building as well as lots of storks that nest on the churches and other high buildings. Below is a photograph of one.

The producer I visited is called Miura. Their installations are housed in an old Franciscan monastery that dates from the 16th century. They are very famous for their wild cherry liqueur. The wild cherries macerate in the anisette for months before bottling. Below is a photo of the distilling equipment. Heat is provided by burning holm oak wood from local trees.

As well as using wild cherries, they also produce a liqueur now with cultivated cherries and another with blackberries. All can I say is that they are all very good and far removed from a lot of the industrially produced liqueurs that use chemical essences and so on.
From Cazalla I then headed along a beautiful country road to Constantina where I went to see an anisette producer known as "La Violetera". They are still family run and are very artisanal. The photograph below is of one of the owners showing me the wild cherries that macerate in the anisette. I tasted their wild cherry liqueur and it was as good as in the first place.

Food and wine tours in Spain

The olive harvest for oil has begun

2010-11-21T07:32:00.016+01:00

Last week I visited olive oil mills with clients on three occasions. At one of the mills they had been making oil for about a week; the first olive oil is produced in the south of Spain in early November. A lot of the olives at this time are still green or just turning black. They produce less oil than ripe black olives, but the oli is of a very high quality. Below, is a photo of olives arriving at the mill and being introduced into a hopper

The second photo shows the oilves being taken along a convoyer belt. Before they reach the milling machine, leaves will be removed with a ventilator and the olives will be washed.

The next photo shows the oilves going into the milling machine.

The paste produced by the milling machine goes into a "batidora", a machine that mixes the paste together while it is heated to around 24ºC, so that the oil can be extracted more easily. The mixing operation also causes the oil to form into larger droplets which also aids extraction.

The paste goes into a horizontally-axised centrifuge which separates the solid from the liquid part; the liquid part comprises water and oil. These are separated using a vertically-axised centrufuge. In the photo below, you can see the oil coming out.

We were able to taste olive oil that was just a day old. It was superb, with notes of freshly cut grass, tomato leaf and banana.

Olive oil tours in Spain

Television and Iberian pigs

2010-10-27T19:08:00.009+02:00

Last Saturday (October 23rd), I spent the evening with the well-known British chef Rick Stein and the production team who are filming a series with him which will be called Hidden Spain. The series will be shown on the BBC sometime during the spring next year.
I organised for them to film at a bar where locals perform flamenco. The place was absolutely packed making it a little difficult for the cameraman and sound guy to move around. Rick was sat among the performers and it seemed he had a fantastic time. From there we went on to El Rinconcillo, probably the oldest bar in Seville, being founded in 1670. They filmed me talking to Rick about different aspects of southern Spain with a lot of emphasis on the food, especially the Iberian ham. Between the two of us we finished off three plates of ham during the filming! Each plate was of course accompanied by a glass of fino, the perfect match. Below is a photo of myself with Rick and the production team after even more eating!

For those of you who are not familiar with him, Rick Stein is the first person on the left of the photograph. I am next to him and next to me is David Pritchard, the head of the production company and producer of the series that is being filmed.

Well, on Monday (October 25th) I was up in Iberian ham country running a tour which included a visits to an Iberian pig farm and a ham factory in the town of Jabugo as well as a gourmet lunch in Aracena.
The acorns from the holm oaks and cork oaks are now starting to fall off the trees. On the farm we visited, those pigs that will make the supreme sacrifice of providing us with so many fine Iberian pork products are now rummaging around for them. Below is a short video of the pigs in action.

Iberian ham tours

The end of the harvest in Ronda

2010-10-23T17:05:00.011+02:00

Last Thursday (21st October), I ran a wine tour to the Ronda area, a place that I have written about in previous blog entries. In the first winery that we visited, they had picked the last of their grapes on the previous Friday. The first photograph below shows some of the winery's vines. As you can see the leaves are already changing colour.

In the second photograph you can see some grape skins that have come out of a basket press. Up until this year, the winery has dried out all the skins and used them as compost. This harvest, for the first time, some of them are going to be used to make orujo, Spain's equivalent of grappa. I am looking forward to tasting some!

In the second winery that we went to, they had finished harvesting grapes just four days before. We were fortunate in being able to taste quite a few of the new wines. One was still fermenting, some had just finished fermenting, whilst others were already starting the malolactic fermentation. It's an interesting excercise tasting wines which are a long way off from the finished product, and listening to the winemaker as he tells you what he is looking for in each one. The photo below shows the winemaker Rodrigo taking a sample of a Peti Verdot wine for us to taste.

In the last photograph my clients can be seen tasting some of the wines that are already on sale to the public.

Wine tours in Spain

A few good books

2010-09-24T11:49:00.005+02:00

Well, it's been a while since I last wrote anything; so much for my good intentions of posting regularly. Let's hope that I can change this over the next few months. I have, thankfully, been very busy recently with lots of tours, tastings and cooking classes. I started my company A Question of Taste in March 2002 and 2010 is turning out to be the best year I have had so far. Hopefully, this trend will continue over the next few years and we are spared any unwelcome surprises.
I am quite a regular buyer of books related to food and wine and just wanted to comment on the two most recent additions to my collection, both of which I would highly recommend. The World Cheese Book edited by Juliet Harbutt is a great reference book on cheeses from around with world. It includes over 750 cheeses with tasting notes and advice on how best to enjoy each cheese. The book is really well set out making it simple to use. The other book is The Flavour Thesaurus by Niki Segnit. The writer has drawn up a list of 99 flavours and has then presented nearly a thousand different pairings with these flavours. The basic flavours include such things as lamb, ginger, mushroom, asparagus, apricot, parsley, etc. Each flavour is listed with a series of pairings. The descriptions with each pairing are really well-written and often include recipes. I definitely feel like heading off to the kitchen every time I pick the book up . A few nights ago, after reading about aubergines and ginger, I prepared the Japanese recipe that was described and it was wonderful. I can see the book becoming a valuable aid to cooking in our household.

Food and wine tours and cooking classes in Spain

The state of the grapes

2010-06-18T09:29:00.012+02:00

I took some clients on a wine tour on Wednesday (June 16th) to the Ronda area. Remembering to take my camera along I took some photos of the vines to show the differences in the development of different grape varieties. The first photograph is of Merlot grapes. This is a variety that develops early and you can see that the berries are already quite well formed.

The second photograph is of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. This is a grape which develops quite a bit later than Merlot and you can see on the individual bunches some grapes are quite vsiible whilst others are only just starting to form. At the vineyard where the first two photographs were taken there is almost a two month difference in the harvesting of the two grape varieties

The final photograph was taken at another vineyard and is of Pinot Noir grapes. This grape is another earlier developer As you can see the bunches of grapes show good berry formation.

The two vineyards we went to are at between 800 and 900m above sea level, which means that although it gets pretty hot in the summer the night temperatures are cool, which ensures that the grapes maintain their acidity.

Wine tours to Ronda, Spain

Another article about A Question of Taste

2010-06-07T16:51:00.009+02:00

It has been quite a while since I added anything to this blog and there are no excuses for my lack of regularity in my postings. It is true to say, however, that over the last few months I have not really had much time to reflect on what I have been doing. Things have been pretty busy since my last post, with quite a few extended periods with no days off. I was quite glad this last weekend that I did not have any tours. It gave me time to be with my family, do some reading and a bit of gardening. We should have some ripe tomatoes in the next few weeks as can be seen in the photo below!

Anyway, I wanted to include a link to an article written about a tapas tour I organised for the editors of an on-line food magazine called realfoodtraveler.com . The article which you can link to here is excellent, except of course for the remark that my hair is starting to go grey!

Tapas tour in Seville

Culinary group tour 9-14 March 2010

2010-03-14T10:23:00.041+01:00

This last week, I have spent 5 days (9th-14th March) with a group of 16 people who were mainly students and staff from a culinary school in the United States. This blog entry is a small summary of what we did, which will hopefully give people a taste (no pun intended!) of our activities with larger groups.

We started on 9th March with an evening tapas tour. Unfortunately, I did not take my camera along and so have no graphic evidence. With 16 people everything was organised in advance, so each bar knew what we were going to eat before we arrived. It all ran pretty smoothly with lots of great food, including spinach and chickpeas, ham croquettes, Iberian pork cheeks, mushrooms with garlic and parsley, deep-fried tiny squid and a selection of Spanish cheeses.
On Wednesday 10th there was a morning walking tour of the Reales Alcazares, Barrio Santa Cruz and Cathedral with an incredibly knowledgeable local guide. Then, in the afternoon the group had a cooking class with chef Willy Moya. The class was all about Andalusian cold soups: gazpacho, salmorejo and ajo blanco. Everyone also learnt how to make some interesting variations on these: gazpacho with raspberry flavoured vinegar and chopped prawns, salmorejo with carrots, and beetroot gazpacho. Below is a photo taken at the class.

On the Thursday we went to visit wineries in Jerez, where authentic sherry, sherry vinegar and brandy are made. We went to a large winery with its great cathedral-like architecture and then on to a boutique winery, a great contrast. We tasted superlative sherry wines, brandies and vinegars in both places. Some of the wines and brandies were served straight from the barrels which is a rate treat. The photo below is of the tasting at the first winery.

To follow are two photos at the second winery, where we were shown around by the owner.

Well, everyone enjoyed themselves so much at the wineries that we forgot about the time. This meant that when we got to the excellent seafood restaurant in Sanlúcar de Barrameda it was already 3:45pm!
Friday's tour focused on the Iberian pig. We started with a visit to a ham-curing factory in the small town of Jabugo. If you love fine Iberian ham, going to Jabugo is a kind of pilgrimage. Hopefully, the photos below will be enjoyed by all those of you who are able to eat pork products.

From Jabugo we went on to Aracena for a gourmet lunch of local products. Just from the Iberian pig there was liver with coriander, ribs, stewed cheeks, shoulder and loin. There were also vegetable dishes including asparagus and of course fine Spanish red wine. The walk up to the castle after lunch helped burn off a few calories!

The tour on Saturday took us first to an olive oil mill that produces a range of organic and non-organic oils. The mill which is situated outside the beautiful village of Zahara de la Sierra has been talked about on this blog before. Below is a photo of some of the group tasting olive oil with great local bread

From the olive mill we went on to one of the boutique wineries close to Ronda. I didn't take any photos there but you can see some in the blog entry for 25th September 2009. Anyway, the wines went down really well with everyone. We then headed on to Ronda for a specially prepared tasting menu at the Michelin-starred restaurant Tragabuches. This was a fine dining experience which put the icing on the cake of what I think was a great 5-day gastronomic experience. I can still taste the wonderful veal cheeks with carrot and ginger puree that was matched to perfection with a fantastic red wine from the Ronda area.

Gastronomic tours in Spain

From blog to blog

2010-02-24T09:24:00.011+01:00

Well, here in Seville it has just kept on raining. I mentioned in a previous blog that it had not rained so much in over fifty years and that was on 11th January; it's now almost the end of February! We are off to Lisbon on Friday for a few days and were hoping that the weather would turn around but the forecasts do not look too hopeful. We may be forced into going to the Port Institute more than once!
Bookings continue to come in, so things are looking better each day. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the Spanish economy as a whole. The country continues to be in recession and unemployment figures hover around the 20% mark. Thankfully, here in Spain the family network is very strong and acts as a safety net for a lot of people when things aren't going well.
Two days ago I did one of my tapas tours with a fantastic couple from Montreal, Marie-Eve and Michael. They both love good food and good wine and were great people to be with. Anyway, Marie-Eve has a blog and has written about the tapas tour which you can read about here.

Tapas tour in Spain

A Question of Taste on the radio

2010-01-20T10:42:00.007+01:00

Over the Christmaas period I did a lot of tapas tours in Seville. One of my clients on one of the tours, Bob Lape, has a daily presentation on a New York radio station, called "Bob Lape's Dining Diary". He was kind enough to feature our tapas tour on his programme on 18 January. Here is a link if you would like to listen to it.

Thanks Bob!

Food and wine tours Spain

Happy 2010!

2010-01-11T09:55:00.026+01:00

We are now well into January and here in Seville we have been having one of the wettest periods for over 50 years. It even snowed here yesterday for the first time since 1954! Unfortunately, the snow didn't stick. Below is a photo of yours truly in the garden with the snow falling.

Christmas in Spain finishes on 6 January, Epiphany or Kings, when presents are given. As this was just 5 days ago, I thought it would be a good idea to write about some of the wines that we drank over the festive period. If we spend the holidays in Spain, we go to my parents-in-laws' house for Christmas and New Year. As they provide the food, my wife and I provide the wine with the odd bottle supplied by my brother-in-law.
At the start of the major meals we normally eat a lot of fine prawns and crab which go very well with cava, champagne and non-oaked whites. We drank a number of champagnes with Roederer NV standing out as the best. This is a very elegant wine with a rich nose, which is nutty, fruity and with toasted notes. It has great depth on the palate for a non-vintage champagne and is very long on the finish. Among the dry whites that we tasted the Terras Gauda 2008 (D.O. Rias Baixas) was probably the favourite. The wine is around 70% Albariño together with Loureiro and Caiño. They are all native grapes of the region of Galicia with albariño being the best known. The wine has a great nose of apple, peach and citric fruit together with floral notes and dried herbs. On the palate it's fresh with good acidity with all the aromas of the nose and some mineral notes on the finish.
The reds accompanied dishes such as roast lamb, Iberian pork loin and stuffed squid. The squid stuffing and the accompanying sauce lend themselves more to reds than to whites. Here are the wines that stood out for me:

Pintia 2004 (D.O. Toro) - This is a big bold wine made from 100% Tempranillo or Tinto del Toro as it is known in the area. The nose shows very ripe fruit (plums and blackberries) together with mineral and balsamic notes. Really full-bodied on the palate with marked tannins although not harsh. The wine improved in the glass and would probably have benefited from being decanted an hour or so before drinking. This will still be drinking well in 5 or 6 years time or even longer.

Pago de los Capellanes Reserva 2004 (D.O. Ribera del Duero) - The wine is 90% Tempranillo or Tinto Fino and10% Cabernet Sauvignon. It has a wonderful nose of blackberries and blackcurrants with really fine toasted aromas. Medium-bodied on the palate with great balance; the oak, tannins and fruit all well-integrated.

Finca Sandoval 2006 (D.O. Manchuela) - This wine is a coupage of Syrah, Monastrell (Mouvedre) and Bobal. On the nose aromas of ripe black fruit preserved in alcohol, banana (yes!), coffee-like toasted aromas, as well as some mineral and floral notes. On the palate it's a potent, full-bodied but well-rounded wine with a very long finish

Roda I 2005 (D.O.C. Rioja) - This was one of my favourite wines in the Roda tasting that I wrote about in July of last year. This wine still needs a few more years before it reaches its peak but it is still very good at the moment, especially after a bit of aeration. On the nose fine aromas of ripe plums, chocolate and spice with toasted and lactic notes. On the palate it is medium-bodied with good acidity and lots of fruit. The tannins are already well-integrated and the wine has a long elegant finish.

Well, I am looking forward to an eventful 2010 with among other things plenty of fine wine, like the ones described above. Work wise things could not be better with lots of bookings for tours already. Whoever may read this blog, I hope that this year is a fulfilling one with lots of happy and worthwhile experiences.

Food and wine tours in Spain with A Question of Taste

Vega Sicilia wine tasting

2009-11-27T10:06:00.021+01:00

Last night I had the privilege of attending a tasting in Seville of wines made by the fabled winery Vega Sicilia. Vega Sicilia is Spain's answer to a first-growth Bordeaux, with its older vintages fetching very high prices at auction. The tasting took place in the Casino de la Exposición which is attached to the Lope de Vega theatre; a beautiful setting for a wine tasting, as can be seen in the photo below, taken prior to the start of the event.

The tasting was attended by over 200 people, a record for a tasting of Vega Sicilia wines. It was led by Xavier Ausás who is the winemaker and technical director of Vega Sicilia. The tasting was organised by Tierra Nuestra, a wine company that I worked for before setting up A Question of Taste. I was waiting at the door with my brother-in-law to go into the tasting, when José Luis Becerra who runs Tierra Nuestra came out and asked us if we could help pouring wine. So, we spent half an hour working before the tasting started!
The Vega Sicilia group actually comprises 4 wineries: Vega Sicilia, Alión and Pintia in Spain,and Oremus Tokaj in Hungary. We started the tasting with a dry white wine from the Tokaj area, Mandolás 2006. The nose had opulent tropical fruit, floral and mineral notes. On the palate it showed high acidity and was slightly austere with some weight. The fruit showed through with honeyed and toasted notes.
We then went on to tasting two wines from the winery Pintia, situated in the Toro region in the province of Zamora. The principal grape variety is Tinto de Toro, a local variant of Tempranillo. Due to the hot summers, the grape has a thicker skin than in say Rioja. The first wine, Pintia 2007, has not been released yet. It was black cherry in colour with a very plummy nose with mineral and toasted aromas. On the palate it was still very tannic and somewhat astringent, but with great fruit. I think the wine will be excellent in a few years. We then tasted Pintia 2001, the first commercially available vintage. I found this wine to be a little rustic. It showed dark fruit, well-integrated oak and a mineral quality something like hot stones. On the palate the tannins were very much alive.
Two vintages of Alión were next in line. Alión is Vega Sicilia's second winery in the Ribera del Duero region. The first commercial vintage was from 1991. We tasted the 2006 and 2001.
Alión 2006, which is still not on the market, had a nose of blackberry and cranberry fruit with evident lactic notes. The wine was medium-bodied and quite subdued with a lot more time in bottle needed. The Alión 2001 was much more evolved as you would expect. Fruit and well-integrated toasted oak with a slight farmyardy aroma (not unpleasant). A very elegant wine on the palate with fruit, tannins and acidity well-integrated. Very persistent pure fruit on the finish.

Xavier Aúsas, seen in the photo above, then went on to present 9 vintages of Valbuena. I tasted the Valbuena 2005 and Valbuena 2004 side by side. The 2005 is a more forward wine with butterscotch and herby notes on the nose as well as plenty of fruit. The tannins are already rounding off in contrast to the 2004 which was a more austere wine. It will need more time to come round but will be a great wine as will the 2005. The Valbuena 2003 gave me the impression of a wine made in a hot year, being very Mediterranean in style with plenty of herby aromas and very ripe fruit. I was impressed with the fine oak shown on the nose of the Valbuena 2002 . The palate revealed high acidity with well-integrated tannins and good fruit.
It was then on to a very elegant Valbuena 2001 which showed a very deep nose of sweet fruit and fine oak. On the palate a very seductive wine with great balance. The Valbuena 2000 was much less opulent than the previous wine but not at all austere with a long finish.
The Valbuena 1999 was a much fuller style of wine with plenty of fruit on the nose and on the palate. Very well-integrated tannins and a very persistent finish. The Valbuena 1998 had a complex nose of tobacco, leather, spice and excellent ripe fruit. Another wine with a very seductive palate. For the last of the Valbuenas we went back another fifteen years. The Valbuena 1983 was a completely different animal to all the previous wines. On the nose aromas of freshly ground coffee hit me straight away together with earthy notes and hints of old sherry. Good fruit on the plate as well as toasted aromas and distinct notes of mushroom.
To finish the tasting we travelled back in time another 30 years! The Vega Sicilia Unico 1953 was a light brick red colour with a very wide evolved rim (see the wine in one of the glasses in the photo below). The nose gave me forest floor aromas together with notes of old sherry and brandy. On the palate the wine still had very good acidity with noticeable fruit and a certain dusty quality. The wine has lost a lot of flesh over the years but is still holding up well. A fifty-six year wine was a great way to end a fantastic wine tasting.

Wine tasting in Seville, Spain

More about Iberian ham, olive oil and cheese

2009-10-29T09:41:00.019+01:00

Since last writing on this blog I have been very busy, running lots of our one-day tours, organising cooking classes with chef Willy Moya, and taking people on tapas tours around Seville. I have also spent 4 days with someone from a British production company who are probably going to make a 6-part series on Spanish cuisine which will be presented by a famous chef. The person I was with was making a recce visit to do some filming, so that an initial presentation of possible content can be made before serious research goes ahead.
We started by filming in some of the best tapas bars in Seville on a very busy Saturday night with me talking about what we were eating and about the whole idea of tapas in general. The next morning we set off up into the mountains to the north-west of Seville to visit a man who breeds Iberian pigs and makes fantastic acorn-fed Iberian ham, as well as all the other cured meat products. We toured around different parts of the farm, seeing pigs of different ages. In one area, as we stood under a holm oak tree we could hear the plop of acorns as they fell on the ground; the acorn-eating season for the pigs was just starting! Below, are a few photos I took. The first shows an oak tree that is full of acorns, the second some free-range Iberian pigs rooting around for acorns.

As well as looking at the world of the Iberian pig and having a great lunch at a restaurant in the town of Aracena, a usual haunt of mine, we visited my favourite olive oil producer just outside the town of Beas, in the province of Huelva. The olive oil, made by a perfectionist in small quantities, comes from 5 varieties of olive: Arbequina, Hojiblanca, Picual, Manzanilla and Picudo. The olives are processed at the optimum time for producing high-quality oil with an incredible attention to detail and absolute cleanliness. A rigourous selection of olives is made before processing to ensure only the healthiest olives are used. The result is a complex olive oil with an amazing aroma and taste that puts it on the same level as very fine wine.
On the last day of filming we went to visit a producer of the cheese known as Queso or Torta de la Serena. The area where the cheese is produced is located in the south-eastern part of the province of Badajoz in the region of Extremadura. I wrote something about this cheese and its cousin Torta del Casar earlier this year. The cheese is made from the unpasteurised milk of Merino sheep that are milked twice a day giving around just 300ml of milk per ewe! As I mentioned in my entry earlier this year the coagulating agent for the milk comes from the flower of a thistle. To be precise, what is used are the dried stamens of the cardoon (Cynara cardunculus). They are steeped in water and then removed after being squeezed. It is the liquid that is then added to the milk to curdle it. The curd that separates from the whey goes into muslin bags that are put into moulds and left on shelving, open end facing down to allow for liquid to drain off. After a few hours the cheese is taken out of the mould and turned around. This process can be seen in the photo below. The cheese is left for a few more hours before being

salted and put into the curing rooms where each cheese will spend around 2 months. In the photo below you can see cheeses that are curing on wooden shelving, something that is normally prohibited. What you normally see is plastic or metallic shelving for purposes of hygiene. If this was the case with the Queso or Torta de la Serena, the cheese would become a hard cheese. The bacteria that stops the cheese from going hard only does its work when the cheeses on on wood! This is absolutely amazing. Some of the cheeses are more liquid and are known as Torta de la Serena, whilst others are firmer but still spreadable. These are known as Queso de la Serena.

Exclusive food and wine tours in Spain

Grape harvest in the Ronda area

2009-09-25T10:20:00.020+02:00

It's been over two months since I last added anything to this blog, which is very bad. I will try and be more frequent in my writing in the future.
Recently I have been to the Ronda area quite a few times with clients, visiting some of the great boutique wineries there. It's harvest time at the moment and so it's a great time for visits. Seeing everything happening makes it much easier to explain the wine making process. The grape varieties grown in the area include: Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, Petit Verdot and Pinot Noir. In the wineries that I visit the Tempranillo, Merlot, Syrah and Pinot Noir have been picked and are going through cold maceration, alcoholic fermentation, post maceration or malolactic fermentation. Alcohol levels will be quite high this year due to August being hotter than normal.
In the photo below Syrah grapes are passing along a selection table where unripe, squashed and dried out grapes are removed along with any leaves. The grapes then pass through a de-stemming machine before being pumped into pre-cooled fermentation vats where they will be kept in cold maceration before allowing the temperature to rise, when selected yeasts will be added and fermentation starts.

When fermentation finishes, along with any period of post-maceration, the wine is drained off and stored in a separate tank. The remaining skins are then gently pressed to obtain press wine. If the pressure applied is too high, bitter tannins from the pips will also be extracted, something that nobody wants. Below are some photos of the grape skins and the pressing process.

To finish, I have included a photo of a wine tasting at one of the Ronda wineries taken three days ago with a fantastic group of people from Canada. I did a great tapas tour with the same group last Saturday. In one of the bars, a temple to the best acorn-fed Iberian ham, one of the group, Jennifer, ended up cutting ham for us and doing it very well! But, as they say, that is another story.

Wine tours to Ronda, Spain

Roda 1 tasting

2009-07-07T18:31:00.021+02:00

On Monday of last week (June 29th) I had the privilege of attending a superb vertical wine tasting in which all the Roda 1 wines that have been released on the market were tasted. Roda 1 has established itself over the last decade or so as one of the top Rioja wines and this was a fantastic opportunity to compare different vintages and to see how the wines were developing. As many of the wines are no longer available for purchase, except from private collectors, this was a unique experience. The tasting took place in a building called Naves de Barranco, built in the latter part of the 19th century as a fish market. It is now used principally for exhibitions organised by the local tourist board and there is definitely no smell of fish!

We tasted 13 different wines, comprising all the vintages from 1992 to 2005, with the exception of 1993 when Roda 1 was not made. The winemaker and director of Bodegas Roda, Agustín Santolaya, gave a superb presentation before he left everyone alone to taste the different vintages. After about 45 minutes he then commented on each of the different years and asked all the participants to name their three favourite wines.
For me there was only one vintage that I didn't really like and that was 1992, which seemed rather dried out. All the rest had plenty of dark fruit and good tannic structure, which was sometimes a little austere as with the 1994. 1997 considered a lesser vintage in the Rioja produced a wine which was Burgundian in style and much appreciated by everyone. The 2003 in contrast, produced in a very hot year, was Mediterranean in style with notes of wild herbs and balsamic aromas.

Unsurprisingly, the most voted wines came from vintages which had been declared as excellent in the Rioja, that is to say 1994, 1995, 2001, 2004 and 2005. Almost everyone's favourite wine was the 2001. This for me was the star of the tasting. The nose was complex and elegant. almost ethereal. In the mouth the acidity, fruit and tannins were all in perfect balance with a long and again very elegant finish. This is not a massive muscular wine that impresses for the first five minutes, but a wine that evolves in the glass and that when the bottle is finished you crave for more. My second-choice wine was the 1995, which I have tasted quite a few times, the last one being in the winery a few years ago. This was very polished with silk-like tannins and probably has quite a few more years to go before it starts to decline. My third wine was a difficult choice between the 2004 and 2005. Both these wines need a few more years before they are at their peak. I found the 2004 a bit more closed on the nose and the tannins of the 2005 more rounded.
I plumped for the 2005, but both wines will be fantastic.

After we finished the wine tasting we tasted one of the extra virgin olive oils that are made by Roda, but from Catalonia and not from the Rioja region. The olive oil called Dauro, is made from three kinds of olives; Arbequina, Hojiblanca and the Greek variety Koroneiki. On the nose the olive oil has an incredible complexity of aromas which include tomato leaf, apple, artichoke, freshly cut grass, grated lemon peel etc. On the palate it is not at all aggressive with just a slight piquancy at the back of the throat. I have used this olive oil many times and is for me one of the top three or four olive oils in Spain.

Wine tasting in Seville, Spain

Some more photos

2009-06-09T13:20:00.014+02:00

I took a few photos on a trip with some clients to Jerez last week. In the first photo we are about to start a wine, brandy and sherry vinegar tasting in the first winery that we visited

The second photo below was at a boutique winery where we were shown around by the owner.

On Saunday (June 7th) I led a group of 21 Belguims on an Iberian ham tour. The following are some photos taken at the ham-curing factory that we visited. They have over 1 million hams hanging in their cellars! They also have quite a lot of smoking rooms for their chorizo.

Food and wine tours from Seville, Spain

New photos at last!

2009-05-21T12:06:00.014+02:00

As promised in my last blog entry, I am going to add some recent photographs of tours that I have run. Last Friday (May 15th) I ran an olive oil tour to the Sierra of Grazalema, so above you can see my clients tasting some high quality extra virigin olive oils, Below the first photo is a view through a window at the olive oil mill and in the second goats are being cleared from the road!

Well, on Monday of this week (May 18th) I ran an evening tapas tour in Seville for a group fo 10 people from the UK. Three members of the group had been on a tapas tour with me last October and liked it so much that they wanted to repeat the experience with their partners and friends. Below is a photo in one of the bars that I often take people to.

On Tuesday (May 19th) I took some Australian clients on a wine tour in the Ronda aea. Below, is a photo of them with winemaker Rodrigo in the vineyard.

The final photograph is of a wine tasting lunch held yesterday (May 20th) at El Rinconcillo (est. 1670) with a group of clients from California. In the photo we are on the 4th course, pairing an amontillado with an excellent sheep's milk cheese

I hope to be adding photos of other tours soon.

Tapas tours, wine tours, olive oil tours and wine tastings

Very busy (thankfully!)

2009-05-07T12:19:00.006+02:00

My promise to write more entries in this blog have not been kept. This comes of having had too much work in April and the start of this month! Since writing last I have run all of the one days tours we offer at least once, with some being run four or five times. I have also done numerous tapas tours, several wine tastings and we've had quite a few cooking classes too.
I get to meet lots of winemakers, olive oil producers, ham producers, restaurant owners and so on, and they all have a similar story at the moment. The downturn in the economy is having a big effect on their businesses. There is quite a bit of pessimism around, tinged with the hope that things will turn around later this year. I hope so for all their sakes and for everyone else who is going through a bad patch.
Well, my wife gave me a new digital camera as a birthday present a few weeks ago; the old one stopped focusing properly. I will, therefore, be adding some photos to my blog entries. This, hopefully, will give people a better idea of the activities that we run.

Food and wine tours and cooking classes in Seville, Spain

Holy Week in Seville

2009-04-03T09:01:00.009+02:00

Things have been pretty hectic over the last few weeks with, unfortunately, very little time to sit down and write things for this blog. There have been days when I have left home at 8 in the morning and arrived back again at midnight with a tapas tour or wine tasting in the evening after a full day of touring. I have also done some things away from the normal activities of my company. I spent an afternoon with clients in the Doñana National Park, where I saw a Spanish Imperial eagle for the first time. I was also at a very large estate where they breed bulls for bull-fighting. I am not a fan of bull-fighting, but the bulls probably lead a better life than almost any other farm animal, except of course for the last 20 minutes in the bull ring.
In Seville, the weather is wonderful at the moment with fine sunny days. The smell of orange blossom pervades the air as the city gets ready for Holy Week with the first processions on Sunday. The Holy week in Seville is the most famous in Spain and it attracts a lot of people, both local and foreign. If you don't like crowds, then come to Seville at another time. I think, however, that this is something that is not to be missed. You do not have to have a religious faith to appreciate what is an amazing spectacle. It is something that involves all your senses. The visual appeal of the floats with their carved images,; the smell of incense mixed with orange blossom; the music which accompanies the different floats; the way the floats are carried by 'costaleros' in time to the music; the saetas (religious flamenco songs) sung from a balcony. It is very difficult to put into words something that you really have to experience.

Gastronomic tours with A Question of Taste

Sherry, extra virgin olive oil and acorn-fed Iberian ham

2009-03-20T19:39:00.006+01:00

Thankfully, I have been quite busy over the last few weeks and will be even busier next week. I have run excursions to Jerez, to the Sierra of Aracena and to the Sierra of Grazalema. That means I have been exposing clients to great sherries, excellent Iberian ham and superb extra virgin olive oils. There's also been some tapas tours around the great bars of Seville, with some fine warm weather to boot.
Sherry-style wines do not differ greatly from one year to the next, due to the solar system which they go through. This means that the wine that is bottled is a blend of many different vintages, Having said that, however, I think the lightest styles of fino and manzanilla can differ depnding on the time of year that they are bottled. These wines age in sherry butts under a layer of yeast. The thickness of the yeast changes during the year and is normally at its most vigorous in the spring. This will bring about changes in the wine such as the concentration of acetaldehydes, the chemical components that give finos and manzanillas their characteristic tanginess. One of the wineries in Sanlúcar de Barramdea does a special bottling of manzanilla in the winter, spring, summer and autumn every year and there are distinct differences in each of the bottlings.
Extra virgin olive oil definitely changes from one year to the other, especially if it is from a small producer and not from one that produces millions of litres. One of the olive mills that I visit frequently produces around 50,000 litres of very fine extra virgin olive oil. They produces single varietal oils as well as blends and have both organic and non-organic oils. I have tasted their oils from the last harvest quite a few times now and they taste different from the previous year. An oil of theirs that had a distinct taste of mustard leaves last year, has a more artichoke-like taste this year. Also, the pepperiness left at the back of your throat by the oil, which was very acute last year is less so this year. Fine extra virgin olive oil, therefore, is somewhat like fine wine, with variations from one vintage to the next. Also, some extra virgin olive oils can reach the price of fine wine!
Acorn-fed Iberian ham can also vary from one year to another. In years that are dry with very little rain, the trees that provide the acorns produce far less. The acorns are also much smaller than in years with a lot of rainfall. This means that when the pigs are eating acorns during the critical months before slaughter they are far less plentiful and not as nutritious. This will be reflected in the hams that are ready to eat several years later, after they have been fully cured. They will probably taste less sweet and not be so aromatic. In the area that I visit, hams made from pigs slaughtered this year should be very good as acorns have reached a good size and have been plentiful.

Wine tours to Jerez, olive oil tours to the Sierra of Grazalema and ham tours to the Sierra of Aracena

Cheeses from Extremadura

2009-03-03T09:59:00.009+01:00

Well, it's been a while since my last entry. I've been concentrating on getting clients and organising tours for later in the year. However, I will try to do some more writing this month.
Today I am going to write about two splendid cheeses which come from the Spanish region of Extremadura, an area situated to the north of the western part of Andalucía (where I live). These two cheeses are Torta del Casar and Torta de la Serena. They are both very alike, sharing a number of common characteristics. They are both made from non-pasteurised (raw) sheep's milk, principally from the Merino breed. Also, they both have a creamy texture and are therefore spreadable. The coagulating agent that is used for both cheeses is the flower from a species of thistle, something that is not very common elsewhere.
Historically, the cheeses that were made were meant to be similar to Manchego cheese, i.e. hard. However, quite often, the cheese turned out to be soft and these cheeses were rejected and left for the shepherd and his family to eat. No-one could understand why this happened and different theories were put forward. Some people thought it was the use of the thistle flower for coagulating the milk. Other thought that milking the sheep during a full moon softened the cheese, and so on. Eventually, it was dicovered that certain bacteria that contaminated the milk were the culprit. In cheese making when milk curdles the protein casein forms into chains, a process that will end up giving a solid texture. The microorganisms present in the milk for making the two "Tortas" break down the chains of casein, leading to cheeses with a creamy texture.
Well, after having rejected these "failed" cheeses for a very long time people came to their senses and realised that they were actually fantastic products. They became recognised types of Spanish cheese in 1969 when they appeared in the Catálogo de Quesos published by the Dirección General de Ganadería.
The cheeses, which are aged for around two months, are best bought whole. They are cylindrical in shape and weigh between 500g and just over a kilo. What people normally do when they are going to start one is to slice the top off. You can then dip a knife in and spread the cheese on toasted bread or crackers. If you don't eat all the cheese at once put the sliced top back on before storing.
Both cheeses, as mentioned have a creamy texture and are intensely flavoured with a slight bitterness. Also, the Torta de la Serena often has an added piquancy. If you have not tried these cheeses before I recommend that you do as I think they are possibly the most characterful ones in Spain.

Food and wine tours in Andalucia, Spain

Budget Spanish reds

2009-02-09T12:18:00.014+01:00

Let me digress from the title of this entry for a moment by dwelling on a very good sporting weekend. I follow the Spanish football team Betis and am an avid fan of Welsh rugby. On Saturday Betis beat arch-rivals Seville in the local derby played in Seville's ground and yesterday Wales beat Scotland away in the first round of the Six Nations tournament. Could we be on the road to a second successive grand slam? Fingers crossed.
Anyway, as mentioned in an earlier entry, due to the economic downturn we are drinking a lot more wine that is in the lower price bracket and through shops like Tierra Nuestra in Seville and Huelva are finding some excellent wines for 6 euros or less. Most of the wines are quite fruit forward and have maybe 5 or 6 months of oak ageing or none at all.I am not going to bore you with any long-winded tasting notes but just a short list of enjoyable everyday wines that will help to keep the bank manager at arm's length:

Laderas de El Seque 2007 (D.O. Alicante) - principally Monastrell with a dose of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah
Casa Castillo 2007 (D.O. Jumilla) - Monastrell
Arrocal 2006 (D.O. Ribera del Duero) - Tempranillo
Baltasar Gracian Garnacha Viñas Viejas 2006 (D.O. Calatayud)
Garnacha de Fuego 2007 (D.O. Calatayud)
Misterio de Fontana 2007 (D.O. Uclés) - Tempranillo with 10% Cabernet Sauvignon
Códice 2006 (Castilla la Mancha but not D.O.) - Tempranillo

Wine tours in Spain

Condado de Huelva

2009-01-28T09:19:00.019+01:00

The Condado de Huelva is a Denominación de Origen (D.O.) for wine and vinegar. D.O.'s have their own governing bodies which are there to regulate, in the case of wine, things like the grape varieties that are permitted, maximum yields, ageing methods and so on.
The Condado de Huelva produces sherry-like wines, young white wines, a few reds as well as vinegars and brandies (not included in the D.O.). A D.O. for vinegar production is only shared by two other regions, Jerez in Spain and Modena in Italy. Up until the early 1980s the area supplied a lot of the sherry-style wines to Jerez which could not produce enough of its own sherry to satisfy demand. With the decline in the market for sherry the Condado wines were no longer needed in Jerez and sales dropped dramatically which eventually brought about a large reduction in vineyard area. The situation has been alleviated a little with the production of young white wines from the local grape Zalema. These can be pretty good, being light and fruity for easy drinking.
On Tuesday of this week I went to the area to look at possible places to visit for half-day tours and for an itinerary I am putting together for groups that come to play golf on the Huelva coastline. My first visit was to a winery out in the countryside that produces, principally, young white wines. I was shown around by a very affable person, but the winery really didn't appeal to me as a place to take people. Anyway, I then set off to La Palma del Condado, a town with a beautiful old centre with a number of fantastic squares containing historic churches and fine civic buildings. My reason for going to the town was to visit Bodegas Rubio, producers of fine brandy and vinegar. Their excellent brandy, called Luis Felipe, has a bit of a story behind it. Its origins go back to 1893 when some casks containing a very good aged brandy were discovered in the corner of a cellar in La Palma del Condado. The casks were marked Luis Felipe, as they had been reserved for Antoine d'Orleans, Duke of Montpensier and son of Louis Philippe, King of France, who at the time was living in the San Telmo Palace in Seville. In fact, he died there in 1890 three years before the casks were discovered. Anyway, getting back to the present, the cellars of the company are filled with old oak casks from 500 litres up to ones with more than a thousand, all filled with brandy that is being aged using the solera system, a fractional blending system common to the western part of Andalusia and used for ageing fortified wines, brandies and vinegars. These cellars are definitely worth visiting, with of course the added bonus of tasting a superb brandy.
Leaving La Palma I headed to the nearby town of Bollullos del Condado, where most of the wineries of the D.O. are concentrated. I had an appointment with the owner of Bodegas Iglesias, who is the third generation of the same family to run the winery. The winery is situated in an old convent which gives it an added attraction. They produces a lot of sherry-style wines such as fino, oloroso and Pedro Ximénez as well as young white wine and a speciality of the area, orange wine. The base of orange wine is a sweet oloroso, 90% Zalema and 10% Pedro Ximenez. The sun-dried peel of bitter oranges is added to this wine which is aged in old oak casks for around 8 years. The result is a superb mouth-filling sweet wine with wonderful aromas of bitter oranges. No wonder the world famous El Bulli restaurant have included it in their wine list.
The owner , José Manuel Iglesias, is really enthusiastic about his winery and his wines, and as we walked amongst the rows and rows of old casks her occasionally stopped to extract wine to taste using a caña or cane for this purpose, very common in the area and also in Sanlúcar de Barrameda. It is a more primitive form of the venencia which is used in Jerez. Towards the end of the visit José Manuel took out a key and unlocked an old wooden door which led into a room with maybe 20 extremely old casks. This was the sacristy of the winery. Here were the oldest and most venerated fortified wines. He told me that there were wines here that went back to the 1920s and had belonged to his grandfather. The small amounts extracted every year are replenished with old wines of the same style. I tasted a dry wine which was something akin to an elegant palo cortado from Jerez and then a sweet Muscat-like wine. Both as you can imagine were superb. Leaving the winery I knew that this was a place that I would be coming back to with future clients of mine.

Wine tours from Seville

A few comments on Spanish wine

2009-01-22T18:04:00.009+01:00

One effect of the economic crisis has been a lowering of our family budget for purchasing wine. This means we are drinking a lot more 4-8 euro wines than in the past. Over the last few years I have not always been impressed with the crianza wines from the Rioja region that you generally see in Spanish supermarkets. These are wines that have at least 12 months of oak ageing followed by at least 12 months in the bottle before being sold. More often than not the fruit has been lacking and the flavours from the oak have stood out too much. After the second glass of wine you are all ready bored! Well, the 2005s that we have been drinking recently have in their majority been a pleasant surprise, being much more fruit forward with more subdued oak flavours. Conde de Valdemar and Cune are two wines we have enjoyed along with Sierra de Cantabria which to be honest is nearly always very good.
Spain makes quite a lot of young wines using the carbonic maceration method (well-known for producing the overhyped Beaujolais nouveau) which is more than often very good, especially in warmer weather when you are doing a barbecue in the garden. These wines which are very famous in the Rioja Alavesa region are made all over the country. They first appear in the shops in late November/early December and one that we have drunk a few bottles of all ready is Fariña Primero 2008 made by Bodegas Fariña in the Toro region. This area has become better known over the last few years for the full-bodied reds it produces using the grape known in the area as Tinta del Toro, better known to most people as Tempranillo. However, it is Tempranillo that has acclimatised to the warmer climate and lesser rainfall than say the Rioja region where it is also the principal grape variety. Well the Fariña Primero for me is one of the best they have produced in recent years. It is quite full-bodied for a young wine with a real intensity of fruit and that liquorice-like finish that often comes with carbonic maceration wines.
In future entries on this blog I will be mentioning other reasonably-priced wines that we enjoy, as well as other more expensive ones that we still drink now and then! I will also be writing about the unexplicably underrated fortified wines of the Jerez region better known to most as sherry. I have led hundreds of tours to Jerez, more often than not with people whose knowledge of sherry has been limited to the sweet dark drink of dubious quality that used to be served at their grandmother's house at Christmas time. After a few hours in Jerez and two wineries later they are more often than not converts to the many different styles of sherry which go from the pale extremely dry to the dark unctuously sweet. There is something there for everyone. In the future I'll be talking about how there is a style of sherry to match almost any kind of food and more often than not matches for foods which are problematic with most other wines.
Well, I think that's enough for today. If anyone wants to comment on anything, then please get in touch.

Food and wine tours Spain

Introduction

2009-01-21T09:04:00.005+01:00

Well, I have finally decided that it's time to start writing a blog. First of all, I think I should say a little about myself and my company. My name is Roger Davies and I am orginally from the town of Abergavenny in Wales, UK. However, I have been living and working in Spain since 1987, apart from a 10 month period between 1992 and 1993 when I did a postgraduate course in London. Seven years ago, after a stint in the Spanish wine industry, I decided to set up my company, A Question of Taste. It was a bit of a dive into the deep end, as like so many new ventures things took a while to take off. However, I think we are now pretty much established and although like everyone else being battered by the worldwide economic crisis we are optimistic about the future.
Well, what exactly does A Question of Taste do? We are based in Seville in the south of Spain and dedicate ourselves to organising food and wine related activities. These include: one-day excursions, tapas tours, wine tastings, cooking classes and gastronomic breaks. We offer 6 different one-day excursions. There are two related to the great and often overlooked sherry wines of the Jerez area. One of the tours goes to Jerez itself and the other to the lesser known town of Sanlúcar de Barraneda, famous for the manzanilla style of sherry. It was also the town where Christopher Columbus set off on his third voyage and Magellan on his round-the-world one. We also do two tours which have red wine as their focus. One goes to Arcos de la Frontera and a fantastic nearby winery, and the other to Ronda and the surrounding area where there are some very interesting boutique wineries. Both Arcos and Ronda are very beautiful white towns to boot. Iberian ham, the vey best ham in the world, forms the focus of our tour to the Sierra of Aracena and fine olive oil is the theme of our tour to the Sierra of Grazalema with its stunningly dramatic scenery.
As well as the activities mentioned above, we have run quite a few wine tours to the north of Spain, particularly to the Basque country and the wine regions of the Rioja and the Ribera del Duero. My time in the wine industry provided me with a lot of contacts that have been very useful to us for organising winery visits, especially to places that don't always open to the public.
Well, with this blog I will be concentrating on writing about what I am doing with my company and about anything to do with Spanish food and wine that I think might be of interest to people. I am always researching about food and wine both in general and specifically about Spain. This means doing a lot of visits, attending tastings, trying new wines and food products, and of course reading a lot. To give you an idea, at the moment in English I am reading:

Food & Cooking. An Encyclopedia of Kitchen Science, History and Culture - Harold McGee
Questions of Taste, The Philosophy of Wine - Barry C. Smith (Ed.)
Food & Philosophy - Fritz Allhoff (Ed.) & Dave Monroe (Ed.)

In Spanish I am reading:

La Vinificación en Jerez en el siglo XX - Justo F. Casas Lucas
Guía del Turismo Gastronómico en España 2009

Well, I think that is enough for my first entry. If for any reason anyone wishes to contact me my e-mail address is roger@aqot.com.