Day 4 - Tuesday, Wine Day

Day 4 - Tuesday, Wine Day

Happy Anniversary to us! May 15th, 2010 (2 years ago), I married the love of my life.  Today,,,,, and everyday,,,, we celebrate.  How do we celebrate today????? the wine country.

The plans were to meet our driver at 9 AM so we set the alarm for 8. However, as it turned out, we didn't need it. We were both excited enough to do the wine country that we woke up at 7:30 without help from the alarm. While Katie showered I headed downstairs to grab some coffees for us. We took our time getting ready and, even though we woke up early, we were still 15 minutes late meeting our driver in the lobby. We met our driver, Ricardo, said our hellos, and then quickly got on the road.

Allison had just emailed me that Spain Customs wouldn't release my bag to me for four days. First, great job Allison for being up at 3 AM to deal with my bag situation and Second, what?!?!? My bag arrived in Barcelona the day before, why couldn't they deliver it to me today? We were set to leave the next day so I had to get my bag today. Allison was having technical difficulties so I called DHL myself and tried to find a solution. As an American I could either wait four days or pay a 550 Euro rush fee. No bueno. Long story (and phone call) short, our driver agreed that we could put the bag in his name and only pay a 135 Euro fee to customs since he is a resident. DHL made this happen and the bag was released from customs. Moral of the story; don't forget your suitcase.  Second moral of the story, don't ship a suitcase to Spain and expect it quickly.

Once again we found ourselves starving since we missed breakfast. Our driver swung in to a fast food joint where Katie and I split a quiche. After that we continued on our way to the higher elevations. The drive to the wine country took two hours. Just before we got there Katie surprised me with an anniversary gift. First she showed me an envelope marked "Katie and Jesse" which ended up being from her Mom. It was a very sweet note describing her happiness that her daughter finally made it to her dream destination, Barcelona. Next, Katie handed me a bag with a card. The card was a very sweet and heartfelt note from her to me. In the bag was a very nice shirt and a pair of very nice shorts. They were both cotton (get it? second anniversary is cotton). I couldn't be more proud and thankful to have such an amazing wife.

We made it !!! The wine country of Spain. We figured it would be best to take some photos prior to the wine starting to flow. We got those out of the way and went inside to meet Carlos, the wine maker. As Carlos started the tour I could tell this wasn't going to be same old wine tour and that Carlos is destined to be one of the more famous wine makers I'll ever meet. I say that because I've never met a person who I felt would and/or has made such an impact on the world of wine as this guy has. When he started speaking I had a hard time following his English 1) because he spoke so fast (because he loves what he does) and 2) because I was so tired from the two hour car ride (anyone that knows me, knows that I'm not much of a car guy unless I'm the one driving). He quickly had me hanging by every word. Carlos and his wife moved to the area in 1979 and bought 135 acres of what was to become the NAPA of Spain. There were only a few wineries when they moved in and, according to him, the wineries were junk. He and his wife set a goal to make a winery that would allow his grandchildren to become famous.

Back in the 70s, on average, it took three generations of wine making before a winery had a chance of becoming famous. Carlos and his wife started in 1979 and it took 10 years for them to get everything right for their first vintage. They produced their first wine in 1989 which they released in 1992 (told ya, I was listening to every word). Within three months of their first vintage the "Wine Spectator" of Europe rated their wine a top rating and one of the best 150 wines in the world. Sales sky rocketed and he's been famous (in his circles) every since.  Robert Mondavi even flew out to see what all the buzz was about.  Here is an exert from their website:

"
In 1979 Carles Pastrana and Mariona Jarque recovered the family winemaking tradition and started off on a long adventure aimed to rescue the old Carthusian wines in the heart of the lands that were once under the dominion of the priors of Scala Dei, a monastery located in the Catalan region of El Priorat. Carles and Mariona created the properties of Clos de l’Obac and Miserere, replanting vines along the banks of the river Siurana in the southern pre-coastal area of Catalonia, and established the Costers del Siurana winery. They began to make their first wines in 1989, reaching an important milestone when the World Wine Guide declared CLOS DE L’OBAC to be one of the world’s 150 best wines.
"

It's not often that you hear of a European entrepreneur breaking the mold and going from rags to riches but, in this case, it happened. Not only did their winery take off, the entire region became a hot bed for new wineries. They started as 1 of 10 and quickly become 1 of 180 wineries in the area. From what we could tell, they were still the top dog (or is it dawg?)  During the tasting Carlos bragged about how his white wine would stand up against any red. He suggested that a person taking a blind taste test would not be able to tell it was white wine.  Katie and I both agreed that the white, while awesome, was obviously a white. He challenged Katie to a blind taste test,,,, and, like the amazing women she is, she accepted the challenge with confidence that she would prevail.

While I ran out to the car to grab Katie's scarf to use as a blind fold, Carlos readied the wine. Out of six wines, 5 red and 1 white, Katie did get the white wine correct. However, she did miss one of the reds thinking it was white. The price per bottle of wine was a tad bit higher then expected but considering the price included shipping to the US, we decided to buy a case. Another impressive aspect of the entire experience was that Carlos and his brother had invented a wine suitcase. They had originally devised a box that would allow travelers to carry wine on any commercial flight. Post 9/11 they had to devise a wine case that could be checked. They created an amazing five bottle wine case that he ended up giving us for free. Perhaps I'm a sucker but I accepted his gift and then, of course, I had to fill it with some wine. We ended up buying two more bottles for us to enjoy ourselves.

More impressive than Carlo's gift to us was what he did at our next stop. Made for Spain (the travel agent company Admiral Travel worked with) had arranged a lunch for us. We went two minutes up the street to a cute little restaurant where lunch awaited us. As soon as we sat down Carlos showed up with a paper bag that included all the wine he had opened for us. It was ours to enjoy with our lunch,,,,, WOW! They served us a six course meal which was amazing (just what we need, more food) and they ensured that our wine glasses didn't get anywhere close to empty.  We finished off the last of each bottle during the two hour lunch extravaganza.

After desert we stumbled outside to meet with our driver Riccardo and head off to our next destination. The next stop was some other winery just up the hill. We showed up and nobody was there to greet us. We ended up finding a grape worker (what else are they? grape crushers, grape processors, grape people, grape stompers, grape juicers?) who told us we had to go down two levels to the shop. Our diver had us hop in the car and he took us down two levels to the front door.

The receptionist / only person working there, was so happy to see us. Ha, who am I kidding, this is Spain,,, however, she did acknowledge our presence which is all you can really ask for. This place was much more NAPA like.  It was very commercial, everything was for sale, etc etc.  We decided to forgo the tour and we went straight to the tasting. At this point it was already 4 PM (WOW, where did the time go?) And, since I still had to get my bag from the airport (or so I thought), we decided to get the tasting over with and get on the road. We asked our driver, Riccardo, to sit with us as we tasted the three wines she gave us. It turns out that Riccardo and I have a lot in common. First, we were both born on April 28th. Riccardo is 47, 11 years older than me, but,,, and this is where it gets good, his wife is 3 years older than him. His wife was born on January 20th. For those of you that don't know, my kids' mom was born on January 21st and she happens to be 3 years older than me. We asked about kids,,,, YUP, two girls, 14 and 18. One more question,,,,, sorry, but I had to ask, "do you and your wife get along?" Riccardo's response,,,, "only when we're sleeping (with a big grin)." I had to leave it at that,,, too funny.

We finished our wine and made for the car. The receptionist chased us out with a surprised look on her face. Si? I said. Her response, in English, "would you like to buy some wine?" I replied "no thank you." It was like she expected us to buy her wine vs her actually taking the time to talk to us, sell her wine, etc. You've gotta love it. Carlos (the wine maker from the first stop) knew how to ensure his customers never left without a case of his wine.  The drive home was long, 2 hours,,,, but, it allowed me to type this (don't judge, I've had a few glasses of wine). Katie is now sitting next to me taking her daily siesta (see the pics in our album). Just as I was taking the picture of Katie I received a message from Lon and Eric (Eric is a good friend who is probably one of DHL's best customers) informing me that my bag was delivered directly to my hotel. Great news! So now we get to head straight to the hotel without the hassle of stopping to find DHL and figure out who has my bag.

Back at the hotel we were both very tired so I decided to join Katie for a siesta.  We woke up around 8 PM and prepped ourselves for our last night on the town.  We walked down to the water and ended up finding a neat little bar/tapas restaurant down one of the side streets.  The menu and the atmosphere so looked good so we went in for dinner.  We ordered a few small plates and a few drinks.  After dinner we did some more walking around and ended up going back to the bar we had been at the day before.  We had a glass of wine but that place died off quickly.   It was around midnight,,,, knowing we had an early morning we decided to call it a night.

As we walked in to our hotel lobby we could hear the live music coming from the bar downstairs.  We decided to check it out.  Although there was only one other couple in the place, the music was good and the bartenders seemed to be having fun.  We decided to stay.  We sat at the bar and chatted it up with the bar tenders.  They were practicing their bar tending tricks which was fun to watch.  About an hour after being there another couple showed up and they started a conversation with us.  We spent the next hour talking about our trip and theirs as well as their hometown, Chicago.   The place closed down at 2 so we headed up to our room to call it a night.  I was lucky enough to get the kids on Skype so Katie and I did that for about 45 minutes.  Afterwards we chatted with Ethan for a few minutes and then turned in around 3.

We will miss Barcelona but we're excited about what's to come.  Stay tuned.