Hola!
It’s actually around 4:30 pm and I wanted to get this started, as I have a feeling that tonight will be yet another late one! So … to begin at the beginning…
Up this morning around 7:30 am and it felt SO amazing to actually have slept eight hours – in one night!! In the same bed!
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| Bodega Tradicion! |
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| Interior courtyard of Bodega |
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| Now these are barrels! |
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| With tour guide and folks from Edinburgh |
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| Really like the "bulletin board!" |
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| Six sherries we tasted |
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| Part of the art gallery in the bodega |
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| Success!!! |
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| Robert says folks here must be very well fed! |
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| Beautiful tree outside the Alcazar |
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| Wall of the Alcazar |
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| Lovely town square; Cathedral dome in background |
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| Statue to original "Tio Pepe" founder |
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| Inside the Cathedral |
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| Beautiful stone! |
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| Lovely altars |
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| Flying buttresses in the front of Cathedral |
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| Some sort of street party going on! |
Showered/bathed and down to an excellent breakfast by 8:15-ish. Turns out that there is a professional soccer team staying here and they were all coming to breakfast. One thing that I’ve noticed about European Soccer teams is that when they travel, they all were uniform variations but all in the same colors. The players, in mint green and white, sat at one table, and it looked like the coaching and training staffs (all similarly dressed in black) sat at a separate table. The man at reception said they were here to play a game at Cadiz* tonight. How fun! (A bit of research finds that they are in the football second division, and called Albacete! WOW!)
Fortunately, last night I checked our sherry reservation and it turns out to be at 10 am rather than noon! So glad I looked! I have booked us into the deluxe sherry wine and art gallery tour in English at Bodega (Sherry House) Tradicion. When doing some research on-line about such tours, Tradicion seemed to have the best reviews and ratings, and as of March, they are now open on Saturdays. So…out of the hotel and into a cab, as Rsays he is too old to walk that far, and we were there quite literally in five minutes. It was, of course, way too early, but fortunately for us, the gal giving the tour arrived just a few minutes after we did. She showed us into the bodega and collected our tour fees. Tour started shortly thereafter, with eight of us in total. Four I think were drop-in guests, then there was us and a couple of Edinburgh, bringing our group to 8 in total.
First, we learned that, to be called “sherry”, the wine must come from a triangular area of Spain - the Sherry Triangle (El Marco de Jerez) – delineated by the towns of Jerez de la Frontera, Sanlúcar de Barrameda and El Puerto de Santa María – as set by the Denominación de Origen of Spain.
Turns out that the Bodegasare where the grapes are turned into several different kinds of sherry. Neither of us had ever toured one before, and it was very interesting. Turns out that most Bodegasdo not grow their own grapes, but buy grapes grown in the specific “sherry triangle” area. In the case of Tradicion, they specialize in VOS and VORS– Very Old Sherry, and Very Old Reserve Sherry, meaning that most of their wines are aging in American Oak casks for over 25 years! Additionally, Tradicion’s owner has quite an interesting art collection, which is displayed in a separate room next to the tasting room. These included several Picasso’s, including some tiles made from drawings he did as a child of 8! There was also a Murillo, an El Greco and a Velasquez. Robert was so excited – flat art he could actually photograph!
Sylvia did a great tour, and we were able to walk around the hundreds of barrels as she talked about the different regions, the different grapes, and the resulting sherry that was produced.
Our tasting was of six VOS and VORS sherries, ranging from Fino to Pedro Ximenez– the driest to the sweetest. We had nice sized servings, and Sylvia also had Manchego cheese, excellent dark chocolate, cashews, as well as olives stuffed with anchovies to help us along. All were excellent, but I truly went over at the knees with the CreamSherryand the Pedro Ximenez. We ended up buying four bottles; just don’t ask how we are going to get them home! (Although I have great faith in Robert’s packing! He got four bottles of Montepulciano home last summer with no problem at all!!!) Being four bottles heavier than when we started, we taxied back to the hotel to deposit the bottles here. In for just a few minutes, and then out to find the laundry!
Actually, we had no problems at all finding it, with parking available, and it was actually completely vacant! (I figured that noon-ish on a Saturday, the place would be mobbed, but it was quite pleasant … once we figured out how to work the machines!) Washing took 31 minutes and drying took 30 – so I am SO happy to announce that we now have completely clean clothes once again! (Although my blue jeans are hanging up in the bathroom; do hope they get dryer by tomorrow!)
From the laundry we stopped at a gas station to fill up the car. We are driving tomorrow to Evora, Portugal, and I have no idea how easy/difficult it might be to get gas there on a Sunday.
So, back to the hotel yet again with clothes, and put the car away for the day.
Decided at this point that there was a small shop I looked at last night that I wanted to go into today, so walked to the main shopping area where we were last night. Found the store – Bijoux Boutique– open (yeah!) and was able to pick up a few “souvenirs” for me! We also stopped to get pieces of pizza – little bakery, with tuna(!) on their pizza. As Robert says, that is NOT an Italian pizza – but it sufficed, especially when I added a small stracciatella gelato cone for dessert!
From there we walked past the Alcazar, the 12thcentury Moorish fortress in the area, and to the Cathedral. Quite a good audio-tour, with some lovely music, of the Cathedral.
By now it was heading past 4 pm so we decided to head back to the hotel for a rest before dinner tonight! We believe we will be seeing more Flamenco tonight, as part of the two-week Flamenco festival, so want to be 1) awake and 2) hungry when we go to the Taberna for dinner tonight. We need to be there by 9:15 pm. Again, more than a bit late for us, but what the heck?!
Lots of love,
m
xxx
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