What am I drinking?

Mauro 2005 from Castilla y Leon (Valladolid): an intense red with wonderful ripe cherry fruits and a dark chocolate complexity made from Tempranillo and other varieties. It may only be a Vino de la Tierra, but don´t let that put you off: this can compete with the best that Spain has to offer.

Salamanca in the Autumn

This was my first chance to show off my temporary home city to people from home and I was determined to squeeze in everything there is to see. A beastly task to achieve in a day and a half at the best of times, but the weather stubbornly tried to put us off.

The wind gusted constantly, whipping all of the autumnal leaves off at once.

We walked around the grand Plaza Mayor and wandered along the streets where the old university buildings are clustered, their sandy coloured, crumbling fronts masking the various departments of one of the most prestigious universities in Spain.

Then it was down to the River Tormes at the bottom of the town to the old roman bridge. The bridge is certainly a must, at least because of the view it gives of the town behind, the cathedral looming high above the rest of Salamanca. We crossed over at the correct hour - just as it was being lit up, along with the rest of the key monuments in town. The vista was particularly spectacular, but also a little menacing, as the wind had finally brought the rain clouds. Within a couple of minutes the rain was thundering around us. We headed towards the arches of the bridge to find some shelter and we realised that there was a small orchestra of teenagers practicing there. It was fabulous – cowering under one of the arches with the sound of the lashing rain and the band playing as hard as they could.

As the rain wasn’t letting up much, we decided to take refuge in the Casa Lis, the museum of Art Noveau and Art Deco. It is housed in a wonderful building, the entire length of which is a huge Art Deco stained glass frontage, which, naturally, is lit up at night.

It is one of my favourite buildings in Salamanca, but it was made even more so on such a dark evening. We strolled around the exhibits, both strange (the collection of scary dolls complete with facial hair) and beautiful (the assorted Lalique and Gallé glass).

The next morning we went to see the town’s two cathedrals – one “old” (12^th century) and one “new” (16^th century).

They are in fact built right up to each other and you have to go through the new cathedral to access the old one. There is also access to the two cathedral towers, which stand tall over the entire town. You are allowed to walk all the way to the top and out onto the dizzying platforms which give you an idea of the enormity of the cathedrals, as well as their different styles. The views across Salamanca are second to none.

Back on the ground, we were beside Salamanca’s challenge of the frog. You can't very well invite your friends to Salamanca and not let them try it.

Hidden in the intricately engraved facade of one of the university buildings is a tiny frog. It is said that if you can find it unaided it will bring you marriage or five years of good luck, although the rules on choosing between them if you want one and not the other are unclear! I set Brandusa and Horia to work on their task: Brandusa immediately took up the challenge by scanning each section separately.

Horia's technique was certainly more original, although I don't think the gods of luck would have approved: he took close up photos of whole areas hoping to be able to find it in the picture by zooming in. Neither technique was particularly successful, although Brandusa came within a few inches of it. We agreed she could have two and a half years of luck. We finished off the day by heading to a cosy cafe to escape the cold and congratulate ourselves with a plate of churros to dunk into mugs of thick hot chocolate.

A weekend in Segovia

I wouldn’t say that arriving at 3am to an ancient walled town without a map is the perfect beginning to a weekend – the sort of place where the streets are so narrow that the sandy walls have been carved out perfectly to allow a car’s wing mirrors through without scraping!

And then to have to wrestle with an underground car parking system where you park your car on a plate and it whisks it away to its bowels. But to awake on a November morning to glorious sunshine and wander from our hotel straight into the main square filled with the buzz of a bank holiday weekend was more than enough to make up for it.

Segovia, just northwest of Madrid, is most famous for its enormous Roman aqueduct. As the town itself is perched on a hill, a high point in the surrounding plains (the meseta), you can quickly see why an aqueduct is needed. However, as you walk through the town to where the hill drops dramatically down and up again, it is difficult to prepare yourself for the enormity of the aqueduct. Its incredible arches seemingly totter on top of each other and are built out of huge perfectly shaped boulders. It spans the space with an immense sense of drama.

Unsurprisingly this is a tourist focal point and the plaza surrounding the aqueduct is filled with people trying to capture the glory of it.

We then followed the side streets back up to the main part of the town and into the Plaza Mayor for lunch. The Plaza is overlooked by Segovia’s cathedral, big enough to make you appreciate that this town has cultural significance. It presides over the square like a highly intricate wedding cake. As it was a bank holiday weekend, the restaurants and cafes were filled with tourists, both foreign and españoles. Everywhere the dish of the day appeared to be beautifully roasted pork shanks - we could hardly miss an opportunity to sample it. It went down well with the sunshine on the terrace and a small glass of something cold.

Next on the hit-list was another monument that Segovia is so famous for – the Alcazar. We had heard that as castles go, this one is straight out of a story book. However, as we walked through the narrow streets and got our first glimpse of its great narrow turrets framed by multi-coloured autumnal trees, we literally could barely believe it was real. It is perched at the very end of the town and sits above a near cliff face overlooking the great meseta beyond, with forests of red, orange, plum, green and yellow trees which give it an even more magical appearance. The castle itself is filled with intricately decorated rooms, whose artistic influences really remind you that this area was once the boundary between the Christians and the Moors.

On Sunday we decided to check out some of the other great castles, something that this region is famed for. Our first stop was in Coca, a short drive further northwest from Segovia. After the Alcazar in Segovia it was pretty hard not to be disappointed with Coca’s effort. Of course, it ticked the boxes in terms of turrets, deep moats and castellation, and certainly provided us with wry amusement at the dramatised video of the life of the Fonseca family who originally owned it. After trotting dutifully around Coca’s castle, it was time to move on to the next one – Castillo de la Mota in Medina del Campo. This time we were moving towards Salamanca and were now in the region of Castilla y Leon. Medina del Campo is a bit more of a substantial town in itself. The castle reflected this – again it had the dramatic castellation seen at Coca, soaring towers, a deep moat and it had the same Moorish influences as found elsewhere. However this one was on a much grander scale. Certainly it was worth the slight detour on our drive to Salamanca, but a couple of hours and possibly lunch was all that the place could sustain. Then it was on to Salamanca, across the vast dry and yellowing meseta.

Unfortunately we seemed to bring the proper autumnal weather with us for as we arrived in Salamanca, I was finally convinced it is November. More of that next time.

Eating and drinking in Madrid

As one of the world's great capitals, there is no doubt that it would be a bit of a struggle to say anything original about Madrid. At the same time, it would be pretty impossible to do justice to the place in a few short paragraphs. So, instead, a look at the eating experiences we had there.

A trip to Madrid usually starts with a trip to its Plaza Mayor, very close to Sol, the physical centre of Madrid. It is a grand ancient square, arcaded all around its sweeping pedestrian area in the middle, built as a public meeting place. It is also predictably heaving with tourists, with restaurants and bars squeezed along the front of every part of the facade. And, of course, each of them has terrace tables that provide unbeatable people watching. Although they are somewhat overpriced, it is worth a quick stop even if it is just for a beer. From a sunny spot, you can watch the world go by and enjoy the antics of the many street performers. My favourite was an overweight Spiderman who did nothing but stand there on display, and yet mysteriously still managed to get money from onlookers.

In the evening, we decided to try our hand at a classic Madrileños habit – tapas. We headed to Chueca, Northeast of the centre, where a network of narrow streets play host to many traditional tapas bars, modern restaurants and glitzy cocktail bars. The whole area is very lively and well worth a night out. Our evening included a traditional tapas bar where, lined along the counter, there were various types of jamón, ready to be sliced and served.Close by the Plaza Mayor is Madrid’s royal palace, El Palacio Real, worth a trip inside at least to see the incredibly over-the-top throne room. Madrid’s cathedral is right next door and could be a bit of a disappointment if you compare it with other grand Spanish cathedrals. In fact, it is relatively modern and has an interior to match, with beautiful and wildly coloured ceilings and abstract stained glass.

I had no idea that there could be so many varieties, each one cured in a different way, and with varying prices to match. What came was a plate of very finely sliced ham, tender and flavoursome – it was beautiful. We continued our crawl of the tapas bars in the area, stopping in to an intimate bar with a tiny theatre at the back. The tapas here were much more potato focussed, with delicious sauces to go with them. Another of the highlights was a great pile of scalding calamari served simply with lemon.

The next morning we walked through the barrio of Salamanca, where the best (and most expensive) shops in Madrid are found on the wide boulevards of this area north of one of Madrid’s great parks, El Retiro. From there we walked into the well landscaped park itself, which provides the West border of the centre of Madrid. It was crowded with Sunday walkers out in the warm autumn sun. Again, there were many sights to distract the eye, including a man who had trained his dog to jump on to his back. The local kids loved it. Then it was off to another Sunday tradition, El Rastro, a flea market South of Plaza Mayor, teeming with people and the most random collection of junk for sale, the stalls and cafes lining the steep main street.

We finished off in a busy covered market, Mercado de San Miguel, not so much a traditional market selling goods, but a series of stalls selling drinks and food to consume there. We armed ourselves with a glass of wine from one of the stalls offering a huge variety by the glass and wondered around. It was filled with different meats, cakes, empanadas, sweets, intricate chocolates and all sorts of other treats, most of it ready to be consumed there and then. The aromas of various dishes cooking filled the air tempting the many people went by. It was a shame I didn’t have more room to try one of everything!

What am I drinking?

Leirana 2008 from Rías Baixas DO (in the part of Spain North of Portugal): For those lovers of a really crisp white wine, this is the one for you. Made from 100% Albariño, it is like biting into a fresh, juicy Granny Smith apple.

Los Pueblos Blancos, Andalucía

Fast becoming a tradition, the following weekend I took off to Andalucía on another wine escapade. We staying in the beautiful Hotel La Fuente de la Higuera, a 10 minute drive from the small town of Ronda (West of Málaga). The hotel was tucked between orchards of olive trees in the rolling hills below Ronda and surrounded by rocky mountainsthat dominate the landscape around this area of Andalucía. We spent the first day being tourists in Ronda itself, which is the biggest of the Pueblos Blancos (white villages). Its cluster of white washed buildings bustle right up to the edge of the stunningly deep gorge that surrounds three sides of Ronda and cuts through the middle of the town. Some of the ancient buildings even overhang the gorge itself, giving dramatic views of the gaping space below. The two sites of Ronda are joined by its eighteenth century bridge which is supported by huge arches that drop into the vast gorge. Despite its age, you still feel slightly uneasy being on it, particularly as a notice tells you that it has fallen down three times in its history!

Even nearing the end of October, the sun was brilliant and it reached 30°C during the day. It was certainly still warm enough to sit outside for dinner, lanterns lighting the terrace and surrounded by the smell of the lavender bushes cooling down from the day’s sun bathing. And of course, a weekend in my Spain adventure would not be complete without a little wine research, this being one of the great pleasures in my new career choice.

So why wine? Six years in the legal industry had given me the commercial experience I wanted before changing to something completely new and this was the year to do it. However, there was the inevitable question to address: what do I do instead? At the beginning of 2009, I was knee deep in my decision matrix. Anyone who enjoys a good list will appreciate the joys of a decision matrix: it listed all of my aims in life and for my career, my passions, my skills and my priorities. It also listed all the possible career paths that I was considering, how well each one fulfilled my aims, as well as the pros and cons for each one. Having a passion for the industry I work in was top of my list of priorities, closely followed by the need for a challenge. The possibilities of travel and being able to learn new languages were also pretty appealing if I could find a way to make them part of the plan.

Wine has always been present at home where wine was for drinking with dinner, even with a little water for the children. I remember frequent summer camping trips to the Loire where my parents would visit the caves to try some of the Loire Valley wines. We kids were often allowed a little sip too. This seemed entirely normal to the locals. However, it was during various trips to the wine producing regions across the world in the past few years that I really began to look at it seriously as an option. Having put the wine industry through the rigours of the decision matrix and after many months of research, here I am - and now that I am underway, I am excited!

The countryside near Ronda also has a number of smaller Pueblos Blancos, which typically cling to the side of some precipitous mountainside or across a steep ridge. Often the streets wind around each other seemingly without pattern, each building painted a dazzlingly white and each window neatly shuttered. We visited Grazalema and Zahara de la Sierra both in the Parque Natural Sierra de Grazelema.Coincidentally, of course, our hotel in Andalucía had a wonderful wine list with a number of different regions in Spain featuring. It also had a good selection of local wines from Málaga DO, and not just sweet or sherry style wines. We made the most of these as it is fairly difficult to find decent examples of this region’s wine in other parts of Spain, let alone outside Spain. Some of the wines come from the region immediately around Ronda, Serranía de Ronda, as evidenced by the scorched vines in amongst the hillsides.

Grazalema lies in the fold of a valley, all of its streets radiating out from the central plaza and up the steep hillsides. Having braved the drive through the Parque, we were glad of the many street cafes and restaurants that cluster together in the small sunny plazas at the centre. The roads themselves are a good couple of feet thick of perfectly laid tarmac, but fall instantly away at the edges leaving the driver exposed to the massive vistas and gorges. Unsurprisingly, it is perfect country for a motorbike and the village was full of riders enjoying the area.

The road out of Grazelema zigzags upwards toward one of the highest points of the area (the Puerto de las Palomas) before falling away to the villages on the other side, including Zahara de la Sierra. As we drove into the village you can well believe that it used to be a Moorish outpost with its fortified walls and its castle looming over the white-washed and red-tiled buildings, designed perfectly to repel invasion. However , getting a car into and out of the very steep narrow streets is another matter!

What am I drinking?

Munia Crianza 2004 from Toro DO in Northwest Spain: An incredibly velvety example of the grape Tinto de Toro with lots of rich fruit and sweet spices. A little bit of a killer at 14.5% abv though!

Petalos del Bierzo 2006 from Bierzo DO in Northwest Spain: Made from 100% Mencia, a red grape similar to Cabernet Franc, this wine has lovely cherry fruits and soft spices.