Camino Wine

Quite a few people have asked me about the wine I drank on the Camino…I guess my blogs mentioned my daily tipple quite a bit *grin*, but also I guess the questions have arisen because I was walking in some very famous wine regions in Spain.

First though: I have to confess that I drink wine because I like it – or if I don’t like a particular wine then I don’t drink it…. I have never, ever had any desire whatsoever to get to grips with the how and why and when wine is made, the cultivars, the process, laying it down or picking it up. I seldom detect the smell of chocolate or vanilla, I seldom remember the name of a wine and I usually only buy a new wine if it has a nice label. About the only thing I know about wine is how to twirl the glass and then you get to see the ‘legs’…and I drink the stuff no matter how many legs it has.

I really do feel like I’m the wrong person to ask about wine…but here goes:

I am sure I mentioned that you always get a bottle of wine with your Pilgrim Meal….more often than not, they just plonked a bottle of vino tinto (red wine) on the table and that was it…sometimes the bottle had a label in the style of labels we are used to, sometimes it had a sort of home made label that just said Jose’s Vino Tinto or something like that, and sometimes it didn’t even have a label. In the villages and small towns you mostly got an earthenware carafe of wine so goodness knows where that came from. You were almost never given a choice of red or white…it was always red.

And very, very delicious – without exception.

When I was there it was harvest time and often saw families, friends, neighbours in the fields picking grapes. And sometimes in the small towns I walked past places where they were crushing the grapes – the very grapey smell became quite familiar. I even saw some guys crushing grapes in the back of a truck…they had lined the bakkie part with canvas and they were standing in there and smashing the grapes with spades…maybe that’s why the wine tasted so good….

One of the most famous wine regions I went through made the Rioja wines and I had the good fortune to drink quite a bit and it is good – but had I done a blind tasting I would not have been able to distinguish this from some of the local no-label wine…which brings me to this point:

I did tastings in 3 wineries (really nice wine – and just before lunch time these were a real treat) and I went to a ‘shop’ in a small town where they do a demo of the wine making process, you do a tasting and you can have a little chat with them about their wine. This was really interesting. This particular company (the name escapes me) has been replanting the locals vineyards with the grapes they want and training the farmers how to look after the grapes in a modern way. The company does not want these small guys to go out of business – the farmers can’t sell their wine anymore – people want the label stuff! So there is a good partnership – the farmer grows the grapes and the company buys them. I asked the man who did the presentation about the chilled red wine…yes, I kid you not. I don’t think I ever drank a room temperature bottle while I was there. He laughed and asked if I enjoyed it…well, yes of course – silly question. But here’s the thing. I have never really liked red wine – I have never enjoyed drinking luke warm gloopy red wine…yuk! But chilled is another story. I digress though. The man in the wine shop said ‘why not?’ Why not drink cold wine especially if you are in a really hot country like Spain (or Africa for that matter). He also said that the small wine makers know their wine and how it should be drunk…ie. Chilled - which is why you get it nice and cold. The big wine makers also know and he was of the opinion that chilled is great…. He said that this idea of being really serious and prissy about wine is very old fashioned and people should experiment….that is why Spain has Sangria after all…

Since being back in SA I have chilled a Cab, Merlot and a Shiraz….very delicious. Please try it.