Visita de Bodega

Joan writes me that she has rented a car and she and mom Dee are going wine tasting, she wonders if I would like to join them…….wonder no more Joan and count me in!

The day starts a little rocky for me but I learn something very interesting about addresses in Spain.  Joan’s apartment is across town in the L’Eixample district which I have finally learned how to pronounce.  When I reach their street Carrer de Casp I am at number 104 not a problem I'm looking for 82 which will be nearby.  Not all buildings here are marked with their number some just count on you to use the neighbors numbers and a process of elimination.  I reach a building which is marked 81-83.  A very nice man is exiting the building and I ask him if this is also 82.  His English is good and he confirms that yes it is.  I call Joan on my cell to tell her I’m in front of the building.  Then I notice that the number across the street is now 126.  Is this possible the odd side of the street and the even do not run concurrently???  Joan checks I’m not in front of her building.  I cross the street and scurry the four blocks to number 82 where the numbers across the street are now in the fifties. 

Joan and Renee are waiting for me in front of the building.  As we enter a maintenance man rushes up to Joan and is clearly scolding her for something in Spanish.  We finally figure out she has left the elevator door open when she came out.  We apologize and tell him it will never happen again but he doesn’t look reassured.  As we get in the elevator Joan says, ‘He going to be so glad when we leave, we’ve been in trouble since we got here’!

The apartment is lovely and like so many in Barcelona it is completely decorated in all white with light hardwood floors and just a few splashes of color here and there.  It is dramatic just like the Spanish.  Joan tells me as pretty as it is the ‘all white’ has given them nothing but trouble and she hopes she will be able to hide all the new dirt marks they’ve added to the place when they leave. 

Joan has reservations for tours at two different wineries, one for 12:30pm and one for 1:00pm. I see the problem right away!  Apparently the way this works in Spain is that you email the winery that you would like a tour in English and they send you back an email with a time for your tour.  It’s now 10:45am and Joan thinks it will take us about 45 minutes to get to the first winery.  At this point we have no idea that in 45 minutes we still won’t even be out of Barcelona…………..

Joan starts the espresso machine to make herself a cup of coffee and sets about making calls to the wineries to see if one of them can give us a later time.  In between calls she starts to share with me the rental car map on how she plans to reach the first winery.  After several calls back and forth the good news is that Freixenet can in fact accommodate us at 3:00pm, perfect.  As we are celebrating the good news Dee suddenly yelps and jumps out of her chair.  It seems the forgotten espresso machine doesn’t automatically shut off and has spewed coffee all over the kitchen.  Joan refuses help and sets about cleaning up the mess. 

Once that is done its back to the map.  Joan has a number of notes about what roads to take on various post-it-notes but they all refer to the highways out of town nothing about getting to the first highway.   Joan says not a problem she knows the way because she did it yesterday.  Okay then we are on our way.

Joan has parked the rental car around the block from her apartment so it is a short walk to get to it and when we do reach the car there flapping on the windshield is a parking ticket.  At least we think it’s a parking ticket because it’s in Spanish of course.  Joan is pretty frustrated because she thought she had paid for the parking and had a slip in the car to prove it.  Joan can’t shake the ticket she doesn’t feel she deserved and mom and I are trying to be as quiet as we can be until this passes.   Joan is looking for a street she calls ‘Gran Via’ she finds it and turns.  We are now a little later than we wanted to be and Joan who is always a fast driver is driving even faster than usual.

I’m a little concerned because all my senses tell me we are headed in the opposite direction to what we want and the street signs say we are on a street called Corts Catalanes.  I finally get up my nerve to mention this to Joan and she agrees to stop for directions.  We have in fact been going the wrong direction but on the right street.  The complete name of the street is Gran Via de les Corts Catalanes.  We get ourselves turned around and are once again on our way.  I am sorry to say this will not be the only time on this journey that the devil is in the details…………

On the highways with road signs and the rental car map as guidance we zip right along to our exit.  At this point if everything goes well we will be right on time for our first tour.  Immediately off the highway is a roundabout with three exits.  I want to take one and Joan wants to take another so she pulls to the side of the roundabout to look at the post-it-notes……..they make no sense to me at all so I’m hopeless here.   Joan decides to proceed with the one she wanted in the first place and off we go.  About the same time we all start feeling we’ve gone a bit too far and Joan asks me to pull out her IPad one of the wineries has sent her a map.  After looking at the map on the IPad we determine we took the wrong road but think we can still save it so keep going on the same road we’re on.  Finally we find a gas station and stop for help.  We’ve gone too far and must go back which we do.  Somehow Joan still has her optimism and says but its only 16 kilometers back to the road we wanted!

We finally arrive at an absolutely beautiful modern winery by the name of Torres but alas we are too late for our tour.  Joan has had a rough morning and she is determined to make this happen so she works with the receptionist to see if there isn’t something that can be done.  About this time enter two fellows who will become our drinking buddies pictured above.  They also wanted an English tour and this definitely helps Joan’s case with the receptionist.  The winery proves its excellent customer service by recruiting Yolanda (also pictured above) from her office job to provide us with a tour.  She is delighted to get the break in her daily work and provides us with an exceptional tour of an amazing award winning winery. All of Spain is progressive in recycling and sustainable production and this winery is an example of both.

But I must say it was the actual tasting that impressed us the most.  In the end there were a total of 8 of us on the tour with Yolanda and we were going to taste 6 wines.  The glasses were already on the table and there would be a new one for each of us for each of the wines.  Then in walks Yolanda with 6 full bottles of wines…….nice!  As she opened each new bottle for tasting she poured us about a third of a glass, what was left in each bottle remained on the table in case you wanted to revisit it.  Joan favored the Chardonnay, Dee the Rose’ and for some unknown reason I really liked the Merlot.  About half way through the tasting we were all having a great time together.  Because we were late they were closing up the tasting room but we were having so much fun they told us to just continue and enjoy ourselves.  In fact they brought us some cheese and crackers which Yolanda said was very unusual and we should feel honored that they liked having us. 

A quick trip through the gift shop grabbing one thing after another and we were back in the car on our way to Freixenet which we found with ease.  However, we were so late that we not only had missed our tour but the winery was closed.  But their small restaurant was open if we were interested.  Since we hadn’t had any lunch we were interested.

Our trip back to Barcelona went smoothly and once in Barcelona just a small realignment or two got us to the car rental return only to realize we hadn’t refueled!!  Back out Joan went headed to the gas station.  Now with a full gas tank we were ready to turn in the car.  Joan had only rented the car for one day but had actually kept it for two.  This was fine with them since they were simply going to add on a ton of fees for doing this that took the rental from $89 E a day to a total of $370.  That was it, Joan’s day finally caught up to her…………..when all was said and done it was settled to everyone’s liking.

On the sidewalk I said good-bye to Dee and Joan, we were headed in different directions and they will be going home tomorrow.  All I could think of was that Joan really looked like she needed a vacation!!!