Wine Tasting of Dry and Sweet Wines From Valencia And South-East Spain

If you go to South east Spain to Benidorm, Alicante or Valencia you might pass lines of vines, see signs to Vineyards offering tastings or in restaurants and supermarkets come across wines made with the local Monastrell grape. 

The wine grape known as Mourvèdre in France is called monastrell in Spain. The grapes are dark red (I call them black) and are tannic, dry in the mouth. That's what some people love. I used to hate tannic wines, but am gradually getting used to them. But the red or black grapes are also the source of some rose wines and some delicious sweet wines, to finish the meal, or in my case drink all the way through.

You might drink these wines on holiday in Alicante or Valencia, visit a vineyard or bodega for a wine tasting there. 

Or buy from a supermarket in London, England or elsewhere before you go or just to find out in case you ever go there. (The same grape pops up in the USA and Australia.)

Eleven wines at different prices.

I went to a wine tasting, a Monastrell Masterclass and walk-around Tasting on 14th October 2024 at a  Asia House in London.

The Monastrell Grape Masterclass

Growing vines to make wine in Spain dates back many years. The name monastrell probably comes from the Latin for monastery.  

The monastrell grape grows in the sunny south-east of Spain. During the masterclass I learned that wines can thrive in hot climates without irrigation, (sending their roots deep down). 

Uprooting old vines to replace them with orchards might seem a good idea short term. However, orchards need water.  If the climate change results in less water, as predicted, those areas which saved their vineyards might be glad of their old vines in years to come.

Food to Match Monstrell Wine

Other fascinating facts. A popular saying is that what grows together goes together. What kind of food goes with Monastrell wines? Anything unusual? Distinctive? A local speciality? Yes.  For those seeking something savoury, rice with rabbit and snails. 

Paella From Valencia

It is not called paella. Paella is the speciality of the city of Valencia.

Monastrell

If you are looking for something sweeter or more familiar, Spain has an eggy bread, similar to what in England is called French toast. We were assured it goes very well with Monastrell.

Sweet Wine To Savour

I like sweet wines. So it was no surprise that my favourite was the last. One always finishes dinner with a sweet wine to go with sweet desserts, so even without any food, we finished with a sweet wine.

The Sweet Spanish Wine

The wine comes in a tall slim bottle, like sweet ice wines around the world. At thirty pounds, it is not cheap. (If you want a cheaper, strong dry red, there are at least three Monastrell wines costing around thirteen pounds.)

Secrets of Spanish Names Revealed

The name Silvano Garcia Dulce Monastrell 2019 was not memorable when I first glanced at it. However, when I researched the meaning of the words, they came into focus, close-up, vivid.

Bodegas Silvano Garcia

The bodega is the place where they serve you the wine which is grown on vines nearby. Silvano Garcia is a man's name.

Silvano - Meaning?

Silvano is a personal name which means someone who lives in the forest. Or woods. Silvano comes from the Latin word silva which means wood. 

Silvano was the Roman God of the forest. 

Garcia - A Popular Name

Garcia has an accent on the i for emphasis. Like pronouncing the name Maria, you say the penultimate vowel strongly.

Garcia means young, or young bear cub. In Germany a young bear is strong and courageous, and also means brave spear, or brave in battle.

Garcia is a popular surname. In fact, it's the most common surname in Spain. The second most common surname in Mexico.

Dulce means sweet. (Think of the English phrase describing a voice having dulcet tones.) Think of the Italian film titled La Dolce Vita.  So Dulce means sweet wine. Monastrell is the grape. DO Jumilla, origin the Jumilla area.

Wine Visit In Spain

When you visit the area, you can visit the winery for a tour. Wines available locally are of course cheaper. Their website shows the sweet wine at 14.95 Euros. But then you have to transport it back to England or your country, unless you want to drink it here in Spain.

They also sell jams made from their sweet wines, at prices from about 1.90 euros to about 4.90 euros. 

They have various tours at different prices and can arrange a wine tour followed by dinner.

Useful Websites

https://www.monastrell.org/en/monastrell-spain

Wiki on Mourvedre

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mourv%C3%A8dre

https://recipes.fandom.com/wiki/Monastrell

Please save and share links to your favourite blog posts.

BYO for Wine Groups In Restaurants - how to organise BYO, transporting, tasting and recycling bottles

Problem
How do you organize a wine tasting group in a hotel, restaurant, business premises or home?

Answers
I belong to several wine tasting groups in the UK, about half a dozen. I am also on the mailing list of wine festivals and events worldwide. Plus events organized by restaurants, bars, wine shops and the Wine Association. One of the groups meets in a restaurant in London. We match wines to food, which is pretty simple, starting with a sparkling white, drinking reds through the main course which is mostly stronger flavour meats, ending with sweet wines to go with dessert.

Details about wines and wine matching are on Grapedeal website. All website links are grouped at the end for you to turn to when you have finished reading this post.

Our group's organiser chose a Croydon restaurant, only as convenient for his home. He runs another company wine group based on his former workplace in central London. The Croydon venue attracts people from as far north of London as Watford, and as far out of London as Faversham in Kent.

Well-Travelled Members
The group attracts a complete mix of nationalities, from those whose parents are from the UK, to others descended from parents born in Germany, Italy, and the Cameroons in Africa. All are well travelled. One teaches on cruise ships.  Others travel with work. Discussion over cocktails and lunch ranged from 'my recent trip to Valencia in Spain', to India, and Boston in the USA.

For many years this group met at a hotel in Croydon. Then a new manager apparently changed the rules about BYO (bring your own).  We believe our leader negotiated better prices for a large group to meet at The Boulevard.

BYO
Wine societies are always looking for restaurants which allow BYO for specialist groups. Another factor is a set price for three courses with coffee including service. That makes it so much easier for the group organizer to book a table for a certain number and know what each person must pay.

The advantage to the restaurant is that they can regularly fill a large table and know what everybody will be paying, and no non-payers, and all customers are regulars and reliable.

BYO is very common in New Zealand.

In the UK, you can search online for BYO. Sometimes you get BYO in family-run restaurants, especially ethnic restaurants which don't specialise in wine. Another opportunity is from newly opened restaurants which don't yet have a license.

If you phone around, you may find that some places want to charge a prohibitive price for corkage; but others are very happy to charge nothing and just keen to get business to fill a back room or a large table lunchtime or evening, mid-week or weekend.

You might get a deal if you simply keep going through your list until you find somebody willing to meet your needs. The other advantage for a club is having an organizer who is retired and has time to research. Another option, a bonus, is a charming but canny negotiator.

Negotiating Skills
What does a negotiatior need? To enjoy researching. To compliment the chef, owner, hotel or restaurant or manager or staff. To work out what the restaurant wants, more business, to fill the place at off-peak hours, to build up business long-term, gain goodwill?  To concentrate on the price per meal? To concentrate on the total which the restaurant will get?

To be easy-going or tough? Or to have two negotiatiors, Mr tough and Mr nice?

To get a free drink or for everybody attending, or a free meal for the organizer? To be a regular customer at the restaurant in addition to organizing the club? To compare what other restarants in the area or country offer, or what other groups are paying?

Pay Straight Away
If your diners only want one type of wine with the main course, you could have an arrangement that everybody pays cash or credit card at the time of ordering for aperitifs and for after dinner drinks.
However, many retired people have spent a lifetime collecting wines and have specialist wines which are no longer available and would not be sold in most restaurants.

The last two events I attended were for wine pairings. We compared two wines.

On one special occasion for a wedding anniversary we had twelve wine glasses per person for a table of about twelve people. You drink only a small measure of each.

Safety First
You don't drive home.You take a train or a taxi. You make sure somebody sober collects you from the station.

Leftovers
I didn't drink port or spirits. If you have leftovers they can be corked up and taken home.

Open Bottles Banned
Notice that opened bottles of wine or cans of beer are not allowed on some stations and trains in the UK. Signs may tell you.

Why would the powers that be do this? Are they just being spoilsports?

No. Rules and bye-laws are brought in to stop drunks lurching around, singing annoyingly, accosting passengers. Worse still, drunks could be being sick, urinating on walls, or onto electrical lines.

They might start fighting each other, or amusing offering to share drinks or alarmingly demanding drinks money from passengers. You don't want winos and down-and-outs sleeping on benches and underfoot, assaulting railway staff, and falling under trains. If it never happens, it's because the management and staff don't let it happen.

UK Responsibility
Many UK restaurant menus have warnings about units of alcohol and drinking responsibly. At one company wine club, the staff insisted that a visiting lecturer add a warning on the printed tasting notes.

USA
In the USA in some States, you cannot have opened bottles of wine in a car. One restaurant in the USA would not allow us to take home an opened bottle for this reason, they claimed.

Transporting Heavy Wines
If you have packing to prevent access to the bottles, and to keep them hidden inside a locked suitcase, and you are sober, or the person with the locked suitcase is sober, that would be better.

Transporting wines for a group of 12-36 people, or more, means moving heavy bottles. Sometimes the bottles can be delivered to the venue the previous day and kept in a locked cellar at the venue.

Leftover bottles
What about the leftovers? What a waste! At one event, two of the ladies took home a half bottle each to cook in a casserole. Empty bottles can be kept for display, or converted into table lamps, for fun, for gifts, for decoration at home in the kitchen or lounge, or restaurants in the wine bar or dining room, for a pub, for a museum, or for sale.

In Company Meetings
To accompany wine bread and biscuits and cheese are often supplied. However, this is an unbalanced meal with no fruit or vegetables. Guests may wish to bring grapes, or to ask for vegetables and fruit to be supplied.

Providing Water
Another consideration is the cost of water. A wine tasting group might be looking for a venue which will provide unlimited supplies of tap water, or bottled water, and not refuse to serve tap water nor insisting on supplying and charging for bottled water. Organisers want to keep down the costs and ensure that sufficient food and wine is supplied to keep patrons sober.

Useful websites
drinkaware.co.uk
grapedeal.com
visitbritain.com
visitbritainshop.com
visittheusa.com
www.newzealand.com

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker

Carnivals, Festivals and Feasts With Fruit and Flowers

Where was that parade, or festival, the one with the fruit or vegetables and flowers?

By Country

GERMANY
Stuttgart Beer Festival or Autumn Fair, 17 day festival with a fruit column, fireworks. Starts late September until mid-October.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannstatter_Volksfest

ECUADOR
The name Ecuador means Equator, a hot country.
http://www.ecuador.com/blog/the-festival-of-fruit-and-flowers-in-ambato

ITALY
The Battle Of The Oranges
Culminates in a fruit throwing festival. Wear clothes which don't matter and look for designated areas of refuge.
January at Ivrea, near Turin, Italy.

http://news.opodo.co.uk/NewsDetails/2007-01-16/Battle_of_Oranges_at_Italian_carnival

Umbria - see previous posts.

SPAIN
La Tomatino is a festival which culminates in a tomato fight. The last Wednesday in August and the preceding week. In Buñol near Valencia.
https://www.spanish-fiestas.com/festivals/la-tomatina/

UK -
Cheese rolling
Pancakes - Shrove Tuesday, Pancake Day nationwide, offers in supermarkets and recipes in newspapers; pancake races, with pancakes in frying pans

USA
Parade of the Roses, Jan 1st? California?

Angela Lansbury
Travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.