The Wine in Spain Comes Mainly with the Cuisine – 1

The Wine in Spain Comes Mainly with the Cuisine

News Flash [Update 9-9-10] If You Love Spanish-style wines, Its Time to Join Us for Texas TAPAS: Tempranillo Advocates Producers and Amigos Society Starting a Chapter in Texas; See:

https://vintagetexas.com/?p=2363

Somewhere I have read: “Food is so deliciously exciting in Spain that choosing just one dish means missing the exciting pleasure of another. Perhaps this is why the Spanish invented tapas and the wonderful wines that accompany them.”

I have had the pleasure to travel in Spain and experience its unique food and wine culture. My overall impression is that the food and wine there was plentiful, varied and amazingly inexpensive. The Spanish tradition of tapas (little dishes of snacks that are served anytime, especially in quaint micro-bars known as “tascas”) is a marvelous way to sample the local food and
wine scene.

Tapas range in all types of foods including meat, vegetables and even seafood, usually swimming in an aromatic mixture of garlic and olive oil.

Since dinnertime usually starts around 10:00 pm, the Spanish embark on their nightly “Tapeo” which is much like a London pub-crawl. The traditional tasca-to-tasca stroll is a marvelous way to partake of their varied tapas and wines.

This is particularly exciting if you can find the older districts in Madrid or Granada where the bars are over a hundred of years old. In many cases, they are not much more than a single stand-up bar or a few tables between buildings where the street musicians come in and entertain you during your culinary excursions.

Imagine a museum whose walls are adorned with nothing but hams, each complete with hoof. In Madrid, this institution is proudly known as the Museo del Jamon. Unlike a more conventional museum, in this one you can purchase the “art” by the gram, kilo or in a sandwich called a Bocadillo, enjoyed au natural or with cheese, or tomatoes or marinated peppers.

Near the end of the trip my wife and I made it over to the Mediterranean coast city of Barcelona where the shellfish with wine was
the grand finale to a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon. The waiter was kind enough to bring me three baskets of bread to sop up
all the juices in our platters of mussels and clams.

Hey, what can I say?

Thus far, I have focused on only the food of Spain but, will move on to the wines in the next installment.

For more, see: https://vintagetexas.com/?p=8