Ello! My gosh look at me being productive and such. 4 in 4 days! Maybe one more about my touring in Sevilla, and then we'll be caught up.
This weekend, my program took a day trip to Puerta de Santa María y Cádiz!
Puerta de Santa María
Puerta de Santa María is a small town know for its wine making. They specialize in a specific kind of sherry, and use an absolutely fascinating technique to bring their wines to market ready. They only have 3 types of grapes, but based on how they're mixed, what temperature it is and what barrels they're kept in, they can make 15 varieties.
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At this vineyard, the wines have no year assigned to them. In most places, when you buy a wine, it's labeled "2004 Cabernet" or something like that. They don't use a year because they mix all their wine up! They do this to help the bacteria flourish. Sounds gross, but makes delicious drinks.
They barrels are kept in 3 rows, and every year they move the top-third from each barrel to the next barrel down. Then the top-third of the last barrel is what gets bottled.This means at minimum any given bottle is at least 3 years old.
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| See the rows of three and high ceilings? |
So what about the bottom 2 thirds of the bottom barrel? When does that get taken out?
Wine-making is a family tradition here, and each family that owns a stake in the vineyard gets to claim one variety of wine. They can claim those bottom barrels whenever they want, but the longer they wait, the better it gets. The families with the lowest stakes get 15yr old barrels, and the vineyard owners get barrels over fifty years old. The oldest barrel in the vineyard hasn't been tapped since the Spanish civil war (1936-1939)!
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| Our guide showing us the anatomy of a wine barrel! |
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| Nothing like a 10am wine tasting... :P |
Another interesting fact: the barrels are not airtight. In fact, the corks on the barrels are for keeping out critters more than anything. The air is used to flavor the wine and help the bacteria grow. Like flowers, this bacteria grows differently in different environments, hence the different varieties! They call this process "Crianza biológica". Depending on the "bloom" of the year, a barrel can have anywhere from 15-28 grades de alcohol! They've created this cool microclimate inside their building! It's built like a cathedral, high windows, high ceilings, lots of room for air movement on one end and less on the other so they can move them with the seasonal climate changes.
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| My favorite bottle of the day: the driest dry sherry. It's their "Fino" line. |
After the tour was a tasting! This wine is what we consider "Sherry" in the states. We started with dry sherries for 1,2, and 3, and ended with sweet sherries for 4 and 5. I liked the first the best, as we progressed into the darker and sweeter ones I felt like I was drinking maple syrup. This was their "most popular wine" with American tour groups... bleh.
We tasted:
1. Fino
2. Amontillado
3. Oloroso
4. Cream
5. Colosia
Cádiz
Cádiz is an adorable little town! They're very proud of the fact that they were the only town un-invaded by France back in the day; ask anyone in town and they'll tell you all about it! What helped them out was their geography- they're thisclose to being an island.  |
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| See that yellow building tucked in the corner? The inside looks like this ---> |
This used to be some guy's house. HOUSE. Can somebody build me something with architecture like this??
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| They're real proud of cannons here. That whole "we didn't get invaded" thing again. |
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| Pretty Tree |
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| Dear Cádiz, I support that you support nature. |
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| Panoramic of the only beach in the historic district! Me gusta. |
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| AMAZING Ice cream from this tiny hole in the wall type place |
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| Off to Narnia to explore the lighthouse! |
There was a man making the coolest sandcastle... the details were incredible!! Definitely earned that euro I threw in so I could take pictures. Also, prettier and less terrifying than people that dress up as things and scare you for money on the streets.
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| Snow white's cottage |
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| Sleeping Beauty and Prince Philip's castle |
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| The boardwalk |
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| All the wind in my hair. Yay buns! |
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| historical district of Cádiz |
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| Cathedral |
And then back on the bus to go home! Day trips are nice cause it means more time in Sevilla, but it's still a bummer to not be able to spend more time there. Although I did walk the circumference of the town twice, and the diameter a few times as well. (I miss my mathy bff).
More later!
XOXO, Katie
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