After a long and luxurious weekend of visiting touristy sites around Barcelona, I was a little awe-stricken this morning when I opened my inbox to a deluge of Spanish and Portuguese wine links. Normally, we would let this wait for Friday, but with the amount of fun facts, recipes, instigating articles and events happening right now, we felt it would be best to mix it up a bit and bring you the information now! Enjoy.

Warm Spanish Cocktail
Erin Hartigan at usaweekend.com published a whole slew of suggestions on how to use those remaining bottles of liquor sitting idly on the counter into some delicious belly warming drinks. One suggestion in particular that obviously caught our eye used Spanish wine as your base for a funky sounding warm sangria.

Mull more than just wine. Scott Beattie, bar manager of Cyrus Restaurant in Healdsburg, Calif., uses mulling spices to seasonalize sangria: “I take cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice, toast them, add orange and pineapple juices, and cook that mixture down.” He adds it to a strong red Spanish wine and equal parts cognac and dark rum. Freeman likes Glhwein, Germany’s hot, spiced red wine. “Add juniper, cinnamon and allspice, or even rosemary, to red wine,” he says, and to sweeten, use elderberry syrup, cassis or Cointreau.

Portuguese Stone Soup
I admit that I’ve heard of stone soup in my past, but I wasn’t familiar with the etymology of its name until now. One version in the Times Colonist speaks of a beggar who was so desperate for food that he pleaded for ingredients to add to his pebble-filled broth. So touched were the townspeople that they eagerly gave to the beggar in hopes of thickening his soup. By the end of his rounds, he had gathered enough potatoes, …

When I first heard the name “La Rioja” I made the grand assumption that it derived from a geographic location. Why? Because if you’ve taken Spanish 101, you will immediately recognize the word rio in the name, meaning river, while oja can translate to “watch out!” or “look out for”. Hence, I assumed that name either meant “a dangerous river worthy of your caution” or “an incredibly beautiful river to look out for”. Although I felt pretty confident in my theory, I’ve already confessed that our knowledge of Rioja is relatively slim at this point. So, I donned my student cap and turned to John Radford’s book, The Wines of Rioja for a more expert opinion.

According to his book, the commonly held theory by wine writers and Rioja lovers alike is that La Rioja’s namesake is based on the River Oja, which feeds into the Tiron river, passes through Haro and eventually flows into the famous rio Ebro. Now although this doesn’t explain why the entire region is called La Rioja, it’s an undeniably practical theory.

However, as I continued reading through the Radford’s alternative theories behind La Rioja’s origins, suddenly, the popular namesake rio Oja had equally sound competitors. John lays out five possibilities, all interesting, and all worthy of our consideration. So compelling are some of these arguments that I thought it would be fun if we had a little vote. When you finish the article, please take a moment to share which theory you stand behind in the comment section, maybe because you simply like the theory or because you find it to be the most logical.

Proposed Theories by John Radford of the Epytomology of La Rioja

Bodegas Ijalba Ogga
Based on research conducted …

Hey Rioja Fans!

Well, I can tell you with out a doubt that there is more information on Rioja than I possibly know what do to with. From wine routes to wineries, we’re overwhelmed with the amount of cool tips and basic facts we need to impart to you. In all honesty, it reminds me of walking into a candy store at age six and feeling so flushed with shock and excitement over the variety of incredibly delicious looking treats laid out before me that the only thing I know how to do is smile. That, my friends, is exactly how I feel! And considering that our experiences with Rioja have been limited at best, everything that’s been coming into our mailbox and through our email looks worthy of an article.

That said, I figured the best way to ring in the upcoming months was to throw the ball in your court and see if I can’t entice you to share a story or two about your own experiences. So have it! We’ve included some questions that are of interest to us, but if you have a more exciting tale to tell, we’re giving you free reign!

Having divulged my “first” Rioja wine with you, can you dig deep into your own memory bank and draw up the first time your lips touched a wine from Rioja? What was it and was it any good?

Assuming that you’ve become fanatic Spanish wine drinkers as a result of us (well, a girl can dream), what ranks as your creme de la creme Rioja wine, and what makes it do good?

If you had the full attention of someone from D.O.C.a Rioja or a winemaker, what question have you always wanted to know about the wines, the region, the regulations or …

For those of you who have stuck by us over the past three years, you may have struggled with me as I attempted to maneuver my way through the Spanish educational system. For one year, I eagerly taught English to five year olds in a small Catholic school in Barcelona before joining Catavino full-time. Renowned for its alternative education, the school gained its notoriety based on a methodology it employed called, the Theory of Multiple Intelligence, which also happened to be the main crux behind my master’s thesis in education. Created by Howard Gardner, the theory states that we as humans have a wide range of abilities, or intelligences, that are neither utilized nor nurtured. But through interactive and dynamic learning, where all intelligences are acted upon, we have the ability to truly excel and reach our highest potential.

Let’s bring this down to layman’s terms. Old school methodology that you and I experienced throughout our youth was based on one directional learning. Put another way, your traditional static website, which simply provides information without dialogue. Basically your “I’m the expert, so you must believe what I say” principle. While, the Multiple Intelligence Theory says that learning needs to be hand’s on, interactive, dynamic and conversational - translating to web 2.0 or social networking. Learning now becomes a relationship between the student and the material, where the student can play and manipulate the information.

Now, although the school was an administrative disaster, their intentions were honorable, and the children were able to learn incredible lessons, like the art of winemaking. For two months, these children were immersed in lessons ranging from math (10 grapes minus 6 grapes) to music (create a song from stomping on grapes), which also included …

That’s right! It’s time for our next theme for our newsletter, and this time, it’s all about Rioja! In the coming months, we hope to not only chat about the wines of Rioja, but also the foods, tourism and culture. Why two months? We’ve realized that until someone pays us to do this, we aim to put out the best content possible, and with a topic as big as Rioja, we’ll need more than a month to really dig up the juicy content in order to present it to you. So first off, allow us to give you an intro into our experience with Rioja, its wines, and some thoughts on what we hope to learn along the way.

When going back into the archives, we realized that Rioja hasn’t receive much coverage on Catavino. Sure we’ve mentioned it every now and then, Ryan’s visited it, and we’ve even included some tasting notes from time to time, but in truth, we’ve neglected it. You might ask why, pointing out that Rioja is one of the most recognized Iberian wine regions, famous for its rich Tempranillos and long, history. Isn’t Rioja the region that people look to when talking about Spain, referencing its stardom as a primary driver to Spanish wines recent successes? Well, you’d be absolutely correct to bring these points to light, but there’s a catch.

Before we dive into the reasons why we’ve avoided this region, we want to share with you why we’re excited to devote our combined efforts solely on Rioja. As we stated above, Rioja is one of the main reasons that Spanish wine is well known today. With a history stretching back over 100 years, …