Welcome to another addition of Iberian Links around the web! Despite Labor Day being celebrated yesterday throughout the EU, in addition to family and friends arriving from both London and Madrid, we still found a little space in the day to collect a few news bits that you might be interested in to share your thoughts on in the comments below!

The Ultimate Luxury: You’re Very Own, Vineyard in a Box!
Ever want to purchase a vineyard but were afraid that you’d kill the vines in the first year? Maybe you know a decent amount about winemaking, but have a perfectionist side of you that only wants to craft the ultimate, world-renowned wine? Well, guess what? Now is your chance! Decanter recently covered a story on La Melonera, a 200-hectare ready-made vineyard and residence development near Ronda in southern Spain and headed up by Spanish winemaker, Jose Luis Perez Verdum. Over the past five years, €22 million have been spent on restoring their cork oaks and landscaping the property so that you can purchase your own private estate for a starting cost of €3.5 million, which will buy anywhere between 5.5 hectares and 18 hectares of land. As the owner of your private estate, you can make your wines, aided not only by a technical team residing at la Melonara, but you may also harvest advice from big names like Denis Dubourdieu or Dirk van der Niepoort! Sounds rather extravagant, doesn’t it? But by the end of the day, if you’ve got a few million euros hanging out of your back pocket, why not? There is a really good reason why not. This project was launched at the …

The warm spring rays are now browning your ghostly winter skin; the orange light streams in through your windows well into the early evening; the air is heavy with aromas of fresh cut grass and blooming white lilies, all signaling the perfect time to finally indulge yourself with a bottle of white wine. The big question, however, is which one?

Having come off of two months dedicated to La Rioja, and five long months of winter weather, we opened our refrigerator to a dozen bottles of white, rose and cavas, all beckoning our palates. Yet, behind the small jars of capers, deep in the way back of the refrigerator, past the Norwegian caviar, sat one bottle of Herdade Grande Colheita Seleccionada 2006. We had actually received this wine from the winemaker last summer during our unexpected whirlwind Portuguese wine tasting in Lisbon. So it was fun for us to pull this wine out from the depths of the refrigerator, enjoying some wonderful memories from our stay.

The winery itself is located approximately 5 miles from Vidigueira in the Alentejo. Owning 350 hectares of land, only 60 hectares are under vine, while the remaining 80 hectares are devoted to arboreal culture, 40 to olive groves and the rest to cow pastures. Soils are comprised of primarily red schist, varying in texture from porous to smooth and compact of which both red and white varietals are grown. Native red grapes grown are Arganoes, Trincadeira, Alfrocheiro, Tinta Grossa, Tinta Caiada, Touriga Nacional, Touriga Franca, Alicante Bouchet, among none native red varietals such as Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. As for white, they grow Antao vaz, Arinto, Roupeiro, Rabo de Ovelha, Perrum, Monteudo and Fernao Pires.

The Herdade Grande Colheita Seleccionada 2006 is made from two common …

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, …

I’ve been meaning to put this bodega profile together for ages, simply because the representative I met last summer in Lisbon was not only unforgettable with his dashing appearance and remarkable confidence, but because he seemed ridiculously impressed with his wines. Brilliant blond hair parted meticulously to right, perfectly ironed white button down shirt, and a cool relaxed demeanor, this man appeared impenetrable until he discovered that I didn’t know his winery. Understandably, I knew very few wineries in Portugal until our major investigation last year. And once we dove into the subject, I felt like I was drowning in a multitude of interesting bodegas I wanted to research but couldn’t find the time to write about. And then came the 2005 Palácio da Bacalhôa. When we opened this wine a few nights ago, Ryan and I turned to one another with big toothy grins and said, “we need to share this adega with our readers!”

The winery acquired its name from the Renaissance palace of Quinta da Bacalhôa , which sits directly on the winery estate. The palace is located just south of Lisbon, in the region of Azeitão. Commissioned in 1554 by the son of the famous Portuguese mariner, Afonso de Albuquerque (a Portuguese fidalgo, or nobleman, and a naval general officer who conquered and established the Portuguese colonial empire in the Indian ocean), the palace was influenced by both Italian and Indian design which were renowned for their extensive gardens and open-air balconies. From the pictures I’ve seen, which include extensive labyrinths crafted in a filigree like style, an enormous two foot high reflecting pool that mirrors the majority of the palace onto into its waters, and a jaw dropping …

Short history from the winery’s excellent website:
Monte da Ravasqueira has been linked to the family for several generations. Located in the municipality of Arraiolos, about an hour’s drive from Lisbon, the estate occupies a vast area of typical Alentejan landscape. It is managed and run by Sociedade Agrícola D. Diniz, SA.

The excellent geological conditions and the climate are well suited to the production of some of the best wine that the Alentejo has to offer. A great deal has been invested in planting vines and also in modern winemaking equipment and in meteorological and plant-health facilities.

Investment at Monte da Ravasqueira has also been directed at the infrastructures of an ambitious oenotourism project.

Monte da Ravasqueira is committed to the production of distinctive quality wines, while it is also engaged in a number or other activities involving the production of cork, olive oil and honey, as well as rearing fine cattle and breeding the Lusitanian horse.

Catavino’s Note:
During our visit to Lisbon, we met with many wineries and their representatives, but this was one winery that we were unable to accommodate. Monte da Ravasqueira did, however, leave four red wine samples for us to try at our leisure. And after shipping them ourselves back to Terrassa, Saturday evening provided us the perfect opportunity to taste 3 of their reds and 1 rose. Overall, we agree that they were technically well made and interesting to taste. Our notes follow at the bottom.

The Alentejo region is like the “California” of Portugal, where one can grow just about anything with still plenty of room to experiment. It seems that every time I visit, or taste the wines from this region, I find something new and interesting. The Alentejo is filled with almost every type of grape being experimented with and every style of …