Initially, I thought I would be the only person bringing sherry to the EWBC 2008 invitational tasting, but once things got going, I was pleased to see that some Osborne Fino Quinta and the Manzanilla and Fino from Equipo Navazos (Nos 7 and 8 ) had made an appearance. The more the merrier, as far as I was concerned. I think the guys from Vinustv provided the Navazos wines and that Osborne had sent a few bottles of Fino Quinta to Catavino.

Navazos are doing really interesting things, but this post is about the wines I took along, which were from Alvaro Domecq here in Jerez. A not insubstantial number of bottles where donated by Alvaro Domecq, and they also sent along a complimentary “copita”, the traditional sherry glass, for each of the participants. Generally, the Alvaro Domecq wines went down well with the EWBC participants, and I was glad of the opportunity to introduce Alvaro Domecq and sherry to those who did not already know either.

The wine
The soleras at Alvaro Domecq date back to 1800, when Antonio María de Aranda started a bodega in Jerez. His son, Fermín Aranda, a famous medical doctor, inherited the business, which subsequently became “Fermín Aranda”. Fermín, in turn, passed the bodega on to his daughter, Pilar Aranda, who inherited the business in 1946. She was a very successful Almacenista, holding her own in a man’s world and producing outstanding wines and vinegars. Almacenistas (from “almacenar”, which means “to store”) are very rare now, but in former times were a major part of the sherry trade. They aged wines in their …

This weekend, we built a wine rack. When we first moved to Terrassa almost 3 years ago, we were regularly lacking in wine as a result of less income, less samples and less travel. Consequently, we never had a formal wine rack. But when you change any one of these factors, you end up with a lot more wine. Now imagine if you changed all three like we have?! We not only needed to figure out where to store it all, but also how to inventory it. I still have most of my cellar in Cellartracker, though I quit putting in my tasting notes. I like Snooth and Adegga as well, but they both need better cellar management for me to move to them exclusively. Since this past weekend we created the wine rack, maybe next weekend we’ll inventory the wine. Let’s see what happens.

As for building the wine rack, it actually turned out to be much easier than we expected. Odd note though: untreated, uncut, plain wood costs more than planed, beveled whole sheets of wood here in Terrassa. So instead of needing to sand and polish it, we simply bought nice sheets of solid, shelving wood and then cut it to fit. Yet, we still need another. So later today, I’m off to buy some more wood for wine rack number two!

Enough about housing. Next Monday, we’re off to judge wine blogs! It feels a bit odd to mention, after we realized at the EWBC that judging a wine blog is quite subjective once you get past the aggregators and plagiarizers. Once into the meat of the blogging world, where the hard work and effort is being …