Terra Alta, meaning high ground, is a Spanish wine region situated in the south-western tip of Catalonia, where low mountains and valleys extend south to the border with the Teruel province. This is a geographically diverse region, but with two very prominent features: the eastern end of the province, which is layered with craggy mountainous terrain highlighted with peaks of the Espina, Pàndols and Cavalls mountain ranges rising between 600 and 1200 meters. The western side shows its rich rolling valleys filled with olive, almond and hazelnut orchards intermixed among expansive vineyards.

Additionally worth noting is that the western end of Terra Alta is the precursor to the Ebre Depression. I trust you have no idea what the Ebre Depression is? No worries, nor did I before this article. The Ebre Depression is an orographic barrier which acts as a solid wall, forbidding the Mediterranean air to flow through. The benefit of this natural barricade for vines is that it creates extreme climate conditions in both the summer and winter; in addition to a lack of rain. Limestone and clay, low in organic matter, allow for good aeration and drainage.

Historically, the road from Zaragoza to Totosa meandered its way directly through this region during Roman Times allowing for settlements, which in turn, let to the first planting of vineyards. Later, in the medieval times, it is suspected that the Knights of Templar also grew vines in Terra Alta, but as result of the long distance between the vines and local markets and the sea, they were most replaced with olive trees. However, in the 19th century, this upcoming wine region had gained fame for its ‘amber blanc’ oxidised …

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 …

Today marks the 48th edition of Wine Blog Wednesday, an event that Lenn probably didn’t even realize would last so long, or have so much success, upon its inception. Four years later, this internet meme has become a staple of any wine blogger’s monthly posting schedule. It is also an event which has exposed wine bloggers to a variety wines and styles that they either may not have tried before or thought to explore. So for the 4 year anniversary, it is only appropriate that Lenn has asked us to head back to our roots and  look at what brand really made us first fall in love with wine, or as they say, “gave you that ‘aha’ moment” where you finally understood the joy that wine is.

For Gabriella and I, this is a bit hard for us to do. I remember my ‘aha’ wine being a St.Francis Zinfandel that I splurged on with my friend Elly. We read in a paper that it scored “huge points”, and not knowing what points were, we took it at face value to mean that the wine was the creme de la creme. And as the bottle was only a small stretch in our combined budgets, we purchased it, realizing then and there that wine was worth splurging on from time to time.

That said the wine that was my go to wine during college, the one I brought to parties to seem more sophisticated than the people who had their own 24pack of light beer, was Vendage Merlot. A 1.5L was around $8 at the time, thinking it was so fine and refined! Revisiting this wine approximately four years ago, I found that the …