Since day one, I’ve wanted a map of the wine regions of Spain and Portugal. Seems like a simple request, and if I couldn’t have one of Iberia, at least you would think that there would be one of Spain and another of Portugal. You would think. You would also be wrong, sort of. Announcement

Interestingly, there are no good maps of the peninsula we call Iberia, or at least as it relates to wine. Wines of Spain, the bureaucratic agency in charge of promoting Spanish wine, does have an outdated map, but you can’t get a copy of it. I had a prominent tour guide friend of mine once ask to buy a few copies to give to her clients, all of which were on wine tours, and she was told it was not possible. Hence, I’m not sure why they made it. We had to steal a few copies from a regional government’s office, and while we use them occasionally, in truth, they are worthless.

That said, Portugal is no better, and I have yet to find a map that accurately sums up the many nuances in a very confusing set of regional wine laws. And considering that there is little consensus among differing governmental maps, it is clear that one concise and accurate map was desperately in need to be created.

Enter the DeLong wine company, creator of such treasures as the Wine Varietal Table. Having encountered way too many inaccurate regional wine maps around the world, Steve decided to fix the problem by making his own map. Smart guy! The best part for us is that …

Not a great deal has been written on what is admittedly the relatively new area of pairing international wines with Chinese cuisine. Or should that be Chinese cuisines? This vast country, now in the grips of the Olympics at last, boasts an incredible array of provincial and regional dishes, embracing just about every cooking technique under the sun – many of which, of course, were either ‘invented’ or developed in China itself.

So, if you want to explore Chinese cooking and try your hand at matching your favorite wines with different dishes, how can you get started? And what dishes might partner well with Iberian wines, an equally diverse world of flavors and textures?

China’s rich culinary heritage is hugely complex. But, put simply, four overall groups dominate: Lu (Shandong), Yue (Cantonese), Chuan (Sichuan) and Huaiyang (Jiangsu). What wines match with these groups? Given the innate diversity of these cuisines, Chinese gourmets will find this question bizarre: a bit like saying, ‘What wines can pair with French, Spanish, Norwegian or Austrian food’? The answers can seem endless, but we have to start somewhere.

Below are some specific examples from each school of cooking matched with one or more Spanish or Portuguese wines. There are certainly enough wine-styles and types of wine-making in the Iberian Peninsula to offer some great matches with Chinese dishes from different traditions.

And, if some of these cuisines are not all that available outside China, the great Cantonese Diaspora has at least meant that what passes for Chinese …

The original intention I had when Ryan left for the States a few weeks ago was relatively simple. Once my cast was removed from my hand two days after his plane took off, I would run out to our local sport shop and purchase a funky bike. It wouldn’t be anything fancy mind you, just something durable enough to allow me to zoom across the beautiful sandy beaches with my little front basket filled with a bottle of Mestres Cava and a freshly baked baguette with a block of sheeps cheese from Navarra. When I found the perfect spot where I could lay my checkered green blanket down on the silky sand, I would jump off my bike, prepare my lunch and enjoy a refreshing swim in Mediterranean followed by a siesta. Sounds dreamy, doesn’t it? However, life got the best of me and the “fantastic” Spanish medical system gave me an additional five more weeks in a cast, making it a total of seven weeks, with no guarantee that I would be able to see a doctor before the next millennium.

Was I a bit depressed? You bet I was! I stormed home, sat at my computer with the intention of pouring my pathetic woes out to Ryan by email when the phone rang from a Portuguese winery interested in knowing more about the European Wine Blogger Conference. Then another phone call, followed by email after email after phone call, all related to the event. Let’s not forget the ongoing requests from our clients, the creation of a  wine blog writing workshop on the OWC, or the maintenance of Catavino, which conveniently crashed during my watch. Suddenly, I was an airtraffic controller, and my plans …

I sometimes like to believe that my father is a master pyromaniac in the most docile sense of the word. The week before Independence Day, my brother and I would pile into the back of my father’s car and go for an hour and half car ride north to Wisconsin, where it is legal to buy firecrackers, but just not use them. I remember these times fondly, walking into makeshift tents set up alongside the highway lined with dozens of cardboard boxes overflowing with clown colored tubes with names like Bottle Rockets and Dragon Twisters. My dad would always break the bank that day, and like a kid in a candy store, he couldn’t say no to things that light up the sky and go BOOM!

But our revelry as a family lasted only one day of the year, while here in Catalunya, the Revetlla de Sant Joan, complete with enormous bonfires and imaginary beings, is characterized by a week long celebration of explosions. For approximately seven days, you hear nothing but the constant sound of warfare, until the night of June 23rd, when children, grandparents and people of all races and religions gather together to go absolutely flippin’ insane. Imagine walking through your local park, and literally having firecrackers come at you from every direction. Five year olds chucking small firecrackers at your feet, grandma lighting Roman Candles at a 45 degree angle, teenagers igniting bottle rockets directly at their buddies, smoke everywhere, and you, in the middle of it all, praying that you can just get to the other side of the 200 meter park without having your eye taken out.

Where does this complete chaos stem from? La Nit de Sant Joan, St …

At the end of March, we threw a little shindig for Ryan on his birthday consisting of wine, mounds of grilled butifarra and dozen friends. And with the appropriate social graces, many of our friends came bearing gifts, all looking distinctly similar to a bottle of wine. Clearly, they had been well versed in the ways of gift giving for an uber-wine geek!

The Rimarts Brut Reserva from Sant Sadurni d’Anoia is one of Ryan’s birthday bottles which has been sitting patiently in the refrigerator just waiting for the right moment to be uncorked. And today just happens to be the lucky day as new friends for the States have been invited for a traditional Catavino Cookout on our terrace complete with grilled chicken, butifarra, grilled peppers, artichokes, and of course, regional cured hams and cheeses.

The strangely appropriate timing of this grand uncorking comes just one day before DO Cava releases their brand new image, coupled with the new slogan, “From the Land to the Heart”. Can you hear the violin’s playing the background and feel the gentle wind ruffling your hair, as you overlook their vast, rolling vineyards? As told on the Wines of Spain website, the idea behind this heart warming slogan according to DO Cava’s Regulating Council, Gustavo García Guillamet, is to encompass the entire winemaking process, from the very earth where, “Cava is born as a gift for the senses, wooing one’s emotions and going straight to the heart”. Question: Do you suddenly feel compelled to savor a glass of cava based on this eloquent and moving slogan? Are your keys in hand prepared to buy up a few cases of brut, brut nature and semi seco cava?

But wait, there’s …