There is something deeply satisfying about parades. The anticipation among crowds of people standing hip to hip with children delicately propped on broad shoulders, all eager to hear the very first beat of the drum resonating inside their chests. I love seeing eyes grow wide as saucers as brightly colored faces beam smiles of excitement as each member of the parade takes on a persona they can only embody once throughout the year. Parades bring out a raw energy, an intensity that pulses throughout the crowd, because no matter how many times you see a parade, there is always an element of the unknown.

Last night, Ryan and I ventured out to our quiet streets of Terrassa to take in our first La Cabalgata de Reyes Magos. Having spent the last three holidays abroad in either the States or Norway, we’ve missed the festivities and felt that time had finally come for us to bundle up tight against the frigid wind and embrace the biggest night of the Spanish New Year: the celebration of when the 3 Kings - Melchor, Gaspar, and Baltasar - arrive into town with their entourage of pages to bring gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to Jesus.

And although I am not a religious person, the idea of joining the community together in celebration is always appealing to me. I love when barrios pool their funds and resources together for the benefit of their citizens, so that everyone may find a ounce of hope and joy, and god forbid, imagination in their day. But what I failed to grasp, watching cold little mittened hands hold out their knitted caps like nets was the barrage of brightly colored …

That’s right, with the economy being what it is, we thought we could create another source of income by founding the Opai Christmas Construction Company, building Gingerbread houses for one and all. For a very reasonable fee, much less than those ridiculously priced Gingerbread Kits, the Opai Christmas Construction Company can build custom homes within a day! Incredible!

Three story castle complete with a princess in distress? No Problem!
Small two bedroom bungalow complete with elves and a toy working bench? No Problem!
Gigantic edible life size  house to live in when you’re laid off work? No Problem!

With a little dough (literally) and a lot of creativity, we can put up your walls, adhere roof tiles and landscape the yard. Granted, it may look like crack den for hyped up elves on sugar, but hey, at least you’re saving a few pennies in the process!

After working in the wine world for more then 10 years, there is an aspect of the community that despite being a handicap of the industry, is still difficult to understand and deal with. If you are wine retailer, writer, importer, distributor, or otherwise, you come to think of yourself as an aficionado of wine, and consequently, immune to the scrooge of alcoholism. Your mind tells you that the people who you work in “the biz” are all responsible and moral individuals who are only in the industry because they love alcohol for its camaraderie, history, culture, relationship with food and as a social lubricant. However, as a retailer, you know which customers have monkeys on their backs. We’re talking about the guy who “discretely” slips in a pint of schnapps as an after thought when buying a pack of smokes or the grandma with the standing order for a case of gin once a week. In the backroom, we would make uncomfortable jokes among ourselves as we tried to justify feeding their habit, the poison that will eventually kill them. Because, in reality, we’re just doing our job, right?

Over time, we learn to accept reality for what it is, understanding that we can’t control an individual’s personal choice. But there is another reality of the industry that eats at me more profoundly. Since I have entered the wine business, and I’m know I’m not alone, I have discovered the evil disease supposedly meant for those who don’t understand the joys of fine wine, scotch, or a good beer has slipped behind the curtain …

Can you believe that we’ve lived in Spain for 3 years! 3 years!!!! That, my friend, is incredible. How quickly time flies when you’re having fun. It’s also been two and half years since our creation of Catavino! Granted, the first year of its debut was more of personal journal than a comprehensive Iberian wine site, but the passion has carried through from day one.

A second aspect that has continually woven itself through the creation of our site, and our aspirations and dreams of living in Spain, is that everything changes. Change is one of the few guarantees we have in life. What we first envisioned as our end goal when we moved here has morphed and altered, appearing as a completely different creature from when we first started. Catavino Marketing wasn’t even a blimp on our radar many moons ago, but now, we’ve shifted our focus after receiving very positive feedback over the past two years. Additionally true is having Gabriella come on board full time, giving Catavino a much needed balance in information as well as providing consistency. Come to think of it, we’ve been averaging 5 posts a week since her arrival, a task we’re very proud of as it has hopefully provided you an ample amount of new information on Iberian wine to ponder and act upon. Now just wait until you see what we’ve got in store for 2008!

Newsletters!! Although our first newsletter on Port wine proved to be a rather impressive hurdle to jump without having prior experience either creating or formating it, we’re strangely pleased with the end result. Sure, we made some fatal errors along the way, but like anything in life, we learned; gaining yet another badge of …

Editor’s note: Today’s Spanish Holiday explanation is brought to you by our good friends at Notes from Spain. If you want to learn Spanish check out their amazing podcast: Notes in Spanish, where they teach Spanish by having conversations that are actually fun to listen to! Today Ben describes what the traditions are here in Spain. I hope you enjoy it and if you have time make sure to stop over to their site and check it out!

We all know that Christmas can be a bit exhausting: parties, meals, family, too much to drink, but in the end, you really only have to worry about two big occasions: Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. Then it’s all mercifully over and you can get on with breaking your New Year’s Resolutions.

Not so in Spain. In Spain, Christmas is an test of endurance, only for the brave. In fact, if it was an Olympic event, the Spanish would take gold every time. It goes something like this:

December 24th, Nochebuena: One of the biggest nights in the calendar. The family gets together for a huge dinner, with plenty of seafood, probably the freshest, most expensive fish they can find, and with any luck, a good hunk of meat. As soon as you have you got to bed and managed to sleep this off, it’s…

December 25th - Navidad: Time to get together with the family again - remember all those guys you just ate with last night? More meat, lots of gambas, and plenty of wine but, strangely enough, usually no presents. Although some households are taking on the Santa Claus tradition just to keep their kids quiet, most gift-giving doesn’t happen for another 12 days yet.

After a merciful …

Editor’s Note: As November is port wine month at Catavino, we’ve asked a handful of bloggers specific questions about port wine depending on their field of expertise. Andrew Barrow, the voice behind the UK wine blog, Spittoon, editor of Wine Sediments and wine distributor for UK Wines Online, was brave enough to be our first guinea pig of the month asked to field 3 questions provided by Catavino: Considering that port owes its existence to England, what is the British current attitude towards port wine? Is it popular, or is it a wine geek treat? Is there some kind of British pride based on its history with port wine? Here is what he has to say:

It was the last of Ryan’s questions that got to me - “Is there some kind of British pride based on it’s history with Port wine?”

I had never even considered that us, in the UK, would have ‘pride’ in Port, despite its history. In fact, I doubt that many drinkers of port are even aware of the history or even that it originates from Portugal.

It is a drink for Christmas first and foremost. It does still have this traditional image. I am sure there are figures available somewhere that state that 90% (or whatever) port sales are made during December. How many of those are for gifts I wonder? A vast number. The majority of sales will be for basic tawny and ruby styles - Warres Warrior, Cockburns, and the like. Taylors LBV is a huge seller too, but only in the run up to Christmas. And I’m just like everyone else. Despite my love of the stuff - in all its array of styles - …