Editor’s Note: If you remember, a little while back, Ryan reviewed the book “Valencia, Land of Wine“, written by Joan C. Martin and translated and edited by John Maher. While, in Valencia, we asked John how he felt about writing the occasional piece for us on Valancian wine, being our resident expert and all. And to our great surprise, he agreed. You’ll see from his elegant prose and witty humor that our choice was a good one! We are very happy to have him join us and suggest you check out his profile on our “About” page for more information.

That said, his piece today is a request on my part to have him share his knowledge on the native Valencian grape, Vernil, as a reaction to a rather blah experience we had while in Valencia. Although Vernil had a nice aromatic nose, we found the palate to be a touch empty, lacking in both body and acidity. So I tried to do a little research on the grape to see if others were having the same experience, when I came across John’s description of Verdil on his website, Wines of Valencia. The proverbial light bulb went off, and it suddenly occurred to me that there would be no better person to tackle this subject than John.

John, thanks and welcome aboard!

The wine reference books I have to hand don’t have much to say about the Verdil grape. The “Oxford Companion to Wine” says it makes “rather neutral wine” in Yecla and the southernmost part of Valencia, while my much-thumbed “Dictionary of Drink” says incorrectly that it is grown in the Alicante region. …

On the Train to Valencia!
As I write, we are heading down south to the warm, sunny beaches of Valencia. We’ll be visiting with a few key people from the wine tourism industry along with a new client, who is just starting out in the world of exports. Interestingly, they own one of the largest nursery’s for vines in Spain; hence, it will be fun to see how they are grown and prepared for the vineyards. Beyond all of this, we have a tasting with an old friend whose book we reviewed here a few months ago.

We’re both excited to be able to come down here after many months away to taste new wines, as Valencia really is one of those regions that is too often overlooked, while producing some of the most exciting wines in Spain.

Joining the Rest of Iberia
Now that the weather is officially blistering hot, and Iberian businesses are closing up shop at 2pm, we felt it was appropriate to follow suit by cutting down our posting to approximately 3 times a week. I say approximately, because our correspondents now located in Andalusia, Beijing and Lisbon will be contributing as well. But keep in mind that this is only until September when we’ll return back to our normal 5 days a week publishing schedule. Hopefully our decision will help to encourage you to get outside as well this summer, far away from blinking cursors and television sets Side note: we are still looking for a correspondent in the US, and are open to anyone who has a passion for both Iberian wines and writing. Please drop us a line if you, or someone you know, …

You can’t do it all at once. Life is a series of small steps. And if you believe that any project that kicks off today will have success tomorrow, well, be prepared for disappointment. This is my mantra to every client we take on, “Start your blog today, work on it, and eventually, if you invest enough of yourself, people will reward you by paying attention.” Clearly, our friends at Adegga, a Portuguese startup, are firm believers in this philosophy.

Bootstrapping is when you start a business without venture capital, or a heavy investment, building instead, from good old elbow grease and a bit of self sacrifice. You look for help where you can find it, and you trade services with others who are in a similar position. Catavino is an exercise in bootstrapping, and we are proud to call ourselves friends with the Adegga team - united disciples of this philosophy. Over the past few months, Andre Ribeirinho, Andre Cid and Emídio Santos, have paved the way in exemplifying how a little vision and lot of persistence can eventually lead to success.

So what is Adegga? Well at its core, its a social tasting note site. In Adegga, you can leave notes on wines, manage your personal wine cellar, and participate in a community that is growing daily. Granted, we know there are plenty of social tasting note sites out there, and trying to keep track of them all is an exercise in futility. That said, this post will not attempt to answer the question on which one is best, but rather why Adegga is useful.

In truth, we at Catavino use three different tasting note sites for 3 separate reasons: Cellartracker, …

Awards, schmawards. We hate wine awards. The number of press releases we get each week telling us that some winery or another is receiving a new award for their latest wine is enough virtual email to destroy a virtual forest of trees! Do I care about any of these? No. Does someone care? I would assume so, but wine writers would rather taste the wine themselves before they give their final mark of approval. Plus, we tend to be highly suspicious of awards that come from wine committees that we’ve never heard of, or from a large tasting that “conquer” 1,000,000,000+ wines at once. Picking out one or two decent wines in such a large and expansive group is like walking into a football stadium and randomly selecting two individuals as “good people” and dismissing the rest as unworthy. Silly.

So today, we’re going to announce an award that we think is worth paying attention to, as it will benefit both the consumer and the winery. It’s also an award that any winery can win, with the most minimal of requirements - at least in the first stage.

The Catavino Iberian Winery Blog Awards is an award for wineries who are taking the internet seriously. For now, you only need to meet a few basic requirements; but in the future, we hope to list some more defined parameters so that we may acknowledge Iberian wineries who are willing market their wines a little differently.

Currently, we’ll list any winery located in Spain or Portugal, who …

Today, I have a treat for myself. I need a treat. It’s been one of those weeks that leaves you wondering why you even bother going to bed, since you’ll be up at back at work the minute you wake up again. Recently, my days have started to feel drawn out and full of ups and downs, and to be honest, I really didn’t want to participate in this month’s Wine Blog Wednesday even though the theme, Old World Reisling, is something I truly adore. I just don’t have the energy, but then I decided to change my attitude to become a little more relaxed and calm.

The reason I love Old World Reisling is for one simple reason, or rather one particular man, Terry Theise. If you’re not familiar with his name, please stop reading and go to his page at Skurnik Wines. Download all of his wine catalogs and start reading veraciously. I can wait. In fact, if you don’t make it back here, I excuse you, because these catalogs are too good to be true.

To be honest, I’m not much of a writer, nor am I much of a reader. And because I love them both, we call this a conundrum. I write here, and I read there, and I sometimes find myself feeling a little empty. Maybe it’s the content, the subjects or both. I’m not really sure, but when I went looking for information on one of my Reislings today, I found Terry.

Mind you, if it weren’t for this man, I wouldn’t be appreciating these bottles of wine right now. It would be equivalent to using the 100 point …