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 Wines of Spain, the bureaucratic agency in charge of promoting Spanish wine, does have an outdated map, but you can’t get a copy of it.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 …

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 …