Ok, jetlag is done, culture shock is mitigated, and my life is starting to get back to its crazy usual self. I’ve inoculated my system with some fresh Iberian wines and assorted tapas. So what happened in Minnesota you may ask? Well a lot. One wedding, one 60th birthday party and at least 4 wine filled dinners. So rather than give you a play by play, I’ll bullet point some of the highlights and ask you a few questions, or rather, state some observations from the visit.

Jason Kallsen, the man behind the World Class Wines Blog, invited me to talk about blogging and Iberian wine on the second night I was in town! Thankfully, it was a great success. Held at the cafe across the street (space purposes) from SoloVino in St.Paul, we talked about wine, blogging and the intersection of the two. Take away thoughts? Well, I was shocked by how few of the “wine geeks” in attendance actually read blogs. While about half had read a blog, very few actually frequented them. If anyone who attended has anything to say about this, please chime in!

I tasted wines twice with old buddies/wine geeks. First night, I tried two Pinot Noirs, one of which was a Bergstrom 2002 PN that was beautiful, seductive, and well worth it. The other, as a result of my desire to carry over wines that were unique and different, was a Kosta Brown RRV 2005 that was undrinkable, or at the least, not a wine that I would ever purposefully go out and buy. Hot, thick, clunky, this was a wine that was better distilled than consumed. Oh, and at 14.7% alcohol?! Give …

Gabriella and Ryan would like to welcome all of you who read the recently published article in the Star Tribune, our hometown paper from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Bill Ward, the Star Tribune’s wine and food writer, was kind enough to meet with Ryan, while sending some additional questions to Gabriella, in order to profile our entertaining and unexpected journey.

Having just read the article, we feel that Bill did a great job overall, and despite some left out content and a few errors (such as the word el enchufe being misspelled as el enfouche), we’re ecstatic to have all of you join us from the Twin Cities. That said, we’d like to personally introduce ourselves and direct you to some of our favorite links, sites, and stories! Oh, and for those of you who only caught the article in the paper, continue on to Bill Ward’s blog to read some quotes from our lunch!

So welcome, one and all, and we hope that a few of you stick around and continue to follow us. If you know what RSS is, you can subscribe to Catavino here, and if you want to just sign up for our monthly newsletter (completely independent content) you can do so in the side bar to the right of this post.

About Catavino - General links to info about who we are

People - Who we are, and the various guest contributors we have pitch in from time to time.
The Story of Catavino (more or less) - A short recap of why and how we started blogging.
Ratings Policy - As Bill mentioned, we …

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, …