Today’s my birthday. I’m saying this not as a plea for attention, but rather a chance to reflect on some things. Catavino has grown a lot in the past three years. In a few more months, we can officially call Catavino three years old, an achievement I never expected we’d accomplish. 33 years ago today, I was brought into this world during a snowstorm in Chisago City, Minnesota. By some accounts, I was the furthest one could be from the European wine culture. Growing up, I had parents who were never wine geeks, though not tea totellers either. It really wasn’t until late into my college years that I started looking into wine beyond the 1.5L that cost 10$, allowing myself to look more sophisticated at college get togethers. My first real purchases of wine didn’t occur until I turned 24. Therefore, I would have to say that in my life, wine has held a pretty important significance for only the past nine years. Seems like a lot longer than it is, but hopefully, my passion will last for many more years.

I say this as I head out for martinis tonight in downtown Barcelona. Here in Spain, cocktails are a rare entity, and with most of our money going to wine, we don’t have a liquor cabinet to make our own. Not that I mind. When I do finally sit with a good dry martini or Manhattan, it tastes all that much better; yet this is not why I’m typing. My intention is to talk about a couple of wines.

This past month, these two wines have reminded me why I love wine so much. Often, I look at wine too closely and fail to really enjoy it for what it …

Having just walked into our hotel five minutes ago as the clock struck 9:30pm, I feel like a decade has slipped through our fingers. Over the past three days traveling throughout Rioja, we’ve seen one of the oldest and most traditional; one of the newest and most technologically advanced; one of the smallest yet productive; one of the most extravagant and luxurious; one of the most the quirky and inexplicable; and one of the most intriguing wineries in Rioja. And it’s not to say there haven’t been similarities from one bodega to the next, but the diversity we’ve experienced has been outstanding in everything from their philosophy of winemaking to their definition of a Rioja wine.

First, allow me to give you the general breakdown of what we’ve experienced since Monday morning. We began our week with a short, but informative, tour of Bodegas Tobia, producing wines from the humble setting of their garage. This was followed by lovely visit to Haro, where we ogled the wind swept sandstone buildings, ate a simple lunch of hamburger stuffed red peppers, patatas riojanas, white asparagus in a white sauce and lamb chops with roasted potatoes and red peppers, and discussed Ryan’s family tree, which passed through this area five centuries ago. As the fog rolled in come early evening, we arrived to Lopez de Heredia, where we took a two hour tour with the public relations manager, Lidia Zanzar, followed by an additional two hour wine tasting with one of the many family heirs to the bodega, Maria Jose Lopez de Heredia. Content and on information-overload, we ended the evening in our hotel room eating a simple salad and sandwich from some crazy German chain called, …

Editor’s Note: As we have been exploring Rioja throughout the month, we realized that this legendary region has not only infused itself throughout Spain, but throughout the world as a whole. From east to west, and north to south, people around the world have been boasting about the classic wines of Rioja…or have they? Our friend Dave Worthington has accepted our challenge to bring you his experience of Rioja from down under.

I had some friends out from the UK at Christmas and served them up a wine from Rioja one night with dinner. The look on their faces was like I’d just run over their cat. What they knew as Rioja was this cheap, daggy wine from the supermarket back home that costs 5 pounds. Here in Australia, we’ve been fairly lucky with Rioja, as we don’t have that history. In fact, only the more adventurous wine geek had ever heard of it ten years ago. You see, we’re a long, slow boat ride from Spain, imported wines are highly taxed and we have a booming local wine industry that serves up the local equivalent of the 5 quid (or US $10) bottle very nicely. So, the little Rioja wine we saw before about 2000 was not exactly inspiring and had more than likely been sitting in the corner of some hot bottleshop for 10 years, completely buggared by the heat by the time you bought it. The owner having a quiet chuckle when a punter buys a bottle. Of course, the Spanish immigrants always had some good stuff stashed away, but you had to know where to look and know the secret handshake to get in the door.

Thankfully, that’s changed for the better. Cool little bars have …