After a long and luxurious weekend of visiting touristy sites around Barcelona, I was a little awe-stricken this morning when I opened my inbox to a deluge of Spanish and Portuguese wine links. Normally, we would let this wait for Friday, but with the amount of fun facts, recipes, instigating articles and events happening right now, we felt it would be best to mix it up a bit and bring you the information now! Enjoy.

Warm Spanish Cocktail
Erin Hartigan at usaweekend.com published a whole slew of suggestions on how to use those remaining bottles of liquor sitting idly on the counter into some delicious belly warming drinks. One suggestion in particular that obviously caught our eye used Spanish wine as your base for a funky sounding warm sangria.

Mull more than just wine. Scott Beattie, bar manager of Cyrus Restaurant in Healdsburg, Calif., uses mulling spices to seasonalize sangria: “I take cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice, toast them, add orange and pineapple juices, and cook that mixture down.” He adds it to a strong red Spanish wine and equal parts cognac and dark rum. Freeman likes Glhwein, Germany’s hot, spiced red wine. “Add juniper, cinnamon and allspice, or even rosemary, to red wine,” he says, and to sweeten, use elderberry syrup, cassis or Cointreau.

Portuguese Stone Soup
I admit that I’ve heard of stone soup in my past, but I wasn’t familiar with the etymology of its name until now. One version in the Times Colonist speaks of a beggar who was so desperate for food that he pleaded for ingredients to add to his pebble-filled broth. So touched were the townspeople that they eagerly gave to the beggar in hopes of thickening his soup. By the end of his rounds, he had gathered enough potatoes, …

On Tuesday, the 11th of March, there is a blogger dinner scheduled in downtown Barcelona. Bodegas Tintoralba, a large cooperative located in Almansa Spain, is sponsoring a dinner for bloggers of any make and model. Regardless if your passion is food, wine or travel, you are more than welcome to RSVP either here or here to inform us if you’ll be around. For those of you not familiar with the tasting schedule in Spain, the blogger dinner will be on the same week as the gigantic wine and food fair: Alimentaria. If you’re a blogger, we encourage you to sign up as press and attend, even if it’s only for one day. It’s a great opportunity to taste and explore wines from all over Spain, while making connections with other bloggers! For more information, check out Tintoralba’s website and Catavino.es.

In other news, the 2008 European Wine Blogger Conference has a home: www.ewbc2008.wineblogger.info, complete with a forum and contact page! Although the page is rather desolate still, we’re slowly adding to it as we go. Also, this past week at FITUR, I met with some people who are interested in helping us out, and possibly, sponsoring part of it. If you want to lend a hand, or hope to attend, please join us in the forum and share your ideas.

If you know someone who would like to help sponsor the event, or contribute in some other way, I’m all ears. Leave a message here, or over on the new site. So far, I think we have a great turn out shaping up. I do still hope and pray that we can attract some Americans on this side of the pond. What’s it going to take guys? How …

After having a fun filled adventurous weekend of walking along the Mediterranean shore, hiking our local mountain, La Mola, in 65 degree temperatures, and finally, given a private tour through the famous Barcelona Cemetery created in 1883, I thought it might be time to catch you up on last week’s events.

II INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE & WINE
On the 15th and 16th of February, Paco Campo will be hosting the second annual International Conference on Climate Change and Wine. The conference will address and analyze climate change and its impact on the wine industry with the help of Al Gore as the keynote speaker. Located at the Hesperia Hotel in downtown Barcelona, the conference hopes to gain a greater spotlight in the eyes of winemakers and consumers alike by highlighting major issues such as:

“Why climate is changing and its Impact on agriculture” -Prof. Bernard Seguin – INRA (France)
“Global Warming and its impact on vines and viticulture” -Dr. David Smart – UC Davis (USA)
“In Pursuit of Global Conservation” -Tony Sharley, Environmental Scientist and Manager of Banrock Station in Australia
“Impacts of climate change on the industry and the consumer” -Pancho Campo – The Wine Academy (Spain)
“Observations, predictions, and implications of climate change on global wine production” -Dr. Greg Jones (USA), Professor of Climatology, University of Southern Oregon and Peter Hayes (Australia) President of the International Organization for the Vine and Wines.
“The Wines of Climate Change: Guided Tasting” -Michel Rolland (France) Considered as one of the leading oenologists in the world and Jaques Lurton (France)
One of the respected “flying winemakers”

Personally, I would love nothing more than to attend this event, but at 390 Euros a pop, not including the dinner valued at 490 Euros, I’d have to start auctioning wine …

As much as I love wine, I also adore a solid mixed drink. There are days that call for a Bombay Sapphire and tonic with just a spurt of lime, while others call for a dry vodka martini with three olives, not two or four, but exactly three. Therefore, as we begin to wrap up our month long devotion to Spanish cava, all varying styles and types, it behooves me to mention some intriguing, and not so intriguing, cava mixed drink recipes we recently stumbled up in Las Buenas Companias: El Libro de los Cocktails de Cava by Jose Maria Gotarda. Given to us by the European Marketing Manager for Raventos i Blanc, Rosa Aguardo, this book was originally designed as a promotional tool for their wines. Although I was unclear how successful it was in marketing their cavas, I was crystal clear on the fact that Rosa preferred her cava pure, without any additional bells or whistles added. We, on the other hand, love to experiment with our cava, and of the 25 recipes compiled in the book, I’ve whittled the list down to the top five recipes I found interesting for one reason or another. So what you’ll find below is not only the recipe itself, but the hows and whys behind the creation of the drink.

Terciopelo Negro, Black Velvet

1/2 Guinness
1/2 Cava Brut

Ever been to an Irish bar and asked for a Black and Tan or Black Velvet? My first experience with a Black Velvet (Guinness and Woodpecker) left me speechless at 21 wondering the physics as to how they layered liquid on liquid. Thinking the Irish were mixed drink magicians, only later discovering that their passion for alcohol was more of an Olympic sport, I was humbly …