Continued from Part 1 on Darian Delights

But what did this family drink? On offer was the internationally exported Tsingtao beer from another famed coastal city, Qingdao. The spelling ‘Tsingtao’ is from the Wades-Giles system of representing the sounds of Chinese characters (now defunct); but some Chinese brands/institutions like to state their age by using the early 20th Century romanized spelling replaced by pinyin after 1949 and the foundation of the PRC (the pinyin is ‘Qingdao’, pronounced ‘ching-dow’ for English speakers). There was also Chinese peach juice and the inescapable bai jiu, literally ‘white alcohol’, a category of spirits distilled from sorghum or millet which can range in flavour from delicate aniseed to rotting garbage (I don’t know how they quite manage that or what kind of ‘still’ bai jiu is actually distilled in).

We’d brought a bag of gifts with us – never go to a Chinese family without bringing something – which included a bottle of 2007 Lo Tengo Torrontes from Norton (from importer ASC). Torrontes is an Argentinian, highly aromatic grape (a bit like a cross between Muscat and Gewurztraminer with an oily and slightly bitter aftertaste) which, in our experience, has appealed to Chinese wine drinkers. But the Chinese never open gifts in front of people and it would have been rude to suggest chilling it. So we got talking about wine instead, over beer, peach juice and bai jiu.

Bai jiu is fairly evil in more than one respect. Although the northern Chinese like to drink it with seafood and just about anything, its very name has clouded the existence of white wine. Red wine is popularly known as hong jiu (literally ‘red alcohol’), but its correct, full name is hong putao jiu …

A few weeks ago, a friend of ours gave us the skinny on a new wine shop in Barcelona called, Neyras Vins. Located on Calle Laietana, a short jaunt from the famous Barcelona Cathedral, it is a cozy and comfortable space that welcomes both tourists and residents alike.

It’s owner, Antonio Gomez Neyra, is also the owner of Restaurante Neyras, founded back in 1989. Albeit not an ancient restaurant by European standards, it has gained a solid reputation as a high-end seafood and wine establishment. Consequently, the creation of a wine shop two doors down from his restaurant seemed like an easy investment when your customers continually inquire about your fine Spanish wines. Unfortunately, as of yet, one cannot meander over to the Neyras Vins and pick out a bottle of wine to pair with your meal, but we’re hopeful this policy will change in the future.

What makes Neyras Vins unique is that its manager, Juan Manuel Gonzalvo, prides himself on actively seeking out a personal relationship with their producers, over 90% of which are Spanish. Many of these producers can also be read about on his blog Y Vinos, a point of pride and joy for Juan Manuel, as its creation came well before that of the store. However, there is not relationship between the blog and the store. Neyras Vins, sadly, does not have a website as of yet, but we’re hoping this will also change in the near future, and if we’re all lucky it will be blog based.

Neyras Vins is well organized, designed, and most importantly, affordable. Constructed primarily of wood, with bottles organized by regions, and plenty of wide open space to peruse while sipping on wines open and available …

According to this article UK is number one market for Spanish Wines - Talking Retail, there is good news for Spanish wine in the UK. Sounds great. Sounds important, but I would say that this is only half the story. Spain is the third largest producer of wine in world, but we also have the largest land area under vine. Granted, a large chunk of this land consists of low density plantings in areas such as La Mancha, with less then stellar wine varieties like Airen. That said, we do have the capacity to grow and produce more, and after talking to many producers at Alimentaria, I realized that there a lot of room to expand sales. The UK may be the biggest market for Spanish wine, but with America poised to become the largest wine consuming nation, this statistic could change quickly.

Questions for Readers: If you are in the UK, do you see Spanish wine occupying more space at your local wine shop? Are restaurants offering more Spanish wine choices, both low and high end? If you are seeing Spanish wine in your area, are they from a handful of regions, or is the UK exploring the vast and diverse Spanish wine landscape?

If your in the US, or elsewhere, what do you see? Is Spain becoming more accepted? Are you seeing one region denominating or is there considerable diversity? I ask because, I fear that while sales increase, we aren’t finding anything new, just more of the same. What do you want to find on your local …

That’s right! It’s time for our next theme for our newsletter, and this time, it’s all about Rioja! In the coming months, we hope to not only chat about the wines of Rioja, but also the foods, tourism and culture. Why two months? We’ve realized that until someone pays us to do this, we aim to put out the best content possible, and with a topic as big as Rioja, we’ll need more than a month to really dig up the juicy content in order to present it to you. So first off, allow us to give you an intro into our experience with Rioja, its wines, and some thoughts on what we hope to learn along the way.

When going back into the archives, we realized that Rioja hasn’t receive much coverage on Catavino. Sure we’ve mentioned it every now and then, Ryan’s visited it, and we’ve even included some tasting notes from time to time, but in truth, we’ve neglected it. You might ask why, pointing out that Rioja is one of the most recognized Iberian wine regions, famous for its rich Tempranillos and long, history. Isn’t Rioja the region that people look to when talking about Spain, referencing its stardom as a primary driver to Spanish wines recent successes? Well, you’d be absolutely correct to bring these points to light, but there’s a catch.

Before we dive into the reasons why we’ve avoided this region, we want to share with you why we’re excited to devote our combined efforts solely on Rioja. As we stated above, Rioja is one of the main reasons that Spanish wine is well known today. With a history stretching back over 100 years, …