Tinto y Blanco is 2

Doesn’t time fly? 2 years on and the site is still expanding and gaining new readers all the time. I must say I’m chuffed with the response to the site, the level of support from the importers, the industry and everyone interested in Spanish and Portuguese wine.  So a big thanks to everyone. As a way of saying thanks I’ve arranged a bit of a give away over here. Make sure you click on this link to enter.

Here are some stats on the past year:

• In July last year 12,000 people (6,800 according to Google Analytics) looked at the site.  Last month, just over 28,000 dropped by. (13,000 according to Google Analytics)
• The top 3 search terms for the site are: Flor de Pingus, Pork Belly and Spanish Wine.
• The strangest link to the site this year is from Cosmopolitan magazine (good to see teenage girls are into Spanish wine).
• The number of Australian readers increased to 65%. From out side Australia, the USA is the largest with 10%, the UK is second with 9% and it seems that some of the producers are checking up me with Spain and Portugal both coming in at  6% each.
• There have been 1,281 real comments (528 last year), 29,178 spam commen ts (only 4000 last year!).

  

Have a guess and win some wine

To celebrate Tinto y Blanco’s second birthday, I’ve managed to get a couple of bottles of wine together to reward some lucky person for reading my drivel. Many thanks to the importers that have donated a bottle or two for this.

So all you have to do is guess the number of corks in the box, you can click on the image to get a bigger image if you think that will help. Put your guess in a comment on this post (Do not email it too me) and you’re in with a chance of winning a nice little six pack of wines. The wines are:

• • Cillar de Silos Crianza 2005 and Remuleri Reserva 2003 from The Spanish Acquisition
  • Two bottles of I’Corus Quinta from Broadway Liquor Distributors
  • Martin Codax Burgans Albarino 2006
  • Something else…
    

Entries are open to all, however I can only ship the wines to an Australian address. One entry per person/email address/IP address. I will anounce the winner on the 9th of July.

Good luck and thanks for reading.

Movida Next Door

I got a call from Scott at The Spanish Acquisition when I was on way home last Wednesday: “We’re going to the New Movida, do you want to come along?” How could I say no? I quickly dived out of the car and made my way down to Hosier Lane to check out Movida Next Door, or Movida Dos as everyone seem to be calling it.

Its a fairly clean, but small space just down from the original Movida. Plenty of nice wood and white walls with a small bar just in front of the kitchen. There is a small list of tapas and raciones followed by a tight list of beers, sherries and wines. Being opening night, Frank was on the pans with bevy of Melbourne food and wine identities in the bar slurping and munching their way through the menu. The staff had a tough time working their way through the crowd, and you’d get plenty of opportunity to get to know the people next to you in the bar.

I had been expecting a more ‘cheap and cheerful’ version of the full restaurant, the kind of place you can go for a couple of drinks and a couple of snack for $20. It seems this isn’t quite the reality (although not too far off). It’s not a holding bar for Movida either, or just a sherry bar (although there is sherry on tap from a barrel, fresh from Jerez). It’s something else altogether.

The menu is full of Spanish classics. The jamon and mahon croquetas are some of the best I’ve tasted, fried fresh sardines that showed off the quality of the fish, and the best of all: braised beef cheek with marrow bone. This is an excellent dish and had me looking around just in case someone was stuipid enough to leave any unguarded on the plate. Liver pinchos were well done, as was the fried anchovy on goats cheese.  The only thing that didn’t work was the eggplant ‘chips’, just not my thing really. A quick trip through the wine list saw us drinking a raft of styles: La Goya manzanilla (don’t even mention the new label to me), NPU amontillado, 2006 Castro Martin followed up by a bottle of Capçanes Lasandal.

Overall, its a fairly cool drop in type joint with plenty of atmosphere and charm. Just be prepared to pay similar prices to Movida. The food is up to it, so I can’t really complain too much. It’s open a bit later than Movida too.