Travel
Travel tip sheet for Bierzo
Thinking of travelling to Bierzo? Get answers to questions like: Where is it? Where to Stay? What and where to eat?
Lunch at Meson Chuchi
It is still the depths of winter in La Rioja, we got about 30 to 40 cms of snow today, we are snowed and not going anywhere for at least a day. A good time to catch up on posting and drinking some nice Riojas. It has been cold all week, so a big hearty meal for lunch has been the order of the day. In this part of Spain that usually means a trip to an Asador, or as I discovered yesterday, parrilla full of chuletas (lamb chops) at home, but more on this later. If you’ve ever been to north west Spain you will have seen Asador restaurants all over the place, truck stops, small villages, big towns, everywhere. The basic premise of the Asador is a woodfired oven that is used to cook just about everything in the place.
Lunch at Amelibia
Amelibia is my favourite place to eat in the old walled town of Laguardia. We ate here a couple of times on our last trip and were very keen to get back and see what’s new. It’s a small restaurant (just 12 tables) that overlooks the vineyards and across to the Cantabrian mountain range. Laguardia is just about the last outpost of Euskadi, or Basque country, and as such the food here is a good mix of Basque food and traditional Riojan food. So you will have a menu that has things like kokotxas pil pil (throat of hake in an olive oil and garlic emulsion, a very Basque dish) and rabo de vaca al tinto vino (oxail in red wine, a typically Riojan dish).
3 Days in Bierzo
I’ve been off-line for the past couple of days, which has been kinda nice. There has been plenty to write about and take photos of tho. When I was planning this trip, I was having a chat to Dougie from The Spanish Acquisition about his last trip to Spain, his highlight was a day or so in Bierzo. I had planned to go to Rueda and Toro on the way to Ribera del Duero, but Dougie was raving about this little town called Villafranca del Bierzo, ‘It’s a must do’ he said. Sign me up, I thought. And he was right, it is now another in the long list of my favourite places in Spain.
2 days in Paris
I think this post is more of an excuse to put this photo of the dawn in Paris than anything else…Just a quick stop in Paris on our way to Spain. A couple of days of eating and drinking, endless walking and a wee bit of shopping. The important part is the eating and drinking, of course. Not much in the way of Spanish wine around, but that’s not what you come to Paris for! There is a fair bit of Port available here, I’m told France is one of the bigger markets for Port. Anyway, a bit of Bordeaux and Burgundy never go astray.
Lunch at Bodega
I had a quick day work trip up to Sydney yesterday, so what better to do than stop into Bodega for lunch in between meetings. And what a great way to spend a couple of hours, some nice drinks, great food and outstanding atmosphere. One of the things I like here is the slight rockabilly undertone, it reminds me of being in my mid 20s, out and about seeing ska, punk and rockabilly bands.
Tasting with Eguren wines
It’s hard to know what to call these guys, they have a number of different brand, 3.5 bodegas (one is being built) and they are a huge family (there are Egurens making wine all over Rioja). But whatever they are called they make a diverse range of wines ine Rioja Alta and Alvesa. We kicked off our visits in Rioja with a look around Vinedos de Paganos where the vineyards and bodega for El Puntido and La Nieta are located, then a quick drive over San Vincente to have a look at the bodega for San Vicente followed by a tasting. One habit I could used to is tucking into some fine jamon y queso after a tasting…
Calle Laurel: a culinary institution
On my first trip to Rioja, I was given some great advice: ‘There are plenty of good places to eat in La Rioja, but there is only one place that you musteat during a trip here and that is the tapas street of Calle Laurel in the old town of Logroño.’ There are tapas streets in other towns: Haro has it’s ‘Horseshoe’ area and there are good little bars in most towns and villages, but they don’t come close to Calle Laurel.
White Rioja
Just before I left for Spain, I had this crazy idea of searching out the best white Rioja I could find. To be honest, I found loads of white wine but its very difficult to choose a single wine as the best, so I’ve gone with three. These are three very different wines, and everything about them is different: the way they are made, the grape varieties used, how they are aged, and when they are drunk. I knew that two of these would be high on my list, but the third was a real surprise.
Back home again
We arrived back home yesterday morning, with a few hairy connections and the the long flight back from London complete with all singing and whistling Swiss backpackers filling the cabin. I’ve got loads of notes (even though I managed to loose one notebook somewhere), photos, tasting notes and food stories to write up and sort through. Lots of gossip too (Like that Roda have bought some great vineyards in Ribera del Duero and should release something in a couple of years…)
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