This picture (captured by Angela on her mobile), was taken in the centre of Pontevedra, and shows Galicia’s most famous parrot looking out of the window of a pharmacy….. don’t ask, it’s a long story.

Saturday night was Carnival in Pontevedra, albeit that our local High Street does not enjoy quite the same atmosphere as Rio’s Sambadrome – especially when the temperature is barely above freezing. Having said that the locals clearly put a lot of effort into their costumes and floats, and they certainly had a good time, despite the cold.

The parrot? Well, he’s the adopted mascot of the Pontevedra Carnival (every local town has their own mascot, including Meaño with their very own sardine!) Ravachol as he is called, apparently lived his life in a chemist’s shop in Pontevedra, and for some reason was named after a French anarchist. Legend has it that he died during the 1913 Carnival, and consequently his death has been commemorated at the end of every Carnival week ever since. A huge stuffed parrot is paraded through the streets and then burned. Delicious with Albariño!!!! (Is that too cruel?)

The statue of Ravachol in Pontevedra

Much has been written in recent years about the increasing madness of Health & Safety legislation, and I’m afraid that Spain is no exception.

In the workplace it’s quite obvious that no one wants to return to the days when small boys were sent up chimneys to clean them, and everyone recognises that there are many workplaces such as factories and construction sites which are dangerous and where regular health and safety checks must continue. The problem occurs when we treat everyday environments such as shops, offices and even wine cellars as if they were chemical plants full of bubbling cauldrons of explosive substances. It appears that we now obsessed by actively seeking potential danger, even in places where it doesn’t really exist.

I’m sure that by now you have realised the reason behind today’s post – our bodega has just undergone it’s own risk assessment, where some dubious dangers were uncovered, and odd recommendations put forward. Taking our tractors as an example, it was pointed out that our older tractor still requires to have a roll-bar fitted, which we accept, and which is clearly necessary. However, the suggestion that both tractors need fire extinguishers, was slightly more of a puzzle. My personal opinion is that it might be more dangerous to encourage our employees to tackle a fire, rather than to simply stand well back and wait for the fire services.

Health and safety is also responsible for changes in our school policies too. Some sports and playground activities have been curtailed on the grounds that they are now deemed too dangerous, despite having been enjoyed more or less safely for generations. I say ‘more or less’ because there will always be accidents, no matter how many precautions are taken, and this is just a fact of life that has to be accepted. The problem is that we simply can’t legislate for every eventuality.

 Having said all this, I am actually wearing a hard hat as I type this, just as a safety precaution!

It’s never simply by accident that important cities around the world are built on the banks of major rivers, which obviously harks back to the days when the world’s trade was dominated by ships and shipping. In those days there may well have been less traffic congestion, but at least they did not suffer too much from one of today’s major headaches – the huge bottlenecks that occur at river crossing points. It’s now a known fact that millions of man hours are wasted every single day as commuters wait patiently (or often not) simply to make their obligatory river crossing.

Having lived in London myself for at least 20 years, I know that this was a great frustration for a huge number of commuters, and successive governments were always seeking solutions and considering new river crossings.

Here in Spain our own Provincial capital, Pontevedra, actually derives it’s name from a river crossing. A part Latin, part Galician translation gives us Ponte Vetera, meaning ‘old bridge’. In modern day Pontevedra old bridge refers to an existing Roman bridge that crosses the Lérez river (now known as the Burgos bridge).

Now I’m not implying for one second that Pontevedra’s traffic problems are on a par with London or New York, but we do, sometimes, have as many as six cars waiting to cross the river at peak times (just joking, it’s actually seven!) A few years ago, when our local govenments still had money to spend, they did not really need an excuse to plan new building projects, and so a new bridge for Pontevedra was born. Despite recent cuts in government spending the construction was already well under way, and we are now at a point where the road deck almost meets in the middle. What difference it will make to traffic flow only time will tell. I will update my blog when we have the answer…..

Today is the day that we celebrate our love for each other, or to be more specific, for our partners. It’s traditionally a day of Champagne, roses, chocolates and romantic candle-lit dinners (and of course the greetings card companies will make a killing too).

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not being cynical about this, because, being the old romantic that I am, I do like to celebrate Valentine’s day. It’s simply that the card manufacturers annoy me a little as they use any event or celebration as an excuse to start producing cards. (Apparently Hallmark have now made a card designed to supposedly to console people who have lost their jobs during the recession!)

Anyway, back to the love and romance….. It’s always reassuring to know that our wine is being used in restaurants around the world to celebrate such occassions. Angela and I often share the odd bottle of albariño by way of celebrating our love!

If you are into Social Networking then I should tell you that there is a nice little promotion of our region on Facebook, actually led by the United States market. The page is known as the Albariño Explorers Club and has a funky octopus as its logo. (Do people still say ‘funky’ these days?)

Every now and then they include a pop quiz, posing trivia questions to test your knowledge – have fun and learn at the same time….. They also give suggestions for pairing Albariño with food, together with one or two interesting recipes. The only entry so far, that made me wince a little, was the suggestion for Albariño cocktails. Whatever will they come up with next? Adding orange juice to your glass of Krug ‘Clos de Mesnil’?

Quite obviously tasting is a subject very close to my heart, indeed it was my profession for many years before I arrived in Spain. A month or two ago I wrote about how the sense of smell has a huge influence on what we are able to taste (I can attest to this as I tried in vain to taste a wine yesterday, whilst still recovering from yet another winter cold).

Having said that, it’s not only smell that can influence what we taste – there are many other factors, such as colour for example. This might seem ridiculous, but tests have proved that some consumers can have difficulty in distinguishing between red and white wine whilst blindfolded. How often have we heard that we ‘eat with our eyes’, so surely the same must apply to wine. A glass of white wine that has a golden brown colour could be either extremely sweet or extremely oxidised!

I know that I have probably mentioned before, but location and atmosphere can also make a difference. For example, I can guarantee that the cool, refreshing glass of Provence Rosé that you sip on the beach in St Tropez, whilst tucking into your Niçoise Salad, may well not taste the same on a grey, cold, rainy Tuesday in London…..

When buying wines for my previous company I therefore always used to make sure that I tasted all potential purchases on cold, wet Tuesdays in London!

When I read this story my initial reaction was to check the calendar once again, to see if it was April Fool’s day. Either an outrageous story, or perhaps just an excellent piece of marketing? Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.

OK, so an ex-pat British wine maker (from Norwich) who now lives in Chile, has two passions. His vineyard in the Cachapoal Valley and Astronomy. So, how do you go about combining the two? Easy – first borrow a 10cm meteorite from a wealthy American, dip it in a barrel of your wine for a while, blend this single barrel with a lot more wine, and then sell it as Meteorito – a wine in which you can allegedly taste the origins of the Universe itself! Brilliant! Why didn’t I think of this myself?

Sorry, do I sound a little sceptical? Well, maybe it’s because I am! Suspending a small meteorite in a single oak barrel of Cabernet Sauvignon for a year is one thing, but then taking this single barrel, blending it with another 10,000 litres and claiming that you can still taste the effects of this maceration is quite frankly, beyond belief….

Just a minute, I’ve had an idea – the soil in our vineyards contains both granite and quartz that originate from the magma of the earth’s crust, and you can actually taste this in the mineral character of our wine. In future I’m going to claim that in our albarino you can actually taste the very origins of our planet!

No sooner had we made reservations for our flights to Dusseldorf for the annual Prowein wine fair, than the airline that we had booked on suddenly went out of business.

Despite living in an area with three regional airports, all vying for the same business, there are actually very few international flights, and so to get to Dusseldorf from Galicia entails two flights on two different airlines. Our second flight booked from Barcelona to Dusseldorf on Spanair (albeit ironically, the flight is actually operated by Deutsche Lufthansa).

A day or two after booking Spanair suddenly disappeared from our radar, leaving passengers stranded around Europe, and us holding flight tickets that were absolutely worthless (Lufthansa would not honour them as our payment had been made to Spanair).

After much scrambling around on the internet we finally re-booked with Lufthansa (at a premium price), leaving Angela making claims through our credit card company in an attempt to recover the money from our lost flight……

You may have noticed that our blog fell silent for a few days, the reason quite simply being that Angela and I were on the road.

We spent a few days in London for a major wine tasting (and not just to satisfy Angela’s cravings for a bit of winter sale shopping).

I had not been to London for several months and anticipated that the whole city would now be well and truly awash with colour in anticipation of this summer’s Olympic games.

Not so I’m afraid - I was actually quite disappointed. Having travelled through Heathrow airport and then around the city, both above and below ground, there is very little evidence that in a few months time the eyes of the world will turn their attention to this great historic capital.

Whilst I’m sure that the naturally conservative British public don’t want to have this event rammed down their throats 24 hours a day, I don’t think it would hurt to put up a few flags and posters to announce that the Olympic circus is coming to town.

Oh, and by the way, I will be at the back of the queue to buy my Olympic mascot dolls, Wenlock & Mandeville (see photo). Perhaps it’s the designers who should have undergone a bit of drugs testing for coming up with this one?….. After all, not every one in London is an alien – illegal or otherwise!

Chinese communities around the world have spent the last week celebrating their New Year, which this year started on 23rd January, and continues for a period of some 15 days.  This weekend many cities have witnessed parades, dancing and fireworks as the exciting and unpredictable year of the Dragon takes over from the more cautious and tranquil year of the Rabbit.

We are very lucky to find our wines placed on a number of varied and diverse winelists, including a number of very fine Chinese restaurants. (Angela is always happy to remind our customers that Albariño is perfect with sushi, but I’m afraid rarely mentions our Chinese connections).

Today’s photo was actually taken inside a customer’s restaurant in Harrogate, England and shows a typical Chinese New Year celebration dance.