I thought that I would try to lift your spirits a little on these short, dark winter days (unless of course you are reading this blog somewhere in the southern hemisphere).

This week I stumbled across an article in the UK’s Guardian newspaper (travel section) listing the top ten beaches of the world. So where in the world would you find their number one beach? The Maldives? Fiji? Goa? Queensland? Nope…. according to the Guardian, it’s about 20km down the coast from our bodega, here in Galicia.

Las Islas Cies are located in the mouth of the Ria de Vigo and form a part of the rather splendidly named Atlantic Islands of Galicia National Park. The wild Atlantic coastline of Galicia has some quite dramatic beaches, but none more so than the stunning Praia das Rodas. Open only during the summer months, the beach is a perfect crescent of soft, pale sand backed by small dunes, sheltering a calm lagoon of crystal-clear sea (their description, not mine). Galicians call this their very own “Caribbean beach”, and the water is turquoise enough, the sand white enough to understand the comparison….. at least until you dip your toe in the water, and remember that it is actually located in the somewhat chilly Atlantic Ocean.

So, next summer, throw away your worldwide travel brochure, abandon your ideas of the Costa del Sol and book your ticket to the world’s best beach, in the same region where you can find the world’s best wine….Castro Martin albariño.

There was once a song by Led Zeppelin called ‘communication breakdown’, and that’s precisely the problem that we have suffered in our bodega over the last week or so…..

Excluding my frustrations with post and courier services (which are, after all, forms of communication), we also lost our telephones for nearly 48 hours following a big storm last week. The cover of a junction box in our office was scorched and blown clean across the room, presumably at the height of the storm. Fortunately all this took place during the night, and resulted in our ‘mini’ telephone exchange being rendered useless.

As you may have read in my previous post, we only have one working day in the office this week, and so you can imagine my reaction when I arrived to find no ADSL connection in the bodega this morning. Naturally I assumed that it was an internal problem, until finally calling Telefonica only to discover that it was actually a problem with our local network – perhaps a pigeon sitting on a wire somewhere blocking the signal?

No, we don’t have fibre optics, and yes, we do have some of the most expensive and slowest internet connections in Europe!

The winter holiday season really starts in the U.S. with Thanksgiving at the end of November. I must start by apologising to our American cousins for not posting a message last week – A belated Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Next week we have a couple of National holidays in Spain, the Constitución Española and the Inmaculada. In Ribadumia (where the wine cellar is located) this is compounded by a third, local holiday falling on Thursday, effectively meaning that we have a very short week….

Following this we have Christmas Eve which is a most important day in Germany, as well as here in Spain. A day when friends and families gather together and celebrate by attending church, often followed by an evening meal, before finally exchanging and opening gifts.

Over the Christmas period it is probably the 25th December itself that is considered more important in the UK. As in many countries it is celebrated with a huge family meal, followed by watching the Queen’s annual speech to the Commonwealth on TV, and then a siesta (strangely the latter often coincide). The Brits then also have an additional holiday on 26th, known as Boxing Day. The origin of Boxing Day derives from the time when wealthy people gave gifts to their servants, workers and tradesmen. This gift was known as the “Christmas Box”.

On 6th January celebrations continue in some countries with Epiphany or the Reyes Magos (three kings) as it is otherwise known. Until recently this was the day that gifts were traditionally exchanged, albeit that an increasing number of Spanish people now do this at Christmas – a lucky few children get both….

The downside of all these holidays is that we still have to try and fit a bit of work in between!

OK, so only two minutes after I made the last blog entry I checked the tracking site of the aforementioned parcel from Hungary….. it re-appeared on the site (but with a gap of two days). At least I know that it’s arrived in Spain, albeit I don’t know exactly where.

(By the way, I do realise that these are International courier companies, and therefore you may think that Spain is not necessarily at fault. However, it is my belief is the problem may be caused by a failure of updates, or possibly scans at local depots).

Of course, if there is anyone out there who can shed any more light on how this courier system works, I am more than happy to be corrected.

I am usually the first to criticise the Spanish postal service (joking that they must still be using donkeys to move the mail), but on this occassion I find myself obliged to compliment them on a small but significant event.

A couple of days ago I signed a batch of Christmas cards to send out to friends and family, anticipating that they might take a couple of weeks to reach their various destinations around the world. They were posted (using a standard service) on Monday, and so imagine my surprise when, only two days later, I was speaking to a contact in England and they thanked me for my card! My astonishment that they had arrived so quickly was however tinged with a small concern. That my friends might consider me a very ‘sad’ person for sending out my Christmas cards so early (I just call it being organised, and that’s my excuse)!

To balance my story I still have one small complaint about the courier services in this country…… Yes, they do work, but then fail miserably when it comes to updating the tracking information on their websites. It’s as if your package disappears into a black hole when it reaches the Spanish border, at least until the moment that it arrives on your doorstep. At this very moment I am tracking a parcel that started in Hungary (don’t ask), moved on to Austria and then Germany, where it boarded a plane to Spain where it disappeared two days ago.

Maybe the European Community has developed it’s own ‘Bermuda triangle’ – possibly the same place that they send all our taxes!

I commented the other day about the design of our carton, and confessed that whilst it was not the most beautiful in the world, it certainly was the most practical – doing the job that it was primarily designed to do, protecting our bottles.

Sometimes design forces us to make compromises, and we make decisions about our packaging for possibly the wrong reasons. The new, trendy bottles design that I have illustrated above is a case in point. For me, it simply doesn’t work, and I mean that for the most practical of reasons…..

Yes, there is no doubt that it is eye-catching, and makes a change from the run-of-the-mill bottle shapes, but I ask you, have you ever tried to pour a drink from one of these bottles?

The mineral water on the left of the three bottles is Galician, and we use it at home. Possibly, when we first bought it, we were influenced by the unusual design, and it therefore ended up on our dining table. OK, so we were hooked, the marketing had worked – but then came the second stage of the process – trying to use it, or to be more accurate, pour it.

The square shoulder of the bottle is a design disaster, and was certainly not thought through when the shape was first conceived on the designers drawing board. Liquid from the bottle does not pour, or rather it does not flow, the square shoulder causes it to surge in an irregular sloshing motion (difficult to describe in words).

That’s not too bad if a stray drop of mineral water ends up on your table cloth, but what happens when that spill is port or possibly red wine, and is caused by no fault of your own?

I rest my case.

The cartons that we use to send out our wine are perhaps not the prettiest on the market, but they are certainly amongst the strongest – after all, what is the purpose of a carton? The answer quite simply is to protect our bottles during transit – nothing more, nothing less. Indeed, I think it would be true to say that the vast majority of our end consumers have probably never even seen our box, which simply reinforces my belief that strength is perhaps just a little more important than appearance (assuming of course, that it is not too ugly).

Click to enlarge image

This morning we waved goodbye to a few pallets destined for the other side of the world, where hopefully the weather may be a little less depressing than here. As I look out of my office window I see the world through a sort of grey haze, caused by the persistent rain that has been falling pretty much all week here in Galicia. Apart from sending out a few pallets, and preparing a few Christmas orders the Bodega is pretty quiet at the moment – a bit of an anti-climax after all the action of the last couple of months.

So to lift the mood a little, here is a Spanish joke (please excuse me if the translation is not too good).

What do a designer, an electrician, and an aluminium specialist all have in common? Yes, you guessed the punch line, didn’t you? Answer: None of them turn up for confirmed appointments at the bodega to discuss new business opportunities!!!

What? Me, frustrated? OK, well, yes……

I am sure that pretty much every business has been affected in some way by the recession, possibly some more than others. Inevitably, as companies scramble for whatever business they can muster, they often resort to e-mail – unfortunately a very cost-effective way of reaching the masses. I say unfortunately simply because we all know the problem…… you switch on your computer in the morning, and despite the best efforts of your spam filter, you are innundated with mail trying to sell you goods and services of every conceivable type.

So, who or what is ‘The Wine Gang’? Well, it’s not a group of hit men who go around threatening people that don’t drink Albariño, although this does give me an idea….. It’s actually just a group of very well known and highly respected UK journalists who have got together to write about wine, organise tastings etc, etc.