As if the problems caused by Covid and the conflict in Ukraine were not enough, for the last two weeks Spain has been crippled by a national truck drivers strike (in protest of recent fuel price increases).

Unfortunately this has completely halted the movement of goods in and out of our bodega – customer orders have not been collected, and supplies of dry goods (cartons, bottles, capsules) have started to dry up. It really could not happen at a worse time of year, as our customers begin to stock up for spring/summer, not to mention that a couple of weeks we have the Easter break.

Stock shortages have been experienced in every sector, shops and supermarkets running out of certain products, whilst their suppliers watch as fresh produce is lost completely. After all the recent problems this is almost the last straw!

To finish on a more positive note, with effect from today, the Spanish Government have reduced tax on fuel, and so trucks have now, suddenly re-appeared on our roads. We have today received deliveries of cartons and labels, and so we can now start work on the small number of orders that have actually been affected by the shortages.

As you will know I have very mixed views when it comes to wine competitions – certainly some are more credible than others. Some years ago, when I was a wine buyer, I remember receiving a mailshot, boldly entitled “Winner – the best wine in the World”. Well, that’s quite a claim, despite the fact that every winemaker on earth probably believes (or certainly should believe) that their wine is always the best in the world! However, it transpires (but only after reading the small print), that this wine was voted the best wine in a small, obscure tasting in Turkey. That’s almost like saying “the best wine in the world” – voted by my mum and her next door neighbour! Well, that’s probably a bit cruel and disrespectful….

Anyway! I had completely forgotten that we had entered one or two wines into a tasting in the autumn of last year. The Distinciones Gallaecia, which is based around a Galician wine guide – Guía Luis Paadín de Vinos, Destilados y Bodegas de Galicia 2022. It is judged locally, only involves Galician wines, and is held in very high esteem in our region. Based on the reputation of this competition we were naturally delighted to learn that our Castro Martin Family Estate wine had not only emerged with a Gold medal, but actually with a Gold+ medal, offered to only the very best wines – perhaps the best in the world!!!

After no less than 7 weeks in confinement, without any opportunity to exercise or take fresh air (unless visits to the supermarket are included), Spain was finally opened up – albeit just a little. The government has now produced a timetable to allow outdoor exercise, but for limited hours and separated by age group. Under 14’s and over 70’s are able to enjoy freedom during the middle of the day, from 1oam until 8pm, whilst everyone between these ages are limited to two periods – from 6am to 10am and then between 8pm to 11pm. In a system that seems to be overly complicated, the first couple of days has seen considerable congestion during the early period and late periods. During the middle of the day, the streets are, by contrast, relatively quiet. However, as soon as the clock turns 8pm then the evening ‘rush hour’ begins and the streets are soon thronging (certainly when compared to how they have been).

Meanwhile, in the bodega, the pandemic has perhaps thrown up one small benefit. Our online business is doing better than ever before! I have a feeling that Spanish people have always been a little reluctant to shop on the internet, but maybe, owing to the limited choices they have faced over recent weeks, they have decided to give it a try. Of course, we have our fingers crossed that this trend will continue long after the current crisis is over…

By the way, today’s photo shows a dedicated walker who managed to find a little solitude on the beach early this morning.

Today will be a day of mixed emotions here in Spain, as they welcome a new King to the throne of Spain, whilst at the same time bidding farewell to their Kings of Football ‘La Roja’, unceremoniously dumped out of the World Cup by Chile. Perhaps it’s a bit disrespectful to mention the new King and a football team in the same sentence, but in the past few years football has become even more of a religion than it was before.

Yesterday in Madrid King Juan Carlos signed his final Act of Parliament, a law approving his abdication in favour of his son who will be crowned King Felipe VI in a low key ceremony today. During times of austerity in Spain it was deemed, quite correctly, to be inappropriate to have a lavish celebration. However, the centre of Madrid has still been decorated with tens of thousands of Spanish flags, and large crowds are expected to line the route between Congress and the Royal Palace to cheer the new King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, who will then greet the nation from the Royal balcony.

In an even more low key ceremony, the Spanish football team will fly home after their final group game against Australia on Monday. The euphoria of 4 years ago, when they were crowned World Champions, long forgotten.

Today will be a day of mixed emotions here in Spain, as they welcome a new King to the throne of Spain, whilst at the same time bidding farewell to their Kings of Football ‘La Roja’, unceremoniously dumped out of the World Cup by Chile. Perhaps it’s a bit disrespectful to mention the new King and a football team in the same sentence, but in the past few years football has become even more of a religion than it was before.

Yesterday in Madrid King Juan Carlos signed his final Act of Parliament, a law approving his abdication in favour of his son who will be crowned King Felipe VI in a low key ceremony today. During times of austerity in Spain it was deemed, quite correctly, to be inappropriate to have a lavish celebration. However, the centre of Madrid has still been decorated with tens of thousands of Spanish flags, and large crowds are expected to line the route between Congress and the Royal Palace to cheer the new King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia, who will then greet the nation from the Royal balcony.

In an even more low key ceremony, the Spanish football team will fly home after their final group game against Australia on Monday. The euphoria of 4 years ago, when they were crowned World Champions, long forgotten.

Madrid has gone football crazy this week, and so they should. For the benefit of the one, or possibly two people who haven’t heard, this year’s UEFA Champions League final will be fought between Real Madrid (playing to win their tenth title) and Atlético Madrid (trying to win their first). It is of course a unique event in that it is the first time that two teams from the same city have contested the final. Finals between teams from the same country, yes, but from the same city, never.

There will be about 75,000/80,000 Madrileños making the journey to Lisbon, about 75% of these using the main A5 motorway to travel across Spain and Portugal – a distance of around 650km (400 miles). In addition to some 1,000 buses, there will also be 10 special trains, all packed to the rafters no doubt. Possibly the most puzzling statistic is that only 34,000 of the travelling fans actually have tickets to enter the stadium. In the desperate scramble to get hold of tickets one man offered his car in exchange, whilst a young woman actually offered her body (for an hour)….. Now that’s what I call devotion to your team!

Like most of the rest of Spain I will simply be kicking back in front of my TV, with beer in hand. (I’m afraid to admit there are just a few occasions when albariño doesn’t quite cut it, and this is one of them).

Madrid has gone football crazy this week, and so they should. For the benefit of the one, or possibly two people who haven’t heard, this year’s UEFA Champions League final will be fought between Real Madrid (playing to win their tenth title) and Atlético Madrid (trying to win their first). It is of course a unique event in that it is the first time that two teams from the same city have contested the final. Finals between teams from the same country, yes, but from the same city, never.

There will be about 75,000/80,000 Madrileños making the journey to Lisbon, about 75% of these using the main A5 motorway to travel across Spain and Portugal – a distance of around 650km (400 miles). In addition to some 1,000 buses, there will also be 10 special trains, all packed to the rafters no doubt. Possibly the most puzzling statistic is that only 34,000 of the travelling fans actually have tickets to enter the stadium. In the desperate scramble to get hold of tickets one man offered his car in exchange, whilst a young woman actually offered her body (for an hour)….. Now that’s what I call devotion to your team!

Like most of the rest of Spain I will simply be kicking back in front of my TV, with beer in hand. (I’m afraid to admit there are just a few occasions when albariño doesn’t quite cut it, and this is one of them).

Over recent years many businesses in Spain have been created on the back of subsidies, the vast majority being drawn from the coffers of the European Community. By far the biggest industry to benefit from this was construction…. but that was before the financial crisis kicked in, when not only did the subsidies dry up, but a huge number of construction companies went bust. The problem was that these businesses were simply building for the sake of building – houses, apartment blocks and even airports that were simply not required…. merely to take advantage of the seemingly boundless European wealth. It  has since transpired that many millions of Euros were illicitly syphoned off (probably now secreted in Swiss bank accounts), and so there are at least a few builders, local mayors and politicians who truly cashed in on this ‘European gravy train’.

Anyway, that was a while ago, and, as I mentioned, these subsidies have long since disappeared. So where is the next free money coming from? Where is the next opportunity to cream off a few Euros? The answer? Company training courses!

OK, so it’s not big business like construction, so there’s not to same opportunity to become rich overnight, but there is still the possibility of cashing in by inflating the odd invoice here and there – or so it is alleged (he added hastily, for legal reasons). Subsequently we are now being bombarded by e-mails, encouraging us to send our employees on every type of course you can possibly imagine. If we took advantage of even one or two of the several daily offers that we receive, then we could easily end up with some of the most highly trained employees in Europe.

Naturally, I have applied for the BBC English course…

Over recent years many businesses in Spain have been created on the back of subsidies, the vast majority being drawn from the coffers of the European Community. By far the biggest industry to benefit from this was construction…. but that was before the financial crisis kicked in, when not only did the subsidies dry up, but a huge number of construction companies went bust. The problem was that these businesses were simply building for the sake of building – houses, apartment blocks and even airports that were simply not required…. merely to take advantage of the seemingly boundless European wealth. It  has since transpired that many millions of Euros were illicitly syphoned off (probably now secreted in Swiss bank accounts), and so there are at least a few builders, local mayors and politicians who truly cashed in on this ‘European gravy train’.

Anyway, that was a while ago, and, as I mentioned, these subsidies have long since disappeared. So where is the next free money coming from? Where is the next opportunity to cream off a few Euros? The answer? Company training courses!

OK, so it’s not big business like construction, so there’s not to same opportunity to become rich overnight, but there is still the possibility of cashing in by inflating the odd invoice here and there – or so it is alleged (he added hastily, for legal reasons). Subsequently we are now being bombarded by e-mails, encouraging us to send our employees on every type of course you can possibly imagine. If we took advantage of even one or two of the several daily offers that we receive, then we could easily end up with some of the most highly trained employees in Europe!

Naturally, I have applied for the BBC English course…

Despite being sold at many a top restaurant around the world, to be very honest I don’t think that our wines have ever appeared on the list at Spain’s famous El Bulli – and of course, now that it is closed, they never will. Our only rather tenuous connection is that their sommelier, Ferran Centelles, was a judge in last August’s Decanter tasting of Albariño, selecting Castro Martin as one of the very best, awarding us a fantastic 95/100 and classifying the wine as “outstanding”. Perhaps if the restaurant had remained open we might have been in with a chance of being added to the list….. we will never know.

El Bulli, the three star award-winning restaurant, headed for 27 years by the celebrated chef Ferran Adria, have now decided to auction the remnants of their extensive wine collection in two sales early next year. Sotherby’s will oversee the sale of some 8,800 bottles to be held in Hong Kong and New York during April of 2013.

Among the highlights of the sales will be 2,000 bottles of Spanish wine, including several vintages of Vega Sicilia ‘Unico’ (but regrettably no Castro Martin). There will also be full cases of Chateau Latour 2005 and three bottles of Domaine de la Romanee Conti, Romanee Conti 1990, which have a pre-sale estimate of $32,500 to $47,500. I suspect that these might be targeted at selected wealthy Chinese businessmen who will snap them up perhaps without really appreciating the true value of what they have bought. Whatever amount they pay, and however they decided to consume the wines (not as spritzers as has been rumoured in the past), the proceeds will at least go to a good cause – the financing of Sr. Ferran’s El Bulli Foundation which will eventually replace the restaurant, opening in 2014.

Despite being sold at many a top restaurant around the world, to be very honest I don’t think that our wines have ever appeared on the list at Spain’s famous El Bulli – and of course, now that it is closed, they never will. Our only rather tenuous connection is that their sommelier, Ferran Centelles, was a judge in last August’s Decanter tasting of Albariño, selecting Castro Martin as one of the very best, awarding us a fantastic 95/100 and classifying the wine as “outstanding”. Perhaps if the restaurant had remained open we might have been in with a chance of being added to the list….. we will never know.

El Bulli, the three star award-winning restaurant, headed for 27 years by the celebrated chef Ferran Adria, have now decided to auction the remnants of their extensive wine collection in two sales early next year. Sotherby’s will oversee the sale of some 8,800 bottles to be held in Hong Kong and New York during April of 2013.

Among the highlights of the sales will be 2,000 bottles of Spanish wine, including several vintages of Vega Sicilia ‘Unico’ (but regrettably no Castro Martin). There will also be full cases of Chateau Latour 2005 and three bottles of Domaine de la Romanee Conti, Romanee Conti 1990, which have a pre-sale estimate of $32,500 to $47,500. I suspect that these might be targeted at selected wealthy Chinese businessmen who will snap them up perhaps without really appreciating the true value of what they have bought. Whatever amount they pay, and however they decided to consume the wines (not as spritzers as has been rumoured in the past), the proceeds will at least go to a good cause – the financing of Sr. Ferran’s El Bulli Foundation which will eventually replace the restaurant, opening in 2014.

Don’t get me wrong, we should never appear to be flippant about the consumption of alcohol (or perhaps I should say over-consumption), but it is becoming increasingly difficult  to comprehend exactly how we should calculate a “moderate” amount. We are constantly told “consume in moderation”, but the truth is that the so called ‘experts’ appear to disagree on exactly how we should interpret this phrase.

Yet another study (oh dear!), this time by a team of researchers at Oxford University, says that we should drink no more than half a unit of alcohol per day. This would equate to three small glasses of wine per week, and if we assume that a small glass is 125ml, then this would be exactly half a bottle of wine per week (375ml).

The confusion is caused as this new advice appears to contradict the guideline given by the UK Government itself. Officially the government says that men can safely drink 3-4 units of alcohol per day (approx 250ml), and women 2-3 units (approx 175ml) – these figures are calculated using our own albariño of 12% alcohol by volume, as an example. Certainly we need some sort of sensible, realistic guideline, but the question then becomes, who is actually giving us the correct information?

This new research then goes on to claim that up to 4,500 lives a year could be saved in the UK alone. Please forgive me for being a little cynical here, but isn’t that rather like saying that researchers tell us that if we don’t drive our cars, then several thousand lives a year could also be saved? This has to be a case of using our own common sense, doesn’t it?

Don’t get me wrong, we should never appear to be flippant about the consumption of alcohol (or perhaps I should say over-consumption), but it is becoming increasingly difficult  to comprehend exactly how we should calculate a “moderate” amount. We are constantly told “consume in moderation”, but the truth is that the so called ‘experts’ appear to disagree on exactly how we should interpret this phrase.

Yet another study (oh dear!), this time by a team of researchers at Oxford University, says that we should drink no more than half a unit of alcohol per day. This would equate to three small glasses of wine per week, and if we assume that a small glass is 125ml, then this would be exactly half a bottle of wine per week (375ml).

The confusion is caused as this new advice appears to contradict the guideline given by the UK Government itself. Officially the government says that men can safely drink 3-4 units of alcohol per day (approx 250ml), and women 2-3 units (approx 175ml) – these figures are calculated using our own albariño of 12% alcohol by volume, as an example. Certainly we need some sort of sensible, realistic guideline, but the question then becomes, who is actually giving us the correct information?

This new research then goes on to claim that up to 4,500 lives a year could be saved in the UK alone. Please forgive me for being a little cynical here, but isn’t that rather like saying that researchers tell us that if we don’t drive our cars, then several thousand lives a year could also be saved? This has to be a case of using our own common sense, doesn’t it?

There is already a good deal of doom and gloom surrounding the Spanish economy at the moment, even before the latest news that the country has lost its A credit rating, downgraded two notches to BBB+. The assessment, made by the Standard & Poor rating service, bases its evaluation on the future ability and willingness of sovereign governments to service their debt obligations.

Whilst there remains a distinct danger that things could get worse, and Spain be downgraded even further, the S&P did at least acknowledge that some of the severe measures taken by the new government, are at least a step in the right direction. They have announced reforms to the labour market, including cutting back on severance pay and restricting inflation-linked salary increases, that it hopes will ease the problem.. Unfortunately, these measures are, in the sort term at least, likely to make things worse rather than better, as Spain’s crippling unemployment continues its truly painful, inexorable rise. Indeed, only today, official figures reveal a figure of some 5.6 million people out of work, some 24.4%, compared to only 7.9% back in April 2007.

One chief economist is quoted as saying “In Spain today, a cycle similar to Greece is starting to develop”…….we sincerely hope not.

There is already a good deal of doom and gloom surrounding the Spanish economy at the moment, even before the latest news that the country has lost its A credit rating, downgraded two notches to BBB+. The assessment, made by the Standard & Poor rating service, bases its evaluation on the future ability and willingness of sovereign governments to service their debt obligations.

Whilst there remains a distinct danger that things could get worse, and Spain be downgraded even further, the S&P did at least acknowledge that some of the severe measures taken by the new government, are at least a step in the right direction. They have announced reforms to the labour market, including cutting back on severance pay and restricting inflation-linked salary increases, that it hopes will ease the problem.. Unfortunately, these measures are, in the sort term at least, likely to make things worse rather than better, as Spain’s crippling unemployment continues its truly painful, inexorable rise. Indeed, only today, official figures reveal a figure of some 5.6 million people out of work, some 24.4%, compared to only 7.9% back in April 2007.

One chief economist is quoted as saying “In Spain today, a cycle similar to Greece is starting to develop”…….we sincerely hope not.