Archive for ‘Unbelievable’

Wine cellar visitor…

November 22nd, 2021 | Bodega

Imagine arriving in the office on a Monday morning, and you immediately notice a strange scratching noise. Working in a bodega you might easily believe that this could be a mouse (even though we do have controls to prevent this). Wrong…. and you would never guess what it actually turned out to be…… An owl, or rather a baby owl!

The first question that arises is, how on earth could an owl get into the bodega? The windows and doors are all well secured, as you might imagine, and so perhaps the only entry point that we could think of was an old, unused chimney in our salon – we will never know.

Luckily, one of our team, Fran, is an amateur bird enthusiast and knew exactly what to do (that is his hand inside the protective glove!) Once carefully removed and released outside we did have a little cleaning to do, as amongst other things, the bird had knocked a few pots off our office shelves. The owl didn’t seem to be at all bothered by this damage, indeed, you could say that he didn’t give a hoot!!

Doom & Gloom?

November 4th, 2020 | Covid 19

With the holidays fast approaching I think it would be fair to say that we were all hoping that the pandemic would largely be behind us by now, and that we might be returning to some sort of slightly revised normality. Of course, it is now beginning to dawn on us that this hope is quickly fading into the distance. Very regrettably, in an increasing number of countries, the term ‘lock down’ is once again rearing its ugly head, whereby slowly but surely our freedom of movement is being eroded on more or less a daily basis.

As I have mentioned before, our business is, to a large degree, dependent on the restaurant trade, and with increasing restrictions some of our customers are now reluctantly closing their doors (albeit temporarily we hope). Consequently, in 2020, our two peak selling seasons, summer and the winter holidays, have been somewhat curtailed.

Inside our bodega our 2020 wine is completely finished, now resting quietly on its lees, and with another month to go before we can start the pruning, there is something of a lull in activity. Fortunately, a couple of our people have decided to take a short holiday (perhaps in fear that new restrictions might confine them to their homes).

As I write the US Presidential election hangs on a knife’s edge. It feels like some sort of wacky soap opera playing out in front of our eyes…. until we realise that no script writer could ever have come up with a story line as twisted as this one! I’m sure that this will play out for much longer than we had all hoped, with many more twists and turns before it reaches a final conclusion!

Scam e-mails

January 23rd, 2020 | Competitions

Of course, like every other business we get a lot of spam e-mail (despite all sorts of protection and filters!). Some of these mails are simply annoying, others malicious, requesting that we click onto some spurious link, and then finally, there are the scams. These arrive in many different guises, some quite sophisticated whilst others are downright stupid and obvious. For example, the classic – winning $10 million for a lottery that you never entered!

One of the latest scams, that I receive quite regularly now, is for wine competitions….. Someone has finally twigged that wine competitions are big business, and that there is a lot of money to be made. The problem is the way that it has been done. Quite unconvincing invitations with scant detail, requesting that we pay only 1 Euro deposit to enter, and then pay a full fee after we receive the result. My belief is, of course, that anyone stupid enough to enter, will almost certainly be guaranteed to win an award!

The format is just a simple text e-mail, and thereby lies the second mistake. These invitations arrive in groups, and within a period of 24 hours we will receive invitations for China, Singapore and Japan, all using an identical mail, with only the names and addresses changed in each one. The sponsoring publications for these competitions are quite obvious false – “Shanghai Paper, Singapore Newspaper and Business News Japan”. They don’t even bother to create convincing names!

In a second group of mails, we will receive invites for the UK and USA. This time for the “London Newspaper and America Wines Paper”. Not at all convincing.

Oh, and by the way, the wine samples for EVERY competition, regardless of the country, are apparently gathered in one place…. in Paris. Seems like someone in Paris could be enjoying a big party with free wine!

Champions of Europe!!

June 2nd, 2019 | International News

MY TEAM – NO WORDS!!!

The Road to Madrid – what a night!

May 8th, 2019 | Odds & Sods

Another amazing European night at Anfield!! OK, so I am sure that maybe a few people don’t even know what Anfield is (nothing to do with wine, by the way)… it is the home of my beloved Liverpool FC.

A few weeks ago I drove down to Porto to watch them in their last Champions League game, which they won 4-1. Last night, in the semi-final, it was a completely different story. After playing the first game of a two game tie in Barcelona, they were 3-0 down, and so in the return game at Anfield they had to win at least 4-0 to qualify for the final. Which is exactly what they did!

Few experts gave them much chance, and certainly none of the Barcelona team or supporters expected it, but in a breathtaking, pulsating game, they were blown away by a brilliant Liverpool team, and an atmosphere that was so electric I could feel it in Pontevedra!

It could take me a few days to recover….

Blitzed wine?

May 26th, 2018 | Tasting

Yesterday I missed yet another ‘National Day’ – apparently it was National Wine Day (or at least it was in the USA). About 10 days ago I also missed National Tea Day, which, as the world’s greatest tea drinker, came as quite a shock – albeit that every day is National Tea Day for me!

Moving on quickly I read something very interesting yesterday, well, actually quite shocking to me! Putting red wine in a blender to help it breath! Apparently it’s called ‘Hyperdecanting’…..

OK, we live in an age where everything is instant, and few people have the patience to wait for anything. Many prefer to ignore the slow, careful, perhaps more traditional method of decanting, but putting wine into a food blender? Really? Certainly this is something that I would never ever consider myself, even for a half-decent wine, but then we are told that this blitzing is ‘ideal’ for cheaper red wines – it can accentuate the fruit and make them less harsh. Well, I doubt if I will be trying this theory any time soon.

For example, could you ever imagine the sommelier of your favourite restaurant plugging in a blender at the side of your table to aerate your wine – I think not. Simply open the bottle, pour, swirl, wait and savour (or just stick to Coca Cola).

One commentator summed this idea up beautifully – it’s quicker to open a wine with a chainsaw, rather than a corkscrew – but you wouldn’t!!

Circumnavigating Vigo

December 11th, 2017 | Odds & Sods

To be honest, when friends and visitors ask me, I’ve never really recommended Vigo as a place to visit – Santiago de Compostela always, La Coruña sometimes, and also Pontevedra on occasions, but never Vigo. It’s not exactly a ‘pretty’ place, there’s far too much faceless 1970’s architecture, and not too many tourist sites of special mention. It’s a very important industrial fishing port, but not much more than that.

I usually only visit when I have chores to do, and so last week, on our bridge day, I went there for a couple of things. The first errand was in a place that I know well, whilst the second was in a place that I really don’t know at all. Fortunately I managed to find both (without the aid of satnav), but then, when it came to the return journey, then that was another matter….

A combination of the unfamilar roads, changed priorities and a couple of diversions left me, quite literally driving in circles – stuck in a never ending loop. For nearly half an hour it was like being stuck in a maze – trying a different route each time, but then always ending up in the same place. Of course, owing to the road closures satnav wouldn’t necessarily have helped, and so it became simply a matter of trial and error. Groundhog day with traffic! I am convinced that the traffic planners in some of these places clearly never have to use these routes themselves, or perhaps they don’t even drive… that’s just my theory anyway.

Meanwhile back at home

March 24th, 2017 | Unbelievable

Snow in Galicia!Yesterday was Memphis and today is Nashville, Tennessee on our continuing Grand Ole Tour of the USA – we really are in the heart of music country (or should that be country music)!

Over the last few days I have been talking a lot about the weather, and how changeable it has been in the some of the States that we have visited so far. Well, it appears that, not to be out-done, Galicia is now chipping in with it’s own bit of freak weather. After days of temperatures pushing the mid-20’s°C (70-80°F), Galicia has just been hit by hail, sleet and snow! Unfortunately I wasn’t at home to witness it myself, but I can say that in all my years in Galicia, I have never seen snow!

Who would want to be a weather forecaster these days?!

World’s most ridiculous fireworks!

September 5th, 2016 | Fiestas

Well, our local beach resort of Sanxenxo really excelled themselves last night. On the last night of a week long fiesta they celebrated with the usual 20 minute firework display. In fairness, I’ve always thought that there are better ways for local councils to spend their money (as every small town and village lays on their own individual display over the summer months),but last night, well, what can I say?

At 10pm I went out for a walk, or rather a “reccy” to look for a good location to set up my camera and tripod. I thought that this year I would try to shoot my photos at a low angle across the water, and take full advantage of any reflections. I found the perfect spot, only about 5 minutes from our front door, and so I planned to return about 15/20 minutes before the midnight kick-off.

At 11.40 I looked out of the window…. shock, horror! The whole town was shrouded in a thick, damp sea mist – and when I say thick, I mean about maybe 20 or 30 metres visibility. Surely they had to postpone?….. Wrong! Watch my brief video and witness how thousands of Euros worth of fireworks went up in smoke, or should I say, went up in mist. This must be the most stupid, incompetent things I have ever witnessed, but I’m sure you will agree, at least it did sound impressive!

Wine list for cats?

August 18th, 2016 | Oddballs

Apollo PeakSeveral months ago I wrote (unbelievably) about a wine for cats called Nyan Nyan Nouveau, well, guess what? There’s more! Pinot Meow and MosCATo….. I jest not, this is all, unfortunately, quite true.

Meow meow was made in Japan, from grapes (that can actually be toxic to cats – maybe it was produced by a dog lover?!), but this new cat drink, made in Denver, has had no grape anywhere near it. Which sort of begs the question, why do they call it wine at all? It is apparently made both alcohol-free and grape-free, using organic catnip and water, coloured with organic beet juice (the “white” variety coloured with golden beets). It is apparently designed so that cats can now join there owners in a glass of “wine”.

The brand is called Apollo’s Peak and is already sold in pet stores around Colorado. It will also be available at CatCon in LA.

CatCon? Really? Catcon? (OMG).

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