My Brain in Spain, tres

Feliz Navidad

Christmas Day

Still running on New Jersey time, I got up and made a quick run for coffee around 10:30 Christmas morning. Then I sent the previous e-mail.

We are continuing to celebrate Joanna’s birthday, and now we get to add Jesus’s birthday too. The bells rang all morning to say “feliz cumpleaños” to both of them.

It was one in the afternoon before we were on the street, so we took a short stroll to see a curious bridge. It has a semicircular array on one side that gives it a kind of post-modern feel. I assume this feature is entirely decorative. We had passed a store selling kitchen ware, and when we first saw the bridge down the street, Joanna said it looked like a paella pan.

The bridge spans a wide gully that used to be the Turia River. Apparently there was a bad flood in the 1950s and the city decided to divert the river. Now the old riverbed is filled with parks and a museum complex.

From the far side of the bridge, we took a cab to the restaurant where we had Christmas dinner reservations. It is one in an avenue of restaurants set side by side, and they were all busy. And they all had views of the Mediterranean.

At one window, kids were opening their Christmas gifts at a table.

This was the first time I had seen the Mediterranean. We went in and asked our restaurant to change our reservation from 3 to 4, and then we went onto the beach. 

We passed a man spraying water on a sand castle with towers that had to be 6 feet high or more. It included an effigy in sand of Spongebob Squarepants.

The sea was calm and dark blue, with very small waves, like a bay rather than an ocean. I’m not sure, but this arm of the Mediterranean may be called the Balearic Sea. Mallorca is out there somewhere.

We strolled along the beach for a while. Joanna was surprised (and so was I) to see ladybugs in the sand. Also a naked man sunning himself.

Dinner was a salad followed by paella Valenciana El Coso (the name of the restaurant). It had chicken, rabbit, artichoke, and snails. It was terrific. So was the house wine. When you walk in, you pass a wall of it in a glass case. The label is a wax (or maybe plastic) seal.

This was not a Rioja but, according to the label, a wine of Castille and Leon. It was sharper than Rioja, but then, it comes from a colder climate. 

We went back to the beach for another look after dinner, then cabbed back to the Plaza de la Reina, where all the shops and most of the restaurants were open. The streets were packed. 

I guess everybody gets tired of being inside all day, so they have to come out in the evening. 

We walked to City Hall Square and around some side streets. On the way back, just across from the top of our street, was a tapas bar that had a word like “euskali” on the door. I think that’s what the Basques call themselves, so we went in there.

I don’t know if we saw any Basques, but we did meet Bob and Meg from Appleton, Wis. She studied in Madrid years ago, and they travel to Spain every year. 

He owns a deli that among other things, serves tapas and only Wisconsin cheeses.

She teaches kids in the local lockup. They are doing time for anything from breaking and entering to truancy.

It rained for a while when we were inside. When it let up, we went to the hotel where I believe I passed out. I am not sure.

A feliz Navidad indeed.

Harry

Dec. 30

A little more wine knowledge tutoring. You mentioned in a previous e-mail you drank a wine from Castilla y Leon and you noticed how it had less body and "stuffing" than the Riojas you were enjoying so much.

You postulated that the weather was probably warmer in Rioja, making for riper, more intense wines.

Well, Riojas are generally much better than wines from Castilla y Leon, but it's not because of the weather. Indeed, Castilla y Leon is one of the hottest growing areas for wine in Spain—lots of flat land and high yields. Rioja is cooler with more hills (and even mountains, if I'm not mistaken). Yields are kept lower, and the struggle of the vines in harsher conditions—cool nights, rockier soils, etc. —make for more interesting, more complete wines.

Even if the grapes can actually get riper in Castilla y Leon, they don't have the complexity and other characteristics you'll find in Riojas. It's why Rioja is one of the premium wine producing areas in Spain, not far from the Basque country in Northwest to north central Spain. 

You are actually closer to another important area for red wine that some say is even better than Rioja, if not smaller and less well known, but the wines are generally even more expensive. It's also made from the tempranillo grape, which is known by other regional names in some parts of Spain.

The wine to look for is called Ribero de Duero. Might be tough to get by the glass, and best to find a bottle with a little age on it. I bit "stiffer" than Rioja—more tannin and acidity; less use of American oak to soften it during aging. You'll enjoy it.

Larry