Our Cups Runneth Over

Saturday morning, we had an unexpected excursion fall in our lap.  One of my coworkers, Dave, had rented a car, and had planned on doing some wine and champagne vineyard tours along with another of my coworkers Will.   Earlier in the trip, he had asked if Aimee and I would be interested in joining him.  We were very excited at the idea.  Dave had done some research, and there was an area only about 40 minutes away from where we were that had dozens of wineries all within a few miles of each other.  He found a few that sounded very interesting, and one or two that served lunch as well.

Porridge for Breakfast

We planned on a leisurely pace that morning, as some of our entourage were making the most of the night life, and the plan was to meet at 11:00am.  Aimee and I had looked forward to sleeping in a little bit, and grabbing a leisurely breakfast before meeting our group.

Hillside Mausoleum on Outskirts of Barcelona

We arrived at the small café in our hotel around 10:15am, thinking this would allow plenty of time.  However, we again forgot the slower pace of things here.  We ordered a distinctly European breakfast of porridge with cinnamon and bananas, which seemed like a nice foundation in our stomachs before spending the next few hours sampling wines and champagnes.  The breakfast was decent (though certainly not warranting the near $50 price tag on it) but given the typical pace of food service in Barcelona, even our 45 minutes we had allotted had us rushing the server to get us our check in time to leave.

Vallirana, Catalonia

We jumped in our car for the day, which was a large black Mercedes van.  With Dave driving, and Will navigating, Aimee and I were able to simply relax and watch the city fly by past the windows.  Though Barcelona is a large city (by US comparisons) of around 1.6 million people, it is very dense, and does not cover a large area.    It didn’t take long in the car to get out of the city limits and out into the countryside.

Vallirana, Catalonia

The first vineyard we arrived at was Albet I Noya.  We parked our car in a small gravel lot, and walked into a large courtyard with a couple residential looking buildings, and the vineyard office in between them.  Inside we found an early thirty something Catalan who spoke very good English but with an accent that only added to his aura of expertise on the subject of wine and cava.  He brought us to a small display room and provided a brief overview of some of the wines available.  The description of one of the bottles was a little lost through his accent.  Both myself and Dave thought that he described the wine as being aged in “salmon eggs”.  He repeated this a couple times, and the second time I thought it was more likely he was actually saying “cement eggs”.  Either way, I was quite intrigued.  He then explained the tasting would be 3 glasses for €3 per person.  We were interested!

Albet i Noya Vineyard

As we sat at a table in the courtyard, our host gathered some glasses for us.  Meanwhile, a young boy around 12 years old was playing with a soccer ball, kicking it against the wall of one of the buildings, catching it, and repeating.  In the other residential building someone was practicing the drums.  As we continued to wait, an elderly couple walked into the courtyard over to the building where the drummer was playing and started knocking on the door, and calling inside.  Clearly the drummer did not hear what appeared to be his grandparents, as they were left there for a good 5 or ten minutes trying to get in.

Albet i Noya

We all smiled at each other, enjoying this brief but intimate peek in the life of a vintner family.  Dave was the first to vocalize how awesome it was to be out in the countryside of Spain and getting this brief glimpse into the lifestyle of the locals.

While we were soaking in a ‘day in the life’, our host brought out several glasses for each of us.  He offered a few different wines for us to taste. We tried a red and a sparkling.  For the third, he offered the unusual sounding wine, and I again thought he said it was aged in “salmon eggs.”  We asked him to clarify salmon or cement, and sure enough it was “cement eggs.”  He said that the flavor would be very crisp with a mineral flavor to it.  We all agreed this would definitely be worth a taste.

Wine Tasting

The cement egg wine was not a disappointment. It was a white wine, and as had been described, it was crisp, very smooth, and had a bit of a mineral water flavor behind the fermented grape flavor.  All of us gave it a positive review.

After our third glass, we decided to head to the next winery.  When we arrived we were greeted by a Spanish speaking woman and we learned that, unfortunately, they were not doing any more tours this morning.  Dave’s wife who spoke Spanish, asked her for recommendations for lunch.  While they were conversing, Aimee and I noticed the distinct sound of a cork popping out of a bottle of cava down a hallway.  Aimee looked at me with disappointment and said “Oh, that’s the sound of someone else having a good time.”  Yes, it certainly was.

The woman recommended a nearby restaurant called “Ambrasa.”  When we arrived, it appeared to be a local family restaurant, with many of the tables having a clear view of vineyard outside.  We were seated and given menus, and our server pointed out a chalkboard with several specials on it.  As soon as we sat down we were given glasses of cava.  Nice!

Lunch with a view at Ambrasa

Both Dave’s wife and myself struggled to interpret the menu.  After trying for several minutes, we finally realized the reason was that it was written in Catalan, and not Spanish.  Our server, who only spoke Catalan and Spanish, struggled to help our group.  We were a difficult crowd though as 4 of us spoke little to no Spanish, and only 2 of us spoke it but were not quite fluent.  He tried as hard as he could though, even using an app on his phone to help translate what he was saying. 

Somewhere in Cava Country!

Somewhere in Montjuïc

We ultimately ordered several dishes and shared them, as well as some more wine.  Everything was fantastic.  By the end of the meal, we were all full, and had had quite a bit of wine.  Our server now offered us limoncello.  We declined but he explained that it was a free part of the meal.  Turning down free liquor just seemed wrong, so we obliged him and shared a small bottle of the liqueur.  After all this food and drink, we were shocked to see the final bill come in at only  €64.

Stuffed, and several of us a bit buzzed, we headed back to the car to travel back to our hotel.  We had a company sponsored dinner this evening.  But first, Aimee and I decided a siesta was definitely in order.

After our nap, we got ourselves cleaned up, headed to the lobby, to find our tour bus, and climbed in for the ride to the restaurant.  We arrived at Montjuïc el Xalet, and from the outside we were quite underwhelmed.  We were up on a high point in the city, and clearly we’d have a good view, however the only thing we saw advertising the restaurant was a dated looking sign that said “Restaurant.”

Once we entered however we were pleasantly surprised.  We were lead onto a wooden deck which overlooked the entire city.  Here there were servers offering tapas, and of course as much wine as we could drink.  There was a band playing Spanish music accompanied by flamenco dancers, providing entertainment.  We did once again realize we underdressed for the weather, as we were both pretty  cold having not brought jackets along with us this evening for the temperatures which were in the low 50s.  Fortunately, there were some heaters, and we tried to stay somewhat close to these. 

After a while, we tried to work our way to the back of this section of the restaurant where the bar was. This area was partially enclosed, slightly warmer, and put us first in line to enter the building, once it was time to go inside and be seated.  While we were standing near the bar, we noticed a tray of what appeared to be sangrias on the other side of the bar.  Aimee had been eying this for quite awhile, and it was still sitting there awaiting a server to distribute them.  I offered to fight the crowd to get to that side of the bar and grab her one.  Aimee protested a few times, but I finally insisted.  I navigated my way between dozens of my coworkers, grabbed a glass and brought it back.

Sagrada Familia from Montjuïc el Xalet

Aimee took a sip and immediately her face turned into a look of pouty disappointment.   “What’s wrong?” I asked. 

She answered, “That’s not sangria, its coke with a lemon in it.”  Well that was disappointing.

Only a few minutes later, they began allowing everyone inside to find a seat for dinner.  The dining area was one level lower than the reception deck, but still had a tremendous view of the city.  Since we were one of the first people into the room, we made our way over to the windows to get a seat

with a great view.  Ten minutes later however, we realized this was a wasted effort when the floor below our table began slowly rotating, our “front row” seat began to make its way to the back of the room.  Our dinner was no disappointment however.  We again enjoyed a seemingly endless supply of tapas, as well as wine glasses that seemed to be refilled after every sip we took. 

Sitting next to us at our table, was one our sales people named Susie.  She had told us that she had gotten her name on the guest list at a discotheque, conveniently located outside our hotel.  The doors opened at midnight, and she asked if we were interested in joining her.  Applying a bit of peer pressure, she explained that it was something you NEEDED to check off the list when in Barcelona.  We gave her a solid “maybe”

Once we were stuffed from an hour of tapas, they brought us a full meal, followed by desert.  The wine continued flowing all the while.  After we could barely move from all the food, it was time to get on the bus and head back to the hotel.

When we got back, many of my coworkers of course descended upon the hotel bar.  We joined them and had a few more drinks and engaged in discussions around work, family, raising of children, and the many benefits of swords including both repelling male suitors of one’s daughters as slicing frozen fish.

Once midnight approached Susie, with the help of Sophia, began to apply the peer pressure on several of us to head over to the discotheque.  Aimee and I ultimately agreed, along with about 10 other people in our group.

The discotheque, Opium, was already fairly packed with people.  Standing on an elevated platform were too attractive young woman dancing and sporting some Gaudi themed body shirts and bikini bottoms gyrating to the beats of the DJ.

Getting some fresh air outside Opium

After spending an hour or so here, and officially checking “dancing in a Barcelona discotheque” off the bucket list, we headed back to the hotel.  Along the eighth of a mile walk, our group was offered beer, marijuana, cocaine, and walked past a prostitute who appeared to have netted herself a customer for the evening.  We quickly realized that after midnight, the city takes quite a bit of a turn.  We however bypassed all these offers and headed up to sleep to rest up for our final day.