In Vino Veritas. My Impressions of Wineries in Different Countries.
It was rather helpful to visit wineries as I could find out much interesting information there. For example, (don't laugh at my ignorance) it was naive to think that rose wine was mixture of red and white but indeed it was made of special types of red grapes what gave rose colour to the wine. Pure grape juice is colorless but they add grape skin for some time to get the colour. I learnt that the wine of some years could be more expensive than the same type of wine from the same district of even earlier year because of the right weather for wine at that year and many other things.
We have visited many wineries in different countries but i will mention here just a few countries.
USA
It was the best experience in wine testing in my life. The Americans really know how to do it in the best way. You pay from 5 to 7$ (depends on a winery) and you can test 5 different wines (e.g. 3 red and 2 white). We visited much more along the road from San - Francisco to the north and below there are just few which impressed me most.
Castello di Amorosa: Very good wines, very friendly personnel and very interesting building.
Wines on volcanic ash Another interesting wine we tested and bought was wine from vineyards situated next to volcano so the taste has notes of volcanic ash. And the yard was beautiful. There was even wedding party there at that time.
Wines testing with gorgeous view. We stopped by this winery as it had awesome view to the ocean and wine and snacks were very good too.
Spain
We have heard a lot about famous Spanish wine Torres and that there should be a winery where we could try them. It is the oldest and biggest winery in Spain. But we got lost and found another interesting winery in a little castle. It was also a Torres one but not that touristy and we were lucky to talk to the wine specialist privately.
Finally we found that one we were looking for. It was rather interesting and first they offered a little bus tour around the vineyards with a guide who told many interesting things about the process of making Torres wines, the Torres family and later we could try Torres wines and buy it.
The wine was good and we brought some bottles home.
Sicily
It was not easy to find any and it was not that interesting as in Spain in the USA. In the winery we found you couldn't taste even for money. Later we found a cafe - enoteca where you could have wine testing but still it was not what we expected. But we tried famous Marsala strong desert wine of 17-18%.
Greece
The winery in Greece was not that good as the US ones but we could try white and red wines. They actually don't practice testing if it was not a group. But we were lucky and we could try some Greek wines. We liked it and bought some for our friends and ourselves.
So, Oscar goes to....Californian wineries....If you are travelling along the coast in California to the north, visit wineries and you will enjoy it 100%.
I love the types of environments that wineries are always in, often like old dungeons and ye olde inns.
exactly))
In the philippines we have this wine extracted from a Nipa tree. It also comes in a variety of flavor. We also have this wine called "tuba" extracted from coconut tree. It has an original white color but to add a tempting color they added red coloring. The original white usually were use to make vinegar.
Interesting. i wonder if i can find it here.
I dont think so :) the wine were not massively exported yet maybe due to lack of interest but for some people who tasted it abroad they wanted more of it.
Very interesting post! After reading I tend to think that taste of wine also depends on place where you test it :)
That's for sure. If you have a chance to visit some Californian ones, do it and you will not regret))
I advise you to visit the port wine cellars in Vila Nova de Gaia - Portugal ...
Certainly not repentest indeed Porto is a beautiful town and you will surely love it!
Thank you very much! I will add it to my list!