Thanks Florencio!

I have tried three of the wines on your list, and all are certainly of high quality, so your friend has good taste!! I will try to check into some of the others while I am there.

I've found many wines from Spain really amazing, in numerous cases the taste is much
better than French wines.
Especially like wines from Valdepenas region, and of course "Rioja". Recommend
strongly red wine "Rioja Banda Azul" (blue label), it is about 600 pesetas. White Rioja is very rare, recently was drinking one from 1997, and was delicious. Anyway, do not buy cheap "Riojas".
Many champagnes are of very good quality. If you like something sweet, Moscatel or famous
Malaga Virgen will do.

spectator,

i agree with you about the taste of the Valdepeñas region wines... i think many people tend to have their favourite regions for the Spanish wine... La Mancha/Valdepeñas is certainly mine..

angie, sofia, and others,

about bringing back bottles of licor; i went to the wine shop that i have pointed out to "El Viejo," right before i was coming back to the USA, and so i realized i just didn't have any sensible way to carry 12 bottles of alcohol in my suitcase. so i proceeded to put each bottle into my socks, until each bottle had two socks on it, one over the top, one over the bottom, and then wrapped each in a shirt, and then lined them up as neatly as i could in the cloth suitcase.. (i know that is an horrible run on sentence..) none of the bottles broke, and i had lots of wonderful drink when i got to the states (El Gaitero, vinos, etcetera...).. i guess i did have some wrinkled clothing, but i consider that small price to pay in order to have such great drinks!! and i would do it again...! (but i like some of your tips, above.. thanks)

!viva españa!

Ole Real_Megia!!!! 12 bottles!!!!

[This message has been edited by Sofia (edited 06-15-2000).]

sofía,

¡que sí! ¡olé! ¿¿and how could i not bring back so many bottles...?? it would be fun to share them with other Madrid-o-philes!!

¡que viva españa paa siempre!

El Viejo,

i'm so happy you brought up the Cafe Ba-Ba-Ree-Bah (spelling???)! you are right, it is a nice place and pretty darn authentic... i especially like their little sherry sampler plate; from dry to amontillado to cream, very nice! the ambience is great too...

i would also suggest, when in the chicago area, La Perla, near Joliet, and then the Maison Sabika, near ??(Wheaton??) i'm not sure exactly where because i don't know Chicago very well... My brother was an executive chef at Maison Sabika, which is how i know about these restaurants... La Perla y Maison Sabika are by the same owner, and so have similar menus, and Cafe Ba-ba-ree-bah is by a different owner.

Also, for those in Los Angeles, there is a spanish restaurant in Pasadena off of Colorado street, it's a pity i don't know what it's called, but i'll find out and edit this post later...

El Viejo, i re-read the directions i gave you to the wine shop near Atocha and i think i can do better than that.. i hope you haven't left yet because i will try to find the exact streetname for you.. does anyone know of a good madrid street map?? i wish i had bought the spanish equivalent to the "thomas guide."

¡viva españa!

ps> i have just remembered that Maison Sabika is in Naperville. ( i had to think hard over that one!)

[This message has been edited by real_megia (edited 07-06-2000).]

real_megia,

I just got back, and no luck on finding the wine shop. However, let's get the directions worked out for others that might be going.

Just to tell you what I did:
I went to the Atocha intersection. With my back against a building, I was looking at Atocha station across the street, and to my immediate right was the "Diamante Brillante" bar. I turned 90 degrees to the left and started walking. I passed the entrance to the Atocha metro, and immediately beyond that reached the corner, where I turned left (without crossing the street, not that any sane person would try to do so here). After about 50 paces, there is a choice of turning left again or going straight. Turning left takes you down a short street that stops at the Reina Sofia museum. (It also contains the back-entrance to "Diamante Brillante". I checked out every store on either side of this short street, but no wine shop. I asked at a local store, and they didn't know what I was talking about.

I then tried going straight instead of down the short street. This took me along the left (south) side of "Atocha" street, and I followed this for about 5 blocks checking out all the stores, but no wine shop.

So I obviously did something wrong. Can you figure out what? (Madrid Man, any way of including GIF files as attachments? I could then scan the map and include it.)

One of my major (unattained) goals of the trip was to find a bunch of bottles of Ponche "Soto". This is not fine wine by any means; in fact I have no idea what it is exactly, a sort of liquor I think. Anyway, it contains lots of memories for a few of my friends and me, so I thought a wine shop might have it. I did check lots of stores during the trip that sold wine and liquors, but all carried Ponche Caballero and Ponche Osborne, which taste different. I did hear a radio commercial for Ponche Soto, so I know they still make it, but didn't catch where I was supposed to buy it. Well, one more thing to look for on my next trip...

real_megia, thanks for the restaurant tips! On my next trip to Chicago, I'll give them a try.


The remainder of this is a report on my trip to the Ribera del Duero wine region, for what it's worth. It might help someone else going to the region (but you probably shouldn't assume that things are the same in other wine regions of Spain).

First of all, go to:
http://www.do-ribera-duero.es/ribera2/castellano/castella.htm

to get the list of all bodegas in the region. Select "Area de Communicacion". That page will offer you two links: one to a page that lists all bodegas in the region that use the D.O. on their wines, and those that don't. Each link takes you to a list of names, addresses, fax and phone numbers, and (rarely) email addresses.

Response to faxes and emails was low, even though I concentrated on the big-name bodegas which I have seen mentioned in Wine Spectator's wine database. I got three replies for about 8 or 9 messages sent. One was a polite no, and one was a "you can come, but we don't do wine tastings".

The one bodega that did offer tours and tastings (there is a charge) was Bodega Penalba Lopez, which bottles wine under the "Torremilanos" label. Their web site is
http://www.iconet.es/torremilanos/inicio.htm

We did tour their bodega and had a wonderful time. The winemaker himself gave the tour. Since he doesn't speak English, the woman who answers the phone in their connected (luxurious!!) hotel offered to follow along and translate for us, which was very nice. They introduced us to their barrel maker (they make their own!), and their underground bodega contains 5000 barrels of aging wine. The tasting was great, and we bought a bunch of bottles to bring back. (I will be trying to contact their distributor here in the states to see how we can buy it locally.)

After the tasting, we walked over to their hotel so that the kids could have a Kas, and the owner of the winery/hotel (Pilar) happened to walk in at that moment. We sat and visited with her for a half an hour, and she was an excellent host. By the time we had left, she had made dinner reservations for us at her favorite restaurant in Aranda de Duero, and had told us what items on the menu the restaurant was especially good at. It was a shining example of Spanish hospitality; one of the things that keeps me wanting to go back!

Driving around the Ribera del Duero region is disconcerting for people that have been to Napa and Sonoma, who are used to seeing grape vines covering the valley from side to side. In Ribera del Duero, we drove from Aranda de Duero to Roa before we saw a single vine! The bodegas appear to be tucked away in the hills and off the main roads. So if you expect to see miles of vines, you will have to do some searching.

We did drive in to the winery of "Condado de Haza" on a couple of miles of marginal dirt road near Roa, but they did not seem to be prepared for "walk-ins", so we took some pictures and left.

Due to a mistake in planning the trip (I miscalculated the arrival date due to the time difference.) our 1.5 days in the Ribera region shrank to .5 days, so the Bodega Penalba Lopez tour was the only one we did, but it was worth it because we enjoyed ourselves immensely.

El Viejo, WELCOME BACK! Sounds like you had a GREAT time, but a shame you couldn't have spent more time vineyard-hopping.

re: image attachments, the Ultimate Bulletin Board doesn't allow them, but you could always upload them to one of the free webhosts like Geocities.com, Angelfire.com, TheGlobe.com, or one of the photo album sites and put in direct hotlinks to those images to which you are referring. Also, if you read through the UBB info page @ http://www.madridman.com/ubb/ubbcode.html you'll see that you can use a kind of HTML markup to do this as well without listing the actual URLs in yoru messages.

Welcome home! I'm sure you're anxious to return already!

Saludos, MadridMan

P.S. Is "Diamante Brillante" the same as "El Brillante"? I think so. Maybe the former is the formal name of this place I love so much. QUESTION: Did you try their bocadillo de calamares??? (fried squid sandwiches) I love these here AND this will be the sight of "Party With MadridMan: Version 2.0!!

[This message has been edited by MadridMan (edited 07-06-2000).]

¡[censored]! Nice to have you back, El Viejo!

firstly, i'm happy you had a chance to do the wine tour, even though you did not get to see as much as you would like and for as long as would have liked. i suppose that is the price to pay for not LIVING there!! he he he he...

seriously, you followed my directions exactly because i could picture everything as you were saying it (especially my favourite bar Brillante)... the only thing i can consider is that it has moved, because you surely would have found it... i'm sorry you did not... nonetheless, you found some great wines no doubt, and you may have a way to continue getting some of them here in the eeuu.

MadridMan, i do think that "el bar Diamante Brillante" is the correct formal name of the bar, and so is the same as the "Bar Brillante" that i am talking about. there are i think 2 or three in Madrid by the same owner, and the one in Atocha has been there since right at the civil war, so it is a rather famous one... El Viejo, i hope you enjoyed some of the bocadillos que se ponen ahí...

El Viejo, thanks for the information about the wineries and your trip. we were all hoping you would have a COMPLETE blast over there!

¡que viva espaÑa paa siempre!

ps> hey, what is this i hear about a "Party with MadridMan ver 2.0??" will it be at el Brillante in Atocha??? me voy me voy me voy!!

[This message has been edited by real_megia (edited 07-06-2000).]

real_megia, re: Party With MadridMan version 2.0, yes, it will take place in the first week of October at Bar Brillante, the very one you mention across the street from Atocha and next to the Reina Sofía museum. We had a blast last year! About 20 people showed up including the camera/interview crew from CBS' The Wild Wild Web that interviewed me around Madrid that day.

Keep your browsers tuned to http://www.MadridMan.com in September for exact dates/times.

Saludos, MadridMan