Jack...the wine maker!

Enjoying the views from Clos Magador

Carl and I love wine.  When we started dating, we would go with our friends on weekend getaways to the Blue Ridge mountains and wine taste all weekend.  For our honeymoon, we went to Napa and from there our love for 'Mommy grape juice,' as Jack and Sophia used to call it, grew.  One silly fact is that we try to only drink wines in places that we visit together.  It's not a strict rule but if we have been to the country then we can drink the wine.  It forces us to travel to areas with great wine.

Sophia on the top of the mountain.  She was set on visiting with the mules

In picking where to visit in Spain, we spent a lot of time at Total Wine trying to decide which wine areas of Spain we liked the best (once we have booked the trip then we give ourselves free reign to 

'prepare' for the trip). One of the smaller areas that is up and coming in the wine world is Priorat.  It is known for their powerful reds made up of syrah, cabernet, garnacha and Cariñena.  

Carl and Jack in the vineyards of Sao del Coster

Carl, Xavier and Sophia looking at the vines

Drinking wine at home with your kids present and wine tasting with your husband are one thing...mixing them was something I had never really done before.  Priorat is really a small area and finding places that did tastings was very hard.  In my emails and calls to these places, I would wait until they had agreed to take us before I threw in that I had 'two well behaved children that would be joining us but wouldn't be a problem.'  In all cases, they said ok to my surprise.  

The mules serve an important role of preparing the land.  The hills are so steep that they cannot use typical tractors.

Priorat is two hours from Barcelona.  After checking out of our Heidelberg hotel, we drove to Frankfurt to fly out to Barcelona.  We almost didn't make the flight because of morning rush hour traffic (it does exist everywhere).  After a divide and conquer move by Team Freeman Jack, Sophie and I carried all seven bags of luggage into the airport and checked in while Carl returned the rental car.We made our flight despite only arriving 30 minutes before the flight left and  not having done early check in.  After our military flight, the seats on coach felt like we were in first class.  We rented a car in Barcelona and headed to Priorat.  

Our view from the vineyard

There are two little cities that make up Priorat: Falset and Gratallops.   We used both the Garmin and google maps to try to get to the hotel.  It kept taking us to this little wall and entrance that no car could fit through.  Finally, I got out, rounded the corner and found our little hotel.  The owner, who was our age, came out to greet me and grabbed the bags from Carl.  After checking us in, he actually drove around with Carl to find us a spot to park.  The city is small and streets narrow.  The room was great.  It had a couch for the kids, a separate bedroom and a huge balcony with a big wine barrel for a table.  We even had a fireplace that we used that evening.

After getting settled in, we were off on the windy roads to Gratallops for our first wine tasting. The first winery that had agreed to allow us to come for a tasting was Sao del Coster. Xavier was so excited to have us.

Slate is used over the plants to produce the unique flavor only found in Priorat

 Xavier was so pleasant over the phone and asked that we meet him at the church.  There was playground right near the church.  At exactly 4pm, an old white pick up truck bucked up the hill.  Carl must not have looked like a typical 'Gratallopian' because he stopped Carl to ask if he was there for a wine tasting.  After we all got together, he asked if we wanted to tour the vineyards first.  We grabbed our car seats out of the rental and buckled the kids into this old pickup truck and went for a wild ride up and down the side of the cliffs into the vineyards.  Jack and Sophia had a blast!!! I felt like we could literally fall off the mountain at any moment but somehow we made it.  

Jack in Xavier's pickup truck.  He was thrilled to go for the ride!

Having just arrived to the tasting facilities at Sao del Coster

The wines of Sao del Coster

I taught Jack how to use my camera.  He was actually pretty good.

Xavier speaks of wine with the passion that an Italian speaks of romance.  His first stop was to see 'the children' as he calls them.  He described them as 'little Sophias'....the baby vines recently planted in the vineyard.  Xavier is the one responsible for farming the land and making sure that these little guys produce.  Their region's philosophy is very different than those I have seen elsewhere. It's truly about respecting the land.  They have plenty of space to put more vines but don't want to burden the lands with too many plants.  They are not allowed to irrigate like we do in the States.  Priorat has a special ingredient that makes their wines taste splendid...slate! Pieces of slate cover the the plants. You would think it would be hard for these little plants to flourish with rock above them but that is what makes the unique flavor of Priorat wine.  

The Sao del Coster facility

Jack smelling the barrel and the wine

Jack learning about wine from the inside!

After the tour, we went back to town, tried some wonderful wine and thanked Xavier for his time.  We went back to our hotel for a big dinner of jamon (local ham), toast with tomatoes, an amazing goat cheese salad and more meats.  The next morning, they basically served the exact same thing.  Jack refused to eat in protest that he wasn't eating dinner again for breakfast;)  

Carl and Xavier

Carl and John, the winemaker, from Clos Del L'Obac

Jack trying to convince Sophia to get in with him

Here he goes again!

We went to Clos De L'Obac for the first wine tasting of the morning.  This time, we had John, the winemaker, and part owner of the winery take us through their facility.  The winery is one of the original five wineries of Priorat and was quite large.  They even have their own ..... in California.  The facility was beautiful.  The kids did great, and Jack really got a lesson in wine making.  John, the father of two boys, spent a lot of time carefully answering Jack's million of questions.  It was so interesting to see everything from the plastic buckets that they use to gather the grapes to the wine label makers and the bottling facility.  John was so kind to even put some empty bottles on the rotation so the kids could see how the wine gets corked.  The kids were really well behaved.  Things got a little hairy when we sat down for the actual wine tasting only because the room was filled with thousands of bottles of wine and beautiful wine glasses but we made it through without a single glass broken.  

Sophia learning about the wine and how it ages in the barrels

Jack did not like the smell of the room. He kept asking, "You really like this smell, Mom?" as he covered his nose.  You can see the labeling room through these doors.

We ate lunch at L'Obac restaurant, stopped at the playground and then prepared for another wine tasting.  Jack and Sophie buckled into another SUV and we hit up some more windy dirt roads to see more grapes.  Clos Mogador was beautiful winery.  Daphne, our tour guide, took us all around and also spent a lot of time with us.  When we went back for the tasting, she set up an area for the kids to make drawings.  To my surprise, Jack drew pictures of our wine tours.  He really seemed to get how these little plants produce wine.  I would love it if he became a wine maker!  

At Clos Magador