Life in Culebrón

Now, anyone who has ever heard of Pinoso will know it is famed for wine (Pinoso’s bodega is the biggest producer of organic wine in the province), marble (we have the largest marble quarry in Europe), shoemaking (now largely a thing of the past), and Mediterranean agricultural products (Frutos Secos Mañán is one of the largest almond producers and processors in Europe). Not much is said about salt. Yet Pinoso is a major salt producer. Unfortunately, the town sees little of that wealth: the salt deposit is owned by the Spanish Treasury (Hacienda), and the profits from working it go to a French company within the Salins Group. We’re friendly with wine. Well, we’re members of the local "Amigos del Vino" here in Pinoso. We usually go on trips out in a charabanc which have some passing association with wine. If possible, we like to drink some. But last week we went on a trip with a different focus. We followed the route of that salt from deep inside our emblematic hill down to the...

We went out the other day with the Amigos del Vino de Pinoso—the Friends of the Wine. We made a full day of it, starting with a mid-morning snack on the picnic tables of a motorway service area and ending with a visit to Guadalest Castle, but the main focus was a trip to the Mar de Vins bodega in La Nucía. Now, Maggie has taken me along to plenty of bodegas over the years, so I’ve seen my fair share of grape destalking machines, stainless steel tanks, thick rubber hoses, and bottling lines. You normally have to endure all that before they let you drink. The tasting itself has its own ritual: sniffing, swirling, angling the glass to inspect the colour. I’m never sure whether knowing a wine smells of blackberries is good or bad, but it’s part of the performance. One place told us to use all five senses when judging wine—though I forget where touch came in, and the sound of pouring is surely a dead giveaway about quality. Or not. Bodegas nearly always offer bits and bobs to snack on, usua...