Life in Culebrón

One of my standard responses to anyone who asks for a description of Culebrón is to say that we have a restaurant, a bodega and a post box. I should perhaps change the bodega to say bodega/almazara because Brotons produces both wine and olive oil. A bodega (in this sense) is a winery and an almazara is an oil mill I went to get some oil the other day and I was a bit shocked when Paco, one of the owners, wanted 20€ for the five litre plastic bottle. It wasn't the price that was a shock, it was the difference in price between this and my last purchase. I'm sure it was 15€ last time.  On the label the description of the oil says that it is de extracción en frio which means that it is cold pressed. I don't quite know what that means. My, very simple, understanding of olive oil is that the very green stuff, the extra virgin olive oil is the best, produced from the finest olives, whilst virgin oil is made with slightly riper or damaged olives which makes it slightly more acidic...

It was, I think, called the Wine Resource Centre - well it wasn't because it's name was in Valenciá - but now it is called Centro de Interpretación Casa del Marmól y del Vino - The Sociocultural Institution for the Interpretation of Marble and Wine. Casa doesn't translate easily in this context. Even then you think they could have worked on something snappier. Perhaps the reason they haven't got around to giving the exhibit a new sign is that they are going to need quite a big board to fit all those words on. The idea had been talked about for quite a long time but the actual implementation seemed to happen with remarkable speed. Perhaps funding had to be spent to a timetable or somesuch. Perhaps that's why there is no sign. The idea of a celebration of wine and marble is a perfectly reasonable thing to do in Pinoso where the two are big economic activities. Marble is the biggest moneyspinner in the town by far because of the huge open cast quarry. It's ow...

Traditionally the first words of a seaside landlady to this week's guests are that they should have been there last week when the weather was oh so much better. It was a bit like that today in Pinoso. Yesterday we had bright sun and reasonable temperatures in the mid teens but today it is foggy and cold. And today is a big day for Pinoso; Villazgo. Villazgo is the celebration of the independence of Pinoso from nearby Monóvar on 12th February 1826. It's the day for a nostalgia trip in Pinoso. Out come all the traditional costumes, the folk dancers, the regional games - anything vaguely related with the past will do. It's always a good day. We have stalls in the street, we have displays from the neighbourhood associations, the wine producers, local groups of every shade and hue and, probably the best bit, lots of local businesses associated with food and drink set up a stall in the town hall car park. Punters buy a set of tickets which they can swap for wine, cakes and co...

When we were at the village meal the other day the wine that came around the tables was from the local Culebrón bodega. It was different though; new wine varieties, new labels and a different, more modern, bottle design. Just to show how modern the white wine came in a blue bottle. I only tried the two reds, the Shiraz and the Merlot, but I enjoyed them both. The thing that caught my eye most though was that on the label, most of which was in English, the wine maker of the family, Roberto, had been renamed. Wines by Robert Brotons it said. Foolishly, at the time, I forgot to take a picture of the wine which meant I had to pop back to the bodega the next weekend to buy a bottle for the pack shot. So, in the original picture, from the event, on the left, you can just see one of the new blue coloured wine bottles in amongst the sparkling Galician ciders and Catalan wines. Fear not - the orange stuff is Fanta. The picture on the right is from the weekend after the meal.

Maggie wanted to send some wine from our local village bodega to her family in the UK. The bodega has a website  on which they offer to send their wines (and olive oil) to lots of European countries so we thought it would be a piece of cake to pop over there and get a few bottles into the post. Antonio told us it wasn't worth the cost but it may be worth checking with Roberto. We went back a couple of days later to ask Roberto. Better talk to Paco in the office he said. Paco said he would have to talk to the transport company. Could we come back tomorrow? The transport company hadn't quite got around to sending the rates by email as they'd promised when we went back. Paco phoned again and got the carriage rates. It all seemed perfectly reasonable and we shipped 36 bottles at an average cost of 4.59€ per bottle. Talk about fostering international links or is that international drinks?