Marketing wine
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...