There’s nothing like having a little fun while checking out wines at Verema, held at the Maritime Museum of Barcelona last weekend, and that was certainly what happened when I teamed up with Andrew Funk to ask a few unorthodox wine questions.
All in all, this year featured many of the usual suspects of years past, but winery attendance this year was down by 30-35 participants. It was great to see Terra Remota, Clos Figueras, Marco Abella, *La vinyeta, Coca i Fito, Llopart, and Raventos i Blanc. As you can view in the video above, Andrew had fun asking some interesting questions, including which famous person wineries would like to have try their wines. My favourite answer was from Olivia Bayes of Marco Abella, who went Hollywood with her answer. You’ll just have to watch video above for the details.
I also had the opportunity to tour around the event earlier in the day with Paul and Benedicté of Lazenne, as they are expanding their stocking dealer programme to Catalunya. We met two new-to-me wineries (although I’ve had their wines in the past) in Masia Serra and Edeteria. We’re looking forward to visiting both of them shortly. Paul continues to be amazed by the overall quality of the wines in the region, something that took him completely by surprise.
The highlights for me were trying two new wines from Marco Abella, Roca Roja and Los Perers (both very limited production single estate wines) tasty garnatxa from Edeteria (Personal), a few great blends from Coca i Fito, and a new experiment from *La vineyta, a sulphite free version of *Heus called *Heusss. I’m looking forward to seeing *Heusss in wider release soon!
Thanks again to Verema for putting on a lovely event at the Maritime Museum, I’ll definitely be back again for my third visit in three years in 2016!
Tim Brown (aka Timmer on social media) has been involved in marketing for over 20 years and a wine enthusiast since his first exposure to Duck Pond Winery in Newberg, Oregon, back in 1995. After coming to Europe in 2012, he made his home in Catalunya in 2013 and became enchanted with the wines and winemakers of the region. Now he shares his experiences so international visitors can enjoy the region’s wines, while continuing his work in the marketing world. Sommeliering and wine snobbery isn´t his thing, and he continues to learn more about wine from a Catalan perspective on a daily basis.