A winehouse sort of day

Got up early to try out some new photo gear and a few ideas that I’ve been reading about. This digital photography lark is a bit more complicated than I thought. We drove to Elciego, a short distance, to see the Frank Gehry hotel in the Marques de Riscal winery. We visited the installations and it’s well worth the visit. This is wine-production on a grand scale with warehouses and cellars crammed with fermentation tanks, Barrels where the wine is being aged and racks of bottles waiting to be released on to the market. We went back to our hotel for a visit to their installation. The modern winery is being upgraded so the charming Elena took us around the old winery under the hotel. Not as impressive as Marques de Riscal but what was lacking there was more than made up for by the wine tasting hosted by Elena. We tried some wonderful wines from this producer; Bodegas Palacios and had a chatting and putting the world to right, as you do with a glass of class wine and good company. Time for a serious visit to the town. Our intention was to go wine tasting and trying out the variety of ‘Pintxos’ on offer. A few notable bars were visited, among them the cellars of ‘Los Pajares’ hotel. The waitress was superb and recommended several wines as well as other bars in town, ‘El Bodegón’ and ‘El Pórtico’ among them. We completed one circuit of nearly every bar in town and then started again, by this time we were making a few friends around town, Tomás in ‘El Pórtico’ being one. We started a third circuit but called it a day – a very successful day at that.