Arroyo Salado de Medina

Today we arrived in Cadiz (Seville) Spain early in the morning.
Our excursion today is called 'Sights, Sounds & Tastes of Andalusia'. Andalusia is a large region of hills, rivers and farmland bordering Spain’s southern coast. We are driving out of the center of Cadiz past Cathedral Nueva, the old City Hall and a remaining portion of the Roman Wall that used to surround the city in ancient times. The weather was a little rainy, so we could not take very good pictures from the bus windows.
We then drove out to the city of Jerez which is known for its sherry wine, flamenco dancers and Andalusian horses. There were many, many sherry wine businesses along the motorway. We then took a tour of the Tio Pepe sherry producer. They described the many types of sherry they produce and the different procedures. The large barrels are made from American Oak to very precise specifications. They are different from American wine barrels since they are not a perfect curve from one end to the other. There is a bulge in the middle. They stack them 4 rows high with the first row being 4 years old, then 3, 2, 1. They remove 1/3 of each barrel on the bottom and replace it with 1/3 from the barrel on the second row. And this is repeated until the top row is filled with the new sherry. This method blends the sherry and compensates for differences in the grapes from season to season. There is no vintage year since this is a continuous process. And the barrels last about 30 years before they have to be replaced.
Some of the barrels are signed by famous people like Winston Churchill, Johnny Cash, the King of England, soccer players, actors, actresses and movie stars. We then had a tasting of a dry sherry and a sweet sherry. Both were very good.
Our next stop was the restaurant Venta de Varga for a traditional Andalusian lunch and some Flamenco dancing and music.
Then back to the ship for our trip to Lisbon Portugal tomorrow.Baca lagi