Spain

Enroute to Sevilla, we convince Manuela to make our stop at the Cork museum located in the Moorish capital of Silves. The cork museum is located within an old fabrication building "the Fabrico do Ingles" and houses all these archaic pieces of cork making machines. The building had a very large outdoor interior courtyard with many orange trees. There were signs everywhere "don't eat the oranges"...not sure why. THe interesting part of cork history is that it's primary purpose was not just for wine bottles, but for all other kinds of products as a stopper. We were able to take a piece of cork bark with the the extruded holes (corks).

After the cork museum, most of the tour walked up the stairs to the outlook at the cathedral for a great view of the town before the sky opened up. I did not and saved myself from getting soaked.

We get into Sevilla in time to change and get ready to go to dinner and another show - this time Flamenco! http://http://www.elpatiosevillano.com/ Next to bull fighting, this is as spanish as you can get. The show took about 2 hours and there were various shapes and sizes of dancers and the energy level was INTENSE. Both men and women were dancing separately and together in traditional costumes. (The next day it became very apparant how many flamenco stores were in this city)

http://www.hoteles-catalonia.com/en/our_hotels/europa/spain/andalucia/sevilla/hotel_catalonia_emperador_trajano/index.jsp

We travel south to Puerto de Santa Maria to visit the bodega Osborne. Through our contacts at PMA I was able to set up a tasting that was WAAAAYYYY better than what the regular plebes would get. Before the tasting began we had a tour through the bodega that ran for what seemed 3 city blocks...there were rows of barrels and the air had a fairly stable relative humidity as we looked closer at the black walls we were reminded that the black was in fact MOULD. Although terribly gross to realize that, it was highly effective. As we moved from location to location in this large cellar, the temperature was extremely even as was the humidity level.

Osborne even had an open ended butt (barrel) to demonstrate what fino (dry) sherry looked like as it was developing. Sherry comes in two main styles, fino and cream (sweet) and what makes the fino so unique was a layer of yeast (flor) that remains along the surface of the sherry. This surface acts as a barrier and the subsequent sherry remains lighter in color and drier in mouth feel. This sherry also retains a characteristic tangy taste.

At our tasting we were offered 5 sherries in total, regular guests offered 2. Osborne provided us with thin strips of serrano ham, course crackers and green olives to act as a vehicle while sampling. We in turn left copies of the Canada book and the apron to say thank you. Not to be outdone, Osborne provided us with a 375ml bottles of fino sherry. Well we had the last laugh, the tour must have spent a fortune in their gift shop.

We return to Sevilla in the afternoon. We get a short tour out to the cathedral before being left to tour the city on our own. The tapas was not quite the same as in northern Spain but delicious none the less. Our hotel was probably a brisk 1/2 hour from the city center, but the shopping along the way made the stroll very pleasant. There certainly appears to be a severe shoe affectation in that part of the world, as every other store is for women's shoes. It almost became a bit creepy.