Buying Spanish wine the hard way

Begur is a lovely town 2 hours north of Barcelona where well-to-do Barceloneses (or Barceonins in Catalan) have their second homes and dear friends from London have their holiday home. We are even invited practically on a regular basis. Slotovino readers might have noticed posts about our many visits to the famous Grau, one of the world's largest and greatest wine warehouses. 

You might say he who is tired of Grau is tired of life but on our last visit to Begur we thought why not order wine from elsewhere in Spain and get it delivered to said holiday home? Grau has almost everything but not quite.

Hardly expecting our friens to stay in to receive packages we chose the option to click and collect, 

The first package was from Portugal actually. Four bottles of Fundacao Oriente's Ramisco (Colares). We chose to have it delivered nearer to a sort of corner shop in Palafrugell. It took no less than 4 visits to obtain it. Not the way we wanted to spend the holiday.

The package from Vinyas d'Empremta also had a bit of a journey. We were supposed to pick it up from a restaurant nearby called Toc al Mar. Sandra or Pere would know about it.

Of course when we got there there was no sign of Sandra and Pere didn't know anything about it but after some rumaging in an outbuilding the box was found.

We had enjoyed Vinyas d'Empremta's Sucamulla so much we wanted to have another bottle of that and to see what else this interesting Catalan producer was making. 

So we ordered one each of

Rabassa - Macabeu, Pansera, Picapoll, Malvasia. 'Skin contact wine from century-old vines.

Rusc - Torbato

Curull - Sumoll, Mando. Bartrol, Garrut, Garsenc.

Corsai - Sumoll

Biot - Sumoll, Bartrol, Mando.

Sucamulla - Sumoll, Mando, Garrut, Bartrol.

When the box was opened there was a second bottle of Rabassa but no Rusc. Gerard of Vinyas d'Empremta explained they had run out of Rusc and so just added this second Rabassa. This was a pity because we had especially been looking forward to Rusc which consists of 100% Torbat. 

This Torbat is not the same as the Italian Torbato or even the Spanish Trobat. It is actually an old variety that has been brought back in the area of Vinyas d'Empremts, Bages-Bergueda. Some say it may be a type of Malvasia. Not many are working with Torbat but Gerard really loves it. We are going to have to wait until next year to try it.

There can't be many who haven't has similar experiences with parcels or worse. It might have been no different if we had had these wines sent to us in the UK, just more expensive. Perhaps the best way to buy wine is from a retail shop but then the bottle you want might be out of stock.