Festa de Sant Sebastiá

  I arrived in El Masroig on Jan. 18th and was very pleased to find the vineyards had been pruned and cultivated, It's been a dry season this year so there are very few weeds in the vineyards and orchards. The almonds have begun to blossom here and there although ours have not come out yet.
  I've been working on the new Barcelona rosado with Carles and Jose Carlos at Celler Masroig. We finalized the blend yesterday and should have samples on the way next week. Francesc Masdeu came over last Friday night and we had a good visit. I will go to his house tomorrow night for dinner.
  There was a festa last Saturday to honor St. Sebastian who is the other patron saint of El Masroig. The event was organized and managed by the youth association. They brought in an eight piece traditional band. Marc Tost and some of the local chicos built a big fire in the Plaza Major and cooked sausages for the town.
  There is a special kind of bread that is baked only on St. Sebastian's day. While the band plays, the children dance around with loaf and pass it from person to person. When the music stops, the kids all tear into it.
  As usual, there was lots of wine. They served vi ranci (similar to dry sherry) and mistela (a very sweet dessert wine). Roussó from the Cooperativa made a blend of the two that was delicious. I had a couple of copitas and decided that was enough. It was a cold night and the music was so loud I was having trouble understanding what people were saying. I left before they started cooking but I'm sure the sausage was delicious.
  I did a little research to see if there was a Catalan connection to St. Sebastian. It turns out that 23 Catalans have achieved sainthood but none of them were named Sebastian. It appears that ours must be the original St. Sebastian (usually depicted as tied to a tree and shot full of arrows). I'm not sure what that has to do with dancing, bread and sausage. St. Sebastian was appealed to for protection from the plague so there may be a connection there somewhere.
 In any event, these folks like to party and they're good at it!
 ¡Salud!

Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya

   We took a weekend trip to Barcelona to see the frescoes at the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya. The frescoes were removed from several Romanesque churches in the Catalan Pyrenees early in the 20th century in order to preserve them. Some of the frescoes are now nearly 1000 years old.
   When we made our first trip to the mountains back in 2012, we saw some of the churches. The church at Taull (pictured) was our favorite. Some of those frescoes are in the museum. I had ambivalent feelings about seeing the churches without the frescoes but, after looking at them in the museum, it appears they were barely saved in time.
   The frescoes are painted in an almost byzantine style. They are very interesting and must have made an impression on the parishioners in their day. In 1100 C.E., Catalunya was just moving out of the Dark Ages and a brief period of Moorish occupation.
   There is a great deal of graphically sadistic imagery involving the persecution of various saints. It took me a while to figure out the picture of St. Sebastian. It looks like he got caught in a storm of dinner rolls and the figures to his left were bringing loaves of bread. After reading the little card, however, it appears he is being stoned. I guess you had to be there.
   Fortunately, your modern Catholics don't go for this sort of thing. The museum does an excellent job displaying the frescoes and have built elaborate wooden frames for them. Please check out the photo. The museum is located on top of Montjuic and is surrounded by beautiful gardens and fountains. You can walk down long stairways to the Plaça de Espanya and catch the metro to anywhere in the city.
  We went out to dinner at a fancy tapas place called Lata-Bern@. The food was excellent and we spent the night in a little hotel in Gracia. Susan had to catch a plane to Paris early the next morning. We were up before dawn and got her on a bus to the airport in Plaça Catalunya. She and her friend, Laura, spent three days seeing the sights in Paris.

 

Harvest 2015

   We harvested this year on September 14th. After the hottest July on record, the weather cooled off somewhat in August. The first two weeks of September were cool and we had some rain. For the second year in a row, we had enough rain in June, August and September that I didn't have to irrigate at all. The vines set a huge primary and secondary crop. I went through the vineyards and dropped at least 1500 pounds of second crop on the ground. I was concerned that, if the cool weather continued, we would have trouble ripening the primary crop. Also, in the past, I had trouble getting the pickers to leave the second crop.
   Most of the grape pickers here work for farmers rather than winemakers so, if it looks like a grape, it goes in the trailer. This year was different. The Tost family brought some pickers who understood the concept. They left whatever second crop I missed. The result was that the grape chemistry was right on the money (as follows):
Alcohol 13.9%
pH 3.65
t.a. .7g/100ml
   I couldn't be happier! As you can see, the fruit was beautiful. The harvest went smoothly and we were finished by 2:00 pm. I am embarrassed to say I only picked about three hours. Since most of the fruit hangs less than eighteen inches from the ground, I'm a little too tall for this kind of work. We were assisted by four very nice Moroccan gentlemen and the Tosts (Rosa Maria, Josep and Marc) matched them cluster for cluster. In my 33 years of grape harvesting, I've never seen anything like it.
   We ended up with 6875 kilos (7.5 American tons) which was 50% more than last year. Ramon Bargalló, from whom I bought the vineyards, said he never got more than 6000 kilos so it was an all-time record. It was more fruit than would fit in my 5000 liter tank. Renè Barbier generously allowed me to use three of his one ton fermenters so we were able to get everything in the barn.
   The fermentations went well (quick and clean) and the vintage is now put to bed. I would like to thank the Tost Family for making this harvest so bountiful and pleasant. I would also like to thank "Los Tres Amigos de La Figuera":
Josep
Joan
Albert
And, of course, thanks to all of you!!!
¡Gracias de Nuevo y tu amigo!
Russell

¡GRACIAS! We're now over 6000 page views.

Just this week we passed over 6000 page views on this blog. Thanks to everyone for your interest in and support of our adventure! It's been a blast and we've enjoyed sharing the wonders of Catalunya with everyone. We're hopeful that the best is yet to come.
¡SALUDOS!
Susan y Russell

Heather and Dave

Our friends, Heather and Dave, came to see us in mid-September just after harvest. We picked on September 14th this year. They spent some time in Barcelona and Mallorca before taking the train to us. We spent a few days hanging out and seeing the sights. Heather is really into wine and recently took and passed the initial Sommelier exam. She and Dave also make wine at Water to Wine in Austin. They do a good job and I always enjoy their wines.
We went to Scala Dei one afternoon and had a wonderful lunch outside in the plaza. Scala Dei winery (a part of Codorniu) has a tasting room there and we tasted through their line-up. As always, the wines were good and the tasting room manager was very informative. We then went to Siurana and had a little private tasting of our own at the top.
We spent a very nice afternoon in Tarragona and had tapas. Heather and Dave went with me up to La Figuera to do pump-overs and punch-downs on my fermentations. Francesc Masdeu came over one night and made his famous hot rum drink. He was very impressed with Heather and her castellano and asks about her frequently.
We took a walk through the countryside and then made the obligatory tour of El Masroig. They had a bicycle trip through Penedes planned and I drove them over. Afterward, they took the train back to Barcelona and spent a few more days. We look forward to getting together with them when we get back!

Music in El Masroig

  Music is a big part of all the festivities here in El Masroig. This post will give you an idea of what goes on. The videos (click on the Youtube link) are short and will probably take longer to load than view. They're fun to see and you'll enjoy the spontaneity of the music.

 Helena Sabaté is our landlady's daughter and the pictures above are from a concert she and three friends gave to benefit the church. We didn't video the concert but it was spectacular. Helena has an incredibly beautiful voice. She sings with such wonderful pitch, purity and  texture we were completely knocked out! She should probably move to New York but seems happy enough here. I'm sorry she doesn't have any professionally produced recordings for you to hear. When she gets one, I'll post it.

Festa Major kickoff

https://youtu.be/kKU4K82Ux4U

                                                  The Festa Major kicked of with a parade through town by the young people and their band. This is a slightly different group than plays with the traditional instruments. They ended up at the pool after marching through town and stopping for drinks along the way. This video was taken as they were leaving the pool and on their way for more drinks at the community center across the street.

Festa Major Dance

https://youtu.be/82xAOevbHug

This video will give you an idea of what goes on at the dances we have for Festa Major. It was taken at about 1;30 a.m. when things were getting into full swing. The band plays covers of popular songs from the past 40 years or so. Please notice the professional light show in the background. A lot of people dance and everybody from babes-in-arms to great grandparents shows up. I missed filming a rousing cover of Tom Jones'  famous song, It's Not Unusual, because we were dancing. You'll have to come someday and see it for yourself.

Sardana 

https://youtu.be/n1m_b-4eiik

One morning of the Festa Major is devoted to drinking vermut (vermouth) and dancing Sardanas. The Sardana is the traditional dance of Catalunya and has special music. Each piece begins with a soliloquy by a traditional recorder-like instrument that was once used by shepherds. Another instrument you can hear is the "Gralla" which is a double reed instrument similar to an oboe or English horn. Double reed instruments are very difficult to play. The band you hear is a professional Sardana band that travels around to different Festas. The intonation problems you hear may be attributable to too much vermut too early in the morning.

The next John Bonham

https://youtu.be/BofAhfn3VP4

I had to film this kid because he was playing his heart out through the entire Diablo parade. His mom was a trooper and helped him carry the drum. He was having the time of his life and, you'll have to admit, he's got talent.

Catalan traditional band

https://youtu.be/BI0C9rQ3erc

This is the band that turns out for most of our community events. As you can see, all the members are young people. It's wonderful that the young folks are keeping the traditions going. All the villages around here have a band like this although I think ours is the best. These bands are exclusively made up of drums and grallas. They play mostly Catalan songs but our band can play "When the Saints Come Marching In" when they feel like it.

A time of bounty...

This is the time when everyone's gardens are in full production. Our neighbor, Phillip, invited us over to his garden and we picked almost everything you see above in about ten minutes. Just after we got home, Maria brought us the plate of golden prunes and more figs. We'll use the tomatoes, peppers and onion in gazpacho and make jam out of the figs. We'll bake the eggplant with garlic and olive oil. Everyone here is incredibly generous.

Last night was the second annual sardinada. It was one of the biggest turnouts I've seen for a civic event. There were at least 200 people there. This sardinada was a little different than the one we have on September 11th. These sardines were fresh while the ones on September 11th are salt cured. Jordi, Dani and a couple of other guys cooked the sardinas out on the futbol field. Considering the number of people to be fed, it resembled the Miracle on the Mount! They managed to pull it off in style.

The town put up a big screen projector so everyone could watch the FCB vs. Bilbao game. Susan and I left early (11 p.m.) and finished watching the game at home. Unfortunately, it was a disaster for FCB (4-0, Bilbao). We will go to Camp Nou to watch Barça play Malaga on August 29th. Hopefully,our boys will do better. 

The vineyards are looking good and it looks like we'll have a record crop. July was very hot here (another record) and we had some rain last week. The berries are a little bigger than I would like but, overall, the vines look healthy and happy. We will go to a barbeque tomorrow afternoon and then to a concert at the church tomorrow night.