Off to Barcelona for a week of work on an Monday, will report back anything interesting

Have a great trip and please post anything you enjoy there. We'll be in Barcelona this summer.

have a great time. it's on my radar as well. looking forward to your report!

Enjoy the architecture. Take one of those hop on buses - it is the easiest way to get around to see the main sites.

So far the Hotel Arts is great, beautiful modern rooms, great views, a little far from the gothic region but right next to the beach. Had dinner last night in the hotel restaurant Enoteca, not bad, okay wine list food was fine.
We drank a 2000 Mas Doix because they were out of the 2001
The Veranda restaurant in the hotel has a very nice buffet breakfast.
In the room there is a Bang & Olufeon AV system, which must have the heaviest remote ever made, it is a chunk of aluminum, very cool.

Between meetings and location scouting we had lunch at the Caja Madrid Tapas restaurant, the tapas were great, the wine list weak, we drank a pleasant Ribera de Duero and then I ran to a nice wine store Vila Viniteca, very friendly staff
I picked up some
2001 Irene Alemany Penedès Sot Lefriec
2001 Alvaro Palacios Priorat Finca Dofi
1996 Mas Martinet Viticultors Priorat Clos Martinet
2001 Castell del Remei Costers del Segre 1780\
Also picked up form the very cool market they own across the street from the wine store.

Cheese, fresh strawberries, jamon, chorizo, olive oil and olives
My only chance to go to the wine country will be tomorrow, since everything here will close for Good Friday. We will see what happens tomorrow.

We drive out to Pendes and Priorat today, while I will be the first to admit I put practically no planning into this little side trip, we had a great time anyway. We left around 10am and drove straight to Vilafranca del Penedes, to visit the winery Alemany i Corrio, Sot Lefriec. This was way cool, we called the winery from the road and after some miss-communications due to language, a little help from some locals and we were able to find the winery next to Torres in the industrial part of town. It turned out to be a very small setup in a small corner of a warehouse, this is not what I expected but our host could not be more charming. This brings up my first piece of advice make sure you have your appointments set ahead of time, make sure you have impeccable directions, discuss what you might expect with your visit and most of all make sure they know ahead of time that you will need someone there who really speaks English.
Anyway apparently this winery is so small that he can only handle two tasting visits a day. We luck out because we got there before 1:00 pm the time for his other appointment. His English was acceptable but his native tongue was French, second language was Spanish, then Catalan and last English. More on this later, there were five of us including my quite fluent bi-lingual Spanish-speaking daughter. First we tried a white wine direct from barrel that he makes only for personal consumption from a Spanish white grape, whose name escapes me at the moment. Very nice, more like Riesling than a chardonnay. Then we tried the 2002,2001,2003 Sot Lefriec wines from the bottle, the 2002 was definitely the weakest of the three lighter with far less structure and potential than the other two. The 2001 and 2003 both were very nice but they should be cellared for a little while longer to fulfill their full potential. We also tried two vintages of his second wine form barrel, okay but nothing special. He told us that unfortunately that because of his size and the deal with his Spanish distributor he was unable to sell anything to us directly. Trying to find this little winery in this town was not easy, nobody in the town had ever heard of it and with out my daughter’s help I do not know how long it would have taken. From here we decided to head for Priorat and see what was there. Priorat is beautiful, a bit like a more mountainous Tuscany. We stopped in Falset the largest town in the region, after the trouble we had in finding the winery in Pendes I just checked out a local store “”Bon Viure”Caixa Catalunya” where I picked up some
2003 Mas Doix Priorat Doix Costers de Vinyes Velles and a
2000 Buil y Gine Priorat Pleret.

After walking around the town for a little bit we headed to Gratallopos where I stopped in a brand new little wine shop” Bon Viure” and bought some
2001 Clos Mogador Priorat
2001 Mas Martinet Viticultors Priorat Martinet Bru
2001 Masdeu I Campos Priorat Amelia, they also own a charming resturant” La Caixa” next door where we had lunch. Now comes my second piece of advice in the last store in Falset, nobody spoke English, my daughter spoke to them in Spanish, the store at the next stop the owner spoke some English, but the restaurant did not even have a Spanish menu, Catalan only. The owner tried to translate the menu into Spanish so that my daughter could then explain the dishes to my crew in English, fun. The food turned out to be great but make sure when you arraign appointments that you stress the need for English help. The whole time we were driving through the region we saw lots of vineyards but no signs indicating where a winery might be. From Gratallopos we had to drive back without stopping in order to make a meeting, from this town to Barcelona took me about 1 1/2 hrs while driving fairly fast on some very windy roads.
We had a great time but in a nut shell make sure you know where you are going, make sure they will help with providing an English speaking winery worker for your visit, “ in the rural areas Catalan the language is far more important to speak than Spanish or English and make sure you discuss with them what your looking for, i.e. tour, buying,etc. The roads in Priorat are very narrow and windy

Thanks for the wonderful notes. We are arranging all or most of our tastings in Priorat. A number of the wineries have replied to my emails in English. We speak no Spanish and certainly no Catalan. We'll be bringing a dictionary with us which might help a little in a restaurant. I'm aware of the topography of the area having looked at many photos on wine sites. Did you drive through Torroja del Priorat? If you drove back to Barcelona from Gratallops you probably did. That's where we're staying. There's a nice hotel in Falsett but the nicest place in Priorat, as far as I could tell, is the hotel in Torroja del Priorat. I look forward to reading more notes from you when we get back from vacation. It sounds like you're having a wonderful time.

Yes we did drive through Torroja del Priorat, nice little town


There is a helpful staff at the Info office in Falset, just be aware that these town are very small and in fact the whole area is not very large. The stores do shut down in the afternoon
I think there is some kind of wine museum in Torrja but we had run out of time by then to check it out. After all I am supposed to be working here.

Today we had to stay in town so we walked the city and went to see the Gaudi houses La Pedrera and Casa Batilo, both definitely worth a visit. Spent the rest of the day shopping and wandering around the Barri Gothic and La Rambla. Had a nice lunch in some tapas bar.
Tonight we had dinner at “Arola” at the Hotel Arts, great restaurant, sort of modern innovative tapas restaurant, amazing food, super deserts and a nice wine list. Again I cannot stress how nice this hotel has been. It is a little out of the way but we walked back from the Gaudi houses with no trouble at all mainly because it is one of the tallest buildings in Barcelona and therefore easy to find.

board-o

rene barbier jr. of clos mogador speaks some english and thus is an essential stop. he can help you with directions. his father, rene sr. speaks no english.

Well my shoot went very well considering the fact that it might have gone very badly because it was raining when we got up this morning. But the weather turned out fine and the tourist crowds were tolerable, there is nothing like shooting a well known celebrity on the streets of city filled with tourists

Any way for our last night here we went to Botafumeiro for dinner, what a great meal some of the best fish I have had on this trip. We drank Juve & Camps Gran Cru because it comes from Barcelona, not bad.

I just wish I could have spent more time playing and less time working. I just uploaded some photos from the trip here:photos

I loved every one of those great photos. Thanks so much. Most of them are from areas wew will be staying in. We just booked our hotel in Barcelona.

this is why the man is a success! great shots!

Agreed. I loved the market shots and of course the Gaudi shots.

Thanks, guys

My wife also sends her compliments on your great photographic ability.

Loved the artsy photos at the market. La Sagrada Familia and Parc Guell next?