Cava Country

Today was a wine country kind of Sunday. Cava Tast is a gastronomical and cava festival that takes place in Sant Sadurní D'Anoia, the home to the largest cava production houses. Cava, if you have been wondering, is a sparkling wine from Catalonia. It's what it's called DO (Denominació d'Orígen) and it means that you can only make cava with grapes from the region of that area, and it needs to be certified. The elaboration process is similar to champagne.

You can go to el Penedès (the cava country) and visit as many Cavas (that's how the house where they make them is called) as you want. You'll be driving through vineyards and will see the beautiful buildings with arches. There are lots of them. The capital where most of them gather around is Sant Sadurní d'Anoia. Don't let the complicated name scare you, it's a really beautiful village. An easier way to taste a big variety of cavas at once is to go to this tasting festival.

You buy tickets (one kind for food, the other for cava) and they give you a list of all the houses represented at the festival (lots of them) as well as the cavas that they offer with prices that range between one (the youngest ones) and 4 tickets (the Gran Reserva). We started at the store stand, where they sell ALL the bottles of the cavas you'll find at the festival. There you check on the prices and write down the name of the ones that sound fancier, the ones that you'd never buy because they are too expensive. Those are the ones you want to try-- that is, if you are a snob like me.

After making a list of the few chosen ones and making sure we had enough tickets, we went on the cava hunt. There's a stand for every house, and THEY WERE DELICIOUS. It was very difficult to decide, but I think this cava was our favorite in case you have the chance to check it out, or if you want to look smart in a Spanish/Catalan dinner.

Mestres Clos Nostre Senyor

After our fun and sunny morning walking around smelling and tasting delicious cava, we headed to Vilafranca del Penedès, a nearby town where we heard they had some of the best "arròs caldós de llamàntol," which literally means soupy lobster rice. Texture-wise, it's similar to a risotto. They sauteé the dry rice with a seafood, tomato, onion, and olive oil sofrito until it gets all crispy, and then they add the lobster and seafood stock. I'm sure they also add fairy powder and some kind of drug because it's AMAZING. As an appetizer, we had fresh shrimp cooked with olive oil, garlic, and rosemary, fried fresh calamari, muscles, and clams. And ALL the bread (fresh made baguette). It's the meal I'll be having every Sunday when I'm rich.

And because I don't want you to think we've been laying down drinking wine, I'll tell you that we've been working on my bedroom at my parents house and it's almost all done. It doesn't look like the bedroom of a teenager anymore. Very soon I'll be posting pictures. We've also been working hard on a really cool project that I cannot wait to share with y'all soon!

Updates to come!

Also, here's a picture that Alex took of me tasting cava as an apology for the lack of pictures of today. This is how all the experts do it.

#cava #catalonia #wine #food #lobster #seafood #rice #weekend #getaway