We’ve been rather quiet lately not for a lack of anything going on, but actually because there is so much going on we haven’t had a chance to sit down and write about. The biggest news of course is that our new Priorat guide is off to the printer. At last!

Having finished this massive project and wine fair season being in full swing, we’ll be traveling to a few events in the near future. Here’s a list in case we can catch any of you there and say hi.

First we’ll be heading to Croatia for the Zagreb Wine Gourmet Weekend. In addition to tasting wines, working on updates of our Dalmatia and Herzegovina guides, we’ll also be giving an “Succeeding in Enotourism” talk in conjunction with the omnipotent gang at Taste of Croatia. The focus is for wineries in attendance at the fair to hear from our and ToC’s experiences what works, what doesn’t, how best to go about having visitors come to your winery, and how it can be beneficial to all involved. More to come on this as the event on April 19-20th gets closer.

If all goes well, we’ll be making our public presentation of the Priorat guide on Saturday, May 4th in the Castell del Vi in Falset as part of their annual Fira del Vi event that showcases the wines of DOQ Priorat and DO Montsant. More on this very soon.

After spending a week in Priorat for their Fira del Vi “insanity”, we’re heading back over to Croatia to talk about enotourism at Vinistra May 10-12 and continue work on the forthcoming Istria guide. Who knows, maybe we’ll even take something of a break to enjoy Istria a bit before heading back. One does need a certain amount of truffle to make life worth living.

After Vinistra, we’ll be heading up to Empordà for the fifth annual Arrels del Vi happening on May 18-19th. We’ll be there all weekend presenting our comprehensive guide to that region which was the first English language guide to be printed about this beautiful little corner of northern Catalonia. We’ll also be available for the whole event to talk to attendees of the fair about enotourism in the region and, of course, to sign books.

Immediately after Arrels del Vi, we’re off to London for a couple of days to attend the RAW fair to learn more about natural wines. And, well, to have an excuse to visit England and its food & wine scene again.

Naturally, there are more things in the works, but that’s a quick list for now. Hope to see you around!

After Fira del Vi in Falset and then Vinstra in Istria, we’d like to make a quick mention that we’ll be at Arrels del Vi in Sant Martí d’Empúries this weekend. It’s a very nice setting in this old village that sits next to the Roman and Greek ruins that were the foundation of the region.

This year is the sixth edition of the festival, put on by the local wine shop, El Celler Petit. There will be about 25 wineries from the region in attendance and it offers up a good taste for those who are curious and with a set price per glass that eschews the whole ticket system we really don’t care for. We’ll be there selling and signing our Empordà guide directly. Stop on by, say hi, and have a taste of one of Catalonia’s most dynamic regions.

On May 4th, we were delighted to present our latest guide for DOQ Priorat in the Castell del Vi of Falset. It was a wonderful setting inside the renovated 14th century church of the castle. The presentation was hosted by the dynamic Ruth Troyano and we were joined by the president of the DOQ Priorat organization, Toni Alcover who offered up many kind words about this first comprehensive guide to the region. We appreciate all those in attendance who made the hike up the hill from the wine fair and came with questions ready.

At 432 full color pages, it represents a fantastic edition to any wine lover’s library as well an indispensable companion to anyone looking to visit the region given that it covers 104 wine producers in the region and over 300 of their wines. Available in both English and Catalan editions (the first in our series) is now available in print around Catalonia as well as directly from our website and also in a digital format from all the major digital book distributors.

(photo courtesy of Ruth Troyano)

A couple of weeks ago, we were invited to be part of the sommelier judging panel that did the blind tasting for the Arrels del Vi awards up in Empordà. It’s always a fun experience to partake in a judging whether super serious or more for sport. The blind aspect made it even more elusive as tasting wine with no reference as to what it is makes for a curious adventure, although in this case all the 50+ wines were from the same region, Empordà.

There are those in the wine trade who will emphatically state that they know exactly which wine they’re drinking without seeing the label, despite tasting what is perhaps hundreds if not thousands per year. Those who say this need to be called out it as it is quite frankly, impossible and there’s a great deal of luck involved. To remember a wine once you see the label is entirely possible, but to guess a wine blindly, not. This was even poked fun at by Roald Dahl in his short story, Taste. It was further shown how difficult it was with Mariona Parals, a trained sommelier and the co-owner of Roig Parals, who was sitting in on the tasting (but not judging) and even she was barely able to guess which of the wines being poured were from her own winery.

If you would like to see the winners, have a look. While not the exact list we picked, it generally agrees overall with what we find to be some of the finer wines the Empordà region has to offer.

Photo of the Arrels del Vi judging panel courtesy of Diari de Girona

View the English version below

El mes passat va publicar-se el llibre Vinologue Priorat, una guia d’enoturisme sobre els cellers i vins de la Denominació d’Origen Qualificada Priorat que inclou 104 cellers i elaboradors així com descripcions de 315 vins tastats pels autors. Va presentar-se a la comarca durant els actes de la Fira del Vi de Falset i ara arriba a Barcelona amb una presentació que tindrà lloc al Bar à Vins de la Fàbrica Moritz el proper 11 de juny. Els seus autors, Miquel Hudin i Èlia Varela, estaran acompanyats d’Olivia Bayés i David Marco del celler Marco Abella de Porrera. Es tracta d’un modern celler fonamentat en una llarga tradició familiar que elabora vins amb vinyes ecològiques que amb tan sols unes poques anyades han aconseguit excel•lents resultats. A més a més ofereixen visites enoturístiques i tastos al celler.

Aquesta trobada informal compaginarà la conversa amb els autors i elaboradors en un entorn distès amb el tast dels vins del celler Marco Abella i la firma de llibres.

Vinologue Priorat + Marco Abella
Dia: dimarts 11 de juny
Hora: entre les 19.00 i les 21.00 h
Lloc: Bar à Vins – Fàbrica Moritz Barcelona (Ronda Sant Antoni, 41)
No cal reserva
Accés gratuït

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In May, the newest enotourism guide from Vinologue was released for Priorat. A comprehensive reference to the cellars and wines of Priorat, it includes 104 producer profiles as well as 315 wines with extensive tasting notes. Officially presented at the Fira del Vi in Falset, it now arrives in Barcelona with a presentation at Bar à Vins in the Fabrica Mortiz on June 11th. The authors, Miquel Hudin i Èlia Varela will be accompanied by Olivia Bayés and David Marco of the cellar, Marco Abella in Porrera–a modern cellar with a long family tradition in wine who have been producing organic wines with excellent results while growing their enotourism offer.

This informal gathering will combine a conversation with the authors as well as a taste of the Marco Abella wines followed by a book signing.

Vinologue Priorat + Marco Abella
Day: Tuesday, July 11th
Time: 19.00-21.00
Locations: Bar à Vins – Fàbrica Moritz Barcelona (Ronda Sant Antoni, 41)
Reservations not required
Free Admission

We’ve officially launched a full redesign of our website, replacing the old design had been up for a bit over two years. Those were different times for our guides and a lot has changed since then. This redesign has allowed us to step back and think about how we present our guides online, and to improve how we make them the most attractive and immediately approachable travel reference you’ll find.

Titles

We’ve doubled the number of titles we offer in the last two years. That can always make things a bit crowded and so we wanted to frame these better and really expose all of them to anyone who comes to the site for the first time as you can now see on the home page.

Print Editions

We started creating these with Empordà last year, continued this year with Priorat and will add other future titles such as Istria, hopefully soon. While all the guides have been released digitally on all the major distribution channels since we started in 2007, the print editions have added another fold to doing business. Naturally, being a physical product they have to be purchased somewhere and people are regularly contacting us to find out about distribution points. To that end there is a new, Where to Buy page that should list everywhere that you can find the print guides for sale.

Also with the print guides, there was the fact that Priorat is in both English and Catalan. Multilingual websites are always tricky to create and we’ve introduced some of these elements in the redesign. But, more will need to come as while the English language will always be our base (as we find it to be the international language of tourism), we want to continue publishing in other languages if there’s an interest.

A Bit of Polish

There were other smaller ones as well, such as incorporating the design aesthetic of the print guides in an online format and including links to our social media channels in a much smarter fashion.

We continue to maintain our News section here, to stay up to date on new title releases, presentations of our books, events we’re attending or anything related to our guides. For those looking to read reviews of wines we’re drinking or write ups on our travels and interesting things we encounter, venture over to our blog, Entourist. There’s also a permanent link in the upper right hand corner of this website which is the little bottle with wings.

Cheers and happy enotouristic adventures!

We’re happy announce the release of Menorca, our latest enotourism guide and the first for the Balearic Islands (and hopefully not the last).

Poised off the eastern coast of Spain is Menorca with its fantastic beaches and rugged, beautiful nature. A popular summer tourist destination, it also has a wine and gastronomy tradition that’s a must-see for visitors who think that Menorca is just sun and sand.

While there are just a handful of wineries that form the Vi de la Terra Menorca association, they are a wonderful complement to fresh, perfect seafood, robust cheeses, and spicy aromas of natural herbs that blanket this island. Our guide provides all of the information for contacting and visiting these island cellars as well as reviews of their current bottle vintages and, as is the case with all of our guides, other places to see and foods to taste along the way.

Available now on all the major digital platforms, it’s an economically priced guide that will provide an invaluable companion for everyone who spends time on this enchanting Balearic Island.

Just in time for August, we’re happy to announce the release of the newest, updated edition of our first enotourism guide to Dalmatia, Croatia. Now in its fourth and most complete version to date, this guide features profiles and tasting notes for 60 wineries in this southern tip of Croatia along with 200 of their wines. Beloved old stalwarts like Dingač, Bibich, and Plenković are there alongside exciting newcomers such as Rizman and Markus.

Originally released in 2008, this book was the first comprehensive guide to the wines of any region in Croatia. Now more compact and making use of the latest version of our proprietary epub layout, the guide gives readers access to extremely versatile information that they can take with them on their tablet, phone, e-reader, or computer. Immediately download your copy today on Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Google, and Kobo.

Cheers and enjoy Dalmatian wines! We wish you the best enotouristic travels.

Yesterday, we were happy to to have a midday news segment about our Priorat guide produced and aired on the national Catalan station, TV3. It covered both ends of the region and featured appearances by Cesc Capafons of Capafons-Ossó and Ricard Rofes representing both the winery Cellers de Scala Dei as well as the DOQ Priorat office. It allowed us the chance to talk about writing the guide and our experiences in the region.

As the entire piece is in Catalan, feel free to run this text version through Google Translate for a reasonably correct English version. Also take a look at the making of photos.

Many thanks to the TV3 crew who were able to pull this together so quickly!

Today we were very happy to make a presentation of our Priorat guide at the 33rd annual Mostra de Vins i Caves de Catalunya, set in front of the Arc de Triomf in Barcelona. This fair, organized by INCAVI (the Catalan wine regulation body) during the Barcelona festa major weekend, is the largest in Catalonia and wineres from all of the 12 DOs in the region are represented, so we were thrilled to be part of the program. Our presentation was put up by local cultural club, Tr3sc and allowed us the chance to share the wonderful wines of Marco Abella along with the story of how our guide came to be, with everyone in attendance.

It was a full room and unfortunately some people who showed up later had to be turned away, but we hope we’ll have the chance to see them at an event in the future such as the fair Degusta Priorat in the Buil & Giné winery in Gratallops this coming weekend.

As a quick mention, we’ve recently shifted our primary web address from www.vinologue.net to now be www.vinologue.com. Maybe you didn’t even notice because everything has been designed to shift over without so much as a blink. But, if you want to make sure you stay up to date with our news feed and announcements of new guides, a link update is suggested wherever you might think it necessary.

Beyond this small change though, the guides continue on in their fine tradition of exploring new wine realms and bringing them to you directly. Cheers and best wishes as we head in to the holiday season!

For the last two months, we’ve been visiting wineries for our forthcoming DO Montsant guide to be released next Spring. In doing this, we’ve received several hundred bottle samples for tasting notes and we’ve enlisted the professional aid of several sommeliers in Barcelona to help us work through this and write up the wine details.

We conducted our first session last week at the new, wonderful wine bar in the Poble Nou neighborhood of Barcelona called, MésDVi. We’d like to very much thank Xevi and David for letting us take over a large section of their bar for several hours while the six people on our panel honed in on analyzing this first batch of samples. For anyone who stops through Barcelona, we highly recommend paying a visit as they have frequent tastings and activities, their wine changes each month and these two guys know how to pick some great bottles.

The first batch of sommeliers in attendance were a group we’ve met over the last year via wine events and we respect a great deal. They were as follows: Carlos Álvarez, Dani Garcia, Eric Vicente, Ramón Roset, Victoria Ibañez, and Xavier Bassa. Many thanks to all and we look forward to seeing everyone at Round 2, happening soon.

We were quite happy to be notified this week that our latest enotourism guide, the Vinologue Priorat book has won the award for “Best European Wine Book” (from a United States Publisher) from the prestigious Gourmand International. More than 5,000 books published in over a hundred countries around the world participate every year in the Gourmand Awards.

Naturally, to have this recognition bestowed upon us is fantastic and encourages us to keep working on new guides such as the forthcoming first edition of, DO Montsant (neighboring DOQ Priorat). Now we are looking forward to seeing if the guide wins the “Gourmand Best in the World” top award to be announced during their annual awards ceremony and Cookbook Fair in Beijing, China on May, 20 2014.

To celebrate these great news, we’re offering FREE SHIPPING until the end of December if you order via our new online store. Or you can, of course, get your epub of the book right now!

Acabem de rebre la bona notícia de que l’edició anglesa de la nostra darrera guia d’enoturisme, Vinologue Priorat acaba de guanyar el premi de “Millor llibre d’enoturisme europeu” (d’una editorial d’Estats Units) dels prestigiosos Premis Gourmand. Es tracta del concurs de llibres de vins i gastronomia més important del món, i cada any hi participen més de 5.000 llibres publicats a més de cent països arreu del món.

Naturalment estem molt contents d’haver rebut aquest reconeixement a la nostra feina, cosa que ens anima a continuar treballant en noves guies com la que estem preparant de la DO Montsant per principis del 2014. Estem molt il·lusionats també perquè la guia és finalista a rebre el premi de millor llibre del món, “Gourmand Best in the World” que s’anunciarà durant la seva cerimònia anual i fira de llibres de cuina que tindrà lloc a Beijing (China) el 20 de maig del 2014.

Per tal de celebrar aquest premi, fins a final de desembre us oferim l’ENVIAMENT GRATUÏT si compreu el llibre a través de la nostra nova botiga online. Aquestes festes, aprofiteu per regalar enoturisme!

This Thursday, December 12th, we will be presenting our Priorat guide at the new wine bar in Barcelona’s Poble Nou neighborhood called, mésDvi. It’s a great little spot that’s become a neighborhood staple in a short time due to David and Xevi’s friendliness and well-assembled wine lists that they keep changing each month.

But we won’t just be talking about us and our book, we’ll also be sharing with those in attendance four of our favorite Priorat wines from small producers. Actually, more than a presentation it will be a tasting amongst friends.

The wines offered will be the following:

• Loidana 2008, from Celler Marco Abella in Porrera
• Petit Mas Sinén 2010, from Celler Burgos Porta in Poboleda
• Dos Borratxos 2010, from Celler Sabaté i Mur in Torroja
• Lo Casot 2011, from Celler L’Infernal in Torroja

This selection represents an overview of the new wines that Priorat cellars have been creating in the last few years and offers a great chance for wine lovers to taste some hard to find and unique bottles from different villages in the region.

The cost for the full tasting is 5€ (full details.) Hope to see you there!

We recently completed our last tasting panels for the forthcoming DO Montsant guide. Much like our last panel, we worked with a group of local sommeliers in Barcelona to taste and evaluate the several hundred bottle samples we received from the wineries in the region.

The two evenings for this tasting were graciously hosted by Magatzem Escolà in their very gorgeous underground event space. If you haven’t paid a visit to this impressive wine and spirits shop, we highly recommend when you’re near Mercat del Born. With Iban (a sommelier) in charge of wine and João (a master barman) on spirits, they can advise you very, very well. And they currently have quite a few discounted wines.

The batch of sommeliers in attendance were as follows: Carlos Álvarez, Dani Garcia, Eric Vicente, Ramón Roset, Victoria Ibañez, and Xavier Bassa. Also joining us this last time were Patrick Webb and Mar Galván. Truly a great team.

Again, a mighty and many thanks to all!

Our new guide for the region of DO Montsant will be available soon and the last six months of work have been dedicated solely towards its creation and release. It’s been a goal of ours since starting the DOQ Priorat guide a year and half ago to eventually create this crucial companion to cover all of this lovely corner of Catalonia and it’s going to happen imminently.

For this guide, we want to try something a bit different. While we normally work to have our books available to purchase in shops and online, this time we’re making use of Kickstarter as well as a similar system in Spain called, Verkami. Essentially, we’re allowing people to pre-order the books well in advance of their official release to make sure that you get them in time for the summer holidays. We’re also offering some other very limited and special rewards for those who would like a personal guided tour of the region by the author.

We’re doing this as something of an experiment to see how well these systems work for us to get our niche books in to the hands of those who want them most: wine lovers. If you can help make this succeed, then we’ll know that it’s another option we have to continue to create new and wonderful guides to exotic wine locations around the world because we have a list down one arm and up the other.

If you’d like to pre-order and participate, please check out the Kickstarter campaign if outside of Spain and the Verkami campaign if living inside Spain. Thank you very much and hope to see you soon!

As we learned last December, our Priorat book was awarded best wine book from a United States publisher by Gourmand International which was great to receive.

We’ve now been notified that it’s on the shortlist to win Best Wine Book in the World at the awards ceremony during Gourmand’s cookbook fair in Beijing on the 21st. We’re very excited at this news and are hoping for the best, especially as the companion book to Priorat for the DO Montsant region will be officially released in one week. We’ll keep you posted!

This Friday, June 6th at 19:00 there will be a presentation at the Castell del Vi in Falset for the release of the English and Catalan editions of the book, “Vinologue Montsant“. This new book is a guide to enotourism for the cellars and wines in the Denomination of Origin Montsant and includes 64 producers along with tasting notes for 225 of their wines as were evaluated by a panel of sommeliers.

The presentation will be moderated by the sommelier Astrid Goldstein, who has been actively visiting and tastings the wines of the Priorat comarca for years and is the owner of the wine shop, El Celler de Can Mata. Joining her will be the author of the book, Miquel Hudin and the president of regulatory council for DO Montsant, Jaume Domènech. They will talk about the decade of rising quality and visibility for the wines from this region and the importance of enotourism to promote the wines at home as well as around the world.

At the end of the discussion there will be a tasting of some of the highest rated wines from the guide which includes the following cellars: Coca i Fitó, Comunica, Ètim, Joan d’Anguera, Celler El Masroig, Orto Vins, Venus La Universal, Vinyes Domènech, Cara Nord, Laurona, and Alfredo Arribas.

The tastings for the wines included in the guide were performed in rooms that were kindly provided by the wine bar, MésDvi and the wine shop, Magatzem Escolà in Barcelona. The tasting committee was comprised of the following sommeliers: Carlos Álvarez, Victoria Ibáñez, Ramon Roset, Xavi Bassa, Èric Vicente, Dani Garcia, Patrick Webb and Mar Galván.

The collection of Vinologue enotourism guides from the publisher, Leavenworth Press was born in 2007 in the United States with the goal of learning about small wine regions in the world that don’t receive a great deal of international attention. The majority of tourism guides generally ignore wines in a region in favor of more touristic sites, but the Vinologue collection takes the cellars, their wines, as well as the local gastronomy and makes this the destination.

The Vinologue Priorat guide that was released last year won one of the prestigious awards from Gourmand and the English version is distributed throughout North America. This new guide for Montsant is the indispensable companion for any wine lover of the region.

About the guide, Vinologue Montsant
This guide is 312 pages, in full color, published simultaneously in English and Catalan and includes 64 producers and 225 of their wines which are all within the geographic zone of DO Montsant. Additionally it offers a general introduction to the region, practical information about the history, the gastronomic specialties, local festivals, and the grape varieties that define the region. There are also recommended itineraries, detailed maps of each subzone and locations for dining and sleeping. Each producer has a profile with contact information for enotourism visits as well as GPS coordinates and a QR code to use with a mobile phone to easily locate the cellars. Lastly there is the technical information for each wine as well as extensive tasting notes.

The English print version of this guide will be distributed to bookshops throughout the United States and Canada starting in September. The electronic version will be available immediately via online platforms such as Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Google, and Kobo.

The print edition of Vinologue Montsant is priced at 19€/$24.95.

All the wines for our Montsant guide were tasted and graded by a panel of professional sommeliers who donated their time to Vinologue. The tastings took place over four different sessions that took place at mésDvi wine bar and Magatzem Escolà wine shop in Barcelona, between January and February 2014. The members of this tasting panel were: Carlos Álvarez, Dani Garcia, Eric Vicente, Ramón Roset, Victoria Ibáñez, Xavier Bassa, Patrick Webb and Mar Galván.

The wines below are one part of the selected “top wines” from the guide that graciously gave bottles for the presentation at Castell del Vi in Falset. To read up on all of them, order your own copy of the guide today.

Cara Nord
Mineral del Montsant 2012
The nose holds and excellent bouquet of forest fruits, minerality, and exotic spices. Round and smooth in the mouth with a very fresh finish. It also has an excellent quality/price ratio.
10€

Coca i Fitó
Rosa 2013
Aromatic notes of strawberries, cherries, plums, and red currants in the nose. The body has the soul of a red wine and a style between Provence and the south of Catalonia.
11€

Comunica
Samsó 2011
An excellent example of a 100% Carignan wine from Montsant with clay, fresh strawberries, and mature cherries to the nose. The body has a touch of bell pepper and a fresh and lively acidity.
17€

Ètim
Selection Syrah 2006
A very elegant wine with balsamic notes, blackberries, licorice, and pepper. The body is very well-structures with a persistent, lingering finish.
19.50€

Ediciones I-limitadas
Núvol 2013
Aromatic in the nose with herbal and white fruit notes. Very elegant in the mouth and forms a classic blend from the region of White Grenache and Macabeu.
9€

Joan d’Anguera
Altaroses 2012
An exciting and unique wine with subtle mineral notes alongside mature strawberries, and thyme. Very fresh in the mouth with aromatic notes that express the Grenache exceedingly well. It is ones of the wines (along with others in DO Montsant & DOQ Priorat) that are forging a new path for wines in Catalonia.
11€

Laurona
Negre 2007
In the nose, wonderful dark fruits, graphite, and touches of vanilla from the aging regimen. In the mouth, it’s very round with red fruits and has a style that is classic and grand, but elegant.
14€

Celler El Masroig
Les Sorts Vinyes Velles 2008
Very clean and potent in the nose with notes of forest floor and mature dark fruits. The body is very large and plush with a finish that’s elegant, classic, and lingers perfectly.
14.50€

Orto Vins
Les Comes d’Orto 2011
Fresh in the nose with touches of brioche. It’s smooth and complex in the mouth with balsamic notes and makes for a perfect introduction to the wines of Orto.
18.50€

Venus La Universal
Negre 2011
In the nose, it holds red fruits with a touch of licorice. The body is light with a lingering finish and round, wild spice notes.
13.50€

Vinyes Domènech
Furvus 2010
A perfect representation of the wines and style from Vinyes Domènech. It has dark fruits and mature cherries in the nose that transfer in to a large body that’s plush but fresh, balanced, and holds balsamic notes in to the finish.
16€