If you’ve ever thought that it’s shameful to be drunk at 11am, I’m about to make you feel like a silly idiot fool.
Cue pompous music.
Wine tasting (noun) is the art of masking getting pissed with class, at least that’s what could easily be construed by the state I was in on one Tuesday in February at 11.15 in the morning. In truth, wine tasting gives you a sublime level of understanding and appreciation for minute variations in the taste of my favourite drink.
I grew up on wine. Or rather, I grew up in Spain. My go-to drink by the time I went to university was a medium sweet named Emparrado, which, in the eyes of the other students definitely made me a bit of a posh twat.
So, as part of ✓ Project Bucket List, I decided that I’d do the whole shebang. I’d go to a vineyard, I’d sit next to the barrels, and I’d have someone who really knew wine explain wine to me.
Don’t ask why we were in Mallorca in February, but we were, so I reached out to 5 bodegas, and asked if they’d do a tour at very short notice. Bodegas Bordoy got back to me, asking me to confirm asap, as they needed to buy bread if so.
“Is there anything we need to bring?”
“Yourselves, hunger, and a jacket in case it gets cold”
We arrive at 9am in the middle of nowhere. In the context of Mallorca, the middle of nowhere means sandstone walls, blossoming almond tree groves, and long stretches of dusty roads that lead to olive estates.
Exiting the taxi, we meet Alexandra, a kindly lady from Germany who works at the bodega. She’s thrilled to see us, even if we’re a little early, and explains that we’ve got plenty of time, she has another tour arriving at high noon, but we’re the only ones for this morning, and so, it’ll all be in English.
This is a very good sign, because Kymberley doesn’t speak Spanish, so the whole experience likely would’ve been like a game of Chinese whispers, where I struggle to translate the names of all these grapes.
We explore the winery. There are giant metal casks full of mid-processed wine, and there are barrels full of wine covered in codes and markings that the head oenologist (winemaking specialist) uses to maintain quality and tasting notes.
We get a whole load of gossip about the place, about how, for the owners, rich hotel owners on the island, the bodega is a hobby. I sit and imagine being at a stage in life where I can own a 20 hectare vineyard as a hobby, and decide that I’m going to start committing tax fraud as soon as I get back to England.
We are given the details of how it’s made, how they have seasonal workers in the summer who help pick the grapes, how they’re bottled and maintained and tested and corked. By the time we reach the wine tasting, we come armed and loaded with a full appreciation of the story behind every sip.
We sit down in, I swear to god, the single most beautiful place I can imagine drinking wine in my life. There are rolling hills and mountains below a beautiful sunny sky, and right next to our table, the plants themselves extend far into the distance. Just look at the photos damn, it looks like an advert. Blossom Hill, if you ever want to go upmarket, shoot me a message on MySpace.
Alexandra, our tour guide, is a great storyteller, she’s bringing anecdotes left right and centre. When I ask “hey, I don’t actually know how I’m supposed to taste this wine to appreciate it“, she nods, explains, and moves on. No judgement.
If you’re a wine connoisseur, first off, what are you doing reading this story? You have far better things to be doing like visiting art galleries or buying a new cravat in a shop with reclaimed wood flooring. Second, you can skip this next bits, it’s for the plebs that don’t operate at our level.
When you taste wine, you pour it, first, into the glass – preferably a wine glass (leave your mug at home). Then, you raise the glass towards a bright object, perhaps the sun, the sky, or a dentists overhead lamp. The idea is that you can properly appreciate the colour of the wine, and as you taste more wines, you’ll build a mental library of what colours relate to what types of flavours.
Then, you swirl the wine around the glass. Make a circular motion with your hand so it slides up the side of the glass, but remember that this is not a game to see how high you can get the wine to the edge (we played that when Alexandra left us alone to help a customer). Instead, you’re coating the edge of the glass in the drink, so that when you raise it to your nose to smell, you’ll get the most bang for your buck in sensory stimulation.
After that, drink the wine, take a small sip, and swallow slowly. Try to taste the wine in the part of your neck just below your jawline. Often, you’ll need to try twice to get a proper appreciation of the flavour.
We tried 6 wines. 2 whites, the first of which was my favourite of the whole day. 2 rosés, one of which you could drink like water, as we warned when trying it. And finally, 2 reds, which were deep and flavoursome. By the time we got to drinks 5 and 6, I’d actually lost count, so I’m very thankful that Kymberley holds her alcohol better than I do.
The food we were presented with to go along the experience was magical. I don’t mean that the food was good – I mean that it was MAGICAL. Mallorca sources a lot of it’s food locally, on account of it being an island, so the meats, nuts, breads and cheeses were all incredibly fresh.
If you haven’t had local food on the Mediterranean, I urge you to try it. I grew up there and didn’t get a full appreciation for how outstanding the food is, until I returned to England and realised how utterly plain and crap it is here.
After we’d finished, we bought a bottle of red from the Bodega, and we’re granted access to the vineyard to have a wander around for as long as we want.
The word “stumbled” comes to mind with how graceful I was. 6 glasses of wine at a wine tasting is still a lot of wine, even if Alexandra wasn’t pouring them to the brim – and I haven’t been drinking as much as of late, so my tolerance is that of a 17 year old.
We giggled our way through the dirt and vines, watching eagles dive for rabbits along the edge of the tree line and agreed that this was a phenomenal use of a Tuesday morning. I can’t say that everybody will be eager, or as fortunate as we are to be able to visit a vineyard in Mallorca, but the whole cost of the holiday, of the tour, and of the taxi into the middle of nowhere was actually incredibly low, for two of us.
I might anger the holiday directory mafia by saying this, but avoid looking at things like TripAdvisor for experiences. The prices on the Top 10 lists that similar sites gave us were steep, and we’re often in bars in the city centre. I want to say that the experience of going our for a private tour around a vineyard in the Mallorcan countryside was priceless, but it was actually €35 euros per person.
That’s like 35 freddos each.