A Drive Through the Province of Cádiz

Since we finally mastered the manual transmission (Lee has proven himself the superior driver of the two of us), we decided to take a day and drive through the Province of Cádiz.  Our number one destination was Jerez de la Frontera for a sherry wine tour and tasting, and then to Cadiz (old Spanish port, now a summer beach destination for residents of Sevilla) and finally to Zahara de la Sierra (small town in the "hills", i.e. mountains, of Andalusia).  According to our host in Sevilla, a "day" trip for this route is quite extraordinary, saying something about driving a lot (but "eh" it was only about 3-4 hours in the car for the total round trip so not too bad). Nevertheless, although we left early and made it back late after sunset (which normally happens around 9:30'ish) it was well worth it. (Note: if you wanted to skip Zahara, opt for a train ride to Cadiz with a stop in Jerez though, that would be less costly and more relaxing.)

We found our way to sherry producer Pedro Dominecq in Jerez and just barely made the tour by walking/running across town at around 1 PM (aka hottest sweltering weather ever). The tour included a visit to four bodegas (warehouses) where they store their different styles/brands of wine for aging. Similar to scotch, all of their barrels originate from American oak but they use the barrels for as long as they can, restoring and repairing when possible. They paint them black in order to better see leaks and such since the wine is sticky and reflective, so shows up well versus the matte black wood. Unlike traditional wine, they use the Solera system to maintain a (generally) consistent taste regardless of age. The barrels are stacked in three to five layers, with the youngest on top and the oldest on bottom. They use the bottom barrel to fill their bottles and then replace the amount of bottled wine with wine from the middle barrel, which is then replaced with wine from the top barrel.  Thus the bottled wine is a mixture of wines from different ages, from a few years old to several decades old. A bodega will produce similar wines from each cask, but each bodega will have a slightly different taste than another bodega (even though they all use the same grapes) due to the air and heat and conditions in the bodega itself.





After the tour it was siesta time and the town was pretty much shut down, so we were off to Cadiz the historic port that along with Sevilla had the monopoly on trade with South America (think historic opulence and riches). Driving into Cadiz we felt like we were visiting Miami with lots of high-rise apartments and hotels on either side of a single main peninsula boulevard road, with flocks of vacationers headed to the beach. That said, there's still an old section of town right at the end of the peninsula. We settled down at a small cafe and had a great tapas dish of fried octopus and a vino tinto (glass of heavy red wine with ice and fresh lime juice). Similar to the rest of Andalusia, you could spot the Moorish influence and past grandeur in lots of the buildings, walls and doors (yup, lots of big doors seems to be a common theme in this area).




From Cadiz we drove onward to Zahara de la Sierra, north-east of Cadiz and south-east of Sevilla. We expected some hills, maybe a few steep areas, but boy were we in for a surprise. A few hours later with Jazz driving at 30 kph and navigating some very very steep and hair-pin turns (fun videos to be shared on that one with whom ever is interested), we arrived. Sadly our car had the pickup of a lawn mower so we did most of the mountain driving in 2nd and 3rd gear while getting passed by faster vehicles (yes those crazy drivers would still pass you on S curve turns).  We got there just in time for the sunset though and had a beautiful drive into and out of Zahara. Lee took the wheel for the drive home and Jazz snapped some drive-by sunset images. Next up: Roman Ruins and Sandy Portugese Beaches