Sunday 24 July 2016

Cavemen

While travelling around in the south of Spain, I came across the beautiful town of Galera. 
 The town is unusual because most of the houses are built into the rocks of the mountains that surround it. Exploring further, I found out that the back of these cave-homes have a rock face which is plastered and painted white. One caveman told me that if bits fall off, you just re-plaster.

Because each cave is hewn out of the rock,they tend to keep an ambient temperature though out the year. Touring around we came across abandoned caves, due to rock fall and land slides. There were also newly built and already lived in. The caves I went in were certainly cool, if a little spooky. 


I preferred to hang up my boot at the local hotel. Hotel Galera is a beautiful hotel in the middle of town, with a great welcome and some very drinkable wines from the region.
The first wine I tried was Vina Galira, Blanco, 2015. A straw gold wine, with just a hint of green. It exhibits medium slow legs, showing its 12.5% volume.
The tropical nose is full of pineapple, lychee and citrus, all very gentle. I got a touch of slate too, but that could be from the caves?
The taste is a blend of grapefruit, sherbet and candid lemon or lemon oil. As it develops, there was pure honey and a slight heat on the finish.
A very gentle wine, that would go well with a Hotel Galera specialty of Andalusian chicken .