Reflections on days of holiday stillness
quiet days in El Barrio de la Viña —with time to return to the (my) essential bars in Cádiz: El Adobo (Rosario), Antonio El Palillo (Virgen de la Palma), Casa Manteca (Corralón de los Carros), Taberna La Manzanilla ( Feduchy) and Café Prim (Market). from going back to Sanlucar de Barrameda to the Leo's Beach Bar (secret, sorry) , Los Aparceros (Pozo Amarguillo) , parakeet house (Salvador Gallardo), El Navarro (Menacho), The ranch (Father Félix) and La Peña Bética (Manuel Barbadillo). my safe places.
days too to scratch questions —more questions than answers— to the Marco de Jerez; of kicking vineyards, soleras and penumbra. To listen to Eduardo Ojeda and follow the trail of Álvaro Girón. Searching behind the flower veil and the humidity in old boots from Sanlúcar, returning to Miraflores (also Mahina and Las Cañas, but Miraflores is unique ) that mythical vineyard, white as lime and the surface of the moon that illuminates it every night, a pale wasteland where the fine palomino thrives, which soon after will caress the soles of the boots. miraflores, inexplicable in its albariza and that calcareous subsoil to which the roots of the vines cling in search of the life that nature denies them. But they live. They survive.
In front of the mahogany bar at La Taberna, someone (it doesn't matter who) insists on the eternal question: "Why this obsession with wine?" I don't answer, I don't know what to answer anymore . Two amontillados, Pepe.
I go back to the routine. To the blank pages, the commitments, the hotels and the boarding queues. To the boring tastings (at this point, what will matter the visual phase and so much stretched pose) the superb chefs and the deliveries for yesterday. To stop looking unhurriedly acacias and roof tiles of the Gran Vía and the sand of Pinedo beach. To the soulless supermarkets and the lists of restaurants that your children will not go to, to the dishes for the museum and the applause of the audience; to the alarm clock and the calendar. It's a rather gray Tuesday in August, I get home, I open a bottle of manzanilla (La Guita en rama, 6th criadera). there's the answer.
All that - the gray, the canned, the vulgar ; everything disappears . The nose is wrapped in Atlantic, salinity, honey and acacias. Veil of flower and albariza, but also Bajo de Guía and the mouth of the Guadalquivir, from the street of La Palma and the walk to the beach of La Caleta. The pork rinds from Manteca and the nettles from Tiny House . Of potholes, nights and gloom. In the glass, a wine —but also the direct association (immediate: boom ) with the streets, the faces and the boots that have seen it born. Growing up. This wine is that, and that is this wine. There is no other way. And there never was.
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Health!