Live life with fine Spanish wines

This weekend it’s all happening. What we have been waiting and waiting for, over the last 6 months.
The European wine blogger conference! This is the first of its kind event, read more about the event here.

For those of you who would like to be in Rioja but can not, we would like to tell you how you can follow along from where ever you are this weekend. First up you will be able to follow EWBC live blogging on Friday and Saturday at this address: http://ewbc2008.wineblogger.info/ewbc-live-blog-straight-from-logrono-to-you/Join in and tell them and us what you think!

Secondly VinusTV.es will be recording all the sessions and events. If all works out you’ll be able to follow along at http://vinustv.es

We are looking forward to this weekend, and will of course be back here with lots of photos and hopefully some news and inspiration to share with you!

SaludosThe girls at Excelwines

I really love living in Spain. There are so many things that are almost like back home (in my case, back home is Sweden), but then again so many things that are not. An example of the latter is Bullfighting Football.

I live in Getxo, a nice part of greater Bilbao that looks over a bay with a decent beach and an old fishing port, originally enough called Puerto Viejo. Every year the second week of August is fiesta week in Puerto Viejo.

The old port has years ago silted up and is no longer useful as a fishing port since half the time it is dry as a bone and more resembles a beach than a port. This is what makes it perfect for an activity that take place during the Puerto Viejo fiestas: Bullfighting Football.

The harbor is dry about half the time and then more resembles a beach than a port; it’s a sand pitch of about 25×30 meters. The locals form 5-man teams and play each other in a tournament. Each team consists of quite drunk and/or severely hangover (usually both) young men. To make the game a bit more interesting there is also a bull roaming around in the pitch… He is not fully grown but he is big and he is fast. There is a man holding the bull on a long leash but this man never seems overly concerned about the heath of the young footballers. Maybe he has got teenage daughters and sees every incapacitated young man one less threat to his daughters´ virginity. Anyway, most of the time the bull is on a very loose leash.

The first part of the game the young men are usually quite wary about the bull but as the game goes on their attention turn from the bull to the game. After all, they are playing in front of hundreds of beautiful girls from the neighborhood. And then the young men go flying….

Time and time again one of them will be hit by the bull. Amazingly enough they almost always walk away from a bull attack. But every now and then one of them will get hit so bad that he needs medical attention. The record of one day of Football Bullfighting I have recorded so far is from the fiesta of 2006 when we from our balcony could count to 5 ambulances leaving the pit with a brave but reckless footballer…

Now, that’s a sport you probably wouldn’t see in many other parts of the civilized world.

Fredrik

All photos by Natasha Seymour

It is difficult to get any decent Spanish wine in the restaurants here in Malta. We ordered a bottle of Sicilian wine the other day with our meal, to my big surprise, it came with a glass cork. There has been a lot of much discussions on screw cap on different blogs and forums on screw cap, for example, hop over to, openwineconsortium.org forum lately, you will see how the topic sparked a lot of interesting and informative discussions from many different points of view on the thread. But glass cork? This was the first time I have seen a glass cork in real life.

After a bit of digging on the Internet, I found that these glass corks are made by CSI Closure Systems International, (more…)

The tourist season has started in Malta. We already have had our fair share of guests coming in from various parts of the world visiting us on this tiny but beautiful island in the middle of the Mediterranean sea.

I always take my visitors to the Upper Barrakka Gardens in Valletta where one can take in breath-taking views of the Grand Harbour and the three cities on the other side of Valletta. Valletta has one of the biggest natural deep water harbour. From here, one can see the cruise ships stopping in Valletta for a day. The visitors from the cruise liners can reach the center of Valletta in about 10 minutes by walking uphill. It is very impressive to see some of these huge cruise ships so closed to the city.

The other day I took one of our guests to the Upper Barrakka Gardens as usual. (more…)

If you don’t live in Spain, you may be surprised to hear that the so-called Spanish Omelettes served in all major hotels as a breakfast item is not a dish eaten in Spanish homes or restaurants at all. The real Spanish Omelette (called Tortilla Española or Tortilla de Patatas in Spanish) is made mainly from potatoes and eggs. It looks like a quiche or a pie.

I didn’t bother to learn how to make a Potato Omelette for the longest time. It is available in almost every single bar in Spain. Its popularity and availability is equivalent to a hamburger in the US. Most Spanish will tell you a Potato Omelette is very easy to make but I never believed them. I have seen it made a few times, and it looked like quite a bit of work to me. Now that I live in Malta, I get an occasional craving for a Potato Omelette, so after experimenting with making it for a few times, I finally made a decent looking but great tasting one the other day. It was not very difficult, but cooking the potatoes took quite a bit of time. (more…)

If you are planning to come to Bilbao soon (or later) and you want to experience some great wine and food typical of this area and also want a chic and cool international atmosphere you MUST visit restaurante Kikare. (more…)

I have a secret. I no longer live in Spain. I moved to Malta with my family last year and I have been telecommuting from Malta since then. I used to think I was one of those who would stay long-term in Bilbao (using Ane Miren’s terminology, see her blog on 8 April) because I married a Basque guy. Things do not go as planned sometimes. When the opportunity knocked, we took it.

Malta is a small country with a population of slightly more than 400,000 people. When we first arrived in Malta in the summer of 2007, I was appalled to see young teenagers drinking alcohol in the streets of Paceville. The Paceville (pronounced as Putt-Che-Vil) area has the highest concentration of restaurants, (more…)

Another working week is almost over and my advice is to indulge your selves over the weekend! To help you in the right direction I am now going to give away one of my big secrets – My favourite chocolate cake recipe. Anyone can do it; it’s a quick and easy to make cake with soft and nice chocolate taste. (more…)

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It’s surprising just how many expats there are living in and around Bilbao. When you first arrive here you get the feeling that there are no other foreigners around. After all, this isn’t London or Hong Kong. But slowly you begin to hear about an Italian family living up the road, an American married to a local a few blocks away, your child’s classmate has an English father, and on it goes until you build up a large number of foreign friends.

Sandy, Anna and I all met through a group of mothers with young children who meet up for coffee on Wednesday mornings. Obviously, now that the three of us are at Excel Wines, we don’t go to the coffee mornings but we try to make it to the monthly dinners and we often meet up at the weekends to go out to eat, to the beach or other activities with our families. (more…)