September 1, 2023 Restaurant O Taberneiro in Rianxo.
Today was rainy which was lucky because we had scheduled two winery visits to taste.
We started the day with a great breakfast. I sliced and Suzette fried four slices of bacon that we had bought at the Cambados market on Wednesday and then made country fries and fried eggs for a traditional American breakfast. I also ate a slice of brown bread with butter and marmalade.
Then at 11:30 we drove to our 12:00 tasting at Pazo de Gran Bazan, a large estate stated in 1986.
The word Pazo designates a property as a palace, some are more grand than others and some are older than others as we learned later in the day.
Our tasting and tour at Pazo de Gran Bazan was in English with a Dutch couple who spoke English.
We toured the winery and got to see the workers preparing for the harvest that was scheduled to start tomorrow.
The most interesting piece of equipment was a new crusher that produced a softer press by inflating a ballon membrane inside a steel tank. Its advantage is to not break the stems that detract from the wine’s flavor. It is the second step in the process after the initial de-stemmer.
Both the wineries we visited today were big and served food with the tasting. Bazan tasted two joven wines, one fermented in steel and one fermented in steel on the lees for four to six months. The first was very acidic and I did mot drink it. The fermented on the lees one was much better with more depth and complexity.
We then tasted the intermediate wine named Prime that had won a silver award and liked it much more. The tasting was served with a can of mussels, slices of a soft cheese, and crackers, petit baguettes, olives and squares of membrillo, a very pleasant snack.
It was nearly 2:00 when we ended the tasting and bought a bottle of Prime for $17.50.
Suzette suggested we drive out to Ribeiro at the point of a peninsula stretching into the large bay on which Cambados is located, but as we drove it clouded up and looked to rain so Suzette found a restaurant at the port in Rianxo that carried a 4.00 rating named O Taberneiro.
We drove out to the end of the port and finally found the restaurant that was quite busy just as it started to rain full on and found a table in an atrium area enclosed in heavy plastic.
We asked if the restaurant served oysters and were informed that did not, so Suzette ordered clams from the bay in a tomato and onion sauce that afar h was heavily salted.
I was immediately attracted to the Comida del Dia that featured two of my favorite dishes, Seafood Paella and Meatballs (albondigas).
I have been wanting to try each and was thrilled that the Comida presented the opportunity to try them both. Suzette’s clams wereI small but tasty in a rather salty tomato sauce that she would not eat, which turned out great because my portions of paella and meatballs were huge and I needed help eating them.
Unfortunately, my dishes were not very good. Besides the two mussels and large prawn garnishing the top of the rice, the rest of the seafood in the sea stoned rice was mostly squid.
Likewise, the meatballs were all ground beef, no pork or other seasoning, although the tomato sauce in which the meatballs was the best yet, tomato and onion and very little salt.
Together we ate every bit of the food on both platters.
Then we asked about dessert, which is included in a comida and our waiter said banana or pineapple. I chose pineapple and soon he brought a plate with two round slices of what appeared to be canned pineapple. We ate one .
It was still raining and I recalled the discussion at Gran Bazan in the morning including a description of Orujo, which the winery produced that is the distillation of a second fermentation of the lees, which the French call Marc and the Italians call grappa.
So ordered a coffee con Leche and a orujo. Soon e waiter arrived with a cup of coffee with whipped milk and a tall shot glass and a bottle filled with a clear light green liquid. He filled the shot glass to the top with the green liquid and I had my first glass ever of herbed orujo.
It tasted strongly of anise, but tasted of other herbs a little.
The difference between orujo and aguardiente which I bough the other day is that aguardiente is flavored alcohol made from grain (vodka), while orujo is fermented grape pomace, the residue from the grape juice extraction process in making wine that is distilled and then flavorings are added.
By the time I sipped all the orujo and coffee the rain stopped.
We walked next door to the small chapel and Suzette went inside to take a picture.
It was after 4:00 so we drove to our 5:30 wine tasting at Pazo de Rubianes.
It is easy to say that a winery built by a wealthy man in 1986 is new money. In fact, Pazo de Gran Bazan several years ago was sold to another wine family and is now a purely commercial endeavor.
The opposite is true of Pazo de Rubianes. It was first built in 1411 and is still owned by the same family, so it is old money. Furthermore, it has extensive gardens on its property, the tour of which is part of the wine tasting.
Its philosophy of wine making is totally different that most other commercial wineries.
It does not even pick its green grapes and it does not make a joven wine. Pazo de Rubianes’ cheapest wine is excellent and an award winner that is aged one year, 6 months in steel and six months in oak that costs €18.50, while Pazo de Gran Bazan’s second tier wine with similar aging costs €17.50. And Rubianes makes two more more aged wines and Gran Bazan makes several more aged wines also.
What is also special about Rubianes besides its incredibly long history is its garden. I have seen such a beautiful, large garden since Intra on Lake Maggiore with such a large collection of plants and trees. There was a grove of California cedars, lots of eucalyptus trees including the one with the widest diameter of any in Europe. Its specialty plant is Japanese camellias from a gift of a white and a red one in 1830.
There is a formal French garden with a labyrinth and an English garden and acres of grape vines.
We must have walked over a mile on the tour four over an hour and then we tasted the wine.
The tour ended around 8:30 at which time we drove back to the apartment in Cambados.
We were not hungry, so this was another day when the Comida del aria was the main meal of the day.
Tomorrow we go up the coast to a gastronomic fiesta featuring octopus.
Bon Appetit
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