September 13, 2023 Lunch - Pizza at Thermal springs of Prexigueiro
Today was another pleasant day.
We started with breakfast at Casal de Arman, where we are staying.
I ordered a ham and cheese omelet that was not very good and enjoyed a slice of dark brown bread with it spread with butter and pear butter. I also was served black tea in the world’s smallest Japanese water pot. Of course the orange juice and granola with yogurt were first rate as usual. We finished breakfast around 10:45.
We are recovering slowly from overeating. Suzette is still being careful.
We then had a wonderful wine tasting with one of Arman’s winemakers, Marco at 12:00..
He explained that this property used to be owned by the church and made the wine for Santiago de Compostella beginning until the King seized all of the church’s property and the property went into private ownership. Here is the history as told by the winery.
THE WINERY
Casal de Armán was founded in the late 1990's by the González family, who had been making Ribeiro wines since 19th century. The property is an 18th century court, located in San Andres, Ribadavia Ourense in Northwest Spain, Galicia.
Casal de Armán covers almost 50 acres of vineyards located within the Ribeiro de Avia region. The Avia's river banks support the winery's terraces ranging from 650 feet above sea level to almost 1,200 feet above sea level. The vineyards are dedicated to cultivating indigenous varitals such as white treixadura, Godelli, loureira, Brenecellao, Caiño and Sousón. The grapes are handpicked and 100% of their wines are estate wines. Felicísimo Pereira, the new Ribeiro Appellation's president, is the winemaker at Casal de Armán.
We tried five wines, the every day Casal de Arman which accounts for 80% of the wine produced in both red and white. White is 90% and Red is 10% of that and all is fermented in steel and aged in the bottle.
The other four were special small production wines. The first was a wine made two years ago named Pepe to honor the patriarch of the Gonzalez family who was the founder of the winery. It was wonderful but had that telltale hint of acidity on the back of the tongue.
Then Marcos poured two limited production wines. The first was Mi Senora that is 90% Treixadura and 10% other grapes, including Albariño and Godella and was aged on the lees, I think for 8 months.
Marcos said that this valley has the perfect climate for growing Treixadura grapes because it is 40 miles from the coast and thus drier than the vineyards nearer the coast and easier to grow Treixadura which is susceptible to mildew and rot.
We then tasted a lovely 100% Treixadura white that had been aged in 500 liter French oak barrels I think for 8 months that was elegant, but lacked the character of the Mi Senora.
Then we tasted the limited edition red that was fabulous.
Here is a description of the wines by the winery’s U.S. importer, think Global.
https://www.thinkglobalwines.com/_files/ugd/34ed58_f416bb32f1f843849d96dc5ca5c2c05a.pdf
Here is the entire website,
http://media.virbcdn.com/files/e5/bbe7b9f57f38cee6-CasaldeArman.pdf
After the tasting at 1:30 we drove to the hot springs at Prexigueiro, which date back to Roman time, but have been updated recently and designed it into six pools each as a different Japanese country inn hot spring. It was quite interesting. The water was heavily saturated with soda so it had a white opacity and felt very soft on the skin.
We bathed from 2:30 until 4:00 in all six pools and then sat at the outdoor snack bar and drank Coca-colas to recover our energy. By 5:00 we became hungry and ordered a mushroom and ham pizza that turned out to be dinner. It was not the best pizza we had ever tasted but it satisfied our hunger.
We then drove back to Ribadavia and picked up our laundry that had been washed and folded.
We then parked near the castle and walked to the plaza mayor to the wine bar but it was closed so we walked down to a bar at a lower level in the old town.
Suzette drank a vermouth and I drank a Estella Galicia beer in a tall frosted glass that tasted great.
Around 8:00 we walked out to the main road and found the Froinz supermarket on the main street exactly where Suzette predicted it would be. We bought two cups of yogurt and a loaf of brown bread.
We then went back to the room and rested.
Suzette did not eat anything else but later I ate a chocolate molten cake cold and a piece of the newly acquired brown bread for what is becoming my usual brown bread dinner.
Tomorrow we shall eat an elegant lunch at the Michelin rated restaurant where we are staying, Sabrego Restaurante. Sabrego describes the type of soil in the area, a soil dominated by granite and schist.
Here is the official description,
Something that makes Ribeiro unique is the “sabrego” decomposed granite, plentiful there. Soils for growing are an average of 70 to 100 cm deep. They are very sandy, especially on the superficial level which contrasts with the low content of clay, below 20%. They are usually acidic, poor in organic material and low in calcium. Most of the cropping soils are terraced in order to decrease the slopes and to make the ploughing easier and to exploit the hillsides and the sun-exposure. One characteristic of the certificate of Origin Ribeiro land is the small-scale farming, the complex terrain and the use of traditional techniques for grape-growing.
I still can not understand our meal strategy. We usually eat an American style breakfast. Then some days we eat a light picnic around 2:00 to 3:00 and then a late Spanish dinner at 8:30 to 9:00 as we did yesterday. While most other days we eat a large Spanish lunch at 2:00 to 4:00 and a light snack at night.
Today was a bit of an aberration. We ate a n American breakfast, although Suzette ate lightly. Then at 5:00 we ate a pizza, which turned out to be a light dinner and I had a light snack around 9:00 to 10:00
The result seems to be that we are eating two meals a day instead of three, which is more Spanish than American culturally
With the added walking, I am beginning to feel better and stronger, which is important because the Paleolithic caves are still ahead of us next week.
Bon Appetit
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