Tast de Vins...hiccup

This is an embarrassing confession: after living in Sant Cugat for four years, Guapo and I attended the Festa Major celebrated June 28-July 1, 2012 for the first time. The lure, vin. But it's not our fault we didn't attend sooner. I'm going to hold up my hand, cross my heart, and jurar that our absence of festive fun was due to City Hall's scare advertisement. This was the first year we received in our mailbox a cute folded pamphlet with a schedule of all events happening in the next few days to honor the town's patron saint, Sant Pere.

Excited by the schedule, I took a highlighter and marked everything I wanted to attend. The first lure was "XIII Tast de vins amb Ritme" circled multiple times with a bright neon yellow highlighter. OK, I'm lying. The first event I eyed was "El campanar, l'església i el Claustre." I have always wanted to have a guided tour of the Sant Cugat Monestary, but when my eyes skimmed the words wine tasting and monastery, I knew mans down which event had preference on my calendar. 

Are these two men drinking wine?

Tickets to the wine tasting sold out at Vins Noé rather quickly, leaving Guapo and I to arrive one hour before the wine tasting event for ticket purchase at the monastery. We had an incredible time tastant wines. After the fifth stall we took our wine tasting to a slower pace because it was starting to affect our caps. By the sixth stall I accidently  took another wine patron's wine glass left between a buttress, where I had left my glass when I walked away to snap pictures. My reaction to her outburst of "Esa es mi copa!"-- I look at her. I look at the wine glass. Look at the other two wine glasses on the cloister wall. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Sorry!

Guapo tasting wine

Towards the end of the stall route three things happened.

Un: I snapped a picture of a man tasting wine. He glared at me and a bystander his friend made it known to me I had taken a picture of a wine critic for La Vanguardia by the name of Jua...Mu...I asked him to repeat the wine critic's name twice, but I was too wine infused to remember the critic's name.

Dos: For the first time I gathered up some courage to walk up to a happy couple and ask if I could take their picture. Their response was, si!! Yippee for me, I'm learning not to be a pollastre!

Tres: I met a pleasant lady from Rubí (a town next to Sant Cugat) who expressed her dissatisfaction with the music this year while exalting the choice of wines. She confirmed that coming to Sant Cugat for it's town festival is something she always looks forward to despite not living in Sant Cugat. 

Well pleasant lady, California Noia and Guapo too will be looking forward to the Festa Major, especialment the wine tasting. Chin chin!

Jazz by The Bridges Trio. I dug their beat.

Happy couple

 This morning I came across a circular picture in La Vanguardia's Sunday supplement  of a critic who looks very much like this man. Could this be Javier de las Muelas?

Recommend their brut nature.