"Wine Vibes" with Blend and Bottled

Wine tasting. Have you always thought that all that smelling and swirling is just for people who know about wine? Well the truth is, no, not at all! I’m no expert but I do know I love wine and am always keen to learn more about it whenever I can. In saying that though, I don’t want it to be in an atmosphere where its all taken a bit too seriously, I want the experience to be as much about having fun as it is about learning so I try and keep a lookout for wine related things that I can do from time to time to improve my knowledge. Recently when planning some excursions in preparation for a visit from some of my family I came across Blend and Bottled.

Having been on quite a few vineyard excursions already, I was quite interested to learn more about the tasting side of things so I contacted Claire van den Bogaard, founder of Blend and Bottled. With the help of Claire we were booked onto the aptly named “A Taste of Spain ” wine tasting. Not only does Claire do various types of wine tastings, she also runs wine courses one day a week over five weeks, vineyard tours and her very own online wine shop, on top of all that she also hosts regular events called “Wine Vibes ”, which are held monthly but with different theme’s that all aim to bring people together to explore different areas of the wine world!

Upon arrival Claire was there to greet us with a smile and showed us into the very cool co-working space she uses – Apocapoc. With the wine tasting, it was about learning to use our senses to taste the wine. We tried five top Spanish wines, (one cava, two white and two red). With that we also had some artisanal cheeses, charcuterie (Spanish ham and sausages), almonds, and olives which nicely complimented the wines. We were given an aroma taste indicator to help us describe what we were tasting and step by step with a fun and interesting presentation from Claire we learned about the different tasting notes where wine is concerned, the appearance, the aromas, how it taste’s on the palate and finally, after taking all of that in – what were our final conclusions?

It’s clear as soon as Claire starts talking that wine is not just a job to her but also a passion. Her aim is to “bring the world of wine closer and more accessible to all wine lovers out there ”; she describes her tastings as “semi- professional fun ”. She talks about how wine has always been a part of her life from an early age, where wine would always be on the table at mealtimes until becoming professionally educated after a wine tasting in South Africa spurred her on to learn more. The informal and fun setting along with Claire’s cool and friendly vibe ensures we all have a great wine tasting! So much so in fact, that we signed up for her "Wine Vibes" event to be held the very next Saturday!

The "Wine Vibes" was a blind tasting and was so much fun! On the cute terrace of her co working space we were met with lots of other people with whom we had the same interest in common, the bottles were bagged and we had a list of wines in front of us which may or may not be the bagged ones. After a description of each grape, flavours and aromas etc. it was time to taste and guess. All we had to do was use our senses and then choose which one we thought it was. Unfortunately for me I didn’t do very well and only got one right! Now though, I have an excuse to go back so I can learn more!

If you are looking for something a little bit different to do on your trip here and like me, have a love of wine, then don’t miss out! You can get in touch with Claire via her website Blend and Bottled or check out her Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts for more information on her wine events.

All photos by Gemma Reid Photography for heartBCN