Celebrating Spain, no passport required

I've never been to Spain, but the fact that Madrid is only about 8 hours flying time from JFK makes it all the more tempting.  So I was especially fortunate to attend yesterday's sold-out Rioja Wine & Tapas Festival in Brooklyn, to get a passport-free introduction to a beautiful part of Spain, which offers some delicious and very diverse food and wines.

Just as there are many ways to get to Spain, there are multiple transport options to get from my place to Brooklyn. I was really glad that my friend suggested we walk across the Williamsburg Bridge to get there, because I'd never actually taken that walk before.  And as you can see from the photos below, the weather was certainly on our side.

 

 

Welcome to Brooklyn!

In the gorgeous spring sunshine, our bellies full with diner breakfast, we set out on the 20-minute walk, dodging pedestrians and cyclists alike.  The latter got particularly grumpy at us when we strayed across their side of the bridge, but because of all the graffiti on the ground, it's actually hard to tell where you're allowed to walk.  Besides, the photo opportunities back towards Manhattan are better on the cyclists' side, so it's well-worth putting up with the verbal abuse and incessant bike bell-ringing for a while and get your shots.

Once we got to the Brooklyn side of the Bridge, it was very easy to find our Spanish home for the afternoon.

The Williamsburgh Savings Bank was opened in 1875 and it was in use until the mid-20th Century. While the building has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, over the years it had fallen into disrepair.  Its corporate owners (HSBC) sold the building in 2010 and the new owners have lovingly restored it into an event space and banquet hall.  You can see some amazing restoration photos here and on the NY Times page here.

The brilliant marketing people behind the festival recommended we arrive on time for the event, given the sheer number of food and wine exhibits to get through.  This would be a marathon, not a sprint.  As we lined up outside, all checked in with our wrist bands on, I could smell the amazing aroma of paella cooking to perfection.

When we finally got through the gates, we were handed our souvenir tasting glass (and instructed not to lose it), and we got our Directory booklet and pen so we could make notes as we walked around.  The Directory Booklet featured 50 wine exhibits and 24 chefs serving up a range of tapas-inspired dishes.  We were in for an absolute treat!

After a couple of wine tastings and ham and cheese pairings downstairs, we were invited to join a Rioja 101 tasting class led by self-described "Wine Dude" Joe Roberts and author, Ana Fabiano.  I have to say, it was a brilliant introduction to the diversity of the wines you can find in this region of north central Spain, which is also the country's oldest and most prominent wine region.

Rioja is one of only two wine-producing regions in Spain to hold the country's highest level of quality control, in recognition of its consistent production of superior wines.  Tempranillo is the region's most popular grape and I have enjoyed many glasses of this in my time.  When I bought the tickets to this wine and food festival, I thought that we would be tasting red wines all day.  However I quickly realised that Rioja also produces some delicious white wines and rose too.

Rioja: not just for red wine lovers!

As Joe and Ana guided us through the tasting, we learned about the seals of quality on each bottle of Rioja that tell you something about what a wine lover can expect to taste, based on the time the wine has spent ageing in oak barrels and in bottles.  Even in our brief exposure to the wine tastings we'd already enjoyed, we had heard terms like Cosecha, Crianza, Reserva, and Gran Reserva, so it was very useful to learn from Ana and Joe about the differences in those wines.  It won't surprise you that the Gran Reservas were my favourite - they have spent at least 2 years in oak casks and 3 years in the bottle.  White wines with the Gran Reserva classification are aged for a minimum of 4 years, with at least 1 of those spent in a cask.  Fortunately the food & wine festival offered us multiple opportunities to taste diverse Gran Rerservas poured by engaging and charming Spaniards.

After our class we headed upstairs into the former Bank building and I was amazed at how crowded it had become, and the sheer volume and diversity of food treats on offer.

Lines moved quickly though, and the festival had sensibly been set up to mix the wine tables and the food tables.  So you could get a small wine tasting, and enjoy that as you stood in line for the next tapas dish.  The tapas-sized portions offered us just enough food to whet our appetites, and to give us a taste of foods we might not normally look for ourselves (think blood sausage topped with pickled vegetables, and a bowl of octopus ceviche).  I declared it all delicious.

When we headed outside to the paella garden, the crowd was no less rowdy and it was getting a bit pushy-shovey, which I didn't really like.  I watched the guys mix the paella around for a while, but there was no chance for us to get anywhere near the front of the line, so we gave it a miss.

As we went to leave, the security lady was a bit surprised that we hadn't enjoyed the salted caramel icecream on offer.  We bounded back upstairs but again, the line was horrendously long, so we gave up.  By this point in the afternoon, we had already been eating and drinking pretty consistently for about 4 hours, so common sense prevailed and we departed the venue for a second time.

We walked off our Rioja experience by heading to the dock to take the East River Ferry back to Manhattan.  While we waited for the next ferry to arrive, we popped into Smorgasburg (the free food event outdoors).  We were hoping to find an icecream or cold drink, but somehow we found room for a cake instead.  I have no idea how we did that either.

Fortunately the ferry came before we could eat too much more, and I really do think that cruising around on the NY waterways is one of my favourite transport options to enjoy once the weather warms up.  It certainly was a beautiful way to cap off our passport-free food, wine, and fun-filled visit to Spain.