Painterly Spanish panorama with wine, a map and the Mediterranean coast

A personal journal · Spain 2026

From Madrid
to the Mediterranean

A holiday measured in streets, tables and bottles—and a clearer sense of what makes a wine worth remembering.

Read the journey
01

The journey

A route drawn by the glass

This was not a formal tasting trip. It was something better: wine encountered in the rhythm of a holiday—over lunch, after music, among market stalls, and in the quiet deliberation of choosing bottles to take home.

Madrid opened the journey to Bierzo, Godello and Ribera del Duero. Barcelona turned the compass toward Montsant, Alella and the scented whites of Catalonia. Between them, a pattern emerged: fruit, yes, but always lifted by freshness; texture without heaviness; tannin with grace rather than force.

MadridBarcelonaTossa de MarSitgesMadridLondon · KX

Chapter one · Madrid

First discoveries,
carefully chosen

Madrid supplied both the early lessons and two of the bottles that would eventually travel home. The city’s wine shops made Bierzo feel less like a region on a label and more like a direction of travel.

At the tablePalacete RosalesPaseo del Pintor Rosales

Alma Pazo das Tapias Godello

Rounder and fuller than Verdejo, with pear, apple and white peach, then floral, herbal and mineral edges. Enjoyable rather than profound—but a useful first reading of Godello.

A good introduction
“Mencía was the trip’s clearest revelation: vivid fruit, energy and shape without unnecessary weight.”

En Copa de Balón

The bottles that settled the question

Paluezas Mencía 2023 was bright, supple and immediately convincing. It earned a place in the suitcase beside La Clave 2022, still waiting to be opened back in London.

Away from the wine shops, Madrid was also about everyday neighbourhood life around Chamberí, Plaza de Olavide and Trafalgar — a part of the trip that made the city feel lived-in rather than staged.

Chapter two · Barcelona

Catalonia,
in four scenes

The shift began on the high-speed train from Madrid to Barcelona. With Poblenou as the Barcelona base, wine became inseparable from place: a Born dinner, a Modernista concert hall, a market counter, the Sagrada Família, and the growing pull of Montsant and Priorat.

I

Orvay · El Born

Acústic 2022

Montsant · Garnatxa & Cariñena

Generous but composed: dark fruit, Mediterranean herbs and mineral depth held in fresh balance. A Catalan red with warmth, not heaviness.

Loved it
II

Cafè Palau

Gramona Gessamí

Penedès · aromatic white blend

Floral, citrus-bright and quietly exotic. An elegant glass at the Palau de la Música Catalana, where architecture, music and wine briefly became one memory.

Loved it
III

Parada Torres · Santa Caterina

Can Matons Pansa Blanca 2025

Alella · Pansa Blanca

A local white from just beyond Barcelona: saline, bright and quietly textured. The sort of bottle that makes perfect sense at a market counter near the Mediterranean.

Loved it
IV

Barcelona landmark

Sagrada Família

Architecture · Gaudí

Beyond the wine stops, the Sagrada Família was one of the trip’s major cultural highlights — a reminder that Barcelona’s sense of place came through architecture as strongly as through the glass.

Palau de la
Música Catalana

Painterly blue-hour view of Tossa de Mar's walls and Mediterranean cove

A coastal pause

Tossa de Mar

At Platja d’Es Codolar, tucked below Vila Vella, swimming and snorkelling beneath the medieval walls became one of the clearest non-wine memories of the trip. Stone, blue water and a slower horizon gave the journey breathing room.

A final Mediterranean stop

Sitges

Sitges belongs in the route even without a wine tasting attached to it. The visit on 7 September was another Mediterranean pause before the journey looped back to Madrid and then home to London.

The tasting notebook

The bottles that
shaped the journey

Not every wine needed to be grand. The useful divide was simpler: bottles that sharpened the palate, bottles that invited another glass, and one that clearly did neither.

01

Ultreia Saint Jacques

Bierzo · Mencía

Silky, fragrant and alive—one of the clearest expressions of why Mencía became the trip’s defining grape.

02

Paluezas 2023

Bierzo · Mencía

Fresh, juicy and poised. A favourite at a price that made the discovery feel even better.

03

Martín Códax 2025

Rías Baixas · Albariño

One of the strongest white-wine memories of the trip — simply amazing: clean Atlantic brightness, stone fruit and saline lift with both ease and precision.

04

Finca La Cruz Reserva 2021

Ribera del Duero

Ripe and structured, yet polished—the fuller Spanish red style at its most convincing on this trip.

Also poured along the way

Spain · September 2026
Q de Quintano 2024Rioja
Pagos de Valcerracín 2022Ribera del Duero
Protos Verdejo 2025Rueda
Finca Resalso 2025Ribera del Duero
Aubelló Selecció 2023Catalonia
Les Mines 2022Catalonia
Dehesa La Granja 2021Castilla y León

The clear no-rebuy

Fuentespina 7 Meses 2024

The one bottle that did not earn a return visit. A useful result in its own right: knowing what not to buy is part of learning a palate.

What Spain revealed

A palate in focus

01

Freshness first

Ripeness works best when acidity keeps the wine moving.

02

Texture, not weight

Roundness and structure are welcome; heaviness is not.

03

Supple tannin

Shape and grip matter most when they remain polished.

04

Mineral detail

Saline whites and stony reds leave the longest impression.

The final chapter · London

Four bottles
that travelled home

The holiday ended, but these four bottles carried its geography home—from Bierzo to Priorat. Some were already understood in Spain; others continued the story in London.

Bierzo · Mencía

Paluezas
2023

Tried in Spain · a confirmed favourite

Bierzo · Mencía

La Clave
2022

Awaiting its first KX tasting

Bierzo · Mencía

Pittacum
2021

Opened and finished in London · more structured and oak-influenced than the fresher Mencías · would buy again

Priorat · red blend

Camins del Priorat
2024

Álvaro Palacios · the Catalan finale