Wine & Passion

We spent last night chatting with Fredi, who brought two bottles of French red, because he's "tired of Spanish red". Good wine, but the best was the third bottle, which he ran down the street to get, from his own bodega, his "Terram". David prepared his wondrous garlic shrimp and mussels in white wine, and we conversed about everything important: passion, art, desire, bio-dynamics. All the time we fed the fire with whatever we could find: wood from the finca, wine crates, wood from Fredi's bodega. He kept running down the street for firewood and more wine. We capped the night off with a bottle he siphoned off from his (solera), that special brew each bodega makes, sometimes taking one hundred years to reach perfection. It was sublime.
Today was about gathering more firewood, as we purchased a chain saw at the Spanish version of Home Depot, Leroy Merlin (can you believe it?). Sawing away at felled pine trees, we gathered enough wood to keep us cozy.
At three, we went on a tour of the finca with Vincens, the local earth mover, to talk about clearing a path for the well driller and the construction trucks. The man is awe inspiring, a 24/7 kind of guy who not only moves the earth but knows about everything, from olive trees to vine planting to jabali (wild boar). He took us on a tour of the new grandiose bodega he has been working on, Trossos d'el Priorat, owned and funded by a Barcelona family with endless supplies of gold. Unbelievable. Ostentatious, yet amazing.
The bells have rung eight p.m., the fire is warm, and we head to dinner at Fredi's at nine. Maryanne, the delightful young French wine maker who works at (Buil Gine) will be there, and who knows who else. Fredi is a man of surprises. This is a magical place, and our goal is to carve out a small portion for loved ones, including ourselves, to enjoy.