Our tour to Catalunya has started and what a start! From start to finish we were ahead of schedule, helped particularly by the BA flight landing early and the EES system at Barcelona airport working efficiently.
Onto the bus and off we went in the direction of Vilafranca del Penedès and the excellent Vilagut restaurant. As always, owner/Chef Julia Bernet produced a top class lunch accompanied by a superb pairing of wines from the sommelier Alex. Exciting mouthfuls of mushroom, prawns, a lobster & tomato salad, truffle and beef cannelloni, hake and slow cooked lamb and a wonderful chocolate pud. All this amazing food was paired with a fascinating selection of Penedès wines featuring local grapes – Sumoll, Malvasia de Sitges and Xarel-lo to name but three.
A sublime first meal!
From Vilagut, we headed to Sant Martí di Sarroca, an important Cava village, to visit a wonderful family estate – Rovellats.
We were hosted by Alex Martinez who I got to know well from our tours last year, and he delivered an excellent presentation of the family estate, took us down into the cellars before manually disgorging a bottle out into the garden. The tasting was excellent with four Cavas and four cheeses that eminently demonstrated the top class wines they produce alongside some delicious artisanal cheeses.
A great start to the tour!
