Central Market Pasaporte España

Today I’m heading to Texas to take part in Central Market’s Pasaporte España, which started May 11th and runs until the 24th.

Central Market is a gourmet grocery store chain that specializes in high-quality, hard-to-find gourmet foods. Most locations also have a full-service kitchen and offer cooking and wine classes in their culinary school, as well as catering services. This year’s Central Market two-week-long “passport” event focuses on the culture, food and wines of Spain, with an all-star list of culinary celebrities and winemakers.

I’ll be there with my brother Jorge until Sunday taking part in wine tastings, dinners, and cooking school events, which will take me to Dallas, Southlake, Austin and Houston. Along with our wines from Bodegas Ordoñez, we’ll also be presenting wines from Bodegas LaCana and Avanthia.

Watch for updates and photos on Twitter and Facebook!

Central Market Pasaporte España

California Dreaming

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I’m back in Málaga today after a wonderful week in San Francisco and Los Angeles with Sara Floyd. Here are a few of my “memories”, or at least of the times I remembered to take a quick photo and post it on Twitter. I really must remember to take photos of the food dishes before I eat most of them, but at least I got a couple that weren’t just of leftovers.

Stacole Fine Wines

I’m in Florida this week with Stacole Fine Wines visiting with various wine distributors, stores and, of course, some amazing restaurants. It’s been a great week so far, starting off with a seminar for the Capital Grille with George Miliotes and ABC Wines & Spirits, and it’s been non-stop ever since.

Follow my tweets for more details (am trying to remember to take pics of the food before eating it, but it’s been so wonderful that I often tuck in without thinking).

Wines from Spain 2011

If you are attending the Wines From Spain 2011 trade show in London today, be sure to stop by stand 12 where C&D Wines will be pouring Botani 2010, Selección Especial nº1 and Victoria nº2. Would love to hear your feedback!

15th Rheingau Gourmet & Wine Festival

Yesterday I arrived in Germany for the 15th Rheingau Gourmet & Wine Festival, which is being held at the Kloster Eberbach in the Rhein region. The festival started on February 24th and runs until March 9th.

There was a special programme today featuring 30 Spanish bodegas and 30 German wineries.

It was a great atmosphere! The abbey is a truly magnificent spot to hold such an event. And it was a great success for Spanish wines in Germany. I was pouring our wines (Botani, Especial Selección & Victoria) – below you can see me with Miguel from Vinogusta.com

WOW

Jan Yaxtheimer, Donna Van Noy, Detra Walker, Kathy Blount & Elaine Dawson

Our wine club is called Women of Wine or WOW. We get together once a month and try wines and discuss stocks. With the way the stock market falls so frequently in the last few years, the wine is often the focus of the evening.

These are photos recently sent to me by Donna Van Noy from WOW in Salinas, California, after their bodega and vineyard visit. As you can see, it was a beautiful day and we had a great time, stopping at the finca up in the mountains for a wine tasting.

Salud!

Copea Andalucía

Last Monday (November 8th) I was in Seville to take part in the first Copea Andalucía, a special wine tasting event that was organised and hosted by Federico Flores. Twelve wineries from Andalucía were presenting their wines and it was great to get to meet people from some of the best tapas bars and restaurants in Sevilla including Gastromium, Arenero, Puratasca, Binomio, Vineria San Telmo,Las Golondrinas, Agua de Sevilla and La Traviesa.

You can see how busy we were in this video, which was abruptly cut short by phone calls and new visitors.

And here are a few photos taken by Shawn from Sevilla Tapas.

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Bodegas Ordoñez at Cambridge University

I first met Gareth Powell, the President of the Cambridge University Wine Society, last year at the Decanter Fine Wine Encounter in London. In fact, almost exactly a year ago as I’ll be attending the next Decanter event this coming weekend. Well, Gareth tasted the Ordoñez wines and invited me to present my wines at Cambridge. You can imagine my answer! In January of this year we confirmed the date and the wines I’d be presenting – these special wine tastings always take place on a Thursday and so I chose November 3rd.

Gareth also told me that I could invite a guest to accompany me and the first person I thought of was Pancho Campo. After all, he is not only a Master of Wine but was the only Spanish one at that time (Pedro Ballesteros Torres has recently become an Master of Wine – in fact he got his MW in London on the exact same day at almost the same time of my presentation in Cambridge). But due to various factors Pancho was unable to commit, so I was very surprised and pleased to hear from him just one week before the Cambridge event saying that he’d be able to come with me.

I was very impressed with Cambridge University. The atmosphere was very special and you could really feel the history and the sense of tradition and ritual. As the guest of honour I was put up at Trinity College, which was just incredible. It was also very flattering to be included in such illustrious company as Chateau Margot, the Council of Bordeaux wines and Chateau Lafite. The interest in wines at this University is really amazing, even among the young students of my children’s age. This is very good news for the future of the wine industry.

The event was held at Peterhouse College in candlelight, hence the difficulty in getting any pictures – pity! I started off the presentation with a history of the winery and an introduction of the wines and the different vintages. Then Pancho explained the more technical side of things. It was actually very entertaining because we bantered back and forth as I told anecdotes about the winery and Pancho clarified some terms so that the audience could contextualise the wines in the Denominación Origin Malaga and Sierras de Malaga, which is always a challenge for anyone. There were 50 people in attendance, all members of the Wine Society, an institution founded in the 18th century. I was told that the event had sold out in just six minutes, which Gareth said was a record.

So I was not only very pleased and honoured to have been invited to this very prestigious event, but it seems that I may go back again next year and I am very much looking forward to it.

Here is a very good write up of tasting notes from the event by Cambridge graduate student Vinoremus.

CUWS M10 – Jorge Ordonez

Decanter Fine Wine Encounter

This week Cambridge – next week London.

Decanter is an upmarket magazine on wine and spirits, published in over 90 countries on a monthly basis. The magazine content includes news from the industry, vintage guides and wine recommendations. Its main wine event is the annual Decanter Fine Wine Encounter, which includes Master Classes and a Vintage Dinner, in November of each year. More than 600 wines can be tasted from 100 top vineyards worldwide, all under one roof at the Landmark Hotel in London.

This will be my third consecutive year presenting my wines at this prestigious event. As you can see from the List of Exhibitors below I will be in very good company, and the Landmark Hotel is a splendid venue. Looking forward to it very much.

List of Exhibitors

Guia Peñin Best Spanish Wines 2011

This Tuesday I’ll be attending the a very special Peñin Group wine event in Madrid.

This event offers a unique opportunity for media, industry professionals and wine lovers to try the best wines of the year according to the prestigious Guia Peñin.

There will be more than 150 wines from 92 wineries, all of which have received 94 or more points in the 2011 edition of the Peñin Guide.

Bodegas Ordoñez will be proudly presenting two of our sweet wines: Nº1 Selección Especial and Nº2 Victoria.

Maybe see you there?

26 October, 2010
Palacio de Congresos
Paseo de la Castellana, 99
Madrid

12.00 – 20.00
tickets 60€

Salon Mejores Vinos de España 2011