Montilla-Moriles Wine-tasting Festival – Córdoba

“What is the definition of a good wine? It should start and end with a smile.” William Sokolin.

Every year Córdoba hosts the Montilla-Moriles Wine-tasting Festival. This is an incredible tasting event in which over 20 bodegas from the south of Córdoba take part. This year, the 29th year, I was lucky enough to receive a ticket to this sampling festival.

While I am by no means a wine connoisseur, in fact I know relatively little about wine, especially this type, I found the event itself to be quiet impressive. The locals flocked to the event in order to sample the wines, consume some of the typical tapas from the region and soak up the glamorous atmosphere.

In true Córdobese style the women were decked out in the latest fashion. Accessorised to the hilt with colourful scarfs carefully placed around their necks, arms tastefully covered in bangles, statement earrings, over sized clutches and the highest stilettos you could possibly find. It really is remarkable how they manage to walk so gracefully in such extreme shoes. The males were equally as stylish with their fitted shirts and trousers, designer watches and their staple red sweaters resting on their shoulders, just a simple touch to finish the look off!

It has to be noted that the atmosphere at this festival was delightful. Groups of people gathered around the various oak wine barrels that were dotted around the place to eat, drink and be merry. It really was an authentic experience made even better by men and women spontaneously dancing sevillanas, an exciting flamenco style dance from the region, whenever the mood struck them.

  Now onto the wine itself. The wines from this region are mainly producted from the Pedro Ximénez grape and – although there are some exceptions – are generally not fortified. There are several different types of wine from this region, such as Fino, which is dry and nutty with a light texture,  Amontillado a very sweet wine, Oloroso a rich wine, Pedro Ximénez which, again, is a sweet wine and Blanco Joven (Young White) a dry and fruity wine.

While I found the wines were generally too rich for my liking, I did take a shine to a mixture they called “50/50”. This mixture consisted of fino and Pedro Ximénez, which, for me, provided the perfect balance between dryness and sweetness and proved to have a lighter texture than Pedro Ximénez on it´s own.

All in all, I throughly enjoyed this lively event and am delighted to have had the chance to have experienced it first hand. I also thought that is was fantastic that each person who attended received a glass with the name of the festival as a memento, to me this was a nice touch.

Have you ever tried any of these wines? If you have let me know what you think of them!

Hope you enjoyed reading about it!

Giana xoxo