Winebibbers We're Not - Our Tour of a Spanish Winery

DJ's co-workers are used to the fact that he doesn't drink, but you should have seen the looks on the faces of the general manager and his employees at the estate of Senorio De Otazu, a highly-acclaimed vinyard and winery, when we repeatedly and politely refused their generosity at both a wine tasting and at dinner!  How could anyone not drink wine??!!??  They were mystified.  Here's how it came down.

After we were finished touring the palace in Olite, we boarded the bus and headed out into wine country.  The winery is located in Navarre near the banks of the Arga river and near the Sarvil and El Perdon mountains.  The winery and vineyards are part of a large estate that has been in the wine making business since the 1500's.  Though we don't drink, we found the tour very interesting.  The other people in our group enjoyed a wine tasting after our tour and then we all had dinner (more on that later).




When you enter the winery, you do so in a restored building.  Everything there is totally classy.  It's immaculately clean.  There is some serious sculpture and art---the owners believe in a beautiful setting to enjoy their "wonderful wine".  In that building, they show you some of the things they used to use in making wine.





This is where they used to store the wine.



We left this building and walked underground to a huge facility which is much newer and has state-of-the-art stainless steel vats and all the bells and whistles to prepare the wine before it goes into new French oak casks and is stored here (2,000 barrels of it):

Just steps up from this huge cavern are two large reception areas which are glassed in so that you can see into the winery proper.  Our group had the wine tasting in one while DJ, Brian, Jaime, and I visited in the other room.  Then they all came in where we were seated at beautifully set dinner tables and served dinner.

This was the menu:

Warm surimi elver salad (surimi is processed fish pieces formed to make imitation whatever/elver is baby

eel---can I just say they looked like little white worms)

Fresh haricot beans (like big lima beans)

Duck confit (duck that is salted, cooked and preserved in its own fat)

Junket sorbet (tasted like warm, melted ice cream that wasn't very sweet---totally a liquid)

Coffee

Pacharan liqueur

Guess how much I had to eat?  We were starving.  We hadn't had lunch, and this dinner was probably more like a late lunch at 3 or 4 in the afternoon.  I picked out the fake baby eel, and ate the rest of the salad.  I ate the beans and drank most of the sorbet just because I was so hungry!  DJ was brave and ate the duck.  I've had duck before and didn't enjoy it.  This was at least my fifth negative experience with Spanish food.  Let's just say, I'm not a fan.  First the tapas, then almost raw roast beef at the hotel, an even more rare hamburger at the mall, and a variety of weird things the night before at dinner (the filet was good, but you should have seen DJ's fish---yikes!).  I know, I know, I'm a big baby, but even DJ who will try things a little more willingly, didn't care for a lot of it.  Anyway, our counterparts were drinking wine by the bottles and were a bunch of happy campers. 

After dinner, we had time to go outside and visit the vineyards: 



Hate this picture of us.  It looks like part of our legs and feet are missing, but the reason I include it is because back in the day a rosebush was planted at the head of each row of grapes.  The roses were much faster than the grapes to show that something was amiss---bugs, disease, or whatever; so the master of the vineyard would know there was a problem if the roses didn't look good.  That way they could try to rememdy the problem before they lost the grapes.  Nowadays, they have knowledge and technology that keeps them abreast of any problems, but the rose thing is a tradition they still practice.


I've never seen such teeny, tiny grapes on the vine like this before---kind of cute:



I took this picture to show you the fields and fields of sunflowers.  I guess they grow well there like the grapes!  Because I took the picture while the bus was moving and because the heads of the flowers weren't facing me, the photo was pretty much a bust, but would you look at that horizon??!!  Looks just like a painting.



Meandering Through the Royal Quarters in Olite

On Thursday, June 23rd, the Huntsman guys got a day away from the "office" so to speak---no meetings, no presentations, no talk of budgets and forecasts and computer programs.  The Pamplona office had chartered a bus and planned a day of sightseeing for us.  Our first stop was Olite, a small village in the region of Navarre.  We were going there to visit the Royal Palace of Olite.  This historic site is divided into three parts:  the Old Palace, which has been totally renovated, and is a very nice hotel; the ruins of a chapel; and the New Palace, which is what we got to tour.  The New Palace is really a misnomer since the place was constructed between 1402 and 1424!  But...I guess it is newer than the place they turned into a hotel.

Just a brief history of the place:  The palace was commissioned by Carlos III "the Noble", who was king of Navarre from 1387 to 1425.  He was more into culture and luxurious palace life than military campaigns.  His family reigned over the kingdom until 1512 when Navarre and the crown of Castile were united.  The castle went into decline after that, occasionally being used as a residence for viceroys.  The palace was burned in 1813 during the Napoleonic wars to prevent it being used as a stronghold by French forces.  All of the interior decorations and part of the structure were destroyed, leaving the palace a deserted and partly ruined shell of what it once was.  In the 1900's restoration was done on the structure, but it is basically empty.  One has to use his imagination to visualize what it may have been like so many years ago.

I borrowed this picture from Wikipedia to give you an idea of the size of this palace.  We didn't have the time to focus on picture taking, as we were on a guided tour and on a time schedule for our bus departure so we couldn't go off-site to find places to try and get a picture of this scope.  The place was pretty much massive.

So here are the pictures as we saw things on this lovely summer day.  The next nine pictures were taken in a sort of courtyard as you enter the palace (that's where the ticket office is) in what was The Old Garden.  In the King's time it was known as the patio of the orange trees because of the large number of these and other trees that he had planted there:



Our tour guide taking a group picture for lots of people----notice the cameras hanging off his arms!  Unfortunately, ours was not one of them.  I'm still waiting for someone to mail me a group shot!



At this point we actually entered the castle.  Our first stop was The Excavation Chamber, so called because there is currently archaelogical work going on inside.  They have dug down below floor level and found a second, lower ground level which had tall structures up to 25 feet tall---a pillar, a column, and part of a wall.  They do not know, as yet, what this space was used for, but it looks like at sometie it was just filled in with earth:



This vaulted room appeared to have no other purpose but to hold the weight of the queen's garden on the upper level.

The Queen's Chamber - There was a beautiful fireplace in this room.  There had been large tapestries and paintings which hung from carved wooden friezes.  Don't you love the windows and the view of the garden?

 

Detail in the Queen's Chamber.



Looking out onto the King's Gallery from the King's Chamber.



These last few pictures show the unique Spanish Gothic architecture in the King's Gallery.  This beautiful gallery overlooks the mulberry tree patio below as well as the aviary where a giant net stopped the birds in the aviary from escaping.  The King also liked having animals of all kinds around the palace including buffaloes, giraffes, lions, camels, wolves and more.  He, more or less, had his own zoo!

A few miscellaneous shots:

  

 

This is The Watch Tower, used as a lookout to warn the guards of any danger.  The surviving window is an original.  The carved piece at the top of it represents the eternal bond which was one of the emblems of Carlos III, the Noble (see close-up below).




 

This picture and the two following pictures are shots of The Tower of the Four Winds.  It was from the balconies of this tower that the king and queen would watch the jousts, tournaments, and performances held below the palace on a leveled area.



They're in Spain, too!  The guide actually said they had real problems with the storks in Spain because their nests can weigh up to a ton, and that kind of weight didn't do well sitting on 14th century structures!  He also said they were migrating less and less and staying put which added to the problem.



A shot of The Tower of the Three Crowns which is one of the most picturesque of the whole palace.  From this tower you can easily see The Ice Well.



The Ice Well - Under this enormous egg shell lies a well that is 25 feet deep.  In the winter, snow and ice were put there to create cold during the summer months so they could keep meat and other food fresh.



We survived! We we climbed The Great Tower, and there were LOTS of stairs. The views were spectacular as you could see for miles around (look to the left of DJ).

The Palace Vineyard





The flag of Navarre

 

After we climbed back DOWN all those stairs, we only had a few minutes left to meet our group at the church which is located within the palace confines.



Surrounding the courtyard of the church



Well in the courtyard of the church

Major relief work above church entrance---loved the window above it, too.



Six of the twelve apostles to the right of the entrance.  The other six were to the left and are in the next picture



Inside the church

I took one last shot of The Tower of the Three Crowns from ground level as we boarded the bus.  What an amazing tour.  It was so incredible to see what men had done back in an era when they didn't have the machinery and conveniences of today.  Another wonderful experience!