It comes from: Visit to Vicente Gandía´s winery and visit to Cuenca (1)

On the way back to Madrid we decided to go to visit Cuenca. I had already been in Cuenca when I was 16 years old at school. But at this time I was a boy who had not slept the previous night, so I did not put attention to it. For this reason I had quite a limited a worng image about Cuenca

We caught a good offer to sleep at the Parador de Cuenca. We were very lucky to get to Cuenca by night, on a clear night.

At that moment it seemed to me  to be in front of me the most wonderful spectacle of the world. I could see a very nice town, as taken from a fairy tale, with a lot of charm  and veri well illuminated. There’s nothing like having no expectations about something. I recognize that this expression (most wonderful spectacle of the world) I’ve used it sevral times when referring about travelling, wine, and other situations. It is not my intention to establish a scientific ranking, I just want to express how I feel when I see something exceptional. As I do not earn my living as a wine taster or as a tour guide, I leave myself to express in such an emotional way. After all, what are we talking about most of the time but about emotions?

It was an amazing night, with a lot of magic. Find enclosed some images, that are not as good than what my memory recalls. 

The next day we had a fantastic breakfast (the Parador is not far behind in terms of attractiveness). And we went to see the city by day. The effect that the city provoked on me was not as impresive as the one we had by night. Nevertheless , there’s nothing like the first impression for anything.

If you go to Cuenca I recommend you to do the same as I did. Arrive at early night.

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We got out of Cuenca to visit the «Ciudad Encantada” which is 20 miles away. It is quite interesting an a very good complement to what we did the previous day (Winery visit, Cuenca).

If I was the Marketing Manager of Bodegas Vicente Gandia I would consider to make a package, (visit to the winery and visit to Cuenca included) at a competitive price and making the winery´s visit a lot more attractive.

To reach Vicente Gandia´s Winery you have to drive about 160 miles from Madrid. So I organized a trip that would justify that mileage, and I got it.

We decided to leave on Friday night. We slept that night in Utiel to visit the winery early in the morning.

As you get to the winery the first thing you do is visiting the shop. It is very well organized, elegant and professional. When we arrived they made us 3 previous questions. They asked us about 1) Our postal code. 2) What level of knowledge we had about wine world. 3) By what means had we known about this winery and that there was a guided tour visit to the Bodega. This shows that this winery has a sensitivity and a special interest in knowing better their costumers and visitors. It is important to remember something we all know but act as we did not which is: the sales of a winery are the general addition what every single final client buy.

I think we were the only visitors this day outside Valencia´s Community.

On the first part of the tour we got into a little train that took us to visit the local vineyards and in which it appears was the old cellar site. Most of wineries only let you visit their facilities without displaying the vineyard when the most important process is there, on the field.

Later, they took us to see the new winery. We could see there the grape reception zone and the processing room. The machinery had the feeling of being art new and with the most modern technology. The guide told us that the winery operates with only 5 employees!, Most of the winemaker´s task could be done by Internet. This is a good example of how new technologies are changing the way of doing things. It seems that with that system they have a very good quality control and are very competitive in variable cost of production.

We arrived afterwards to the barrels area. To get to there we went down some stairs while we saw the many awards that this winery has achieved in years. We then arrived to a very nice tasting room. We were invited to a cava, a red wine Reserva (Ceremonia 2004) and finally a very special and quite cheap moscatel white wine (Fustanova 2008).

There are other wineries in Utiel and Requena that are worth to be visited, but for several reasons we couldn´t visit. 

Continued on Visit to Vicente Gandía´s Winery and visit to Cuenca (2)