First Bulgaria Disinfected Me then Infused Me with Wine

I almost don't even know where to begin with this. E and I set off on what was to be a relaxing weekend break at a winery spa in Bulgaria-it turned out to be something rather different.

We left early so we could pick up our rental car at the airport and get the four-hour drive out of the way; unfortunately the travel troubles began right away. Enterprise's system was down ("system problem" are words we often hear in Turkey) so despite arriving at their service counter before 9AM it wasn't until 11 that we were finally on the road. With no traffic barring our way the drive through Turkey went smoothly and the border was upon us long before we even thought to expect it. Three check points later we were out of Turkey and entering the no man's land between it and Bulgaria.

That's where the trouble really began.

The 'green card' "office"

Approaching the first check point our car was unexpectedly sprayed with very chlorinated smelling water. I laughed and asked if we'd just been disinfected. Surely not, said E...but true enough there was a little booth just ahead labeled "disinfection fee collection point" where we were charged the cost of 3 Euros for apparently having Turkey cleaned off our car. Really thank goodness for that because it set a tone of ludicrousness without which we may have committed murder over the next two hours. After paying for our disinfection we pulled into a scrum of vehicles all attempting to cross the border into Bulgaria. In a space of maybe a square half mile were packed so many cars we couldn't even attempt to count them. Tempers were high, horns honked on an off, cars didn't inch forward...they centimetered forward. Suddenly we had so much time on our hands so we turned to Google to discover why everything was at a stand still. Apparently the Turkey-Bulgaria crossing is the second busiest land crossing in the world! That would have been good information to have before we left.

Todoroff complex

Two hours later, TWO HOURS LATER it was finally our turn. We handed over our passports, the car insurance, and the car rental contract but were absolutely flummoxed when asked for the "green card". Apparently saying words louder and more slowly is not just something English speakers do to foreigners because apparently shouting and over enunciating GREEN CARD at us was going to make us understand the Bulgarian border guard. Eventually someone with some English came over and instructed us to drive through the check point (while they held onto our passports) to "the last car and my colleague will help". Okay then. We drove through and parked by the final check point and asked everyone we saw "green card"? until we were directed to a small shack sitting just outside the border crossing area, where a woman sold us Bulgarian car insurance for 50 Euros. The green card.

We drove back to the original check point (no cars at all on this side of things!), parked, and walked to the booth where our passports were being held hostage. Being in the thick of things as we were it was easy to see why it was taking so long for each car to cross the border. After passport (and green card) inspection, the one customs officer shared by two lanes would poke through a car's trunk, rummage through luggage, and then pop the hood for a mechanical inspection. Every. Single. Car. We were spared this process after finally being able to provide the much-desired green card, given back our passports, and sent on our way.

Wine-infused jacuzzi!

Finally free to go we drove through the final final check point, slightly afraid we were going to be stopped and asked for another color card, we drove into Bulgaria-where there was no traffic. None. All those cars that got across the border before us were nowhere to be seen; it was very odd. About 100 kilometers in we stopped for gas. We probably could have got all the way to the spa without filling up but after 2.5 hours of running the AC while sitting in the hot afternoon sun we needed to fill up. Then began the next adventure of actually finding the spa. I don't know about other countries, but Bulgaria doesn't mark streets that have names like 'route 8602'. My Russian might be crap now but thank goodness I can still read Cyrillic because I was able to recognize the name of our destination village (Brestovitsa) and guide E to the correct street. Of course actually finding the spa in Brestovitsa was a whole different story. We had to stop and ask three or four different people being slightly hindered by neither of us being able to speak Bulgarian and me trying to speak to Bulgarians in Turkish.

Finally we arrived at Todoroff Winery and Spa. Sadly it was too late to take advantage of the spa or even join their tour/wine tasting. We were both so exhausted though-it had been 10 hours since we left home that morning-that we were happy to just have dinner and a bottle of wine and sleep early.

The next morning after breakfast we booked spa treatments for the next two days and while we waited for our appointment we sat outside in the cool Bulgarian country air playing with the sweetest kitten. From there E and I luxuriated for about an hour in Todoroff's Barrique Tub-a jacuzzi infused with bath salts and wine, actual wine, while also enjoying glasses of wine. We felt kind of bad because no matter how hard we tried to prevent it, the jacuzzi bubbled away so enthusiastically that the water ended up all over the floor. After pickling in the wine we each had body scrubs with grapes seeds/must (Cabernet Sauvignon!) and massages.

Processing the grapes

Bottling room

Fully relaxed, we lazed away the afternoon with spa treatments and naps until our tour of the Todoroff winery. The original winery was established in 1945 but nationalized in 1947. It was returned to the original family in the late 90s and bought and modernized by Ivan Todoroff in 2001. The winery produces wines made mostly from the same ubiquitous grapes everyone grows but they do also produce some very nice wine from the native Bulgarian grape, Mavrud.

Unfortunately it seems that many of the native Bulgarian grapes have been lost so Todoroff specializes in Mavrud, Cabernet Sauvignon, and the dreaded Merlot. Our guide told us that there are many traditional songs in Bulgaria about red wine and only one about white-which includes a line that goes something like: "Oh white wine, why aren't you red?" Love it.

In addition to making wine, Mr. Todoroff is also dedicated to supporting local artists and for several years has been running art competitions. Winners' works are displayed in the Todoroff tasting room and used for the wines' labels. The hotel itself is something of an art gallery with each floor also displaying the work of local artists, all of which are available for purchase.

We tasted five wines during the tasting: 2015 Boutique Rainbow Silver, 2015 Boutique Mavrud, 2013 Gallery Merlot, 2013 Gallery Cabernet Sauvignon, and the 2013 Teres Merlot.

The Todoroff Boutique line is not oaked which made me very happy as the 2015 Boutique Rainbow Silver is a Chardonnay blend: Chardonnay, Viognier, and Sauvignon Blanc. In the glass it's nearly colorless, clear, and brilliant. The nose is tropical with melon, green apples, and floral notes. In the mouth it's soft with good acid and lots of that green apple. For such a light white wine I was surprised by how well it paired with a strong, salty cheese. It was really quite nice.

The 2015 Boutique Mavrud was by far my favorite of what we tasted. Brestovitsa, where Todoroff is, is located in the Plovdiv region of Bulgaria's Thracian region. Mavrud is native to this area and while it's one of the few native grapes left it accounts for only 1.5% of grapes grown. Which to me is very sad because this was very much my favorite. Also aged in stainless steel, it was a bright purple-red color with a light-medium body. On the nose it was blueberry, floral, candy and the palate was very light tannins, well-balanced acid and more berry, candy, and honey flavors.

Up next was the 2013 Gallery Merlot (the line of Todoroff wines that feature the art competition winners). The Gallery-line wines spend four to six months in oak depending on the age of the barrel and there were definitely some light oak features in the wine with some smoke and vanilla in the nose. In the glass it was a brick red with medium clarity (sediment). The palate was very jammy with dried fruits especially prunes, smoke, vanilla, and oak with some light tannins and a medium finish.

The 2013 Gallery Cabernet Sauvignon was similarly treated with four to six months of oak. Todoroff uses their barrels (French, American, and Bulgarian oak) for only three years, a surprisingly short amount of time, before the barrels are sold off. The Gallery Cabernet is a dark, ruby-red in the glass with dark fruits and black olives in the nose. On the palate it's a medium body with nice, round tannins, integrated acid, and a medium finish with flavors reflecting the nose. It was nice...but there are Turkish Cabernets that are way better.

The last wine we tasted was the 2013 Teres Merlot which Todoroff is no longer selling. They have only a few bottles of their last Teres vintage left and they're saved for tastings. Although after the tasting E sweetly asked if it weren't possible for us to finish the bottle they opened for the tasting (it was!).  E really liked this one, me not so much. The Teres line wines spend eight to 10 months in the barrels which for the Merlot resulted in a deep brownish-brick red, medium body wine. The nose was very heavy dried fruits: raisins and prunes, along with smoke, vanilla, and baking spices. So-like a fruitcake that has spent some time in a smokehouse. It was quite similar to the Gallery Merlot in that the flavors were very jammy and while unquestionably a dry wine it had some very viscous, sweet flavors.

Roman amphitheater

Old city

Our last morning at Todoroff I had my last spa treatment: the Wine Mascarpone. After getting exfoliated again with grape seeds, I was slathered with a mask made out of wine and powdered milk, wrapped up in plastic and heavy blankets, and then the bed I was on turned into some sort of hot waterbed that filled up around me wrapping me in a waterbed burrito. It was pretty fantastic.

Old city-traditional painted Bulgarian building

Roman theatre-still used for events!

After my last spa treatment we packed up the rental car and headed into Plovdiv-Bulgaria's second largest city and one of the oldest, continuously inhabited cities in the world. Plovdiv is lovely and well worth the visit. The modern city, old city, and ancient ruins are all well integrated and, throwing in bright street art, make for a charming city. The Roman theatre is still used for concerts and events and the amphitheater has been cleverly built around to incorporate it into the pedestrian area of the city.

Plovdiv is full of museums and art galleries so E was in heaven. I was in heaven because the food was amazing. We had lunch at Pavaj, a trendy, hip little restaurant that served up killer barbeque pork ribs.

Getting back to Turkey was not as complicated as getting out, but we had a few bumps. Getting out of Plovdiv was one of them! A few wrong turns though and we found the rounds we needed. As long as we were going the opposite direction of Sophia we were fine and eventually we came upon signs directing us to Istanbul.

Not only we were worried about another two-hour delay but we realized that we were driving into Turkey with 11 bottles of wine. Why we didn't think to take them out of the winery boxes and put them in our bags I don't know; because we both knew better than to try this. Sure enough, while the crossing out of Bulgaria took no time at all, we were stopped at the Turkish border. The customs officer said we were only allowed one liter per person (which can't be right-you're allowed so much more flying in!). However a little stumbling Turkish about how we were on a girls' weekend; isn't there a fee/tax we can pay (the to you implied); and a little flirting later and we, and our 11 bottles, were allowed to cross. Sometimes it's good to be female in Turkey!

While our spa weekend getaway turned out to be a little more adventurous than I had planned it was a great trip! We were disinfected, infused with wine, got to try Bulgarian wine, ate pork, looked at art, and flirted contraband into the country. All in all it was a pretty great trip!

Champagne Air and a Hipster Wine Festival

After two years of trying I was finally able to visit my good friend D in Bad Homburg, Germany. Bad Homburg, a suburb of Frankfurt, is one of the wealthiest districts in Germany which is pretty clear in the town's slogan: Champagnerluft und Tradition (Champagne Air and Tradition).

Bad Homburg Schloss

I don't know about the champagne but the air really was lovely! When I'm in Istanbul I don't usually realize how poor the air quality is but nothing drove that home until the morning after I arrived and D took me on a tour of Bad Homburg and its many (many) parks. There are very few things I miss about country life but the smell of clean air, trees, and grass is one of them. Possibly the only thing actually. The parks in Bad Homburg are gorgeous.

Kaiser Wilhelm II spa

Bad Homburg became a popular spa town in the 19th century and, situated in one of the parks, is the Kaiser Wilheml II spa. The spa takes advantage of the natural mineral water deposits and throughout the park you can find different drinking fountains with plaques to tell you the mineral composition of the water and which ailments its good for. I sampled several of the waters and have to say I think I'd rather have the ailments. The spa was lovely though. It consists of various rooms that, like the water, have different elements and minerals to benefit one's health. My favorite was the hay steam room in which you sit in a hay-lined alcove, are covered with a paper sheet so only your head sticks out the top, and hot steam pours through the hay. I don't remember what this was good for but I giggled the entire 15 minutes because it reminded me of sweating during hay season. I think my dad should build one of these in Michigan and charge all the city people who board their horses in his neighborhood ridiculous amounts of money for hay steams.

Bad Homburg casino

Bad Homburg is also home to a casino, built apparently by the brother team responsible for the Monte Carlo casino. I've never been to Monte Carlo but I have to say this is the most sedate and German-looking casino I've ever seen. We went one evening, not to gamble but to dance in the small club on the top floor. It was better people watching than it was dancing owing to a really uneven performance by the DJ...but it was still great fun.

One afternoon D and her family took me to nearby Mainz where we spent an overcast morning wandering around the cobbled streets. The historic center of Mainz is everything you want in a German town: cobbled streets, half-timbered buildings, Roman ruins, and beautiful, old churches.

For the purposes of my visit the most important feature was the river that runs through Mainz, the Rhein. Mainz is situated in the Rheingau-one of Germany's most important wine regions. I don't know much about German wine outside of Riesling and Gewürtztramiener so I did some research before going. The most cultivated grapes in the Rheingau are: Riesling, Spätburgunder, Dornfelder, Grauer Burgunder, Kerner, Dunkelfelder, Chardonnay, Ehrenfelser, Müller-Thurgau, and Weiẞer Burgunder. I had the opportunity to try several of these and a few others at the Wine is in the Air festival.

Without a doubt this was the most hipster wine festival I'd ever been to but despite that it was great fun and I really enjoyed being able to try a whole mess of German wines I'd not only never tried but never heard of before; like the bottle of Zwitschern that I bought to take back to Turkey.

In a trip that involved nature and clean air, spas and hay steams, dancing til 3 AM, the most amazing truffle pasta ever, karaoke until 3 AM and then skipping through Bad Homburg barefoot, practicing my German with a seven year old, and a hipster wine festival it's difficult to choose a highlight. For me of course it was being able to hang out and do all these things with a good friend I hadn't seen in six years but even if you don't have such an amazing friend and host waiting for you, Bad Homburg is definitely worth a visit!

Gozoten Guest Wine - Hauteville 2014 Grand Vinde

I've been terribly neglectful about both having and writing about this wine. This was a gift from a colleague last summer and we just opened it a few weeks ago. Gozo is one of the islands that make up Malta and is apparently known for being the most fertile climate in Malta and some of the best Maltese vineyards are located on this island. My colleagues lived in Malta for a while and told me that what she learned there is that, when speaking about wine, that you can't just say 'Maltese' wine, you have to identify with the specific island. So this Hauteville Grande Vinde is a Gozoten wine.

The Hauteville Grande Vinde is a 2014 Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon blend. It was a really pretty brilliant, ruby red in the glass; not at all opaque. I found the nose very interesting as usually the fist, and sometimes only thing I can detect is fruit but with this wine I hard a hard time catching any fruit scents under some really overwhelming green peppercorn, leather, and spice.
 

On the palate the Hauteville Grand Vinde was very tart. While I wasn't getting a lot of fruit in the nose here I got a lot of sour cherry with low tannins, and highish acid. For a Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon blend there wasn't a great deal of substance to the mouth feel and while the flavor was nice it was rather too tart for my liking. I think with the right food to balance the dominant sour cherry flavor this would be quite nice.

For my first foray into Maltese wines this wasn't too bad; and definitely leaves me wanting to try more!

Hungarian Guest Wine - Tihanyi 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon

Ah! Apparently when I was writing about guest Hungarian wines from my ill-fated July trip to Lake Balaton I completely forgot to publish this last post! I need to clean out my draft box more often...

Aside from the Georgian restaurant a colleague and I found in Budapest on our free day, the only highlight, indeed the only thing that made the eight days I was stuck in Lake Balaton, Hungary bearable was the Hungarian Festival with its myriad of food, wine, and craft stalls. Especially the wine stalls.

Set in the middle of a park (which we don't see too much of in Istanbul to begin with!) the festival was very atmospheric with lights strung up in the trees and communal tables for eating and drinking the many offerings. Many of those many offerings were pork-based foods and you can bet I took advantage! Oh my gosh the food was amazing. Because we were there for work our company covered all our meals-as long as we took them at the hotel. Unfortunately the food there was really not good so as the week dragged on more and more people eschewed the hotel dinging room in favor of the festival flavors.

I tried many of the wines on offer. For a small deposit you got your wine glass and could then taste and buy glasses and bottles all night long with that glass. When you were finished you returned the glass at any of the wine stalls and got back the deposit. One of our last nights at Lake Balaton a small group of us started here with a bottle of the Tihanyi 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon which ended up being one of my festival favorites. Our table quickly collected more and more colleagues looking to escape from the horrors of our retreat and as new people joined our table they went to get their glass and yet another bottle of the Tihanyi to share around.

I found one thing good about this trip!

PORK!!!

So there we are, probably 12 of us, and suddenly the stalls are shutting down and the festival is closing for the night. The group of us descended on the poor kids working the Tihanyi booth with a proposition: rather than refund our glass deposits, just give us as many bottles of wine as the deposits will afford. Hungarians must not be big drinkers because we had to convince these kids, who got to know us turning up every 20 minutes for a new bottle, that yes we really did want some 10 more bottles.

We left the fair grounds for the park along the lake and drank more bottles there until we were rousted by cops. Apparently the lake has a closing time too. I packed it in when we finally trudged back to the hotel but about half the group stayed out to finish the remaining bottles (and order more from the hotel bar). Needless to say we did not see everyone at the first session the next morning.

So what was this wine which we imbibed so enjoyably?

The Tihanyi 2013 Cabernet Sauvignon was a medium-bodied dark, raspberry colored wine with a gorgeous combination of flavors. Raspberry and red fruits like red currants and other berries were foremost but there were hints of green pepper, jalapeno, and mint. From the oak I got some interesting cedar and smoke flavors.

Was this the best Cabernet Sauvignon I've ever had? No. Was it good drinking? Yes definitely. It is also what leads me to conclude that wine, like proper grammar, saves lives because without this and the many other Hungarian wines I (and my colleagues) drank on this trip I think our work retreat might have turned into a J.G. Ballard novel.

The Charm, the Confusion, the Food That Is Florence

L and I chose to use  AirBnB for our trip. It was the first time either of us had ever done so and there were definitely some pros and cons. Pros: More bang for your buck-in both places we had 2-bedroom apartments to ourselves for a great deal less than a hotel room, let alone two rooms in the center of the city, would have cost us; it's definitely nice to have laundry facilities, a full refrigerator, etc. Cons: We had to take all our things with us between Rome and Florence then back because there was no luggage room like hotels have; we had to make sure to arrange with the owners to meet them at specific times rather than just showing up, and they're a little trickier to find. Which was an issue in Florence.

My suitcase is wider than the door!

Carousel in Republic Square

Our AirBnB in Florence was supposed to only be a 10 minute walk from the train station and it probably was; but I was having trouble matching streets on the map with streets in real life (really Europe, we need to work on posting street signs more regularly). We finally found the correct street but finding the right number was something else entirely. We were looking for number 77 but out of no where the numbers jumped from 50-something to 100-something. We walked back and forth, back and forth, and finally, after passing 125, found 77. What the frack?! We found out that there are two address numbering systems: one for residential addresses and one for businesses. When we finally did find our AirBnB it was like finding a door into Narnia. The little half-door was so narrow we might have missed it even if we hadn't been confused by the numbering. Because the door, even though narrow, opened into immediate, and super steep concrete stairs the door didn't open all the way so we had a hard time getting our suitcases in and had to turn sideways going in and out. While it was just two floors compared to my five the stairs were so steep it was really tricky getting our cases up and down. Totally worth it though. The apartment was gorgeous. Throw in an oven and I'd never have left.

Santa Croce Square

Santa Croce

I was in Florence in 2000 and my main memory was that I did not like it. What a difference some maturity and different company make because I loved Florence. Loved, loved, loved. More than Rome.  I imagine it was less charming when it was a medieval city but now the remaining medieval elements; narrow, winding streets; beautiful, old buildings; squares, etc. all create an atmosphere that's really hard to put into words. I actually felt pretty chic walking around those streets and I am not a chic person.

The famous Ponte Vecchio over the Arno River

As with Rome, one of my favorite activities in Florence was a food tour. I would have loved to do some wine tours, hello Tuscany!, but L can't drink red wine so that really limited our wine touring abilities. In Florence we booked a tour with Urban Adventures through Winerist. Apparently we were the only ones to sign up for the Sunday tour so we had the privilege of a private tour! Our guide Linda was fantastic. Very knowledgeable about Florentine history, the culture, food, and wine. In addition to running the Florence Urban Adventures she is a certified sommelier and took her certificate in Florence. Unfortunately I was too involved in the tour to make note of all our stops. Needless to say they were fantastic. After the tour I dragged L back to one of the stops to pick up some cheese and a jar of truffle honey. TRUFFLE HONEY IS A THING!!! It's a fracking amazing thing too.

It was while on the food tour, through conversations with Linda that I was suddenly struck by an epiphany both surprising and yet stunningly obvious...I should be a sommelier! [insert dumbfounded face] These last couple years of pretending to know what I'm talking about as I review Turkish wines are actually leading to something! I have no idea why hasn't occurred to me before now. I'll stay in Turkey for the next year to finish up some commitments I have here and do lots and lots of research in order to choose a program and town. I'm not going back to the US for this. Right now I'm undecided between Italy and Serbia. If I manage to successfully complete the program I would like to specialize in Balkan/Georgian/Turkish wines (thus the idea to study in Novi Sad, Serbia) but, Italy. Come on. Does anyone know if there are sommelier scholarships?

On the Ponte Vecchio

I loved Florence. As much as I would like to move there for the sommelier program I highly doubt I could afford the cost of living while paying for language schools and tuition and not working. It's such a beautiful city that we visited it twice! Or at least the train station. On the way back to Rome we boarded the train on the right side of the platform which we did not realize was the wrong train until it started moving. Shouldn't they make the announcement about which train you're on before it pulls out of the station? For people who have been traveling as long as L and I have collectively traveled this was a pretty rookie mistake but surely we can't be the only ones ever to have done this?

So many truffles!

So, Florence. We were blown away by the Duomo, charmed by the city, a little drowned in the sea of art that is the Uffizi, in love with the food, and stunned by personal revelations. Before I wanted to be a pirate when I grew up but that is somewhat impractical these days. I think I could be quite happy as a sommelier though!

I hated to leave Italy but if nothing else had to get home to my cat, Sherlock. Before that could happen though I had to figure out how to get my suitcase down to the allowable 20 kilos. When I packed everything I'd bought I was at a staggering 28 kilos! With some repacking that resulted in insanely heavy carry on bags I was good to go. Although the added weight of duty free had me staggering around the airport. It was worth it though...look at all the goodies I brought home! Maybe I would make a good pirate after all!