Geeks Go Wild in Galicia
Three friends, fourteen bottles, the Nerdometer and the Crushometer.
Reading last weekend’s news from an isolated Galician village was beyond surreal. I didn’t know whether to be terrified or comforted. World War III had just kicked off, but we were 6,000 km from the epicentre. The grill was fired up and the first of many bottles had just been breached. What to do?
Together with friends Ryan and Brian (more about them below), we have these little weekend summits about once a year. The idea is simple. We rent a house somewhere beautiful and stock it with unreasonable amounts of wine and food. There will be grilling: vegetarians need not apply. We each bring bottles, all of which are poured blind. We heroically fail to guess what most of them are.
As three geeks who have spent too long in the wine space, we share a love of new discoveries, handcrafted ideologies and anything that ferments. It doesn’t matter how obscure, bizarre tasting or genre-confused it might be. It’s a safe space for your most challenging bottle. Someone might pop a unicorn, next up it’s 50 year old vinegar.
We don’t taste blind to score points or impress each other - given my mediocre skills, that’s not happening anyway. It’s about shedding preconceptions and taking the gloves off. Ryan just poured fermented yak’s milk infused with the skins of Rkatsiteli? I’m calling top Meursault!
In this latest Galician edition, we developed two metrics for success. If you nailed the brief, the Nerdometer™ went into the red. Slovakian swamp water, Ethiopian orange wine or botrytis-affected Palamino foot trodden by septuagenarian nuns? Watch that needle fly.
A high Nerdometer reading says nothing about deliciousness - just that it tickled our perverse intellects. The Crushometer® was invoked to scientifically record the degree of smashability. Empty bottle = high Crushometer score.
(Note to self: next time add a Funkometer)
For paying subscribers, there’s a complete rundown of what we enjoyed below - with highly objective Nerdometer and Crushometer scores, naturally. All ratings reflect my personal judgement, and not that of Ryan or Brian. Sorry chaps.
Ryan and Brian
Ryan Opaz is known to many of you as a former conference organiser, blogger, photographer and all round promoter of Portuguese food and wine. He heads up Iberian tour specialist Patamar Select (formerly Catavino).
Brian Patterson created one of the first bars in Lisbon to focus exclusively on Portuguese natural wine. Black Sheep opened its doors in 2019 and Brian sold to the current owners a few years later. He’s now offering his own wine and food tours in the Lisbon area, and comes highly recommended as your guide.
