Day trip to Wine Country

Monday we took a day trip to one of the wine regions of Spain, Ribera del Duero and more specifically the town, Aranda de Duero. We were on a mission to find and buy a wine barrel. It has been my dream forever to have a wine barrel table in our house. Spain is full of bars and most people can be overwhelmed by the selection but from the very beginning I found a way to measure the quality of a bar, if it had barrels it was probably pretty good. I'm a sucker for barrels and yes it might be a problem but I figure if you are going to live in a foreign country you are going to have to find some little obsession. I have two- barrels and stone. If any building, restaurant, house, bar has these two things I freak out, get all giddy and must go there. This my friends is why I want a barrel in my own house.
So, we drove about an hour and a half north of Madrid to seek a barrel and along the way stop in a bar drink some wine, eat some tapas and have a big lunch (my most favorite things!). The reason we chose this area is because Pablo stopped in a gas station around this town on his way back from Germany and the gas station had barrels for sale. 60 euros. That is the cheapest we've found so we said lets go for it! We arrived in the town and set out to find a bar to have a wine and tapas. We lucked out because the bar we found (chosen because it had barrels outside) turned out to be VERY cute. Exposed wood beams, barrels everywhere, very rustic feel. I love that stuff. We chose a recommended wine- 2 euros and two tapas- a toast called a lamb hamburger. So fancy and so delicious.

Our tapas and wine

This town is FAMOUS for lamb so lamb is everywhere. After we finished our snack we heard that below the bar was a wine cellar and we asked if we could go take a tour. The bartender said go ahead and we headed down the old stone steps and walked around the little wine cellar. It was very old and very cool.

In the wine cellar

behind the wall is the vats that store the wine

The stairs down to the wine cellar

Next, we walked around the old area of the town and found the cathedral. It had a really cool facade with tons of carved figures.

The town's cathedral

We circled around and passed through the Plaza Mayor before heading back to a restaurant Pablo read good reviews about for lunch. They basically only serve lamb and since we were in lamb country we said lets go for it. We had a salad, 1/4 lamb, house rose wine and dessert and it was all delicious. The lamb was so tender and juicy and didn't taste strong like some of the lamb I've had before. With our bellies now full we had to get back to business and figure out where to get a barrel.

The restaurant we had lamb at

The lamb

Our walk around the town didn't produce any visible barrels for sale so we decided to ask the staff at the restaurant if they knew a place. They were actually very helpful and told us of this place in a neighboring pueblo where a guy makes the barrels. He gave us directions and we headed out. The directions were great and we drove right up. The man was outside and Pablo got out to ask if he had barrels for sale. There were a ton in the lot and he said yes,  come pick out what you want. The man was very nice and showed us his shop, his catalog of thing he makes. It was amazing and expensive! He explained he used Hungarian or American oak and named off some of the states where he gets his oak from. I picked out a barrel, paid 60 euros, loaded it in the car (it fit!) and we high-fived. MISSION COMPLETE!
We headed back to Madrid and decided we must stop at our furniture store-IKEA and buy two stools. We had quite an adventure getting the barrel out of the trunk, up 5 flights of stairs and then 1 flight in our house but we did it. Its on our terrace and looks AMAZING! We opened a bottle of wine to celebrate and the next morning ate breakfast there as well. Our terrace is so cute now!

At home with our barrel and kids