Barcelona Tapas And Wine Tasting Tour

Let’s be clear – three days in Barcelona isn’t enough. But that’s all we had between projects in Girona and Helsinki.

Visitors will find no lack of things to do in Barcelona. Not wanting to miss a thing (i.e. the best food in Barcelona), we packed our limited time with plenty of food and wine experiences and ended our visit with Devour Barcelona’s evening tapas and wine tasting tour.

Yes, we spent our last evening in Spain drinking wine and eating tapas dishes like Gambas al Ajillo. Please don’t hate us. Instead, read on to see what it’s like to take a tapas and wine tasting tour in Barcelona.

As repeat customers of Devour Barcelona, we knew that their tapas and wine tasting tour would be well-curated, but second thoughts swirled through our heads as we traversed the city’s cobblestone streets filled with a boisterous mix of locals and tourists.

Would this tour be a good way to spend our last night in Barcelona? Would we really learn much after 24 days of drinking Catalan wine in Girona? And how good would the food be?

All doubts dissipated within minutes of meeting our affable guide. A sommelier originally from England, he started plying us with tasty treats right away. He clearly knew the way to our hungry hearts!

We didn’t want to miss a bite or sip, so we arrived right at 6:30 pm at Bodega Puntual, a modern tavern in the heart of Barcelona’s trendy Born neighborhood. As soon as we joined the intimate tour group at an upturned wine barrel table, food and drinks started appearing.

The guide started the festive evening with glasses of chilled Yzaguirre vermouth (vermut in Catalan) served with toothpicks loaded with salty olives and orange wedges. Not your grandmother’s vermouth, these herbaceous and spicy aperitifs were made from fortified wine and had a pleasing bite.

Speaking of bites, we really enjoyed the tapas at Bodega Puntual. Their patatas bravas were both crispy and spicy, which is not always the case, and their croquettes filled with Jamon Iberico de Bellota and bechamel sauce were spot on with crunchy exteriors, oozing centers and nutty flavors.

Mixing facts about Spain’s 72 indigenous wine regions with historical stories and entertaining anecdotes, the tour taught us more about wine than we expected. Taking us all the way back to the Romans, through the Moorish occupation and up to the present, the guide brought Spain’s rich wine history to life for us and made us thirsty for more.

Bodega La Puntual is located at Carrer de Montcada, 22, 08003 Barcelona, Spain.

Although relatively quiet when we arrived, ELDiset is a popular wine bar that apparently heats up around 9 pm. Known for its selection of Catalan wines served by the glass and its tapas menu featuring creative open-faced sandwiches (torrades in Catalan), ELDiset has a casual, chic vibe thanks to its dim lighting and bearded staff.

In other words, ELDiset was a great spot to continue our wine education with an emphasis on local Catalan varietals including Cava. We compared two types of the local bubbly – a Vendrell D’Olivella Brut 2012 and a Maspujado Gran Reserva Brut Natur NV before we moved to glasses of Atrevida Blanc 2014 and Pizzicato 2015 wines.

No longer thirsty, we savored each glass with tapas dishes embellished with toppings like grilled eggplant, mozzarella cheese, caramelized onions, basil pesto, raspberry jam, blue cheese, shredded apple and crushed almonds.

ELDiset is located at Carrer Antic de Sant Joan, 3, 08003 Barcelona, Spain.

Mixing up our Barcelona tapas and wine experience, we took a seven-minute walk to Bodega Maestrazgo, a combination wine shop and neighborhood tapas bar. Locals spilled onto the sidewalk as we arrived, but we headed straight to a reserved a table next to an impressive row of wine barrels. Not for show, these wine barrels were filled with inexpensive local wines.

We proceeded to drink glasses of Vi Negre and Ribera del Duero table wine tapped straight from the nearby barrels. The wine was both inexpensive and good. Had it not been our last night in Barcelona, we would have bought some to drink later in our hotel room.

Bodega Maestrazgo is located at Carrer de Sant Pere Més Baix, 90, 08003 Barcelona, Spain.

We could have left the tour happy and full at this point, but the tour had more tapas and wine up its sleeves. After walking us to the private tasting room connected to Bodega Maestrazgo, the tour guide opened bottles of I Tant 2015, Zauzo Gaston 2014, Vina Pomal Reserva 2012andd Lustau PX San Emilio.

We paired these last four wines with a tapas platter topped with assorted hams, cheese and olives. And, since this was Barcelona, the platter had delicacies like smoked Idiazabal cheese, Manchego cheese, Fuet (dried, cured pork), Llonganissa (similar to chorizo), Arbequina olives and anchovy stuffed olives.

This would have been enough. This should have been enough. But we ended the evening with glasses of Pedro Ximenez sherry paired with chocolate-covered Marcona almonds (catanies in Catalan). We couldn’t say no to the sweet ending to the tour, so we didn’t.

Tast is connected to Bodega Maestrazgo. See address above.

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