On 14 April, Robin and I went to The Buzz for their monthly wine tasting – Wines From Spain and Portugal for April. These are really fantastic tastings for an incredible price: $10.00 per person. Besides the wines – 7 of them tonight – Debbi Haydon creates some fantastic Appetizers and Tapas.

The ambiance of The Buzz is loose and informal – a real “coffee house” feel. Pictured here is the main counter. Just to the left and out of sight, is the tasting area, large enough for about 30 people. To the right is another smaller area that is also used for eating, drinking wine and relaxing.

And Robin always has a good time at these affairs. As a palate cleanser, we started with a 2006 Freixenet Cordon Negro Brut ($15.00) A good sparkling wine that cheered everyone up. Salute!

For starters, we had this delicious Portuguese Stone Soup. I have no idea where the name came from, but I didn’t find any stones. (I bet they cooked the soup with hot stones.) This soup is full of onion, sweet red peppers, leek, green beans, Chorizo, potatoes, carrot and red beans. This is a light soup that went very well with a 2007 Caves da Cerca Vino Verde ($10.00 and 9.5%) and a 2007 Coto de Hayas Campo de Borja Crianza ($12.00). These two wines were pretty good alone, but as most wines go, they were far better with the food. Both were clean and light on the nose and refreshing on the palate.

The “Star of the Tasting”, so far as the food went, was this plate. Shrimp Cocktail in Avocado Cream (awesome!!!), Potatoes, Beef, Pork, Bread with Black Olives and a pastry filled with mushrooms and vegetables. The wines were a 2006 Mad Dogs and Englishmen ($13.00, 13.5%) and a 2003 Emina, ($15.00, 13.5%). These two wines were the Show Stoppers for the evening. The paring with the Tapas platter was awesome.

(Sorry for the poor photo)

And finally, chocolate and fresh fruit! With these finishers, we just had to have a Quinta do Noval Tawny Port ($18.00, 19.5%) and a La Gitana Sherry ($12.00, 15.0%). (Now I know why my Dad loved Turtle Soup!) Both of these wines were Non Vintaged.

This was an awesome night, and we hope to attend more of these. If you go to their website, you can ask to be put on their mailing list to keep updated on the tastings. But, the events do fill quickly. Cheers and Happy Tastings!