The "Earnest One": Night 1, Haro, Rioja #DWCC13

I have never met a wine blogger who trudges up to his/her room after a long day of tramping through vineyards and tasting barriques of wine. Never happens. Well, ok. The ones who respect themselves, and the mission, will go back to their rooms and dutifully write up their notes and/or blog posts. These are the serious ones. They are in the game to succeed. Not us. Robert had talked earlier about going into town when we got back from Ramon Bilbao but it was late when we returned so we would have to entertain ourselves. So we commandeered a small room off the hotel lobby and settled in for the long haul.

 

Source: rioja.on-map.net

We started out with drinks from the bar and conversation aimed at settling all of the world's outstanding issues. A fair bit into the conversation we encountered the Earnest One, a blogger who became "earnester" and "earnester" with the passage of time and the consumption of alcohol.

The bartender did not have our staying power and he soon fell by the wayside (and closed the bar down as he fell away) so Roger went to his room and retrieved two bottles of "tide-over" wines. I considered doing the same but I only had my one bottle of 2004 Togni which I had brought for the "Bring your own Bottle" festivities. I had not looked at the bottle since arriving in Spain as I had taken 4-hour delays at both Atlanta and Madrid and the suitcase-encased wine had pased that time on the tarmac. I did not want to know how it had fared. And I definitely did not want to find out in a small group. The anonymity of the BYOB setting seemed tailor-made for my first reveal (By the way, this wine was beautiful when I did open it at the BYOB.). But first I had to escape the earnest one as we were visiting Cune early in the morning.


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