Arcadia Spain

The embedded excursion arranged for the course Gastronomy and Culture in Spain this semester consisted of a visit to the first wine museum in Spain: VINSEUM Museum, which first opened in 1945. This was followed by a visit to nearby Eudald Massana winery, where our students had the opportunity to taste local wines and local foods.

Located in Vilafranca del Penedès, the heart and capital of the well-known High Penedès wine producing region, one of the oldest in Spain, the museum hosts an extraordinary collection of artifacts related to vine cultivation and wine production in the area since antiquity; vine seeds dating from pre-Iberian times (7^th century b.C) from a nearby archaeological site are exhibited as well as a collection of Roman wine amphorae, among other priceless objects.

With an emphasis put on cultural, historical and technological issues, Vinseum’s storytelling guided Arcadia’s students through the life cycle of wine from its origins to the final tasting, learning about when the first wines were produced in the area, the wine making process, the evolution and innovation in wine making technologies, how the region overcame the phylloxera epidemic that devastated almost all the vineyards and how the region has adapted to meet consumers’ new demands.

After the museum, we headed to Celler Eudald Massana, a small winery amidst large extensions of vineyards. All wines and cavas produced here come from biodynamic agriculture and mostly made of local grape varieties. In the winery we walked around the vineyards, tasted the grapes and learned how they produce their wines and cavas in the cellar. A wine tasting with a brunch made up of local foods (extra virgin olive oil, cheese, ham, tortilla de patatas, tomato rubbed bread, escalibada, carquinyolis) was the perfect ending  to the field trip.