Barcelona, Spain is home to many wonderful, amazing things. Balmy beaches. Catalan food. Fantastical buildings created by the famous architect, Gaudi. Spanish wine. Ancient, winding, narrow streets. Tapas. Towering Gothic churches. Catalan food, tapas, …. and Spanish wine.
Ok, maybe we were a tiny bit biased. We were mostly looking forward to the food and wine in Barcelona. Can you blame us? But for all of our excitement about delicious Catalan food and tapas, we didn’t know much about the wine in Barcelona. If you’d asked us about Spanish wine, we probably would have shrugged and said something about Sangria, maybe a vague offhand mention of Cava (isn’t that like …Champagne?), nothing at all about Vermouth, and certainly not been able to name a single grape grown in Spain.
As it turns out, we aren’t the only ones under-informed about the wine in Spain. Although Spain is the 3rd largest producer of wine in the entire world – behind only France and Italy – Spanish wine isn’t heavily exported, and as a result, the world has a severe lack of appreciation and knowledge about the wine in Spain.
Enter Devour Barcelona: a Barcelona food tour company determined to change the under-appreciation of wine in Spain. We eagerly accepted the opportunity to join the Barcelona Tapas & Wine Tasting Tour, which conveniently combined all of our favorite things about Barcelona in one fantastic Barcelona food tour: Catalan food, tapas, and Spanish wine.
If your mouth is already watering thinking about Catalan food and wine, check out some of these awesome Barcelona food tours:
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Hey, looking for more awesome things to do during your trip to Barcelona? We’ve got a fantastic self-guided walking tour of Barcelona that makes an excellent and inexpensive way to spend a full day exploring the Gothic Quarter & surrounding neighborhoods.
Exploring Barcelona’s ancient Gothic Quarter, with its impossibly narrow winding pedestrian-only alleyways.
The Devour Barcelona food tour takes place at night, which is a nice departure from the typical food tour because you can sort of pretend you’re out with a group of friends instead of very obviously a tourist on a Barcelona food tour.
We met at a small, family run bar called Bodega La Puntual in the heart of Barcelona’s Gothic district. I’m assuming this is a cute little joke made by Devour Barcelona to subtly remind its guests to arrive on time: “puntual” translates to “punctual.”
Although yours truly was, as always, insanely punctual (fine, maybe “as always” is a stretch, and perhaps “insanely” is a bit much, but we did arrive slightly early this time, so I think we can get SOME credit) one of our poor fellow Barcelona food tour goers was apparently wandering through the streets of Barcelona either enjoying the views or just helplessly lost (maybe both).
As we waited, we got to know the other 2 members of our Barcelona food tour (huge kudos to Devour Barcelona for keeping their food tours small – 10 people is their maximum!) and our tour guide.
It has nothing to do with wine, but you can’t leave Barcelona without seeing the incredible Sagrada Familia Basilica built by the eccentric Spanish architect Gaudi. Like you actually can’t.. Not that it’s a law, but it should be.
Our guide for the evening’s tour, Fintan, was a quick-talking Brit from Manchester who, like every other English person we’ve ever met, has a fantastic sense of humor. He also happens to be a sommelier currently studying Spanish wine in sommelier school. Apparently being a sommelier is a thing for Barcelona food tour guides: here’s another food tour also run by a Michelin-starred sommelier! Crazy, right?
Anyway, it turns out that our guide used to be in sales, before he casually strolled into a little wine shop in Barcelona one night, sipped some Spanish wine, and immediately decided to quit his sales job to become an expert in Spanish wine instead (I’m paraphrasing somewhat, but the point here is: the wine in Spain is, apparently, THAT good).
Fintan takes sommelier classes by day and leads food tours for Devour Barcelona by night. In addition to being a living advertisement for wine in Spain, he was incredibly knowledgeable and gave us the sort of detailed, specific information about wine in Spain that you can only get by studying for long hours and doing a lot of drinking and spitting-out of wine during final exams.
At some point during our introductions, some tempting-looking glasses of delicious smelling, very dark amber-colored wine appeared quietly in front of us. It was sweet Vermouth: an aperitif made from wine.
You may have heard of Vermouth for its use in martinis; that’s dry vermouth, and it’s clear. Sweet Vermouth is a whole different thing: tantalizingly spiced and sweetened to perfection with brown sugar, it’s wine like we’ve never had it before. All Vermouth is made somewhat differently, as each Vermouth creator is able to use their own choice of herbs and botanicals to create the flavor he or she desires. Sweet Vermouth is not just for use in cocktails: a classic Barcelona wine, Vermouth is traditionally sipped straight, with ice.
Our glass was served with a wedge of orange and a salty stuffed olive. The pairing was heavenly.
Delicious sweet Vermouth is traditionally drunk straight in Spain, with a salty olive and an orange as garnish. We enjoyed this along with other Spanish wines on the Devour Barcelona wine tasting and tapas food tour!
At this point our missing Barcelona food tour member showed up, full of apologies. It seems she had, indeed, been both helplessly lost and enjoying herself to the fullest (wander the narrow streets of Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter and you will be, too). More introductions were made, and it turns out that all of us were from the United States and thus mainly based our wine knowledge and preferences mostly off of Napa and Trader Joe’s 2 buck chuck. Not one of us knew anything about wine in Spain. Thankfully, we were all incredibly eager to learn.
Our glass of sweet, spiced Vermouth was served with the food tour’s first delicious plate of Barcelona food: a smoky, spicy rendition of the popular Tapa, Patatas Bravas. Fintan explained that this dish translates to “Brave Potatoes” because when properly made, the dish should be spicy, and thus to eat it one must be brave. We mustered up our courage and dug in. It was fantastic.
Foodie Tip: Patatas Bravas are one of those can’t-miss classic Barcelona foods that you absolutely have to eat when visiting Barcelona. Read more about essential Barcelona cuisine!
Papas Bravas is a typical tapas dish that can be found all over Spain. We enjoyed wine tasting and tapas on our Devour Barcelona food tour!
Our next little Tapas plate featured another famous Barcelona food: a Spanish croquette. A Spanish croquette is a little fried oval, crunchy on the outside and creamy on the inside (they reminded us of the bitterbollen we’d enjoyed in Denmark).
This particular croquette was filled with bechemel sauce and acorn-fed Iberico ham (apparently, this is a far more expensive feed that produces a nuttier tasting ham; we found lots of signs specifically calling out “acorn-fed” versus regular Iberico in the Barcelona food markets).
A glass of smoky red Spanish wine on the Devour Barcelona wine tasting and tapas food tour!
The History of Wine in Spain
As we happily munched our Spanish croquette tapas, Fintan gave us a little bit of background on the history of wine in Spain. Like other countries in Europe that are known for their excellent alcohol productions – beer in Belgium, for example – it’s the Catholic Church that’s to thank.
It sounds a little counter-intuitive, but it’s true!
Spain was first inhabited by the Romans, who loved their wine but weren’t particularly interested in its quality. Then they were inhabited by the Moors, who were Muslim and outlawed all forms of alcohol, even shitty table wine.
Finally came the Catholic Church, and that’s where the wine in Spain as we knew it today really flourished. The Catholic Church was instrumental in funding and encouraging the development of wine production. It’s mainly thanks to the Monks, living in Monasteries.
What do you do with a bunch of bored men living together in the middle of nowhere who are forbidden from doing … well, most things? Why, you let them drink!
The Monks, being literate, devoted themselves to crafting, studying, and improving the production of wine (and beer, and other spirits). It’s because of them that we have the knowledge that we do today, and the best quality alcohol is still often made in Monasteries to this day. Thanks, Monks!
Sparkling Cava is a Spanish wine that is similiar to Champagne. We sampled it along with several other Catalan wines on the Devour Barcelona wine tasting and tapas tour.
Catalan Wine… and Cava!
Filled with Catalan food, tapas, and Vermouth, we donned our coats to head through the brightly lit narrow streets of Barcelona’s Gothic Quarter to our next destination, a Catalan wine bar. This bar serves only Catalan wine, meaning wine produced in the Catalonia wine region in Spain, and typically made with traditional Catalan grapes. For more information about wine tasting in Catalonia, here’s an excellent guide on Catalonia’s Emporda wine region from Savored Journeys.
The most famous Catalan wine is Cava: a sparkling white Spanish wine that can only be made in Spain, like Prosecco in Italy or Champagne in France. Cava, like Papas Bravas, is named in the very literal Spanish way: cava means cave in Spanish. You need a cave, or cellar, to make wine. Thus, Cava. Brilliant! Can we use these naming conventions on our future kids? I’m going to name them Financial Stability and Intimacy.
We were given 2 glasses of bubbly, chilled Cava to taste, and a challenge: to identify the difference between the 2 glasses of Spanish wine.
First, of course, we learned a little bit about Cava and how it is produced (and we all gave a silent prayer to the patron saint Monk of sparkling wine, Dom Perignon).
Although the 2 glasses of Cava we had in front of us were both made from the same kind of grapes, they had been aged for different lengths of time, and tasted completely different!
We paired our bright, crisp sparkling Cava with a heavenly, crunchy tostada tapas topped with fresh pesto, mozzarella, eggplant, and caramelized onions. I slightly died and went to heaven.
Crunchy tostadas in a Catalan wine bar in Barcelona on the Devour Barcelona wine tasting and tapas tour.
Our next glass of Catalan wine was a sweet, flowery Rose – this one wasn’t planned, but the bottle just so happened to be open and the bartender thought of us. Or, rather, he thought of Fintan, who is as charming as he is knowledgeable about wine, and has – in between becoming a sommelier and leading Devour Barcelona food tours – also apparently managed to become besties with every bartender in Barcelona.
The rose was a lovely surprise and just so happened to pair excellently with our next plate of delicious Spanish food: another crispy tostada tapas, this one topped with jam, sliced apples, and soft creamy cheese.
Wine Tasting in a Barcelona Wine Bodega
After we finished our 4th glass of Spanish wine, we all stumbled gracefully glided back out to the street to head to our third and final location for the night: a bodega, a typical Barcelona wine shop.
Unlike the wine shops that we’re used to in the USA, Barcelona wine shops are both markets and places to gather and socialize, with tables in the back populated by chatting locals sipping glasses from opened bottles of Spanish wine purchased from the shelves lining the store.
It was here in this very wine shop that our intrepid Barcelona food tour guide Fintan decided to quit his job and become a sommelier – over a glass of Spanish wine and a chat with the bartender, of course. (They’re besties.)
The front of the wine shop is dominated by wine barrels containing bargain priced wine and Vermouth. The selection changes every day, as the barrels contain a mix of whatever was left at the very bottom of a barrel or bottle.
It’s like the Barcelona wine version of 2 buck chuck, except with none of the fuss of bottling and labeling, which leaves the cost at roughly 2 cents a liter! You can purchase an unlabeled bottle of wine or vermouth straight from the barrel, which of course we did (you know it’s gotta be that good good when it’s unlabeled).
On the night of our visit, there was a barrel of “black” table wine that smelled like wood and smoke, a delicious Vermouth, and a few barrels containing only wine from specific regions in Spain.
The wine in Spain is demarcated strictly by region, and each wine region has various regulations that are strictly adhered to. Most of the wine in Spain is typically sold according to region … which makes sense if you happen to know everything about the Spanish wine growing regions and the varietals of grapes from each area, but is very confusing if you’re literally everyone else in the world.
We headed into a special private VIP room set up just for us, with a gorgeous arrangement of pica pica: we don’t mean the noise that Pikachu makes in the Pokemon TV show, but actually an arrangement of little plates of Spanish food to nibble on, like manchego cheese, cured meat, and fresh olives. It’s different than tapas, I suppose, because you assemble it yourself.
Over our little plates of finger food – a typical setup for a night of drinking wine in Barcelona – and a glass of Monsant wine (a regional wine in Spain) Fintan regaled us with the ridiculous tale of the Ah, So wine opener.
The Ridiculous Tale of the Ah, So Wine Opener
“Ah, So” is only one of the nicknames for this infamous little German wine opener. It’s others nicknames are “Waiter’s Friend” and “Butler’s Thief.” But “Ah, So” is the best one, because it’s a bit of German humor: its name derives from its appearance.
It does not look like a wine opener. It looks sort of like a tool that might be used for sticking someone’s eyes out, or possibly some kind of idiotic decorative topping for a cake.
When you see it, you have no idea what purpose it could possibly be for. Then, someone demonstrates to you how it works, and you say, “Ah! So, that’s what it’s for!”
Everyone applaud Germany for this brilliant little practical joke, which has surely been used for centuries at awkward dinner parties.
After our own “Ah, so” moment (seriously you guys, it works every time. If you’re a fan of dad jokes and wine, you need to buy one of these immediately) Fintan explained to us the origin of its far more nefarious nicknames. The tool is used for gently removing a cork from a bottle of wine without damaging the cork at all – it leaves no mark and no trace, and what’s more, you can even re-cork the bottle (carefully) if you like. This is a lifesaver for the inept like me, who can split a cork into a million wine-soaked pieces just by looking at it.
It’s also a nifty tool if you’re looking to steal a swig from a bottle without anyone noticing, or – according to ancient legend – sneakily empty a bottle of fancy wine, replace it with a cheap table wine, and then sell it at full price to some poor sucker who can’t tell his notes of oak from his notes of shitty table wine.
Ah, so THAT’S what it’s used for.
The “Ah, So” wine opener is also called the “Butler’s Thief.” It opens a bottle of wine without leaving a mark on the cork – brilliant if you’re clumsy…. or stealing! It makes a great show and tell moment at a dinner party, too.
5 Glasses of Spanish Wine Later…
As the night wore on, the table gradually cleared of pica pica. Our little group of Devour Barcelona food tour participants had grown closer over the course of the night (thanks in no small part to the generous purveyors of Barcelona wine) and our conversation and laughter flowed like the wine in Spain – that is to say, lots of it.
It’s moments like these, filled with laughter and local food and wine, that remind us why we love going on food tours so much. It’s also at this point of the night that the copious notes I take on all of our food and wine tours start to get a little fuzzy, with less organized bullet points and more random nonsensical phrases. For example, there’s this gem:
“Box of wine: after you drink, blow up bag for a pillow.”
Yes. That is what I wrote down. I’m not sure if it was just a joke I found hilarious, or an extreme penny-pinching tip, but there you have it. Enjoy.
After what I can only imagine was a rousing discussion on the merits of boxed wine pillows, it was time for dessert.
We were given a delicious Spanish dessert wine, the color of light amber, with notes of caramel, syrup, fig, and brown sugar. To pair it with, a Marcona almond (one of our favorite native Spanish foods!) covered with caramel and chocolate. It was pure bliss.
Happy and full, we stumbled the 2 blocks back to our AirBnb. It was the perfect Barcelona food tour, complete with delicious Catalan food, an incredibly informative (and funny) guide, and of course, copious amounts of Spanish wine.
Practical Information about the Devour Barcelona Food Tour
We highly recommend Devour Barcelona food tours. From the small, intimate size of the group, to the selection and quality of the Spanish wine and delicious Barcelona food, to our incredibly knowledgeable guide, Devour Barcelona hit all the marks that we look for in a great food tour! Devour Barcelona offers several varieties of Barcelona Food tours, all of which focus on delicious Barcelona food.
Our tour, the Barcelona Tapas & Wine Tasting Tour, is the perfect fit for a wine connoisseur (or just your average lush, like us) looking to learn more about Spanish wine while eating plenty of Barcelona food and tapas.
- Website: Devour Barcelona Food Tours
- Tour Name: Barcelona Tapas & Wine Tasting Tour
- What You Get: 3 hours of exploring Barcelona by night guided by a local English-speaking expert, enough Spanish wine to get you comfortably drunk, several plates of heavenly Barcelona food and tapas, a Barcelona travel guide with local recommendations and tips, and a Barcelona wine Guide to help you continue boozing it up throughout your stay in Barcelona.
- Price: €85
There are also some other great food tour options in Barcelona:
- Hidden Gems: Historic Barcelona Market and Foodie Walk
- Old Barcelona Tour, Boqueria Market & Cooking Workshop
- Craft Beer Tour and Tasting in Barcelona
Hey, looking for more awesome things to do during your trip to Barcelona? We’ve got a fantastic self-guided walking tour of Barcelona that makes an excellent and inexpensive way to spend a full day exploring the Gothic Quarter & surrounding neighborhoods.
If your check-in and check-out times don’t sync up with your need to roam the streets and you need a place to store your bags check out LuggageHero, a service that helps you find a safe place to keep your luggage while you’re running around! Use the code PRACTICALW for 2 hours of free luggage storage on us.
What delicious Spanish food is your mouth watering for? Drop us a comment below!
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Disclaimer: We enjoyed the Barcelona Wine Tasting and Tapas food tour as guests of Devour Barcelona. All opinions, inaccurate tasting notes, bad jokes, and anecdotes are our own.
Psst – looking for more fantastic suggestions on what to do in Barcelona? One Week In Barcelona has got you covered with insider tips for visiting Barcelona from a local’s perspective. And here’s another guide to the best things to do in Barcelona from Travel With Me 24/7. If you need a place to stay, Travelling King has a guide to where to stay in Barcelona and It’s All Bee also has a guide to where to stay in Barcelona. Wanting romantic things to do in Spain, check out this guide from Karolina Patryk. Just passing through Barcelona, see how to plan the perfect 2 weeks in Europe or 1-month Europe travel itinerary, and how to explore Barcelona during a Norwegian Mediterranean cruise.
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The Barcelona Tapas & Wine Tasting Tour sounds pretty great. I definitely need someone to tell me what’s good! 🙂 Love the story of the “Ah, So” tool. Other benefit of a tour- good jokes and funny stories.
We agree! We can always eat our way around a city on our own (frankly, we always do) but having a tour guide to fill you in on the history, culture, jokes and anecdotes – plus direct you to the best of the best – makes the experience feel so much more complete.
Aw man, I was already hungry and craving wine before reading this and now my cravings are so much worse! haha Great photos and info! Also, the Gothic Quarter looks like such an intriguing place to wander! I’d love to check it out whenever I get to Spain!
It’s absolutely gorgeous! You can get lost just wandering around for hours and hours. If you like wine you def need to take a trip to Spain!
Wow – what a delicious way to explore Barcelona! The ““Box of wine: after you drink, blow up bag for a pillow.” cracked me up as it sounds very Australian! Back home cases or boxes or wine are colloquially named “goon sacks” due to the silver/aluminium sack inside – and I have actually seen people use them as pillows! 🙂
That’s hysterical! You all are definitely onto something. Clearly we’ll have to go out and buy a box of wine to test it out for pillow-ability.
Such interesting tidbits…love the cork that doesn’t leave a mark. I would love to try it out. I always mangle a cork getting it out! LOL! We have had the pleasure of visiting Spain, but we started in Madrid and went south. OH, how I want to go back and visit Barcelona!
I totally mangle my corks too, LOL. We had a whole trip planned in Spain but ended up only being able to see Barcelona, so we both need to go back!
As I am addicted to sugar I love the sound Sweet Vermouth, I’d never heard of Vermouth before but I’ll look out for it now when I am in need of sugar. The British guide, Fintan, living and working in Barcelona must be having a great time. The good thing about trying all the wine is that you always leave the tour happy and of course the free blow up pillow, lol.
Sweet Vermouth is right up your alley if you like sugar! (Un)Fortunately the quality of wine was a little bit higher than boxed wine on this tour, so we did not get a free blow up pillow, lmao. Just plenty of delicious food and yummy Spanish wine!
SUPER! For a food and wine enthusiast like myself, this is wonderful news. I was aware of Spanish wine having tasted it a few times, but didn’t know “history” behind it. Food tours have come up in a big way over the last few years and I think that is so amazing because food is such a great way to experience and understand different cultures. Spain is quite big on its food and this looks – brilliant photos – and sounds drool worthy.
Thank you! We’ve become total food tour addicts, we look for a new food tour everywhere we go. It’s just such a fantastic way to learn about local food, culture, and history while getting to enjoy the most delicious local food and drinks.
If I wasn’t leaving Barcelona tomorrow, i would be booking this tour! After 3.5+ weeks here I can say that I have drank my fair share of cava and sangria as well as feasting on patatas bravas. Although good ones can be hard to find!
Ah I’m so jealous that you’re still in Spain! Make sure to take a look at the Devour Spain website, they have tours all over the country (not just Barcelona) that I’m sure are every bit as wonderful as the one we experienced!
You photos are just perfect! I feel like going to Spain right now!! I’m a foodie and I love Spanish food and this post just left me mouthwatering. The wines are a good mention as well! I never looked up food tours in Spain/Barcelona, thanks for the link!
You had me at hello. I mean seriously who doesn’t love Tapas? You have however highlighted my woefully inadequate (until now!) knowledge of Spanish wine lol. Might be time to plan another trip to Barcelona I think!
We knew nothing about Spanish wine either 😡 oops! But now we at least know enough to distinguish between our Vermouth and our Cava! I still couldn’t rattle off the different regions or regional grapes but hey, you have to save something for the next trip, right?
Oh your photos have made me hungry and desperate for some cava! Thankfully we get a fair amount of wonderful Spanish wine here in Australia.
This tour looks amazing. So jealous that we didn’t do this when we were in barcelona. Another activity to add to my list of wonderful things to do.
You’re so lucky to have plenty down there! It’s a little harder to find in the USA, but there are a few options. You’ll have to check out the Devour Spain tours next time you come back to Spain!
I have bookmarked your page. I am off to visit Barcelona in April for 5 days with my wife and son and can’t wait. I have heard Barcelona is such a cultured and beautiful architectural masterpiece. Your pics are lovely,especially the one strolling through Barcelona’s ancient Gothic Quarter. It’s such a quaint picture! Thanks for sharing!
Thank you Raymond! You’ll have a blast in Barcelona in April. The weather should be nice and warm by then 🙂 Don’t miss out on the Sagrada Familia Basilica, the Gothic Quarter (every street is just as lovely as that one) and of course, a food tour with Devour Barcelona!
Sounds like a tour worth signing up. Brits are usually humorous our guide at Scotland was funny too.We are going to Barcelona this year for 3 days and taking a food tour is on the cards 🙂
I am sitting here in Morocco with a bit of an upset stomach yet this still has me drooling! I like Spanish food so much when done well and I think food tours are such a great way to explore a culture through its cuisine. Especially the croquettes sound amazing as I too like bitterballen but filled with ham?! Yum!!
Yess the croquettes are so delicious! I totally agree, Annika!
Thanks for the awesome post. Spanish wine is definitely way underrated and a great bargain there or here. Barcelona is the most amazing city, tying with New Orleans for favorite-city-status for me! I can’t wait to go back!