Wine on a School Trip?

June 3, 2023

    I have been looking forward to this day the entire trip! We get to go Toledo. I feel like I knew what to expect due to my research powerpoint being on this city! I was so excited to see the areas that I taught about in class. Along the route to Toledo, we stopped at a wine vineyard known as Bodegas y Viñedos. This was one of the coolest experiences ever. I had no clue how wine was made, but we were able to get a tour explaining to us the entire process. The facilities were so advanced; everything was done by a machine as the vineyard only has fourteen employees. At this vineyard, they process the wine with all the branches and leaves. This shocked me. I thought that the grapes were bare when wine is made. Our guide took us through all the machinery, and even to the bottling area. This is exactly what I imagine a high tech factory looks like. It was so clean and perfectly organized (a type A person's dream). One thing I have always been curious about is what the date on a wine bottle means. I finally got the answer to my curiosity today. The date comes from the harvest year of the grapes, and it can be used to tell how long a wine has been aged. After our tour, I got to experience my first wine tasting ever. It exceeded my expectations! We all stood around a table with three glasses in front of us as well as meats/cheeses. The lady giving us the tour showed us how to properly taste wine which uses smell, sight, and of course taste. We tried a white wine, a red wine, and a moscato! My favorite was the white wine, and I decided to bring some back for my mom to taste. Between each glass of wine, we would cleanse our palette with breadsticks. The vineyard looked like something out of a magazine, and this taste testing made me appreciate wine so much more. Paying close attention to the aromas and tastes makes wine so much better. 

    After our wine tasting, we hopped back on the bus in route to Toledo. Because my presentation was done on Toledo, I was really excited to see this site. The city architecture was jaw dropping. Toledo was so much better than the pictures. History can be seen through every street with the original buildings and cobblestone roads. We got a tour of the city, and then got to see the beautiful cathedral. The cathedral is most likely the second most expensive in the world with all of the gold it contains. Being in the building, I could feel the presence of it being a holy place. Overall, Toledo exceeded my expectations because of the beauty that no picture can capture. 

This beautiful structure is made out of pure gold, silver, and 
elaborate jewels! This was in the Toledo Cathedral, and next week (Corpus
Christi holiday) this massive structure is paraded through the streets.

Our beautiful tasting setup for our wine tasting! Once
in a lifetime experience!

This label is what made me ask about the date on bottles of wine.
I was curious what 2019 (on the label) meant for the wine process!