Monday, 17/07/2023 (II): Weingut Hieronimi

Weinkeller Hieronimi - the building façade

It was our last day in Cochem and we still hadn’t had the chance to visit any of their wine bars. The shame!

I had bookmarked a few in my early research, but their strange timetables and ours didn’t quite seem to align.

However, after our kaffee und kuchen, we felt energised and determined to walk to this winery on the other side of the Mosel, crossing its imposing bridge, even if we weren’t quite sure of what to expect. Would it be open? Had it been open? Will it be open?

You can imagine what happened next: the place that websites and maps point you to was, in fact, shut.

But there was a sign inviting us to go round the corner and see… And when we went down the steps, we found a nice looking garden, but with a shut gate as well. Ahh! We would not be able to “take our shoes off and sip wine in the garden while the sun sets” as the owner of our hotel had described.

Although… we saw some people drinking wine under a canopy next door. It seemed to be part of the same wine bar, so we tentatively walked into the dark, cool space, and enquired: would it be possible to try out some wines?

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A visit to Bodegas Arráez (La Font de la Figuera, Valencia)

A glass of wine with white wine, and a "Y tú... ¿qué vida llevas?" label

We visited this winery on the same week that we went to Pago de Tharsys.

How often do you pack two winery visits in a week? Very rarely, I’d say! But it was really insightful as we still had the previous experience fresh in our minds, and it was easy to compare styles between the two.

There are plenty of similarities: both are based in the Valencia province. Both are inland, in mountainous areas, way above 500 m over sea level. They’re independent (not owned by a big group), and they offer various types of products, from entry level to premium wines.

Judging by that, you could expect the second visit to be predictable, samey, boring… but it couldn’t have been any more different!

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A visit to Pago de Tharsys

A glass of Pago de Tharsys Rosé cava. Bubbles are coming up from the bottom.

(Continuing our Requena trip – read part 1 here).

After our copious lunch, we walked, rather than taking a taxi, to the next stop in our journey: Pago de Tharsys, a winery.

I had initially tried to book a taxi to drive us there, but the driver that picked us in the morning swore that this would be a really nice and quiet walk, and it would be very good to help with the digestion after lunch.

The cross on the road to Pago de Tharsys
A road cross – maybe encouraging us to commend our destiny to God as we walked on the side of the road?
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