Cheeseheads Unite!

Tetilla. Arzúa-Ulloa. Cebreiro. These three Galician cheeses literally and figuratively pale in comparison to the smoked San Simón da Costa cheese. For me, golden San Simón is the best Galician cheese. And dare I say my favorite Spanish cheese. Can't beat that smoky taste! And this year I finally got around to surrounding myself with the delicious cheese (and free samples) at its annual festival held in Vilalba, capital of the Terra Chá in the province of Lugo.

San Simón is a golden, tear-shaped cheese made from cow milk and smoked on birch wood. The cheese is preserved by the EU's  Protected Designation of Origin. Meaning if it's not made within the town limits of Vilalba with cows from the Terra Chá (as well as a series of other requirements), well then it just isn't San Simón da Costa. In Galician and Spanish the abbreviation of Protected Designation of Origin is DOP, initials you can find stamped on wines and cheeses. Galicia alone has the four aforementioned DOP cheeses and five DOP wines.

The Big Cheese

This year I was once again on the fence about attending the Cheese Festival because of the weather. April showers bring May flowers, and the first weekend of April this year was gloomy. But then I recalled what some local friends had told me my first year here: If you put off plans because of the rain, in Galicia you'll never have plans. So off we went, and I'm glad we did. Plus the weather held up! 

We arrived shortly after lunchtime as the stands were just starting to reopen. It turns out there are less than 10 authorized San Simón cheesemakers, so other cheeses were also present. In fact, there were cheeses from around Spain and even other countries such as France, Portugal, and Switzerland. While cheese was obviously the star of the show, there were also stands with honey, deli meats, plants, and miscellaneous products. There was also a representative from the European Cheese Route, an organization which tries to connect local DOP cheeses and tourism. At that stand we did a little quiz trying out seven cheeses from around Spain.

Carlos Blanco

The opening speech further enticed us to brave the rain clouds. This year's pregoeiro (town crier?) was Carlos Blanco, a well-known Galician comedic actor. He got his break on a TVG (Galician TV) show and now does stand up. We spotted him browsing the stalls before the speech, and asked for a picture. One of the highlights of his speech was that as a child he always wondered why it was called San Simón da Costa, being from Vilalba. ¨Where's the coast?¨ (Apparently, it's because that tiny hamlet of San Simón is where the Terra Chá [literally flat earth] starts to go upwards and get hilly. Costa in Galician means both slope and coast) He also read some opening speeches that AI had prepared for them and honestly it was creepy how poetic they were and also how much AI knows about San Simón cheese. 

After a few hours circling the stands, hearing the opening comments, and having a drink, we left for home, with our own San Simón cheese in hand. I chose Catadoiro because I'd never seen it in grocery stores and also because the owners/cheesemakers just seemed sweet. I must have good taste, because the brand came in second in a Spanish taste test in the category of smoked cheese. Catadoiro Calidade!

White, White Wine ♪

Albariño may get all the fame and glory, but there's more than one Galician white wine with a certificate of origin. Ribeiro is often a cheaper option, perhaps due to its lack of celebrity on the wine circuit. Albariño is sweeter, but Ribeiro has nothing to be ashamed of! In fact, I often order it when I'm out partly because it's less expensive.

I mention all this because recently in Ribadavia I attended my third wine festival (after Chantada's  fair and Cambados' Albariño fest). Over 35 wineries proudly offered their fermented grape juice. The blind tasting was the fastest (and cheapest!) way to try some Ribeiro. It was held in an old stone church converted into a social center. For 5€ you could try 11 or 13 white wines, from small family wineries or larger companies respectively. We didn't really think things through, and got a different ticket each. So 10€ to try 24 white wines. The servings were quite generous, too. Not that we finished them all. Only the top 10 (or 15). Needless to say, I won't be ordering Ribeiro any time soon.

After the wine tasting, we didn't last long. There was a weird dj playing in the fairgrounds. I guess I just hadn't had enough wine to fully enjoy/understand it. We had brought our tent to go camping afterwards, but in the tourist office they said there were no campgrounds within walking distance. They told us for one night to just camp in a park on the outskirts of town. And that we did, right next to a short rushing waterfall.

We packed up and moved out early the next morning. Early for Galicia on a Sunday, at least. On the way home we stopped at the Pozas of Melón. Galicia is full of rivers that have pools sectioned-off naturally by boulders, called pozas. We explored this one on our own, as no one else was around before noon. A shady trail accompanied the river and its waterfalls, while some boulders within the river provided the perfect place to sun ourselves and get some more sleep.

All of that Ribeiro wine, however, didn't make me forget what had originally brought us to the region. On Friday we had gone to O Carballiño, the biggest town within the origin-certified Ribeiro wine region. Despite the fact that less than 15,000 people live there, it has a huge, modern cathedral. Unexpected! The town also has a great riverside walk and park. There was a rock atop a hill dedicated to lovers. Unfortunately, it would seem that for years people have been professing their undying love on it via graffiti. Nearby there was a mill museum that looked promising, but it was closed.

Here O Carballiño is synonymous with octopus. Octopus...so far from the coast? Apparently 50 years ago when the town's annual octopus fair started, octopus was a dish for poor people. It was seen as a nuisance caught in the fishers' nets. How times change! Now this dish represents not only O Carballiño, but Galicia as a whole. Therefore, prices have gone up. But Carballiño is so well-known for its octopus that one must wonder: If you visited Carballiño without having octopus, did you even visit there at all? I guess we'll just have to go back.

Feira do Viño de Chantada

I am going to have to find more Galician traditions if I plan to stick around, because in March I checked another thing off my list of Galician things to do: a wine festival! Surely they have such traditions in other parts of Spain, but since Galicia is known for it's gastronomy and wine regions, this is an essential Galician activity.

Chantada is a big village in Lugo, smack dab in middle of the Ribeira Sacra, a wine region cultivated since Roman times. Buses from Lugo are scarce (public transportation is my biggest solvable complaint about Lugo/Galicia), so my friend and I were set to spend over 8 hours there; arriving before noon and leaving at 7. At first this was daunting, because if we got bored of the town there was no way home early. I brought cards just in case, but in the end that wasn't necessary. For March it was a surprisingly sunny and warm day. Qué suerte! Obviously since we got there in the morning it was too early for wine so we stopped in a café. Afterward, it still felt too early so we strolled the little market stands selling food, clothes, accessories, and typical Galician products. It was bigger than we had imagined, I thought it was just going to be the wine stands and little else. But of course I had to know that the market salespeople would bring their wares to such an occasion!

At the ¨appropriate¨ time for wine (when is that, exactly?) we started by purchasing a wineglass complete with neck strap. At first we looked pretty geeky, but later realized how handy they were! Then with a standing lunch, we started sampling. You could get a glass of red (Mencía) or white (Ribeiro) for 2-3€. About 10 wineries had their stands under the main tent. They weren't normal stands, but giant, hollowed-out barrels. Nice touch! Over the course of the afternoon I have no idea how many wines we sampled. We started with some reds, but then I remembered I don't even really like red, and Galician whites are so delicious. The community band entertained with movie soundtracks and my new friend and I bonded over our first wine fest experience, among other things. We didn't feel the need to befriend other festivalgoers, although everyone was friendly and merry. There was even a free wine judging, where you sampled 20 different brands and voted on them. This started later in the afternoon, and neither of us actually finished. Too many reds. But never too much wine.