Sunday in Espinosa

I was at the computer this morning when Manolo came in to get me. We walked to a nearby bodega which had long been his father´s, but which had come to Manolo last year and needed a new roof. My help was required to take the necessary measurements.

Manolo used a huge key to open the ancient wooden door. The outside of the bodega is rough adobe, the roof is tile on top of wood. Inside, big hand-hewn wood beams support the roof, but only indifferently. An adobe wall separates two big rooms, one several steps above the other; in the back of the upper the roof has collapsed into a pile of tiles and beams, letting the sun into the dark and dusty interior. Down a set of stairs is a vaulted cellar, smelling of age and mildew. There are several empty barrels, and a large rack of empty bottles. In one corner sit two big wooden basins filled with potatoes.

Manolo hooked one end of a measuring tape to a slot in the end of a stick, which he handed to me, and we proceeded to measure the dimensions of the two rooms. I held the stick over my head up to the rafters and cobwebs, and Manolo walked to the other end of the room and then wrote down the numbers. Along with a new roof, he plans to knock out the wall separating the two rooms, and to put in a new door and window.

There is little in the upper rooms—an old bird cage, a pile of onions gone to seed, stacks of chipped tiles. When I asked how he intended to use the space, Manolo said he didn´t, that the work was simply for “conservacion.” The merendero he´s also building will serve the family´s entertainment needs, but he doesn´t want the bodega to simply fall down—as many others in the village have.

After we had finished we walked around a corner into a street lined with more bodegas, where a sixtyish couple were outside one cutting weeds. When they saw Manolo they stopped and we all went into the open door of their bodega. They were friends of his, Trini and Miguel, who live in Santander. Trini comes from Espinosa, though, and they return sometimes on weekends to tend their bodega and drink their wine.

Inside, stairs led both down to a cellar and up to a cluttered room for cooking and eating and drinking. The whitewashed walls were festooned with old, cobwebby farm implements. A vinyl tablecloth was stapled to a wooden table, with a wooden bench along one side, a bench seat from a truck along the other. There was a fireplace in a corner, a long stack of wood along the wall.

Miguel went down to the cellar and came back up with an unlabeled bottle of red wine, which he opened. He put glasses on the table and dusted off the seats. Trini pulled a packet of cookies from a cupboard and put them on the table too. Manolo poured out the wine and said to me “angelica.” It´s sweet, he said, and it makes you happy and sleepy. I drank and it was sweet, and strong. Just the one glass had a substantial effect—and indeed a happy one. Soon I was in love with the friendly Trini and and talkative Miguel, though, I think I would´ve liked them regardless of the wine.

I pulled out my camera and took a few pictures, and then Miguel gestured for me to come with him down to the cellar and take some more. He showed me how they made the wine, starting at the top of the stairs, where a large vat was built into the floor. Here they would dump the grapes, and crush them with presses and by foot. When a drain was opened the juice would run down into a smaller basin in the wall of the stairwell, and from there down another drain into a pipe that led to a spigot at the bottom of the stairs; then rubber tubes connected to the spigot could be directed into one of the several big wooden barrels. A whole wall of full wine bottles attested to the success of this operation, which they undertake each October when the local grapes are harvested.

Back upstairs, Miguel eschewed a glass, instead pouring a copious amount of wine into a clear-glass receptacle that looked very much like a bong: wide round bottom, narrow neck, and a bowl sticking out from the side. This is a porron, and the bowl is actually a spout with a very tiny opening. Miguel held the porron over his head and tipped it, and a thin stream of wine squirted from the spout into his barely opened mouth. It looked easier than it probably was. Manolo laughed and said of the porron, “no me gusta,” referring it seemed not so much to the skill required as to the amount of wine so easily consumed. Even a single glass sent me home a bit loopy.

But I wasn´t done with wine drinking, not by a long shot it turned out. Being Sunday, more visiting was in order. Around the time we would usually eat the midday meal, Manolo and Montse put on nice clothes (Montse red pants, the other woman skirts and dresses), and we walked to one of the two bars in town, which was busy with other people dressed up to have a drink. We sat down at a table with their friends and a glass of wine was put in my hand. Numerous children ran in and out of the bar, standing for awhile beside their parents and consuming candy and chips and ice cream, their own means of dissipation. A white dish of green olives sat in the middle of the table, and a Formula One race played on the television. Everyone was intermittently interested because of the great Spanish driver Alonso.

I was quizzed about my Camino experience, my feet were particularly asked after, and then I was mostly ignored while they pursued their own topics. Soon someone went for a second round and another glass of wine appeared before me.

Eventually we all set out together, with three other couples and four children, walking slowly through the village. Towards home and food, I thought and hoped, but no (the thing is I often don´t know what´s going on, or what´s going to happen next). We ended up down by the basketball courts, which we crossed to enter a long rectangular building. Inside the floor was cement, the walls concrete blocks, the high ceiling sprayed with yellow fireproofing material. At one end was a counter behind which two young women were pouring our drinks. Manolo explained that this third bar was open only in summer, and wasn´t strictly legal. But apparently the authorities weren´t too concerned. Another round was soon purchased, and I began on my fourth glass of wine on this still young day.

Not until nearly four o´clock did we all leave the second bar; everyone ambled off in the direction of their own homes, calling out “hasta luego” to each other. Back at the house, Montse served me a huge portion of ensaladilla rusa and Manolo poured me yet another glass of red wine, from one of the three bottles Miguel had sent home with us. Segundo, Montse carved up a beautiful roast chicken and cut me another hunk of bread.

I had planned to write more after the meal, but instead I napped, or maybe passed out would be a more accurate term.