Wine tasting or brewery, is that the question?
What a complex choice and dilemma you have posed my friend @galenkp. To be honest I would choose both. Both wine and beer are two drinks that I associate with friendship and my friends enjoying endless conversations on weekends and holidays.
But since the question is to choose one over the other option, as Spain is a great wine producer and especially in the northern half, my choice is going to be wine tasting.
In the last few years, I have gone to both breweries and wineries where one can do a wine tasting and partly the choice of choosing wine tasting is because I have found a very natural environment in these wineries surrounded by vineyards and in many places with wonderful landscapes.
I remember with special affection the last tasting I did in Cambados (Galicia-Spain) in a prestigious winery with denomination of origin Rias Baixas called Martín Codax where apart from the tasting we could enjoy the different stages of the wine making process.
After a visit to the vineyards and the winery where the different wines are made, it was time to understand why I liked some white wines more than others thanks to the tasting of three types of wines with different ageing periods and different types of fermentation vats.
I learnt to educate my sense of smell, to smell the wine at a certain distance from the food and, depending on the aromas, to perceive, to begin to taste the wine with my eyes, perceiving its brightness and turbidities and to make wine tasting an art.
Another of the things I learnt through wine tasting is how to combine what kind of food goes best with each type of wine, which is called a good pairing.
Through the different tastings, I have been able to elaborate some striking appetizers in my romantic dinners accompanied with the right wine and in many occasions inspired by those appetizers that accompany the tastings that I have reproduced in the best possible way already at home.
In short, I'm looking forward to my next wine tasting, largely because of the good times I've had in my previous experiences.
Best regards and happy weekend.