Ziryab’s Wines
At Ziryab we select each and every wine personally – through numerous wine tastings to select the right wines for you! (yes, our job is very, very tough…. ). As a result, each wine has been thought through carefully, depending on what we think accompanies well the style of food we serve, and the kind of customers who walk through our doors. Our team includes several certified sommeliers, but all our waiters and waitresses are trained in serving wines and in recommending the best wine for your meal. The right wine depends on the day, the weather, the accompanying food and, of course, the company you are in!
Here is our current wine list (we change it every season to bring you new fresh wine selections!)
Some background for the more avid drinkers…
Catalan wines: Catalonia’s wine-making region is one that is sometimes underestimated among foreigners coming to Barcelona. It is, however, a land that makes fantastic wines and it’s a must to try some of its autochthonous varieties such as the Xarel.lo as a nice alternative to a regular Chardonnay, the citric fresh variety of Picapoll blanc, or the red varieties of Sumoll and Trepat. Garnatxa is a grape that is widely used in Catalan wines. It is also a region that is very experimental, much more than its somewhat more “classic” wine-growing Spanish neighbouring regions such as Rioja. They experiment a lot with different types of materials to age the wine in a way that will not influence the flavours too much (e.g. clay, cement, natural pools, storing under the sea, cool mountain caves, etc).
Wines from the Mediterranean: Ziryab has a growing selection of wines from all over the Mediterranean – some quite hard to come by in Barcelona. In fact, the Mediterranean marks the traditional route that the Phoenicians used to take when trading goods long before the Romans were doing it, and it is a little-known fact that the wine production tradition in the east of the Mediterranean (around where Lebanon lies today) dates back some 6000 years. We have chosen some fabulous wines from France, Italy, Lebanon and Morocco, to name a few…
Natural wines: we are now entering the world of natural wines! It’s a fabulous universe of flavours and really takes you back to the essence of wine-making: before we used additives, filtering, flavourings, oak ageing and other methods that affect the taste of the wine. Check out our blog post on natural wines to learn more on this topic, on the process of making natural wines, on the natural wine festivals you can go to and the natural wines you can try on our wine list!
Wine tasting: Try one of Ziryab’s tasting experience with paired wines! It is an amazing selection of combined flavours and textures, each tasting dish pairing perfectly with each of the 7 selected wines, and information cards about each wine and each pairing that you can take home with you. You can also give it as a gift voucher to a friend. A very special experience 🙂