Finding Foresta

"Number 16 is just a house. It sits at the end of a paved street, just across from a patch of gnarled vines, the only hint that I’ve arrived at a vineyard. In fact, I’ve toured the two-street town twice already searching for it. I’m here for the tour of Foresta, a small winery tucked away in the tiny village of L’Arboçar, which sits deep in the heart of Catalunya’s wine-making region, D.O. Penedès, midway between the mountains and the sea. Like the town it sits in, it’s a micro-operation indeed. A few French oak barrels and two small steel fermentation tanks are housed in the garage, and there’s a small artichoke patch around back. It’s not what you’d expect of a vineyard, but in a region of small production, family-owned vineyards, it’s not unusual either."

Read more at Avina.

Alta Alella

"From the top of the hill, you can see the Mediterranean sparkling on the horizon. Clusters of fat bees are bobbing and weaving, drunk on the nectar of the yellow wildflowers they’re inspecting. An incessant warble of birdcall trills overhead carried by the constant breeze that blows up from the sea. We are standing at the top of the amphitheatre, as they call it here at Alta Alella, the u-shaped set of terraces which hold the majority of the vineyard’s experimental vines. My tour guide, Matilde, has brought me up here for a quick look of Alella’s operation, but we’re so entranced by the view that neither of us really wants to leave. We linger a little longer, me making up questions I didn’t have on my list, her telling me little stories about the work and her life before arriving at the vineyard. We wave to a neighbor on his morning walk along the public path that runs along the property’s back fence."

Read more at Avina

On Dancing

"We're on a photo shoot for a magazine article I'm writing, but we're having trouble keeping our efforts serious. So many of the photos are rendered unusable because Anna's laughing, her wide smile pulling her eyes closed, the images mostly out of focus. The article is a cultural piece about espadrilles, or espardenyas, as they're known here in Catalunya. Although I haven't quoted her in the article, I probably should have, because Anna owns more espardenyas than anyone I know. Most of them are worn with age, the way her point shoes are, a mark of love and dedication. Luckily the light is falling and the dirt scuffs are muddled by the shadows that fall over the small corner of Parc de la Ciutadella where we're shooting. There's something about the overgrown building and the chipping paint and Anna's dirt-scuffed shoes that creates a kind of poetic trifecta."

Read more at Kita

Yoga Weeks

Yoga Weeks is a studio in the heart of the Raval neighborhood of Barcelona which offers week-long yoga courses for those who also want to explore the urban side of life in the city. In the latest story at Kita Collective, you can read all about the Yoga Weeks project and how co-founder Ana Puig changed her life through yoga. 

Read more at Kita 

Grassroots: The Espadrille

"La Manual Alpargatera is also the favourite espadrille shop of Àngeles Ortega, owner of Foodie Experience Barcelona, a local cooking school situated nearby. When teaching visitors about local culture, she regularly espouses the shoe’s virtues and sends curious clients to the shop. She appreciates the shoe for its simplicity, aesthetics and, particularly, its roots. 'I enjoy the poetry of an object that comes from such humble origins,' she explained, referring to the shoe’s beginnings as footwear for peasants. She admires them for being what she calls ‘survivors’—a shoe whose simplicity, function and form have helped it to both maintain its identity and to grow and evolve into something new."

Read more at Metropolitan