Spanish Wine Tasting in the Shelbourne

I don't go to many of these generic country tastings but I had three objectives going in to this one:
1. Find some new wines for the shop as the range needs some refreshing.
2. Maybe find a gem from the unrepresented wineries and bring some in for ourselves.
3. Get into town for a few pints afterwards.

I will start with objective No.2. I started tasting in this section and didn't find anything. In this situation, I would like to have the bottles left on a table, a list of prices and then, if I find something brilliant I could go and talk to the winery people. As always, however, the winery people understandably want to tell you about themselves and the wines and you get the whole spiel about fermentation techniques, pruning methods etc etc. I just want to taste 'n' go. anyway, I found it a bit underwhelming.

When I went out to taste with the many importers showing wine, I thought maybe the best wines have already been snapped up. Many good wines, too many to mention. Interesting wines from up and coming regions as well as the old favourites like Rioja and Ribera del Duero.
So, I found some real crackers of new wines at the value end, these will be in this week. That was Objective No. 1 sorted.

We will draw a discreet veil over Objective No.3, all I will say is that my colleague on this occasion is a VERY bad influence. We had dinner in Coppinger Row which we enjoyed. The wine list very disappointing so we stuck to beer.