You Could Win Tapena Wine!!

Raise your hand if you'd like to win some free wine. Perhaps that's a rhetorical question, because I don't know anyone who doesn't want free wine, especially good wine. With some help from the Tapeña group, I'm running a contest on this little corner of the internet. The winner of the contest will get a Tapeña party pack consisting of wine (duh!), a Spanish cookbook, corkscrew, those neat fridge magnets with words on them, and some other special goodies.

Now onto the legalese: By entering into this competition you are verifying that you're 21 years of age or older. You also verify that you're living in the 48 contiguous states.

Here's what I want to see from you:
1. Post a comment about Spanish wines and a favorite pairing to go with Spanish wines. That will get you one entry.
2. Post a recipe for tapas that is holiday-party themed, that'll get you two entries! Note: The recipe must be relatively simple and original, please don't cut/paste from a food magazine directly to this blog!
3. Submit a picture, via email, of some tapas you've cooked up, along with the recipe for me to post here. That will get you three entries. I'll then post the picture(s) and recipe(s) after I pick the winner.

Three ways to win, and on December 10th I will pick a winner using random.org and the corresponding entries I receive. All entries must be in by midnight Pacific time on December 9th.

To spread this competition to as many people as possible, anyone referring other wine lovers to this blog competition gets a bonus entry. The person referred must include the name of who referred them to this page in their entry.

I'm making this competition as easy as I can, yet still trying to retain a sense of fun and exploration for us all. I spent a week in Spain this past September and fell in love with the concept of tapas and the Spanish way of going from tapas bar to tapas bar, having a plate of tapas and a glass of wine at each. Call it a sophisticated twist on the British/American tradition of a pub crawl.

Some background will perhaps help to put this competition in the proper light. Tapeña group, the brainchild of the Ferrer house (they of Freixenet cavas), is a way of putting $10 Spanish wine onto American tables. The thing is, a lot of $10 Spanish wine is plonk, with too much oak and other manipulation that covers up what the grapes really are. Not so with the Tapeña wines, which come in four varieties; tempranillo, grenache, verdejo, and a rosado (rosé). All the grapes come from the middle of Spain, in the Tierra de Castilla region.

To learn more about the Tapeña wines, here are some helpful links:
The Website: http://tapenawines.com
Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/tapenawines
Twitter: @tapenawine
Tapeña Blog: http://blog.tapenawines.com
Tapeña Rewards program. Details online at: http://www.tapenarewards.com

I hope you'll join in this fun competition and be inspired but what other people create, as well as create a tapas recipe of your own. It's all in fun and you could very well win a few bottles of wine and a cool cookbook, to say the least. That and the bragging rights that go with winning such a highly prestigious competition..

Let the games begin!

These wines were sent as samples for review purposes.

Beau Carufel