This week there was a stand from the La Mancha Chamber of Commerce in the local Edeka supermarket. They were gauging opinions on a range food and drink from the La Mancha area to decide which would be worth importing to Germany.

In my opinion, it’s only worth importing things that you cannot already get as German-made products, as apart from maybe wine people are not going to buy things just because they come from Spain – they have to be something special to warrant the higher price.

There were sheep’s cheeses and goats’ cheeses and also a three-milk cheese. I found the bio-sheep and the bio-goat were the best ones as the had the most flavour. Sarah thought that the three-milk cheese was best – perhaps because it was the mildest. But there are lots of mild cheeses here already. If it was up to me, I would import the bio-cheeses first and expand the range from there.

The tapas were all sea-food based, so I didn’t try those at all. I think that is something more specialised, so maybe a good product to introduce to the German market, but I don’t know how much of a market there is for octopus rings in sauce.

The chocolate selections all tasted good, but the combination with almonds was slightly ahead. But why? I think maybe because it was closer to my German or English norm, so again, would it sell? I don’t think coming from Spain would be enough of a reason to buy it.

Finally the wine – from the Viñedos y Bodegas El Castillo in Villarrobledo.  The 2006 Chardonnay was definitely my favourite, followed by a blend of Merlot, Tempranillo and Cabernet Sauvignon. The pure Cabernet Sauvignon wasn’t really the sort of wine to drink on it’s own – maybe with a meal. I think all three wines would sell here, but unlike the other products there are already a lot of Spanish wines on the market here, so they’d still only be one brand among many.