Frequency: Monthly: normally 2nd Thursday at 17:30 for 18:00
Venue: Hill Top Bar & Grill, Calle Móstoles, Moraira
Group Leaders: Brian and Pat Clarke
The group normally meets on the second Thursday of the month, but we need to be flexible in order to accommodate the availability of the bodegas. Tastings start at 6:00 p.m., but we ask members to arrive from 5:30 p.m. in order to register and be seated. We generally finish around 8:00.
We are very fortunate to have several sponsoring bodegas who come along to present their wines. Some of these travel considerable distances to come to us and, if they find their visits are not worthwhile, they will stop supporting us. Without the bodegas, there would be no Wine Tasting group. If you enjoy the wines you taste, we would appreciate your support by making a purchase.
We also occasionally organise a coach trip to a bodega for a tour, tasting & lunch.
Bookings for events are available only to registered members of the Wine Group. If members wish to cancel their bookings, they must do so through the Group Leaders so that places can be offered to other group members on the reserve list.
For our first event of 2025, we are planning a day trip to Bodegas Viña Elena in Jumilla on Thursday, 13th February. This bodega has been recommended to us by one of our members and it has also recently been featured in the magazine Viajar as one of the most …
The first wine tasting of 2025 will be held on Thursday, 13th March at the earlier start time of 5:00 p.m. Marta and her colleague Pedro will be presenting wines from Bodegas Bleda in Jumilla. We are not yet open for bookings, but please make a diary note. Invitations will …
Our April Wine Tasting will be on Thursday, 10th April, when ‘the dynamic duo’, Domingo and Franco, will be presenting wines from the Corcovo bodega in Valdepeñas. We are not yet open for bookings, but please make a diary note. Invitations will be sent to all group members in March …
Please scroll down to see reviews and galleries of photos taken from previous events.
As you can see from these, wine tasting is, and always should be, a lot of fun!
General Information
Tastings will be notified to group members by email. We normally have a group meal in June and December.
The cost of each event will be notified to members by e-mail and this includes a raffle ticket. Platters of cheese & cold meats, bread, water and glasses are provided.
Tables will be set out for no more than 8-10 people. It is free seating, so you can choose to sit with friends or take the opportunity to sit with others to make new friends. New members are made very welcome.
Our sponsoring bodegas offer wines to us at discounted prices and these are available to purchase on the night.
We will advise you by e-mail of the next meeting and, if you wish to book a place, you should e-mail us to make a reservation. We will confirm your reservation by e-mail. Should we be fully booked, then we will add you to the reserve list and let you know. If you give us a phone number it may help for last minute changes.
If you have made a firm booking and then find that you cannot join us, please let us know as soon as possible in order that we can offer your places to other members on the reserve list. Cancellations are taken up to 12 noon (Spanish time) on the Tuesday before the tastings. If you cancel after this time or do not show at the tasting, then you will be liable to pay the entrance fee.
To be totally fair to everyone we do not take early booking requests – they are taken in the order that e-mails are received from the main invitation email. If you know that you might not be able to access your emails, then it is fine for you to ask someone else to make a reservation in your name.
Group Members must be fully paid up members of the Moraira-Teulada U3A.
The Wine Group’s annual Christmas lunch took place on 5th December. The 46 members present enjoyed an excellent meal at the Hill Top Bar and Restaurant. Although Hill Top hosts our regular wine tasting events, this is the first time we have had our Christmas meal there. We were not disappointed. The tables were very festive, the food was excellent and plentiful and we received great service from Gary and his team. The Wine Group funds provided a free pre-lunch …
Whisper it quietly , it’s less than seven weeks to Christmas. For the winos of the Moraira-Teulada U3A wine tasting group, that means it’s time to stock up , fill the cellar and get ready to party. Santa, in the improbable guise of the irrepressible Franco Valori, dressed all in black instead of red, arrived to do the needful at the last tasting session before the festivities. Unfortunately, threatened rain storms on the day, stopped Domingo, boss of the Corcovo …
A “talking” white wine which told us it was perfect, and a red, so popular it ran out, were the highlights of the first Moraira-Teulada U3A wine group tasting of the new season. It has been five months since we last gathered in the Hill Top Bar in Moraira to sample wines, but a good number of us had already enjoyed organised day trips to bodegas in June and September to replenish our wine stocks. The lovely Marta from Bodegas …
In September, the wine group enjoyed a wonderful day out at Bodegas Faelo, a charming family winery in the countryside near Elche which produces the Vinos del Camp d’Elx. We were warmly welcomed by Jamie, the fourth generation of his family to run the winery, established in 1930s when Jaime’sgreat grandfather first started making wine for family and friends in their new “faeneta” or farmhouse. All of the later wine-making buildings – the fermentation room, the barrel room, bottling room …
The serried ranks of vines, straighter than even the Irish Guards at the Trooping of the Colour, greeted us as we arrived at Bodegas Bleda in Jumilla. Rows and rows of vines stretched into the distance in all directions around the immaculate Bodega with not a weed to be seen anywhere. The day long visit was the perfect wrap on the latest season of wine tasting for the U3A’s Moraira-Teulada tasters. Some 30 members – numbers limited by the dining …
The dynamic duo, Franco and Domingo, rounded off the wine tasting season for the Moraira-Teulada U3A with a selection of superb wines from Valdepeñas. There was a brisk trade in the six Corcovo wines offered for tasting, unsurprising given the new tasting term will not open until the autumn. Domingo, boss of the family run Bodegas Megia e Hijos, offered up two white wines, a rosado and three reds, including the Crianza which has just won another top award – …
Wines for our April tasting were presented by Raquel from Bodegas Castaño in Yecla. Unfortunately, we were unable to host the evening due to personal circumstances but, from the photos, it looks that you were all having a great time and enjoying the lovely wines from this bodega. We would like to thank Carol and Gary Mantle for taking the reins at such short notice and we were happy in the knowledge that we would be leaving you in very …
56 ‘winos’ (I believe this is the collective noun for a group of Wine Tasters and the Oxford English Dictionary will be adding it to their list in the new addition) turned up for this regular great social event, including 11 newbies. I briefly met many of them as I cruised the tables to say hello to friends and I assured them of a great time. I said hello to Glenda, a seasoned ‘wino’ (or is it pickled in this …
Rose bushes stand guard over the rows of vines at Casa Sicilia, which was visited by the Moraira-Teulada U3A wine tasting group on 1st February 2024. Up before dawn, on the coach by 8.30 a.m., 53 group members made the 90 minute journey down the motorway to Alicante and on to the Bodega, tucked away down a narrow lane outside Novelda. It’s not huge, consisting of nearly 60 acres of vines and close on 30 of olives, but it’s very …
The Moraira-Teulada U3A Wine Tasting Group celebrated their last event of 2023 with a Christmas meal at the new SAEN Restaurant (formerly known as Satari’s) in Moraira. Festive lights greeted us as we entered the restaurant and, after a welcome drink on arrival, 63 diners were served a traditional Christmas meal. The vino was already waiting for us at our allocated table and staff worked most efficiently to deliver 3 courses and a sorbet. The most popular choices were Prawn …
“I thought I’d do a Christmas Advert, like they’re doing on the telly and online.I can sell ‘Corcovo Image,’ Domingo, Franco and their wine!We were greeted by The Legend that is Franco, in his Slogan tee,He bought it for a fee, from a pop up ad on Facebook.Well I think I’m a legend also… I’ll have to take a look!Nice to see new faces and share a glass or two,I met the lovely Glenda, she’d already had a few!So… Christmas …
It was rather like the first day of term after the long summer holiday, when the Moraira-Teulada U3A wine tasting group held its first meeting of the new season. Like a bunch of naughty children, some tasters – you know who you are – just couldn’t stop talking throughout the presentation despite repeated requests for a bit of shush. Even with the din from those who should have been put in the naughty corner, it was a great start to …
64 Diners gathered in the early evening warm sunshine, in the garden at Satari’s, with the spectacular blooming Magenta Bougainvillea providing a perfect curtain backdrop for the talented JJ Jones entertaining us as Neil Diamond. Never mind the hearing aids of the mostly over 70’s, this Neil Diamond was music to your ears. In fact he was ‘more Neil’ than I remember of the real thing! He has the voice, the looks, the charisma and of course…the shirts and I …
I write this while the taste of all those lovely wines still lingers on the tongue and the nose of pineapple still lingers in the air… and before the hangover from the over indulged wine tasting kicks in… ! I know I should ‘squash’ it to the back of the palette and let it linger on the roof of my mouth but I enjoy the flavour too much … am I a wine heathen? I know for some wine is …
56 eager wine tasters were sat expectantly along with Fiona Macdonald, a virgin wine taster and not only new to our group but brand new to the area. It was good to see Barrie and Margaret Barnden after a three year hiatus. Don Antonio Bleda founded this family winery in 1915 becoming pioneers in the ‘bottling wine’ industry, using in the main the Monastrell grape which is most suited to the warm and drought conditions along this beautiful Mediterranean coastline …
On 2nd February, 50 members of the Moraira-Teulada Wine Tasting group met up for their first tasting of 2023. Hill Top Bar & Grill in Moraira was the venue and they laid on an impressive selection of cheeses and cold meats to complement five wines on offer from Bodegas Castaño, one of the most respected family run wine producers in South East Spain. The effervescent and highly knowledgeable Raquel travelled from Yecla, a small wine region north of Murcia, bringing …
As is usual for this Festive time of the year, invites to dinners, parties and drinks with nibbles, stack up like a pack of cards on the mantelpiece, with the invite to the U3A Wine Tasting Group Christmas ‘Do’ being the ACE in the pack. Unbelievably, it is 3 years since the last wine tasting Christmas get together, although many have, I expect, shared Covid and ‘growing older’ stories over the few wine tasting soirees in the meantime. That festive, …
Brian and Pat Clarke Frequency: Monthly: normally 2nd Thursday at 17:30 for 18:00 Venue: Hill Top Bar & Grill, Calle Móstoles, Moraira Group Leaders: Brian and Pat Clarke The group normally meets on the second Thursday of the month, but we need to be flexible in order to accommodate the availability of the bodegas. Tastings start at 6:00 p.m., but we ask members to arrive from 5:30 p.m. in order to register and be seated. We generally finish around 8:00 …
