Ham Wine

After I completed my article on Málaga wine, I was still left with the nagging question, was there really a vino de jamón, a ham wine? Other possibilities presented themselves. Could ham wine be an urban myth? How about a practical joke on a guileless foreigner, or maybe even the combined product of murmured Spanish and waxy ears? Who knew? Only one way to find out.

Into the field, to the campo, on our quest. It wasn’t the Holy Grail, but we didn’t have to go all the way to Jerusalem, either and we could drink some wine instead of fighting Saracens.

With Claud deBretteville as our trusty guide we drove into the hinterlands, hilly land that farmers worked with rototillers to grow sweet grapes for Málaga wine. Our road was paved, but that was its sole virtue. Curving. Not banked very well, you needed both hands on the wheel here.

We stopped finally at a small ventorilla, a little restaurant where Claud thought they might sell some ham wine. A small building with a whitewashed exterior (of course) isolated from any nearby village, it sported the old Coca Cola® sign on the wall. You know the one, red with a big, fancy C. And directly underneath the Coca Cola® sign, embedded into the wall, was a manger and hitching place for a burro. I tell you, this was a full-service ventorilla.

Claud, Joanne and I seated ourselves at an outdoor table in a shady spot and soon a woman came out to ask us what we wanted to eat. We chose a homemade paella and I then asked her if they had any ham wine.

“O sí, señor, of course we have vino de jamón. Why, that is our specialty. How could you ask?” Soon we were sipping on a glass of dark, sweetish liquid that tasted vaguely like some wheat beers.

Shortly after our wine was served the same lady returned to our table holding a large grey hen. She extended the bird to Joanne. She asked that la señora approve the day’s entrée.

While we no longer bougtht our meat pre-packaged in a Styrofoam® box and sealed with Saranwrap®, we were used to at least having the animal dead and hanging from a hook in the carnecería. It was quite out of the ordinary to inspect our own dinner while it still clucked. Still, after Joanne realized what was being requested, she made a great show of touching the legs and breast before signifying her approval.

The woman nodded agreeably and went about twenty feet away where she wrung the bird’s neck, whirling her arm round and round several times like a berserk windmill. It looked spectacular, but it did a quick and apparently merciful job on our chicken dinner.

Soon the woman set herself to plucking the bird and gutting the bird and dismembering the bird. Four or five admiring dogs surrounded her and snagged various pieces and scraps of unspeakable and probably unidentifiable stuff as they flew through the air. Claud, Joanne and I concentrated grimly on our wine.

In an hour or so, she presented us with a fine paella that we enjoyed greatly. With more wine. But as we drove away, I reflected on the country sense of humor. It is possible the woman could have gone to the kitchen and yelled out, “Hey, Carlos, we’ve got another one asking for ham wine. Third one this week. Three glasses of dishwater, please. Thanks.”

Lookout published my article and a British lady wrote me afterwards to say that, yes, indeed, it was really true, there was a ham wine actually, and it tasted very much as I’d described. But I still wonder, could she have been another part of a vast Spanish conspiracy?