Grape Expectations...

Image One: Bottles of wine at Cobo
Image Two: James & Katie sharing a toast
Image Three: Ryan with a "come hither" look and a glass of wine

First of all forgive me for the awful pun. What can I say, I have been away from English for a while so that little gem seemed slightly clever. Rest assured that the reality quickly set in.

Katie, with the help of one of her freinds in Berat, arranged a tour and tasting at a local winery. A group of us went out to see the Cobo Winery. Berat is known for its wines locally and Cobo is one of the better ones. The winery is building facilities for tours and tastings. They are not quite finished with the work but they gave us a tour anyway.

Local wines and vineyards are great for tourism. Berat apparently has the right ingredients but hasn't developed them yet. Berat is also know for its walnut flavored raki. Raki is the national moonshine basically. It's powerful stuff. Do NOT make the mistake of drinking it like a shot! Raki must be sipped and slowly slipped at that. I often describe raki as a cross between rubbing alcohol and paint thinner. Tasty and smooth. Berat raki is actually tasty and smooth with a taste similar to Jägermeister.

We had a great time. They showed us around and explained some the wine makeing and bottling process. We had ordered wines and snacks which we ate after the tour. They refused to let us pay for the wine and food we ate. We were then forced to buy wine and walnut raki to make ourselves feel better :)

It was a great little expedition. Plus it's encouraging that Cobo was doing all this on their own. No one told them to build this or to start bottling the local raki. The entrepreneurial spirit is alive. Albania needs more of that and with local success it will come.