When we asked at the Valencia regional tourism office about wine touring, one staff member suggested that if we waited a week, we didn’t need to go to the wines. They would come to us. La Mostra PROAVA (the PROAVA exposition) was scheduled at the Turia linear park.

Created in 1993 with the help of the regional government, PROAVA is a cheerleader for artisanal wine and food from the region’s three provinces: Valencia, Castellón, and Alicante. The 32nd Mostra offered more than 150 wines along with loads of beer, cheese, sausages, pates, oils, marmalades, and regional sweets.

Dutifully, we bought our €10 tickets online, scouted out the park to see where the gates would be, and arranged to be near the front of the line to pick up tickets on opening day. Each gave us three chits to exchange for tastes and we were able to purchase more directly from the exhibitors.

Predictably, it was a mad scene. Yet we were able to learn more about Valencian wines in a couple of hours than we could have gleaned in a couple of days of visiting wineries. Since most of the wines weren’t available at home in Massachusetts, we focused on those we could get. For example, we learned that the indigenous Monastrell grape (known as Mourvèdre in the Rhone Valley) can make silky, sophisticated reds, especially when fermented in ceramic amphorae. The powerful sweet wines made from Moscatel — as the winemakers of Dénia call the Muscat de Alexandria grape — made us seriously rethink how ‶dry″ we wanted our wine. The sweet-tart elixirs would be perfect with roast pork or spicy sausage.

Below are some scenes from April’s exposition. A good time was clearly had by all. For more on PROAVA’s activities, see the organization’s website, proava.org.