CENTRO DE INTERPRETACIÓN DEL VINO Y LA SAL

Museums / Chiclana de la Frontera

Plaza de la Bodegas s/n, Chiclana de la Frontera

+34 956 241 229

www.vinoysal.es

vinoysal@chiclana.es

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Description

The Wine and Salt Interpretation Centre, inaugurated towards the end of 2006, is the only interpretation centre in Spain to have been awarded the “Q” of Tourism Quality (2022). Open to the public in 2016, it occupies an old bodega property of Chiclana Town Council that used to belong to Bodegas Primitivo Collantes. The building was constructed upon marshland, as was the whole of the Las Albinas neighbourhood where it stands, between 1962 and 1964, and is of an architectural design typical of bodegas in the Jerez Region, one that favours a constant temperature and level of humidity. Three large exhibition areas occupy the interior, completed by the Muñecas Marín Doll Collection.

The first space, named THE SEA, is a large central multipurpose exhibition room. The second, dedicated to SALT, is divided into three different areas that show the history of the Chiclana salt pans from Phoenician and Roman times through to the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, the time during which it reached its peak. These exhibits explain how the craft salt pans that now form part of the Bay of Cadiz Nature Park produced and sold an extraordinary Virgin Sea Salt. Other exhibits include works of art, information panels, photographs and tools, together with diverse audio-visual resources.

The third area is dedicated to WINE and tells of the winegrowing culture of Chiclana, also Phoenician in origin, though not becoming a driving force behind the local economy until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries when trade commenced with America. This space narrates how the vines are cultivated with the help of information panels, photographs, tools and audio-visual resources, as well as the history of the Chiclana bodegas, which remain family-run craft bodegas to this day. They also explain the production and ageing process of Fino (the wine that sustains production these days) Moscatel and the other fortified wines such as Cream produced by the bodegas of Chiclana and included in the Denomination of Origin Jerez-Xérès-Sherry.

The Wine and Salt Interpretation Centre also houses an interesting exhibition paying tribute to José Marín Verdugo (1903-1984), creator of the Muñecas Marín Factory. The company maintained its activity until 2014 and took its dolls and the name of Chiclana around all five continents, described by Fernando Quiñones as: “Spanish dolls for the world”.