Are you colour blind?

Click on image to enlarge

So, it's been a few days since my last blog entry, but as I think I mentioned we have been really busy, bottling and generally catching up with post-harvest jobs. Alcoholic fermentations are almost finished, and everything is still looking pretty good..... we remain optimistic.

As a bit of light relief I just wanted to make another post about road signs, but this time nothing to do with directions to our own bodega.

The local council have recently updated many road signs in our area, including those highlighting recommended wine routes. Each type of sign has a colour coded background, so that you can instantly identify the category of attraction or monument being signposted. For example, the old wine route signs used to have a dark, bottle green background, and these have now been updated with a horrible, rancid, pale green colour - not the most attractive selection.

The most dramatic of these changes is, without doubt, the historical monuments - formerly a sober brown colour, the signs have now been changed to a rather sickly, fluorescent mustard-yellow colour. Of course you might imagine that such a bright colour would stand out, whereas in fact the exact opposite is true.

The picture above shows a fairly huge sign at the side of our local Autovia, directing would be visitors to a nearby monastery, or at least that is what I think it says! The problem is that the new sign is almost totally illegible until you are within about 10 or 15 metres of it, and in very bright sunlight you can barely read the lettering at all.

This has not gone unnoticed in the local press, and questions are being asked as to how this colour could have been selected in the first place....... either bad taste, or perhaps just poor judgement? Out here in the countryside is doesn't take much to make the local news!