The Net Zero Dithyrambs

Our wine bar in Gràcia has been open for a little over a year (we’re writing this in June 2026), and like everyone else we use social media and the internet to try to get noticed: so that someone takes a look at what we do and, if they find it interesting, ventures in to visit us.

We don’t have many ways to make ourselves known, so we came up with a monthly prize draw: sometimes dinner for two, sometimes a wine tasting, sometimes a bottle of wine… whatever we come up with, really.

While we were thinking about how to set up this game/draw, Manolo García came on through the Zero’s (HI-FI) speakers, specifically ‘Nunca es tarde’.

At the Zero we’re big fans of Manolo García, a Mediterranean poet with a monumental body of work. There’s a verse that goes:

Y si el dolor trae brumas fieras
acechar la tarde con su luz,
si he de venir torcaz es fiera,
componer ditirambos en tu honor.

Curiously, all over the internet the last line appears as «componer vivir ambos en tu honor». Modern times and machine translation.

We had to look up what these ditirambos (dithyrambs) were: if you compose them, they had to be something beautiful:

1. n. Exaggerated praise, excessive acclaim.
2. n. In ancient Greece, a poetic composition in praise of Dionysus.
3. n. A poetic composition, usually in praise of something, modelled on the Greek dithyramb.

And it felt as if fate was playing in high fidelity so that the monthly game/draw we’re proposing would take the form of a DITHYRAMB. Just for the fun of playing.

So, dear friends and all the other mammals living on this planet: every month we’ll write a piece of exaggerated praise that hides a mystery to solve.

Are you in?

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