Combing and the other side of Portuguese wool

Combing wool with Louet's mini combs has been one of my latest pleasures. And combing this gorgeous light gray portuguese merino that I brought from Ancorme a few weeks ago, makes it even more so. I don't know if you can see in the photos how the light brown shades show in the roving. It's beautiful.
Even though choosing to card vs combing is absolutely determinant of the yarn we're going to be spinning, when I was taught to spin wool, I was taught to card like there were no other options available (and there were no need for them!). In fact, in Portugal, carding is almost always the only fiber prepping method when handprocessing wool, maybe except in some regions where the wool from the local sheep breeds is so long that it practically demands to be combed.
Although I knew the results using one method vs the other are radically different, I was still surprised when combing and spinning portuguese wools that I had only spun carded until then. It was like seeing a whole new side of someone I though I knew really well!
The fact that combing separates the longer fibers from the shorter ones, allowing us to keep the best ones to work with, does make a lot of difference in making the most from the fleeces we get when you live in a country where most of the sheep are not raised for wool. It's so easy to find yourself with a not-so-good fleece in your hands, and I feel that combing instead of carding, could sometimes be a better option to make the most of it.