Many people think that weather is quite a boring subject (myself included), but as we are essentially fruit farmers, it obviously has an enormous influence on the quality of our end product, and we are therefore obliged to pay attention.

The month of May so far, has been cool and wet, following the same pattern as the last three weeks of April. However, in the last 48hours the sun has finally re-emerged, sending our tractors scurrying to the vineyards to give the first treatment of the season (protection against mildew after all the rain). It also gives us the time to appreciate a splash of colour at the front door of the Bodega.

Time to break out the Speedos perhaps?!

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that, after a very dry winter, it had finally started to rain. Well, as I look out of my window today (on this cold, grey holiday morning), the rain continues to come down. At this point it’s not really a bad thing for our vineyards, albeit that after such a dry spell, much of the initial rainfall simply runs off the surface and makes little impression. It will take some time before the water table is restored. With temperatures forecast for no more than 13/14°C (55/60°F) this week, it occurs to me that our calendar seems to have fallen out of sequence this year. Reversing the months of March and April would make far more sense as far as a logical progression is concerned – March being much dryer and warmer than April. Anyway, whatever happens next the only thing we ask for is a period of warm, dry weather for the flowering.

As an aside, and in the wake or the recent Titanic centenary, I just wanted to pass on a bit of useless information for the next time that you’re playing Trivial Pursuit. Did you know that the International Distress Signal Mayday, Mayday, Mayday actually has nothing to do with 1st of May (or any other day in May for that matter)? It quite simply originates from the French phrase “m’aider”, which means “help me”. Perhaps slightly oddly, the phrase was the idea of an English air traffic controller based at Croydon Airport near London, when, back in the 1920′s much of the air traffic flew between London and Paris.

The Mayday signal was (and still is) used on VHF radio, and therefore was never used on Titanic, which relied on Morse code for signalling. At that time there were however, two different distress codes used by Morse operators – ‘CDQ’ used by the Marconi company – CQ again derived from the French word “Secours” (Help). The letter D, stood for Distress. The second code (subsequently adopted by all) was SOS, created by the German Government in the early 1900′s. The letters were chosen as they were simple, both to recognise and remember - ’Save Our Souls’ is simply a mnemonic and is not the reason that they are used.

If we lived in the south of Spain, and it was summer, it might be quite understandable to welcome a period of rain – but it’s winter, and we’re here in Galicia, and so this idea is probably not quite so normal. When I am explaining to people about the lack of rain that we’ve experienced, I try very hard not to exaggerate, but I think I am correct in saying, that up until Easter we had suffered a period of between 2½ and 3 months with virtually no rain whatsoever (perhaps 2 or 3 hours of light rain in total). I don’t have the actual statistics, but suffice to say that it’s been dry!

Immediately following the Easter holidays the skies turned their more usual winter shade of grey, and some very welcome, more persistent rain arrived. Now, I’m not suggesting by any means that our period of drought is behind us, but the last week of rain will certainly do no harm – it would probably require several weeks more to return the water table to normal levels.

The other significant factor is the temperature, whilst our nights have largely remained cool, daytime temperatures before Easter were regularly pushing over 20°C (68°F), and often into the mid 20′s. However, this last week has seen the thermometer fall to the low teens during the day, perhaps averaging only 12/13°C (54/56°F).

Of course by now our vines are already well advanced and vineyards all around us are turning green as the growing season gets under way. There is no doubt that this period of wet weather will help, and I do hope that it will continue at least for another few weeks, or at least until the flowering.

I mentioned only a few days ago that it had been very dry and sunny in Galicia for some time now. My comment however, was directed more to the lack of rain rather than any unseasonably warm temperatures. Last Saturday we experienced the first significant rainfall of the last month or two, albeit that it was quite short lived, lasting no more than a few hours. Certainly not enough to make any significant impact. 

Yesterday, 20th March, we witnessed the Spring Equinox, the day when the sun’s rays shine directly overhead at the equator. The equinox marks the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere, as well as the first day of autumn in the southern hemisphere. It also marks the mid point when the sun crosses the celestial equator, and the length of day and night is almost equal everywhere on earth (12 hours of light and 12 hours of darkness).

Google marked the day with a doodle designed by Marimekko, the Finnish fashion house. Unlike most Google doodles, the letters of the Google logo are almost indistinguishable, apparently in keeping with Marimekko’s signature style…. or so we are told.

Believe it or not my Harvest Report for the 2012 vintage is already well under way. Each month I add a few notes about the winter weather, that will quite naturally, have an impact on the growth cycle of the vines.

I remember quite well writing on this blog about the dry, sunny period that we experienced just after our harvest finished in 2011 (with locals still using the beaches until mid-October), but this dry period is now extending throughout January and February here in Galicia. I know that I am guilty of constantly using the UK as a reference for this blog (simply because I do try to stay in touch with what is happening in my country of birth), but I know that they too have some serious water issues in the south-east of the country. Even as early as February the UK have announced that there will be water shortages this summer as the reservoirs are well below the required levels for this time of year. So it would appear that Galicia is not alone.

As yet I have not heard any announcements from our local government about possible drought, but if the weather continues as is, then I have no doubt that this will happen sooner rather than later. Having said that, the reaction to dry weather is often quite different to that in the UK….. over here the first precaution is usually to ban lighting fires, whereas in the UK I believe they have already announced a restriction on the use of hosepipes (normally used for washing cars and watering gardens etc). Strange how the priorites appear to vary like this.

Anyway, we have yet to see how this lack of rainfall may or may not impact this year’s grapes – only time will tell (to use my favourite, well-worn phrase).

No sooner had we finished our harvest this year than the warm weather arrived! From the middle of September until the middle of October the clouds disappeared and, believe it or not, the temperatures increased. With the barometer firmly lodged at around the mid-20′s locals were still taking advantage of our beautiful local beaches – with all the tourists long gone, it was true bliss….

From mid-October the cloud, rain and drizzle returned, pretty much as is normal at this time of year, but with one significant exception – the temperature. It has continued to remain quite mild, and even nightime temperatures have not fallen by that much. The minimums we have seen at night have probably averaged around 10-12°C (50-55°F), and only on a couple of occasions have fallen as low as 6-8°C (43-46°F). Yesterday morning,for example, at 7.30am it was actually 14°C (57°F).

So what’s the significance of this you are probably asking? Well, it’s to do with the vines – they are not yet dormant for the winter, and in some warmer locations there have even been signs of new growth!

By mid to late December we would hope to have our pruning well under way, but of course, owing to these unseasonably mild conditions, the start has been delayed. The danger is that, if we do not start soon, and spring arrives early again (as it did last year), then we could potentially have a problem.

I need to research the origin of the expression ‘Indian Summer’, but in the meantime I can tell you that we are having one. It’s kind of ironic that after a poor summer here in Galicia, we now find ourselves bathed in warm sunshine – in October! Average daytime temperatures so far this month have been around 25-27°C (77-80°F), with not one single drop of rain in sight – to be honest, we’ve barely even seen a cloud.

Meanwhile, back in the bodega, we can almost start to relax a little, as the last few tanks reach the end of their alcoholic fermentation. As always it’s been a long, slow process, with monitoring on a daily basis – 7 days a week (unfortunately the yeast doesn’t take weekends off). We have yet to make the final analysis, but it looks like there will be no malolactic required in 2011.

The other development is that I have finished our annual vintage report, and this can now be found on the download page of this website. Great bedtime reading!

I’m probably starting to sound like a broken record, as I’m sure I repeat the same story every year – please forgive me, I’m just going a bit senile….

It’s that time of year when I start to follow a number of different weather forecasts to see what the final pre-harvest days will bring, and also to look for a window of opportunity to start picking.

I mention ‘different’ weather sites, and that, I’m afraid, is the significant part – all the different sites that I follow are all giving me conflicting information. In their defence I would say that the summer of 2011 has been very unsettled to date, and it must be a bit of a nightmare trying to forecast accurately what is going to happen, but unfortunately that doesn’t help me too much.

Indeed, the picture that I have included here is a ‘screen grab’ from the CNN site that shows fabulous, settled, sunny weather for the coming days. This was in contrast to other sites that indicated odd days of cloud and rain, and so in the end it simply becomes a question of who to believe.

Me? I will just stick my head out of the window and see what’s happening – a system that never fails!

After a very dry spring, and dry summer, with very changeable weather during July and August, we now have storms! Not really the sort of thing we need with only a few days left to run before the harvest. It seems ironic that having prayed for a bit of rain earlier in the year, that we now have rain when we could really do with a bit more sunshine and warmth – just to give the grapes one last push and to reduce the acidity just a touch. So far there has been less than 24 hours of rainfall, enough to wash the fruit, but we really don’t need any more at this stage.

The only real consolation is that this break in the weather gives us time to complete final preparations inside the wine cellar, making sure that all the equipment is clean, polished and ready for action.The empty tanks are waiting, the motors are lubricated, and our bodega staff are like finely honed atheletes waiting at the start line…. (well, maybe a slight exaggeration).

It’s probably quite fitting that one of my last few posts on Blogger (we will hopefully launch our completely new, all singing, all dancing website later this week), should be about the weather.

So far, the month of July has been cool and cloudy. Lots of overcast days, odd spots of sunshine, but also quite a lot of mist and drizzle – just in time for the Galician tourist season that starts to gather momentum at the beginning of the month. The significant point is that, despite the drizzle that we have had, it’s hardly been enough to penetrate the canopy in our vineyards, and the soil has remained mostly dry.

Thursday and Friday of this last week, has however, provided us with the first real rain since February/March. Not torrential rain, but steady rain that persisted throughout the two day period. Of course now that the sun has returned, the damp will be trapped at ground level and the humidity will provide an excellent breeding ground for disease. My guess is that we will probably be spraying at some point in the next few days.

Bearing in mind that we are obliged to occasionally treat our vines, prolonged periods of dry weather obviously mean that we spray less, saving time, money and the environment. Every cloud has a silver lining, if you’ll pardon the pun.