Well, that’s how long it has taken to repair the tanks in our cellar following last years accident – and not a moment too soon. We have about a week to run before we start the 2009 harvest, and having just completed the full and final testing of the temperature control system, it looks like we are now up and running, and ready to receive the new grape must.

Despite the deadline creeping ever closer we have still had to do an enormous amount of chasing to get this critical job finished on time, which I suppose could be considered fairly normal for this part of the world!

The other good news is that the sun is still shining, and so, after a poor start to the year, it looks like we might have a half-decent harvest in terms of quality. However, as I mentioned only last week, the size of the crop will be small, and grape prices completely over-the-top, but then that is another story.

Returning (for the last time I hope), to the saga of the tanks, I made a final symbolic gesture to the work myself – adding the denomination ‘sticker’ that shows the official capacity, which in the case of this 2008 catastrophe amounted to 15 damaged tanks, each of 9,000 litres.

Thankfully, we can now put this extraordinary experience behind us.