OK, so I like sunsets….. this was the view from our grape reception at the back of the Bodega yesterday evening, looking out towards the Atlantic Ocean (only a few km from us).

It’s really difficult not to comment about the weather, but suffice to say that on visting several different weather websites this morning, the forecast had changed yet again. The good news is that it’s sun, sun, sun all the way! I suppose that with hindsight this could, in some odd way, be considered bad news – if it wasn’t for the threat of rain looming on the horizon, then perhaps we could have waited a day or two longer to tease out that last bit of sugar from the grapes. Well, I don’t have a crystal ball, and weather forecasts can still be wrong (he said, trying to convince himself).

Our second day was quite unusual in that it was punctuated by foreign visitors. Normally we have a strict ‘closed door’ policy during the harvest and do not receive anyone, but as these customers had travelled a very long way to get here, and were making a whistlestop tour of Spain, we decided to make an exception. To be very honest it is really difficult to get your head into a guided tour when you have organised chaos unfolding around you. And so, following todays new experience, I think that we will probably retain our ‘no visit’ rule in the future, with the possible exception of minor royals and/or players of Liverpool FC (but not necessarily in that order).

Meanwhile, back at the harvest the throughput is accelerating as we receive more grapes than yesterday – quality still looking pretty good. The newly restored cooling system seems to be working well as we use it to chill the grape must for ‘settling’. Settling is quite simply when we allow all the unwanted debris (skins, stalks, pips etc. that escape the press) to sink to the bottom of the tank over a period of about 48 hours. This process works much better when the grape juice is very cold, and if Angela had her way, we might even freeze it….. just joking.

Apart from all that, nothing much else to report, so hasta mañana!