I am very aware that I have not made any posts for several days. After all the activity and numerous posts during the harvest, our blog has fallen silent. There is only one reason for this, and that is quite simply that we have been mega-busy in the bodega with the wine making process.

I am fairly sure that I have already mentioned we have more grapes this year, and this leads us to one simple equation. More grapes = more grape must, more grape must = more tanks, more tanks = more work. Every single tank has to undergo exactly the same number of processes – settling, racking, seeding, tank additions etc., etc., and this is all very time consuming. Of course I should also mention that wine making is no respecter of weekends either, and we often find ourselves here for several hours on Saturdays and Sundays. Now, I just want to make it clear that I am not looking for sympathy here, but simply want to emphasise to our friends and customers that when I say that Angela and I are very “hands-on”, we mean quite literally that – we always seem to have our hands in the must – after all, these are our babies…….

The work itself is often very physical, and nearly always messy – going home each day, clothes splashed with grape juice and other wine-making related materials (most of which are usually quite sticky too). Our washing machine also works overtime during the harvest!

So when we talk about “hand-made” and “family estate”, you need to know that our wine is exactly what is says on the label – made with lots of TLC.

By the way, just in case you were wondering, the picture shows a very unusual pattern created on the top of one of our tanks during fermentation. Whilst I am sure that there must be some reason why the foam has formed such a pattern, I have to confess that I don’t know what it is – perhaps I will ask Angela if she has an explanation……….. maybe they are the wine equivalent of crop circles?