Each time we have attempted to eat outside this summer we have been pestered by a seemingly huge number of wasps. Under normal circumstances it would be flies, but for some reason, this year, it has been our little black and yellow friends instead – and they are very persistent! Of course it is quite normal for flies to abound at harvest time, obviously due to the vast amount of sweet grape juice that we have around. Wasps are however, a little more dangerous – on Saturday I was taking a sample from a case of grapes as they arrived in our reception, ready to send to Angela for analysis (we take literally hundreds over the period of the picking), and instead of taking a handful of fruit, I took a handful of wasp instead! Ouch!

After the overnight rain on Saturday we skipped yet another day in this stop-start vintage, to allow the fruit to dry out. The good news was that Sunday heralded the start of a more settled, sunny period, and so by the time we re-started on Monday morning, we could focus more on collecting grapes than looking up at the sky. Now, one might ask the obvious question – so why didn’t we wait until this latest period of fine weather? The answer – acidity.

Whilst alcoholic degree is important, by far the most important characteristic of albariño is the fresh, zesty acidity. If we allow the acidity to drop too much we will simply lose the ‘typicity’ of our beloved grape variety. In this way it becomes a matter of personal choice – do we sacrific a bit of alcohol to help retain the usual freshness? The answer from Castro Martin is an emphatic “yes”.

(By the way, the word for wasp in Spanish is avispa, in Italian it is vespa!)

Each time we have attempted to eat outside this summer we have been pestered by a seemingly huge number of wasps. Under normal circumstances it would be flies, but for some reason, this year, it has been our little black and yellow friends instead – and they are very persistent! Of course it is quite normal for flies to abound at harvest time, obviously due to the vast amount of sweet grape juice that we have around. Wasps are however, a little more dangerous – on Saturday I was taking a sample from a case of grapes as they arrived in our reception, ready to send to Angela for analysis (we take literally hundreds over the period of the picking), and instead of taking a handful of fruit, I took a handful of wasp instead! Ouch!

After the overnight rain on Saturday we skipped yet another day in this stop-start vintage, to allow the fruit to dry out. The good news was that Sunday heralded the start of a more settled, sunny period, and so by the time we re-started on Monday morning, we could focus more on collecting grapes than looking up at the sky. Now, one might ask the obvious question – so why didn’t we wait until this latest period of fine weather? The answer – acidity.

Whilst alcoholic degree is important, by far the most important characteristic of albariño is the fresh, zesty acidity. If we allow the acidity to drop too much we will simply lose the ‘typicity’ of our beloved grape variety. In this way it becomes a matter of personal choice – do we sacrific a bit of alcohol to help retain the usual freshness? The answer from Castro Martin is an emphatic “yes”.

(By the way, the word for wasp in Spanish is avispa, in Italian it is vespa!)