Almost exactly one month later than last year, the 2012 harvest finally started under blue skies, and temperatures in the low 20’s (70°F). A fresh breeze in the vineyard also ensured that the fruit was completely dry, and free from any residues of morning mist. With a changeable forecast for the coming week we have thrown as many pickers at the harvest as we dare, with an excess of 50 working in our vineyards alone. As you might imagine, with such desperate unemployment rife throughout Spain at the moment, we had absolutely no problem in finding good people this year. My only wish is that we could pay them a bit more than we do for such backbreaking work, but the amount is, as always, dictated by the local market – if we start paying anything over and above, we will simply cause problems for our neighbours. Suffice to say that the calibre is very high and we have some very experienced pickers on our team.

With the first grapes hitting the presses shortly before midday our first impression was of small berries, with highly concentrated, viscous pulp, producing a very low yield in litres/kilo. Our local denomination office has already (quite dramatically) claimed that this will be the highest quality for 20 years, but for Angela and I, well, we are cautiously optimistic. Another few thousand kilos, and couple of dozen presses, and we will have a much better idea.

Almost exactly one month later than last year, the 2012 harvest finally started under blue skies, and temperatures in the low 20’s (70°F). A fresh breeze in the vineyard also ensured that the fruit was completely dry, and free from any residues of morning mist. With a changeable forecast for the coming week we have thrown as many pickers at the harvest as we dare, with an excess of 50 working in our vineyards alone. As you might imagine, with such desperate unemployment rife throughout Spain at the moment, we had absolutely no problem in finding good people this year. My only wish is that we could pay them a bit more than we do for such backbreaking work, but the amount is, as always, dictated by the local market – if we start paying anything over and above, we will simply cause problems for our neighbours. Suffice to say that the calibre is very high and we have some very experienced pickers on our team.

With the first grapes hitting the presses shortly before midday our first impression was of small berries, with highly concentrated, viscous pulp, producing a very low yield in litres/kilo. Our local denomination office has already (quite dramatically) claimed that this will be the highest quality for 20 years, but for Angela and I, well, we are cautiously optimistic. Another few thousand kilos, and couple of dozen presses, and we will have a much better idea.