I had a feeling that I had already written about today’s subject once before, but looking back through my archives I can’t find anything, so I thought that today I would have a little moan about wine fairs. Well, not so much the wine fairs themselves (although we are very selective about those that we chose to attend), but more about the time of year that they are held. The problem is to do with the size of our wine cellar…. I will explain.

Bodegas Castro Martin is a comparatively small, family run bodega – we have only a handful of employees, and the day-today management is shared pretty much between Angela and myself. This means that we have a hand in everything, from managing the vineyards (Angela’s speciality), to making the wine, and then marketing and selling it. This also includes handling any customer or press visits and attending tastings and wine fairs – and thereby lies the problem.

Any wine fair that falls around harvest time, or in the month or two immediately after, is completely impossible for us to attend. It is a direct conflict, and it goes without saying that our harvest and wine making must always come first. From September through November we are tied to Ribadumia, and at some points during that period we are almost living in the bodega (by the way, we don’t have bedrooms).

The significance of our size therefore, is quite simple. If we were a larger business or perhaps decided to be less ‘hands on’, then we would probably employ a fully suited and booted sales manager who could attend these events on our behalf, without any detriment to either the harvest or the finished wine. The truth is that we love the personalised service that we are able to offer our customers – our wines are our children and we don’t allow them to go anywhere without us!

I had a feeling that I had already written about today’s subject once before, but looking back through my archives I can’t find anything, so I thought that today I would have a little moan about wine fairs. Well, not so much the wine fairs themselves (although we are very selective about those that we chose to attend), but more about the time of year that they are held. The problem is to do with the size of our wine cellar…. I will explain.

Bodegas Castro Martin is a comparatively small, family run bodega – we have only a handful of employees, and the day-today management is shared pretty much between Angela and myself. This means that we have a hand in everything, from managing the vineyards (Angela’s speciality), to making the wine, and then marketing and selling it. This also includes handling any customer or press visits and attending tastings and wine fairs – and thereby lies the problem.

Any wine fair that falls around harvest time, or in the month or two immediately after, is completely impossible for us to attend. It is a direct conflict, and it goes without saying that our harvest and wine making must always come first. From September through November we are tied to Ribadumia, and at some points during that period we are almost living in the bodega (by the way, we don’t have bedrooms).

The significance of our size therefore, is quite simple. If we were a larger business or perhaps decided to be less ‘hands on’, then we would probably employ a fully suited and booted sales manager who could attend these events on our behalf, without any detriment to either the harvest or the finished wine. The truth is that we love the personalised service that we are able to offer our customers – our wines are our children and we don’t allow them to go anywhere without us!