Today we start a short break in our bodega. At this time of year we always try to take a brief holiday – there is not a lot happening and so we close our doors for a few days, to re-charge our batteries before the busiest period of the year. The harvest and wine making.

In the period leading up to our closure, quite naturally, we give our customers notice, and invite them to order any additional stock that they might require (even though we are only closed for 6 or 7 working days). This sometimes provokes a slight rush, albeit that the summer months are already quite busy – and this year was no exception. During our last week of opening we were still bottling, labelling and thankfully, loading pallets on to trucks. Maybe we should plan more closures to keep the orders piling in!

One other important reason for bottling is quite simply that we need to empty tanks for the harvest. Of course emptying tanks happens as a matter of course as the wine is sold, but then we also have to calculate the tank capacity that we will need for the harvest, and make sure that we have the space available. Imagine if we were pressing grapes and suddenly discovered that we didn’t have enough space to receive the grape must (juice)! Nothing is left to chance and this all has to be planned months in advance – even trying to anticipate the volumes that we might sell during the coming year. However, not everything can be calculated, whilst we will always have an idea of the yields that our vines might produce, it is never really an exact science, and can change dramatically until the very moment that our grapes enter the presses. Vamos a ver, as we say.