In the end, it took nearly all night to clear the backlog of grapes, so it was actually quite stressful on day one.

We move into day two with a slightly overcast sky, and of course the threat on rain looming on the horizon. Most of the weather websites agree that rain will come, but the big questions are, when and in what areas (rainfall can be very localised and unpredictable being so close to the Ocean).

The thing that is perhaps puzzling me the most is that the majority of bodegas have not even started picking yet, and plan to start next week. It can’t be a question of maturity, because the grapes that we have gathered so far and quite healthy and ripe. I simply don’t understand why other producers would delay?

This year, for some reason, Sunday turned out to be quite quiet and uneventful, whereas normally weekends are our busiest days. This is the time when our grape suppliers have family and friends available to help with their harvest, but apparently not so much in 2023.

The good news is that, apart from a very short sprinkling in the afternoon, we managed to dodge the rain, until that is (once all of our fruit was safely inside), it did start raining steadily as we prepared to leave for the day.