Day three (Sunday) started very overcast, with the ground wet from overnight rain. After two pretty busy days for our picking team, we decided to delay our start until the early afternoon, affording them a short respite and some hours with their families. By 2pm the clouds had  cleared a little and and our fruit had dried completely, and so our harvest was underway once more.

Inside the bodega is was time to start racking the grape must from our first day, drawing off the clean, settled juice into new tanks (leaving any residues (fangos) at the bottom of the original tank). At this point the must is still quite cold from settling and will take a day or two before it reaches a temperature suitable for starting fermentation.

By comparison to our first two days, Sunday appeared to be much less intense, but perhaps this was more because it was a half-day, rather than our grape pickers working more slowly. We are still, of course, very conscious that the rain is approaching and that we could end up with a ‘harvest of two halves’! Apart from causing complications with the picking itself, a split harvest can also cause gaps in the wine making process, as different tanks can be at completely different stages of their development during the fermentation process.