There is a forecast of rain starting at around 2pm today, but with plenty of fruit still to collect we really need to continue. The real problem is that once this rain starts, it could possibly continue for two and a half days. After such a long, dry summer there is a certain irony to this dramatic change. The first sprinklings of rain were actually welcomed (as I have mentioned before), but now there is a real danger that this will become detrimental to the grapes still waiting to be collected. Our focus this morning will be on gathering fruit whilst also keeping a close eye on the skies.

Today our picking team is split between three or four smaller vineyards all within a kilometre of the bodega. Once collected, fruit will arrive in our bodega perhaps within minutes, certainly not hours. We run a continuous shuttle of tractors and vans. It should be mentioned, at this time that the fruit that we are collecting is still perfectly healthy.

At the back of our wine cellar we have a view of the Atlantic Ocean to our west, and by early afternoon we could see the skies slowly darkening. Eventually a grey ‘curtain’ of rain could be seen approaching in the distance, but very luckily, it didn’t actually start raining until about 5pm. By that time we had managed to complete almost a full day of harvesting before we were forced to stop.

Now let’s see how accurate the forecast is for tomorrow.