It wasn’t until I arrived home yesterday evening and tuned into the satellite channels on my TV that I remembered it was Thanksgiving Day in the USA. It was the full programme of American football fixtures that actually triggered my memory. For men at least, football is one of the big Thanksgiving traditions, possibly whilst the women are busy preparing the turkey dinner – or is that idea just too old fashioned, sexist and stereotypical? (I’m just not that politically correct these days!)

Anyway, Thanksgiving is more or less the American equivalent of the harvest festival that is  celebrated in other parts of the world, giving thanks for peace, and of course, a good harvest.

Another tradition that has sprung up from this particular holiday period, and is now being copied in Europe, is Black Friday – the day following Thanksgiving. This is now the busiest shopping day of the year in the US, as shoppers scramble around frantically to seek out that special ‘one off’ bargain being offered by the retailers for one day only. The term ‘Black Friday’ was first used by police in Philadelphia in the 1960s to describe the massive crowds and traffic jams that hit the sales after Thanksgiving. It wasn’t until the 1980s that an alternative theory started to appear, suggesting that it was the day that marked retailers moving from the red to the black, as they started made profits for the first time in the year.

As a footnote to the 2011 sales, not only were all records broken with an estimated 152 million people (nearly half the population) passing through the checkouts, but in Los Angeles up to 20 people were injured when one woman resorted to using a pepper spray on her fellow shoppers in order to secure the best bargains!

It wasn’t until I arrived home yesterday evening and tuned into the satellite channels on my TV that I remembered it was Thanksgiving Day in the USA. It was the full programme of American football fixtures that actually triggered my memory. For men at least, football is one of the big Thanksgiving traditions, possibly whilst the women are busy preparing the turkey dinner – or is that idea just too old fashioned, sexist and stereotypical? (I’m just not that politically correct these days!)

Anyway, Thanksgiving is more or less the American equivalent of the harvest festival that is  celebrated in other parts of the world, giving thanks for peace, and of course, a good harvest.

Another tradition that has sprung up from this particular holiday period, and is now being copied in Europe, is Black Friday – the day following Thanksgiving. This is now the busiest shopping day of the year in the US, as shoppers scramble around frantically to seek out that special ‘one off’ bargain being offered by the retailers for one day only. The term ‘Black Friday’ was first used by police in Philadelphia in the 1960s to describe the massive crowds and traffic jams that hit the sales after Thanksgiving. It wasn’t until the 1980s that an alternative theory started to appear, suggesting that it was the day that marked retailers moving from the red to the black, as they started made profits for the first time in the year.

As a footnote to the 2011 sales, not only were all records broken with an estimated 152 million people (nearly half the population) passing through the checkouts, but in Los Angeles up to 20 people were injured when one woman resorted to using a pepper spray on her fellow shoppers in order to secure the best bargains!

Back in June I mentioned on this blog that we had been measuring the Oxygen Transfer Rate (OTR) in our wines. In case you didn’t read it this is quite simply a measurement of the oxygen levels within the wine in our tanks (before bottling), during bottling (oxygen suspended in the wine when bottled), and also oxygen in the ‘head space’ (the small gap between the wine and the cork). By measuring this we can learn about the effectiveness of the closure that we use to seal our bottles.

Back in June I mentioned on this blog that we had been measuring the Oxygen Transfer Rate (OTR) in our wines. In case you didn’t read it this is quite simply a measurement of the oxygen levels within the wine in our tanks (before bottling), during bottling (oxygen suspended in the wine when bottled), and also oxygen in the ‘head space’ (the small gap between the wine and the cork). By measuring this we can learn about the effectiveness of the closure that we use to seal our bottles.

A dog’s sense of smell is said to be a thousand times more sensitive than that of humans. In fact, a dog has more than 220 million olfactory receptors in its nose, while humans have only 5 million. Also, I think it’s true to say that the human sense of smell is probably one of the most underutilised and underdeveloped senses that we have, but that over time, it can be trained…….

Certainly, after years in the wine business, and years as a buyer, using my own sense of smell extensively on a daily basis, I am pretty confident that mine is more evolved and sensitive than it was when I was younger – or perhaps it’s just because I’m much more conscious of using it? But then one of the most difficult things when tasting a wine for example, is quite simply converting what you taste and smell into words – but that’s another story.

Singularly the most significant fact is that probably 90% of what we perceive as taste is actually smell, and without smell the job of a wine buyer would be pretty tough. I can clearly recall that getting a cold or a touch of flu at any time of year was a complete disaster for me and rendered me almost useless (albeit that my colleagues might say that I was fairly useless anyway!) For this reason I was always well stocked up on cold remedies and vitamin-C.

The reason that I chose to write about this now is because of an incident that happened to me yesterday. I go running by the sea every day, and as I left the house at 7.30am I caught a sudden whiff of cigarette smoke. About 100 metres down the road an employee of a local hotel had slipped outside (in the open air) to have a quick nicotine fix, and my nose had picked it up from some distance. However, this asset can also be a curse as it can easily detect foul smells as well as attractive ones!

A dog’s sense of smell is said to be a thousand times more sensitive than that of humans. In fact, a dog has more than 220 million olfactory receptors in its nose, while humans have only 5 million. Also, I think it’s true to say that the human sense of smell is probably one of the most underutilised and underdeveloped senses that we have, but that over time, it can be trained…….

Certainly, after years in the wine business, and years as a buyer, using my own sense of smell extensively on a daily basis, I am pretty confident that mine is more evolved and sensitive than it was when I was younger – or perhaps it’s just because I’m much more conscious of using it? But then one of the most difficult things when tasting a wine for example, is quite simply converting what you taste and smell into words – but that’s another story.

Singularly the most significant fact is that probably 90% of what we perceive as taste is actually smell, and without smell the job of a wine buyer would be pretty tough. I can clearly recall that getting a cold or a touch of flu at any time of year was a complete disaster for me and rendered me almost useless (albeit that my colleagues might say that I was fairly useless anyway!) For this reason I was always well stocked up on cold remedies and vitamin-C.

The reason that I chose to write about this now is because of an incident that happened to me yesterday. I go running by the sea every day, and as I left the house at 7.30am I caught a sudden whiff of cigarette smoke. About 100 metres down the road an employee of a local hotel had slipped outside (in the open air) to have a quick nicotine fix, and my nose had picked it up from some distance. However, this asset can also be a curse as it can easily detect foul smells as well as attractive ones!

After a week or two of R&R we are finally back at the helm, steering our Bodega inexorably towards the Christmas rush (we hope!) In anticipation of this we now have to stock up on certain lines, and so the trucks have been arriving over the last couple of days, laiden with all the materials that we need for bottling. Over the next few days our bottling line will be working overtime, as will our staff, as we fill the warehouse with a bit of Christmas cheer……

 Unfortunately, however organised we are (or think we are), there is always something to throw a spanner in the works. Whilst bottling the first tank for example, the capsule machine started to play up, and decided that it would only put capsules on two out of every three bottles. A 33% saving I hear you say – but unfortunately not acceptable to our customers! In the short term the only answer is to have one individual standing in front of the line dispensing capsules by hand as the bottles speed past at roughly 1,500 – 2,000 bottles per hour – that’s about one bottle every two seconds.

Having drawn the short straw I had the task of placing the capsules myself, and I can tell you, not only do you hardly have time to blink, but also, after an hour or two, the whole process has a slightly hypnotic effect (no doubt I will be ‘capsuling’ in my sleep tonight).

So when we tell our customers that Angela and I are very hands-on managers, that’s exactly what we mean!

After a week or two of R&R we are finally back at the helm, steering our Bodega inexorably towards the Christmas rush (we hope!) In anticipation of this we now have to stock up on certain lines, and so the trucks have been arriving over the last couple of days, laiden with all the materials that we need for bottling. Over the next few days our bottling line will be working overtime, as will our staff, as we fill the warehouse with a bit of Christmas cheer……

 Unfortunately, however organised we are (or think we are), there is always something to throw a spanner in the works. Whilst bottling the first tank for example, the capsule machine started to play up, and decided that it would only put capsules on two out of every three bottles. A 33% saving I hear you say – but unfortunately not acceptable to our customers! In the short term the only answer is to have one individual standing in front of the line dispensing capsules by hand as the bottles speed past at roughly 1,500 – 2,000 bottles per hour – that’s about one bottle every two seconds.

Having drawn the short straw I had the task of placing the capsules myself, and I can tell you, not only do you hardly have time to blink, but also, after an hour or two, the whole process has a slightly hypnotic effect (no doubt I will be ‘capsuling’ in my sleep tonight).

So when we tell our customers that Angela and I are very hands-on managers, that’s exactly what we mean!

Just in case you thought it had gone a little quiet, I thought I should explain…. we’re all having a bit of a holiday. We had planned to close the wine cellar for a week during August, in order to give everyone a short break before the onslaught of the harvest. However, owing to the very early start that we had this year, there was simply too much to do, and consequently the closure was cancelled.

So we arrived at the end of October, having completed the wine making, but with everyone exhausted, and still sitting on pretty much their full quota of holiday entitlement. With Christmas (and 2012) fast approaching we thought we’d better do something about it, so we decided to close our doors for a week or two. Around this time of year there are already a few ‘festivo’ days, and so the obvious thing to do was to build a break around this, hence this rather belated holiday.

In fairness the weather has not been too great, after a very warm period during the first half of October, but a break is still a break, and it gives us the chance to catch up on things at home.

Talking about home, it’s really great living by the sea, especially during autumn and winter when it’s so abandoned. This photo was taken early morning on a nearby boardwalk that follows the shore – in winter this forms my own personal running track as I do my best to keep fit. I can tell you that you don’t meet too many Spanish people at 7.30am, they’re not exactly ‘early birds’ like me!

Just in case you thought it had gone a little quiet, I thought I should explain…. we’re all having a bit of a holiday. We had planned to close the wine cellar for a week during August, in order to give everyone a short break before the onslaught of the harvest. However, owing to the very early start that we had this year, there was simply too much to do, and consequently the closure was cancelled.

So we arrived at the end of October, having completed the wine making, but with everyone exhausted, and still sitting on pretty much their full quota of holiday entitlement. With Christmas (and 2012) fast approaching we thought we’d better do something about it, so we decided to close our doors for a week or two. Around this time of year there are already a few ‘festivo’ days, and so the obvious thing to do was to build a break around this, hence this rather belated holiday.

In fairness the weather has not been too great, after a very warm period during the first half of October, but a break is still a break, and it gives us the chance to catch up on things at home.

Talking about home, it’s really great living by the sea, especially during autumn and winter when it’s so abandoned. This photo was taken early morning on a nearby boardwalk that follows the shore – in winter this forms my own personal running track as I do my best to keep fit. I can tell you that you don’t meet too many Spanish people at 7.30am, they’re not exactly ‘early birds’ like me!

And before you even think it….. no, I don’t mean me!

In the period between finishing the fermentation and starting the pruning, it’s traditionally the time of year when we have a bit of a clean out in the bodega.

This year we have attacked one of the storage rooms in the eaves of the building, that, over the years, had become choked with unused materials and equipment most of which is past its sell-by date.

Our big clean up yielded (amongst many other things), this strange looking piece of kit. At first I had absolutely no idea what it could be used for, at least until I examined it a bit more closely. It turns out to be the head for filling bottles by hand, only six at a time. How things have changed – our new machine for example, will handle up to 3,000 bottles per hour (which is still slow compared to some).

If it takes us nearly a day to bottle a tank of wine with our new machine, I cannot imagine how long it must have taken with this – perhaps we had to provide our staff with sleeping bags?

And before you even think it….. no, I don’t mean me!

In the period between finishing the fermentation and starting the pruning, it’s traditionally the time of year when we have a bit of a clean out in the bodega.

This year we have attacked one of the storage rooms in the eaves of the building, that, over the years, had become choked with unused materials and equipment most of which is past its sell-by date.

Our big clean up yielded (amongst many other things), this strange looking piece of kit. At first I had absolutely no idea what it could be used for, at least until I examined it a bit more closely. It turns out to be the head for filling bottles by hand, only six at a time. How things have changed – our new machine for example, will handle up to 3,000 bottles per hour (which is still slow compared to some).

If it takes us nearly a day to bottle a tank of wine with our new machine, I cannot imagine how long it must have taken with this – perhaps we had to provide our staff with sleeping bags?

Before the 2011 harvest kicked off, the experts of Rias Baixas had calculated that the total harvest for the denomination would be around 37 million kilos….. they were wrong! It transpired that 2011 would be memorable for two different reasons – not only was it one of the earliest harvest that we have ever witnessed, but it also exceeded all expectations in terms of volume too. The final count for the Rias Baixas denomination was some 41,787,783 kilos.

The previous record, set only last year (approximately 31.5 million kilos), was shattered – surpassed by more than 30% – an incredible year-on-year increase.

By far the biggest contributor to this total was our own northern sub-zone of the Salnés Valley, with around 27 million kilos, which is why this area is always known as the ‘heart’ of the denomination.

Whilst there are two or three other permitted varietals in Rias Baixas, more than 40 million kilos of those harvested was Albariño. Loureira and Treixadura accounted for around 700,000 kilos, and red grapes, less than 1%.

Before the 2011 harvest kicked off, the experts of Rias Baixas had calculated that the total harvest for the denomination would be around 37 million kilos….. they were wrong! It transpired that 2011 would be memorable for two different reasons – not only was it one of the earliest harvest that we have ever witnessed, but it also exceeded all expectations in terms of volume too. The final count for the Rias Baixas denomination was some 41,787,783 kilos.

The previous record, set only last year (approximately 31.5 million kilos), was shattered – surpassed by more than 30% – an incredible year-on-year increase.

By far the biggest contributor to this total was our own northern sub-zone of the Salnés Valley, with around 27 million kilos, which is why this area is always known as the ‘heart’ of the denomination.

Whilst there are two or three other permitted varietals in Rias Baixas, more than 40 million kilos of those harvested was Albariño. Loureira and Treixadura accounted for around 700,000 kilos, and red grapes, less than 1%.

A week or so ago Santiago de Compostela’s huge new airport terminal was finally opened to the public. It looks quite impressive from the pictures, and would not be out of place in London, Chicago or Frankfurt (some of the world’s busiest airports). Indeed, here in Galicia it has been dubbed the new Terminal 4, which is a reference to the enormous new terminal building opened in Madrid only a year or two ago.

I guess the reason that people have made this comparison, is simply because of it’s size….. it’s pretty huge for the current number of flights that it handles. The report says that the new site is handling roughly about 50 flights a day, although I must admit that I have never seen more than a handful of flights on the arrival and departure boards when ever I have visited.

To explain the full story I should also tell you that there is fierce competition between Galicia’s three local airports – not only has Santiago invested in this huge new terminal building, but Vigo and La Coruña have also spent millions on huge new multi-story car parks, where again, never more than one floor is ever actually occupied! It’s all an ego trip, precipitated by the local mayors in an attempt to prove who has the biggest….. well, airport!

There can be no doubt that the best solution for Galicia itself is really quite simple – to consolidate our efforts (not to mention our hard-earned Euros), into one large provincial airport would serve the whole region.

A week or so ago Santiago de Compostela’s huge new airport terminal was finally opened to the public. It looks quite impressive from the pictures, and would not be out of place in London, Chicago or Frankfurt (some of the world’s busiest airports). Indeed, here in Galicia it has been dubbed the new Terminal 4, which is a reference to the enormous new terminal building opened in Madrid only a year or two ago.

I guess the reason that people have made this comparison, is simply because of it’s size….. it’s pretty huge for the current number of flights that it handles. The report says that the new site is handling roughly about 50 flights a day, although I must admit that I have never seen more than a handful of flights on the arrival and departure boards when ever I have visited.

To explain the full story I should also tell you that there is fierce competition between Galicia’s three local airports – not only has Santiago invested in this huge new terminal building, but Vigo and La Coruña have also spent millions on huge new multi-story car parks, where again, never more than one floor is ever actually occupied! It’s all an ego trip, precipitated by the local mayors in an attempt to prove who has the biggest….. well, airport!

There can be no doubt that the best solution for Galicia itself is really quite simple – to consolidate our efforts (not to mention our hard-earned Euros), into one large provincial airport would serve the whole region.

What do you buy this Christmas for the person who has everything? I have the answer…… a personalised grape holder, designed to hold exactly 12 grapes!

And why would you need one of these I can hear you asking? Again, the answer is quite simple – to stop your grapes rolling off the table.

But why do you need a holder specifically for 12 grapes, you persist? Perhaps only our Spanish readers will understand the significance? You might need one for the 12 grapes that you eat on midnight on 31st December – one for each chime of the clock. 

Eating grapes at 12 o’clock is supposed to bring you luck for the coming new year, but the truth of the matter is that it was originally designed as a marketing ploy by grape growers in a year when they had a surfeit of fruit (perhaps we could have done the same with our 2011 harvest?) Obviously the idea caught on, and it has since become an annual tradition.

Having said that, the idea that you might actually need a specially designed holder for your fruit is a bit beyond me I’m afraid. Even as a person that loves gadgets I think I can live quite happily without one.

What do you buy this Christmas for the person who has everything? I have the answer…… a personalised grape holder, designed to hold exactly 12 grapes!

And why would you need one of these I can hear you asking? Again, the answer is quite simple – to stop your grapes rolling off the table.

But why do you need a holder specifically for 12 grapes, you persist? Perhaps only our Spanish readers will understand the significance? You might need one for the 12 grapes that you eat on midnight on 31st December – one for each chime of the clock. 

Eating grapes at 12 o’clock is supposed to bring you luck for the coming new year, but the truth of the matter is that it was originally designed as a marketing ploy by grape growers in a year when they had a surfeit of fruit (perhaps we could have done the same with our 2011 harvest?) Obviously the idea caught on, and it has since become an annual tradition.

Having said that, the idea that you might actually need a specially designed holder for your fruit is a bit beyond me I’m afraid. Even as a person that loves gadgets I think I can live quite happily without one.

On one occasion we tried growing a beautiful lawn in front of our bodega just in case we fancied playing a game of tennis – but it didn’t work – simply too hot. (The front of our bodega is south facing and can reach temperatures of up to 40°C at the height of summer). So now we have settled for something that requires a little less maintenance…. a Japanese rock garden, often known as a Zen garden.

Strictly speaking ours is a Karesansui garden, built where there is no water present, but on a base of gravel that represents either rivers, seas, oceans or lakes.

Karesansui gardens can be abstract and have stone and other elements that symbolise mountains or islands. We also incorporate “ishi wo taten koto”, meaning literally, the “act of setting stones upright.” In ancient Japan the placement of stones was perceived as the primary act of gardening. Normally there would always be more horizontal than vertical stones. If there are “running away” stones there must be “chasing” stones. If there are “leaning” stones, there must be “supporting” stones – it’s not quite as simple as you might think……

By the way, I forgot to mention that the tree in this photo is actually the root of a large tree turned upside down – in Japan this tree would represent, well, a tree!

On one occasion we tried growing a beautiful lawn in front of our bodega just in case we fancied playing a game of tennis – but it didn’t work – simply too hot. (The front of our bodega is south facing and can reach temperatures of up to 40°C at the height of summer). So now we have settled for something that requires a little less maintenance…. a Japanese rock garden, often known as a Zen garden.

Strictly speaking ours is a Karesansui garden, built where there is no water present, but on a base of gravel that represents either rivers, seas, oceans or lakes.

Karesansui gardens can be abstract and have stone and other elements that symbolise mountains or islands. We also incorporate “ishi wo taten koto”, meaning literally, the “act of setting stones upright.” In ancient Japan the placement of stones was perceived as the primary act of gardening. Normally there would always be more horizontal than vertical stones. If there are “running away” stones there must be “chasing” stones. If there are “leaning” stones, there must be “supporting” stones – it’s not quite as simple as you might think……

By the way, I forgot to mention that the tree in this photo is actually the root of a large tree turned upside down – in Japan this tree would represent, well, a tree!