Before you start thinking that the roof of our bodega is bristling with antennae and satellite dishes, that is not exactly what I mean. Yes, I do have a small Oregon Scientific weather station sitting on my desk, but I am actually talking about something much more low-tech, but nonetheless effective….. rose bushes.

I am convinced that the vast majority of people believe that roses are present in many a vineyard simply to add a splash of colour, but perhaps I should explain that this is not the only reason. Of course it’s true they do add a touch of colour, but their function is actually much more important – they act as an early warning system to the vigneron.

Rose bushes are susceptible to many of the same diseases as grape vines, and in most cases are actually more sensitive. The indicators for oidium, mildew etc are more likely to appear on the roses before our vines become infected, and we can therefore leap into action with the appropriate preventative measures pretty much before the problem takes hold.

The picture above was taken a day or so ago in our El Pazo vineyard – not only do you notice the advanced years of our vines, but you can also clearly see the vigorous growth for the time of year. Could be another early harvest.

I don’t suppose that I could really let this week pass without making some comment about the Royal Wedding – and don’t try to pretend that you don’t know which wedding I’m talking about…. The coverage here in Spain has been almost as extensive as that in the UK, and I was actually quite amused to see the infamous TV movie of Kate and William on our screens yesterday evening. Of course it was made doubly funny as, not only did the actors bear little resemblance to our Royal couple, but on top of that they were dubbed into Spanish. Will I get locked in the Tower of London if I say that it was hilarious?

Anyway, to date I have not heard any mention of the type of wines they will be drinking with the Royal Wedding Buffet, but I dare say that there might be the odd bottle of Liebfraumilch floating about (which is apparently the Queen’s favourite tipple). Perhaps I should write to the Palace and tell Her Majesty that our Albariño is not wildly different from her beloved Riesling (or perhaps Muller-Thürgau). I use the word ‘beloved’ because the literal translation of Liebfraumilch is ‘beloved ladies milk’.

Of course the last time we had a Royal Wedding in Spain, we know for a fact that they did enjoy a bottle or two of Albariño with their meal, although for some odd reason we were not allowed to mention who the producers were (no Royal Warrants this time then).

Post Wedding Footnote:
One thing that I have noticed which always puzzles me, is the Spanish obsession to translate people’s names. For example, the happy couple are now officially known as Guillermo y Catalina, our Queen is Isabel, our Prince is Carlos, and his sister is Ana. Correct me if I’m wrong but I can never remember the King of Spain being referred to as King John Charles, and his wife Queen Sophie……

There has been a lot of press recently about the price of wine and the ability of consumers to distinguish between good wine and cheap ‘plonk’. As a wine professional I do hope that my own palate allows me to separate the wheat from the chaff, and my personal guideline to doing this is quite simple – you look for the 3 S’s, in other words structure, structure and structure.

By this I mean the way in which a wine is put together, whether all its component parts are in balance – fruit, tannin, acidity, alcohol etc. For example, wines that are very well constructed might be described as having a fine structure, or in the case of a young wine that is not very forthcoming, a tight stucture. It’s really the degree of harmony between these different elements that determines whether a wine is just average, or perhaps something really special .

The only thing I can say, is that the best wines (in my opinion) are not always the most obvious, they do not necessarily hit you between the eyes and yield themselves to you the moment you pull the cork. They often need time to ‘open up’ either in the bottle or in the glass, but boy, when they eventually do deliver you will know immediately, and the very best will have the ability to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end!

Indeed, there are many adjectives that you can use to describe a very fine wine, and journalists are much more adept at painting a picture than I am (they are, after all, attempting to translate the sensation of taste into words). I have never really been gifted when it comes to waxing lyrical about wines, but instead consider myself more of a technical taster, focusing on the component parts and how they might evolve and marry together, either now or sometime in the future. This is after all, the fundamental role of the buyer – to possess that special crystal ball…….

As always I digress. The original subject of today’s post is the price of wine, and in particular a selection that I saw advertised on my TV at £2.99 a bottle. How do they do it (and do I really want to know)?

If you actually start to analyse the cost of getting a bottle to your supermarket shelf you might begin to understand what I mean.

By simply deducting the UK duty and VAT from your £2.99 bottle you are immediately reduced to a mere pittance of 69p! Then take into account, that this 69p has to include warehousing and shipping costs, the cost of the bottle, label, cork, capsule and carton – Oh! and by the way, the cost of the wine itself AND any profit for the wine producer and UK retailer.

Just a minute, my calculator has blown a fuse, it’s trying to tell me that this simply doesn’t add up! It’s right, it doesn’t add up. I think it’s what they call a ‘loss leader’ – a product that sells below it’s actual production cost.

I end by asking myself the inevitable question – can a wine at this price point really be any good?

Over the last couple of months we have been ‘tarting up’ the entrance hall to our wine cellar, and you my recall my post about a huge photo montage that I set up on one of the walls.

Perhaps inspired by my wife Angela, and the fact that she is always late for everything (a woman’s prerogative I think they call it), I have now created a huge clock on one of the other walls!

But this is no ordinary clock lifted out of a box – it is my very own creation. To be honest I don’t recall where the idea came from, but the concept is really quite simple. The numbers are replaced by wine bottles. This apparently ‘simple’ concept was however, much more difficult to translate into reality…. To begin with cutting the bottles in half proved to be almost impossible, and then sticking them to the wall was also quite a problem. It’s possibly not until you actually cut a bottle in half and see its profile, that you realise how fragile it really is, and suffice to say that applying glue to a thin, sharp rim of glass is no easy task either, requiring the patience of a saint (I have to admit, not one of my greatest virtues).

So, after a couple of hours with a glue gun, not to mention my very sticky fingers, you can now see the result.

I wonder if this will mean that Angela will be on time in the future? Probably not!

Last Thursday must be viewed as a very sad day in the UK wine trade when the announcement was made that the Oddbins chain of wine shops was going into administration with debts of more than £20 million.

It is not that many years ago that Oddbins was regarded as the most avant garde of all wine retailers, and to be present on their shelves was one of the greatest accolades for any serious producer.

In those days not only did they have the most cutting-edge selection of wines, but they also boasted a highly original catalogue illustrated by the artist Ralph Steadman. By far their greatest asset at that time however, was one of the most highly respected buyers in the UK wine trade. No, not me, but a chap called Steve Daniel, who from personal experience I can tell you, had a very fine palate. It was Steve’s exciting selection of new and original wines that put Oddbins at the forefront of the UK retail trade, and on the customer ‘wishlist’ of every wine producer.

To quote my journalist friend Tim Atkin, Oddbins were “quirky, audacious, arrogant and bloody good at what they did”….. long may they be remembered for their contibution in helping to make London (and the UK) the ‘shop window of the wine world’.

In the difficult economic climate that exists at the moment we are always looking for new ways to develop our sales.

We recently saw a beef flavoured beer especially developed for dogs, in a glass bottle with a picture of a weimaraner on the label. Imported from Holland it is called Kwispelbier, which literally translated means ‘tail-wagging beer’. Made using a traditional beer brewing technique, it contains malted barley extract and absolutely nothing harmful – consequently the dogs are really lapping it up (in every sense of the word!)

So, if they can make a beer for dogs, then why not a wine for cats? We are so near the sea that consumers often say that they can taste the salt air in our Albariño, so how about enhancing this flavour with a bit of fish or seafood? It would be quite a simple process to macerate some fish or seafood in the tanks – et voila! A new product for cats, opening a whole new world of possibilities for our bodega.

Any suggestions for a suitable name? How about ‘CataPesca’ – which loosely translated would mean ‘tasting of fish’?

No sooner do I open my big mouth, questioning the accuracy (and therefore validity) of tastings for wine awards, magazines, wine guides etc., and the very next day we go and appear in one – with a very good review! In my defence however, I should point out that this latest incident only serves to strengthen the point of my argument – that the same wine can be judged very differently according to the individual palate of a particular journalist or tasting panel…. A poor review in a Spanish wine guide is somehow translated into a very good review in the world-renowned Decanter wine magazine.

(Of course we acknowledge that there is such a thing as bottle variation, and whilst we know that this does happen, we work very hard at Castro Martin to produce wines of consistent (high) quality throughout. These days we rarely send samples to guides or competitions, but conversely we very often send bottles to importers or potential customers who want to judge the quality of our wine or perhaps simply try a new vintage. In doing so we always make sure that the sample we send is truly representative of the stock that this customer will eventually receive, thereby helping to establish both trust and credibility for our business).

Finally, here is the Decanter review of one of our fab 2009 wines:

“Textbook offering from this Atlantic-facing region in Galicia. With the vim and vigour of youth, it delivers tangy, citrus sherbet fruit, herbal edging and a tasty, refreshing finish with a squeeze of lime juice in its tail.”

I am very aware that our blog has been a bit quiet recently, and of course, this is partly due to the amount of travelling that we have been doing during the last two months.

There is however, another important reason…… Behind the scenes (and with the help of our new friends in Christchurch, New Zealand), we are just starting work on a new website/blog. Not only will the new site be modernised and updated, but it will also mean that our blog and main website will eventually be integrated under one single web address.

But don’t panic! All the old blog post will still be accessible for those (if any) who have difficulty sleeping and feel the need to check back on my previous, hysterical historical blog entries.

To use yet another well-worn phrase – Watch this space!

It’s always been a bit of a conundrum to me, and I have written about it many times before, but there are times when I really do question the value of submitting wines to wine guides and competitions etc. At best these types of tastings are inconsistent, and at worst they are simply a complete lottery.

The reason that I chose to say this now is because over the last month or two we have travelled the world showing our wines to some very knowledgeable professionals in several different cities and countries. The general consensus has been that the 2009 wines that we are selling now are outstanding, and possibly some of the best we have ever made. (Not just our opinion, but an opinion shared by the huge majority of people that tasted, including some top journalists).

Imagine our surprise therefore to discover that the very same wines were rated with some of the lowest scores of the region in a new Spanish wine guide (which shall remain nameless).

Those of you who know me will know that I am often brutally honest, and sometimes get myself into trouble with my outspoken views, but to say that this story does not make any sense is probably something of an understatement. The problem now is that this review has been printed in black and white and will be circulating in book shops over the coming year.

I must say however, that I am not convinced that these wine guides actually have too much influence when it comes to selling our wines, and the real measure of our success or otherwise, is determined much more by our importers and their customers who actually buy, consume and enjoy our wines.

Just to finish, I thought I was honest, but here’s a tasting note written by a proprietor about his own wine that might be just a bit close to the bone. I have deleted the name of the wine, but the rest is verbatim…..

******  is not exactly an elegant wine, but it’s not over-extracted either. At first sight, it looks like a “rough soul” with hairs all over his chest, which goes straight to the point, but without dismissing subtleties and a gentleman’s good manners while it bombards your senses with an array of well polished exaggerations – it’s like an iron hand in a glove of soft velvet. A wine for those moments when we are tired of everything and won’t have “more of the same”