Well, it would be true to say that our blog has been a little abandoned this winter, but actually this is mainly because once the holidays are behind us, there is really not too much to write about! Apart from sending out orders, the only main activity has been pruning (although I feel that this subject has been pretty much exhausted over the years!) Anyway, this is thankfully now behind us for another year and our vineyards are primed and now ready for some warm spring sunshine (see today’s photo).

The month of February was quite cold and damp, but although it rained on quite a number of days, there didn’t appear to be too many days that produced heavy, saturating rain. Many days of light rain and drizzle, and also the fine ‘mizzle’ that hangs in the air and sticks to your clothes. Yes, we had some stormy days, with high winds and driving rain, but overall I wouldn’t classify this winter as being overly wet (perhaps the stats will prove me wrong?). March has started with a number of bright, sunny days, but with deceptively chilly breezes and temperatures not much higher that 15° or 16°C (almost 60°F). As a result, there is no real sign of budding just yet, but probably starting very soon.

Our 2024 wines are, of course, still sitting quietly on their lees, and have been subject to regular tasting by Angela and myself. They still look quite promising, and we will soon have to plan the different permutations of tanks for blending. (Yes, we do blend tanks, even with just one single varietal, to give our customers some ‘uniformity of style’ across the coming year, each tank being slightly different to the next).

Well, the (extended) holidays are now behind us, and we now move into a New Year full of optimism and hope. 2024 will not necessarily be remembered with great fondness, as many of us struggled in a very difficult economic climate. We have our fingers crossed that 2025 can only be better!

To be honest, once the flurry of Christmas orders has passed, it signals the start of what is, traditionally the quiet time of year. Outside our bodega the only real activity is the tough annual job of pruning. The weather has not be particularly conducive either, the early part of December being quite cold and wet. It was not until the latter half of the month, and over the holidays that we saw a number of drier, sunny days, albeit that once we entered the New Year, the rain returned (and included a few quite wild and stormy days).

I briefly mentioned ‘extended’ holidays because in Spain there are actually three holidays – Christmas, New Year and ‘Reyes’. Reyes is twelfth night (celebrated on 6th January), when the Three Kings arrived to present their gifts. Many people exchange their gifts on this day, although some are known to do it both at Christmas and Reyes. Whenever they chose to do it there is always a lot of eating involved too!

The Spanish news channels are, quite naturally, filled with the tragic story of the devastating floods in Valencia. Storms that arrived almost without warning that can almost certainly be attributed to some of the many changes brought about by global warming. It is all very worrying, and also appears to be getting more extreme with every year that passes.

Here in Galicia we must consider ourselves lucky that we have not really suffered any extreme weather events to date, although we are still witnessing some fairly abnormal conditions. Since the harvest our weather has been changeable, a wet, stormy period well into October, now followed by days of unseasonably warm weather. During the first days of November many people took to our local beaches to catch the hot sun, and then yesterday, as I left the bodega (in completely overcast conditions) the outside air temperature was as high as 23°C (73°F). (Today’s slightly surreal photo shows one local beach this past weekend, with people sunbathing under a rainbow!)

Finally, on a much more serious note, our thoughts and prayers remain firmly with the people of Valencia.

Well, it’s been a few weeks since the last grapes were picked, and we have reached a point where all fermentations have finally been completed too. It is now simply a question of allowing the new wine to sit quietly on it’s lees until the Spring of new year. We can almost start to relax a little! Having said that, he big job (underway at the moment), is a deep clean of the inside of the tank room, where we actually make the wine. The pressing area (including presses), grape reception and all working areas have already been completed, but the tank room itself could not even be started until every tank is completely closed and tightly sealed.

Outside the bodega (apart from cleaning every plastic case used for collecting grapes) we have also been doing a bit of building work. One night during the harvest, I took a ‘romantic’ picture of the Cambados sunset reflected in a small stream. The reality is that this ‘stream’ was actually an overflow from cleaning the bodega that the ‘water ditch’ simply couldn’t handle. It really needed a big clean-up and an upgrade!

Today’s photo shows the before and after. Clearly the sunset picture is more attractive, but unfortunately the ‘stream’ was actually a blockage that really needed sorting out. The concrete drain that has replaced the ditch is not beautiful, by any stretch if the imagination, but it had to be done…. simply meaning no ‘sunset reflections’ next year!

On Thursday evening I suffered a problem with my computer – at first it was simply a problem in uploading pictures to our social media, and then, by Friday, I had no access to social media at all, and needed to wait until today for IT support. Whatever the problem it has now been resolved and so I will make a quick summary of the last few days.

Friday 20th – Day 9

Not the best day weather wise. We started the morning with a heavy fog/sea mist which, during the morning deteriorated into a fine drizzle of rain. As we were nearing the finish line, and the rain was barely enough to penetrate the canopy, we decided to continue. In the end it proved to be a good decision, in that, as the day progressed, the weather dried up completely. Despite these slightly complicated conditions, the fruit was still good quality, and was not affected by the recent downturn in conditions.

Saturday 21st – Day 10

A washout! The morning started with rain, albeit not heavy. As our teams were all beginning to tire, we decided not to pick at all. During the afternoon the rain stopped and the sky cleared, meaning that the last fruit would at least be dry for the following day.

Sunday 22nd – Day 11

Our last day, collecting the final grapes of our 2024 harvest, and thankfully the weather is dry and sunny! (Just as well, the forecast for the coming days is rain, rain and more rain!). It seems that this year we will probably end up with a slightly larger harvest than last year, and despite all the difficulties earlier in the year (and in the final days before we started), it seems that we will probably end up with a good quantity of good quality fruit (albeit that I never like to pre-judge at this early stage). Clearly, with our tanks now rapidly filling, or already full, the balance of our workload is now shifting indoors, towards the bodega itself.

In the coming days I will comment more about our winemaking, as the grapes finally start to reveal their 2024 character and potential.

Today started off a little bit brighter and got progressively more sunny as the day went on. I can only assume that the fires have subsided a little (we hope), or perhaps it was simply a change of wind direction. Actually, on the subject of the Portuguese fires, I have since discovered that there are serious fires in the North of Portugal, near Braga, and much nearer to the Galician border, and so maybe the smoke didn’t travel quite as far as I thought yesterday (but still around 150km).

We are now picking in ‘El Pazo’ vineyard (as I mentioned yesterday), where many of the vines are very old (70 years+). Of course, this is why we consider it to be one of our very best sites, the fruit being used in our ‘Family Estate’ wine. So why are old vines considered better? Well, it’s almost counter-intuitive really, but the simple explanation is that the older a vine get, the less fruit it produces, but with this lower yield so comes a much higher quality with better concentration of flavours. This also explains why, sometimes, in July, we will make a ‘green harvest’ (when the vine produces too many bunches we remove some of the excess). At the same time we may also remove some of the excess foliage in the ‘canopy’ of the vineyard. By cutting away these leaves and bunches the plant than then simply direct more energy towards the remaining bunches, which, in turn, will produce better quality, more flavourful fruit. Of course, removing bunches will remove the overall amount of wine produced, but we are re-assured in that the fruit we have remaining will be better. This is also the reason that a D.O. in Spain, or an A.O.C. in France will control the maximum yield in their rules and regulations – to stop overproduction of mediocre quality wines. This is measured in Hectolitres per Hectare – the maximum amount of fruit is calculated for each vineyard site by surface area.

I digress, again! The point is the bigger volume is by no means better quality – quite the reverse in fact, which is why old vines are so revered (and often sold as a separate, premium wine). Having said that, there does come a point when the are no longer really viable, and little by little, over time, they will be replaced.

Today, we picked until daylight faded as the predicted threat of rain loomed large.

(Posted one day late, picture added later owing to a technical issue)

Wednesday started with what looked like a cloudy, overcast day. Later we were to discover that it wasn’t actually cloud, but smoke generated by the terrible forest fires raging in Portugal (see today’s photo). Perhaps the most shocking consideration is that these fires are actually located south of Lisbon, more than 600km south of our location! Our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Portugal at this terrible time.

Yesterday I mentioned yeasts, which is significant in that seeding of the tanks is already underway. The choice of yeast is interesting, as there are so many different products available, each claiming to be more suitable that the other. Certainly the choice of yeast can, and does change the profile of the finished wine, and so the choice is very much down to the individual winemaker, and the style of albariño that they want to produce. At Castro Martin we always tend use the most ‘neutral’ yeasts, in other words a yeast that does not dominate or change the flavour of the albariño grape. On it’s own, our variety is so fresh and has such a piercing fruit, that we have no reason to want to modify it. That is not to say that we are closed minded, as every year we do make one or two small tanks using a different alternative, to see if the suppliers claim has any legitimacy. In the end, we nearly always come back to our old faithfuls.

Meanwhile, back at the harvest it was yet another uneventful day, a steady flow of quality grapes and a team well versed in how to process them efficiently.

Although the forecast said that today would be partly cloudy, they were wrong! Wall-to-wall hot sunshine! As mentioned yesterday today we are working in our ‘Caeiro’ vineyard that surrounds the bodega. Effectively this means that the grapes are moved from vine to press sometimes in a matter of minutes, and the flow is constant. OK, many of our vineyards are located within a few kilometres, but picking alongside the bodega is really a luxury that makes life so much easier. Instead of being loaded on trucks or vans, the tractors deliver straight to the cellar door.

Meanwhile, in the bodega, there is also a lot of movement as tanks that were filled a day or two ago with fresh grape must are now moved to clean tanks (after cold settling) where they will await seeding and fermentation. We are often asked about yeast, and whether, for example, we can ferment simply using the natural yeast that exists on the skin of the fruit. Much as we would like to do this, the wild yeast would be enough to provoke a spontaneous fermentation, but unfortunately not enough to complete the whole fermentation, which therefore means that these wild yeasts need some assistance. To an extent this is again down to our climate. If we were able to grow fully organic fruit, then it is possible that the population of wild yeast would be greater, and could possibly do the job on it’s own (albeit I would still have a few doubts). A ‘stuck fermentation’ would probably mean that a tank of wine would still need to be seeded in order to help it fully ferment, and so by seeding from the offset the final result is simply a bit more predictable.

At the end of the day, with our bodega vineyard all but finished, tomorrow we will move on to one our best, and oldest vineyards – ‘El Pazo’ (also in our home village of Barrantes).

When we opened our shutters we discovered yet another fine, sunny morning, but with one significant development….. rain had suddenly appeared on the weather radar (albeit still a few days away). Our teams are already working at top speed, but we still have significant areas to cover, including one of our biggest vineyard sites that we refer to as ‘El Pazo’. Of course, weather forecasts for our immediate area are notoriously inaccurate, in that they can (and often do), change at a moments notice. Having said all that, we will, of course, do our level best to step it up a gear!

Today we are harvesting one of our smaller, local vineyards – Cunchidos. This is a small, one hectare vineyard located in our home village of Barrantes. The fruit from this location is usually slightly lower alcohol and a touch higher acidity than some others, due to a combination of the soils and the aspect (slightly more sheltered). This, however, provides us with a very useful element that we can use during the blending process. (After fermentation several tanks are blended to produce a wine that represents our ‘house’ style – excluding our Castro Martin ‘Family Estate’ which is not blended and comes from just two very specific vineyards).

In recent years, due to the effects of global warming, the average alcoholic degree of albariño from Rias Baixas has been slowly creeping up, and so vineyards such as Cunchidos can often help us to maintain a better balanced wine. On the other extreme, we have fruit which when ripe turns a deep gold colour, and other grapes that take on not only a golden hue, but actually something of a pink hue (see today’s photo).

By the end of the day Cunchidos was completed without any fuss or incident, and tomorrow we will move on to our ‘Caeiro’ vineyard that surrounds the bodega.

Some of our cellar team

Another sunny day here in paradise! Yes, the sun is shining and it looks like it will be a hot one – temperature pushing, or even maybe exceeding, 30°C (86°F). In these conditions we have to keep the whole team, both inside and outside the bodega, well watered. (They also enjoy an occasional ice cream break, all managed by Angela’s sister Elizabeth (or Beby to her friends)).

Indeed, everyone involved works extremely hard during the whole harvest period of normally about a week. Non-stop picking outside, whilst our cellar guys have to multi-task, unloading and palletising grapes, loading the presses, and then washing the empty cases – 2.000 cases in a small wash basin – not bad! (Actually I am lying about the wash basin, we do in fact have a machine for washing cases, albeit, fed by hand at one end, and then clean cases re-stacked at the other). I imagine that many larger (more industrial) cellars might well be more automated than Castro Martin, which is why we always explain to people that there is a lot of manual labour involved in the making of more traditional albariño. Made by hand…. with love!

Sunday, is always a complicated day for collecting grapes, some people are eager to gather fruit whilst they have more family members available (assuming that they are willing), and others would rather have a day with the family, quietly without working. My guess is that it largely depends on the weather forecast, people are more relaxed if they know that the weather is set fair, and are more motivated if it is not. Having said all that this particular Sunday ended up being a very routine day, the main difference being that we are now working both inside and outside the bodega. Hence a rest day only for the lucky few!