Galicia has three “International” airports, which in my opinion is probably two too many. The reason I say this is that all three are only separated by a distance of 160km (100 miles), and are all competing for exactly the same business.

The three different autonomies within our Province that manage these airports never see eye-to-eye, and as a result simply compete on all levels, apparently obsessed with outdoing their neighbour by building the biggest. All three airports are undergoing extensive (and expensive) development and reconstruction, even at a time when the economy, both locally and nationally, is falling apart.

In a way this mirrors the construction boom that has bought Spain to its knees – if you ask yourself the question, is this redevelopment actually needed, then the answer must be a simple, and yet emphatic, no!

To put this into some sort of perspective, take a look at the airports themselves….. At least two of the three airports have no more than around a dozen flights a day – so, on average, probably less than one an hour. Even for this small number they all still require air traffic control, police, fire, security, check-in, baggage handling, catering, maintenance, etc, etc, etc.

La Coruña airport in the north is built on top of a small plateau, and has a very short runway. It can just about handle an Airbus A320, although at 1,900 metres the runway cannot handle an A320 at full take-off weight (2,000 metres is required). With the stong winds and heavy rain often experienced in Coruña, it can be a bit ‘hairy’ to say the least – I swear that Angela and I once landed sideways there! Access to the airport skirts the city and is not easy, and the present car park is a 10 minute walk from the terminal.

Vigo airport is also carved into the side of a hill, and often finds itself shrouded in mist or low cloud, especially during the winter months. This problem has been solved recently by the upgrade to Category III landing equipment (more expense!), and with a runway of 2,400 metres it can comfortably handle the traffic that lands there.

Centrally located, almost equidistant between the two, is Santiago de Compostela – the jewel in the crown of Galician tourism. It boasts a runway of 3,200 metres (which I believe is even long enough to handle jumbo jets), and has a direct motorway link road. The surrounding land is comparatively flat, so there are no real weather issues with this location.

So, why doesn’t Galicia pool its resources and develop one major airport in Santiago? I know quite a number of people who are asking the same question.

Well, grapes might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but we have the makings of some grapes in our vineyards. I would like to tell you that the flowering passed off perfectly, but not quite….. Despite the weather improving hugely from the cool, damp conditions that we had been experiencing, we still had one day of rain in the middle of the flowering – not the most ideal day for pollination.

The one thing that I can say with some degree of certainty is that there are less bunches than last year, so we should expect a smaller harvest. Obviously it would be difficult to predict exactly how much smaller, as there are still so many unknown factors to take into account that will help complete the picture over the coming months – as usual we will just have to sit back and pray.

In addition to the potential size of the havest, we can also work out the approximate date – using the calculation of 100 days from flowering, we should now anticipate a start date towards the end of September. No doubt this will be upon us before we know it, and I will be sitting here writing another vintage report.

Doesn’t time fly when your having fun?

So the koala’s of Galicia will have to look for a new home as part of their habitat is removed……

You may recall that back in January, following a storm, a large Eucalyptus tree was felled, and unfortunately landed in our Bodega vineyard. At the time our neighbour promised that she would move the tree line further away from our fence, and I now happy to tell you that this work has just been completed. Indeed, it was completed much, much quicker than I imagined.

On Thursday morning Angela and I went to talk to the tree fellers (actually there were only two of them – old joke), as they had more or less just started their work. This morning I thought that I would bring my camera to work to capture an action shot of falling trees, and men in hard hats. Not to be – the work had already been completed, so now I just have a photo of a swathe of land without trees, which is not quite as exciting.

The good news is that this means that the vines in the lower section of the vineyard should now enjoy much better exposure to the sun, and also may have slightly less competition when it comes to finding water in the soil. We shall see.

Of course, the Eucalyptus tree is not a native of Galicia, but I think was planted extensively in the early 1980’s to supply wood pulp to the local paper industry. On the plus side (for the paper people at least) it is a fast growing species, whilst on the down side it’s dense plantations are prone to catch fire and burn very easily – our region has suffered from some fairly horrific forest fires as a result.

I read somewhere quite recently, that the sales of Madeira have increased by up to 20% in the last 12 months and that it was making a come back….. for me at least, it has really never been away.

OK, so I have to confess that I am not really too much of a Madeira drinker, but always have a bottle in my kitchen cupboard that I use much more for cooking purposes than I do for quaffing. I guess that this gives my age away, in that Madeira is a pretty old-fashioned, or should I say, traditional cooking ingredient, which quite curiously is extensively used in the French Repertoire de la Cuisine. Anyway, I highly recommend using a less expensive bottle to splash into a tomato based or brown sauce for meat, whilst the good stuff can be reserved for more serious appreciation.

Madeira wine as we know it today actually evolved over centuries, and was developed by a series of ‘happy accidents’. The story begins with the discovery of the island by João Gonçalves – the wonderfully nicknamed O Zarco “the cross-eyed”, in 1418. It was a regular port of call on the busy shipping routes between Europe, the New World and the East Indies. Originally covered by forest (hence it’s name – Madeira meaning ‘wood’ in Portuguese), it was eventually cleared and planted mostly with sugar cane, but also with wheat and a few vines imported by different European settlers.

As the sugar cane market declined, so the wine became more important, and by the middle of the 16th century it started to be exported to America, Brazil, the West Indies and England. This new Madeira wine became a great favourite in America, and its style was already starting to evolve, probably more by accident than by design. On its long sea journeys around the world the wine would be subjected to very high temperatures and start to oxidise within the wooden casks that were used for shipping. This baked, oxidised wine actually becoming such an acquired taste that it was a firm favourite of General Washington, and was drunk to celebrate his inauguration as President of the United States.

It was during the 18th century that alcohol was used to fortify the wine, but again this was not a planned development. As exports were halted by sea battles around the islands, so the stockpiles of wine grew, and in an attempt to preserve their longevity, so the alcohol was added. Yet again this proved to be a popular augmentation, so much so that Madeira was known as the ‘Isle of wine’.

As with many other wine regions, Madeira was devastated by the arrival of both oidium and phylloxera between 1850 and 1870, but in this case, the industry on the island never really recovered, and this fortified wine never regained its previous level of popularity.

José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (known as Zeta P. by his supporters, and Mr Bean by others), together with the rest of his government, appear to be in denial, or perhaps have simply been waiting for either EU or IMF intervention to give them the excuse that he they been looking for….. that the drastic budget cuts that they are now forced to make are not actually of their own design, but have been forced upon them by outside agencies.

Following this pressure from overseas, not to mention a call from Obama himself, Sr Z. has recently announced a 15bn Euro austerity plan, but the likelihood is that this will not be enough. The crisis now looming in Spain has two main problems at its epicentre – Banking and Employment.

The country now suffers from more than 20% unemployment, and has a further 20% working as government functionaries. Until very recently new public sector workers were still being employed; positions which are highly sought after simply because they are considered as ‘jobs for life’, carrying generous benefits and pensions etc. Meanwhile, back in the real employment world, Spanish law makes it virtually impossible, or at the very least, cripplingly expensive to lay staff off, which in a recession leaves employers in an impossible situation – the labour market is in desperate need of reform.

Much of this unemployment is down to construction, or rather the lack of it. Spain has been living off the back of generous EU subsidies and an artificial construction boom for the last 20 years or so, when literally thousands of homes were built that were actually not needed – consequently they now stand empty.

Moving away from construction, it is of course the banking industry that really lays at the core of the recession, so in that sense Spain is by no means unique. Perhaps it is just their way of dealing with it that differs from the rest……

In contrast to the apparent success of Santander, it is the local savings banks (Cajas or Caixas) that are now failing, CajaSur being the latest victim. Here in Galicia two local Caixas have announced a merger of sorts. Caixa Galicia and Caixa Nova will merge, but will retain their own Presidents, their own board of directors and two separate head offices…. not much of a merger then! These two Caixas will however, close a few branches, which is hardly surprising – during the boom new branches were still springing up on every street corner in every town and village. For example, I think that the small town of Barrantes must have at least 7 or 8 banks, even more than the number of coffee bars!

So fasten your seatbelts, it looks like we could be in for a bumpy ride.

In some perverse way I applaud Iberia Airlines in their attempt to produce a ‘healthy’ menu for short haul passengers – the fact that you have to pay for your menu selection is another story.

I must confess that I haven’t tried it yet, but I did notice that they offer an alcohol free rosé wine in a can. Of all the containers that can be used for packaging wine, bottles (both plastic and glass), tetra briks and wood (if you include very small barrels), I have to confess that I am not so sure about using cans.

As a beer drinker I do notice the difference in taste between particular brands that are sold in both bottles and cans. There is most definitely a taint that appears when the packaging is made from aluminium, so what effect this might this have on a wine? Well, I will simply have to try it and see.

Apart from the ready sliced apple served in a plastic bag, there was one other offering from the new Iberia menu which also quite surprised me. Their healthy soup.

UK television channels are awash with celebrity chefs, cookery programmes and cooking competitions, and as a frustrated chef myself, I confess that I am a great fan of many – they can be great entertainment and you can pick up many new cooking styles and techniques.

There is however, one ‘celebrity’ chef that I simply can’t abide. His name is Ainsley Harriott. Apart from being relatively talentless, there is just something about his manner that gets up my nose – his website describes it as flamboyant, so perhaps that explains why he flails his arms around like a demented octopus when he cooks. I am convinced that one day he will actually shout “Ole” when he completes a dish!

His CV is also not that impressive when compared to most other TV chefs. After reaching the dizzy heights of commis chef, he gave up cooking to persue a music career with the Calypso Twins, before becoming a comedian. To quote him from his own website, he says “I think that it’s an enormous advantage to know how to make delicious beans on toast”, which just about says it all.

Anyway, of all the famous chefs from around the world (including Spain) that Iberia could have picked….. yes, you guessed it – they now include the Ainsley Harriott collection of soups on their menu. I don’t think for one second that the Spanish will have a clue of who he is, but for me at least, his name does not serve as an endorsement for quality food.

By the way, if you think that I am becoming a bit anti-Iberia, then you should see some of the passenger comments on this website!

The secret was to find a bottle that not only looked as good, but also felt like a quality bottle despite the reduction in weight…… we await the reaction of our customers – hence that reason that I classified this as an experimental bottling.

The funny part of the story is that whilst I was explaining this to one of our guys in the bottling line, he jokingly suggested that we should make an Albariño ‘Lite’ to go with the new bottle – but having said that, I believe Albariño can already be classified as a light wine. That’s not to say that it has no flavour or body, but it’s really more a question of the level of alcohol – our wine never really exceeds 12.5% alc. but more usually hovers around the 11.5% – 12.0% level.

For me this has always been one of the great selling points of our wine, the fact that two people can sit down over a meal, and happily share a full bottle without emerging staggering or even remotely hungover. Alternatively it can be enjoyed as an aperitif, sitting in front of the TV watching England win the World Cup (in my dreams)!

P.S. My tip for the Mondiale 2010 is actually Spain….. forever the diplomat.

We are very proud to tell you that since February of this year our Albariño is being served in First Class cabins of British Airways, as well as the First Class and Club lounges at Heathrow. Of course, we will have to take their word for this as we usually travel toward the back of their aircraft, rather than the pointy bit at the front. However, Angela and I have informed BA that we would be more than willing to conduct an in-flight tutoured tasting on any long-haul flight that they care to choose……

Joking aside, this is a great reference for us and a testament to the quality of wine that we strive to produce – dare I say, even better than any number of points that a certain Mr Parker might award us.

By the way, for those of you who can’t afford to travel First Class please remember that our Albariño can be acquired back on terra firma at a much more reasonable price!

The subject of re-cycling has reared it’s head again this week as our carton supplier subjects us to yet another round of huge price increases – between 20 and 30% (they have been a little vague about the last increment which is why my figure is not more precise).

Their justification is the strengthening price of re-cycled carton, which apparently has risen quite sharply in recent months – our cartons consisting of around 75% re-cycled material.

Now, I never take these ‘excuses’ on face value, and therefore did a little studying of the paper market myself, going back as far as 2006. Like any other commodity, the price of re-cycled paper and carton moves up and down according to market demand, and until the last year or two it has remained fairly stable. It was early 2008 when we witnessed the first spike in the market, and quite naturally our carton supplier took this as a signal to increase carton prices (albeit by a fairly substantial margin). However, by the end of the same year, the price of re-cycled paper had plummeted to an all time low, and needless to say, the tariff of our supplier did not!

By the spring of 2010 the market had climbed slowly back to the level of early 2008, and despite already having a tariff based on the previous 2008 peak, our supplier decided to increase yet again, by this considerable, and in my opinion, completely unjustified amount! Perhaps you can detect that I am a little unhappy – I really need to change my supplier rather than taking it out on my poor computer keyboard……

Actually, this whole issue of re-cycling started me thinking. When we put our waste paper, used bottles and cans etc. into the appropriate containers, how many times do they come back? In theory the re-cycling cycle could be never ending, or is there a limit to how many times certain materials can be resurrected?

I mentioned a day or so ago that Angela was in Madrid, and also that there had been problems with flights around Spain caused by Eyjafjoj Eyjafjallajek Eyjafjallakull that volcano in Iceland.

Yesterday, I spent nearly the whole day following the Iberia website and relaying the latest updates to Angela by text. As she left for the airport in Madrid (allowing more time than usual) everything looked reasonably normal, with the exception of a few delays. However, when she arrived at the check-in she was informed that her 19.55h flight to Vigo had been cancelled, and that the best that the airline could offer was put her on a waiting list for the last flight of the day. They also casually mentioned that Iberia would not pay for a hotel, nor for meals if she had to stay overnight, as this was a weather related cancellation…… an erupting volcano, weather??

Anyway, just as Angela phoned me in a panic, the check-in lady noticed that there was an earlier flight to Vigo that had been delayed and not yet left Madrid. Within half an hour, Angela was boarded and airbourne on her way back – the only question was, would her bags make it to Vigo as well?

Miracle of miracles, amid all the chaos, Angela emerged at arrivals an hour and a half earlier than originally scheduled, complete with suitcases in hand. Talk about luck!