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!

Yet another bright sunny day here in Galicia (although this is never a given at this time of year, and can sometimes change in the blink of an eye). Today our picking team moved on to some of our smaller, more local vineyards here in the village of Barrantes. This move was soon evident as our grapes started to arrive much quicker than over the two previous days working in Castrelo. (Castrelo vineyard is actually the furthest from the bodega that we own, albeit still only about 10km).

We have noticed that the quality of the grapes appears to be fairly consistent from all locations this year, and actually quite high quality. Earlier in the summer we were not overly optimistic for this year’s harvest, but the three or four weeks of hot sunshine that extended from the end of July more or less until the end of August appears to have changed the outcome somewhat. Also, with a forecast for fine weather over the coming days it is likely that the quality that we have now will remain largely unaffected.

An unexpected feature of this year’s crop is the potential alcohol originating from the high concentration of fruit sugar. It would appear (albeit it still early days) that we could have a finished wine somewhere in the region of about 13% alc. Having said that, this level has become much more the ‘norm’ over recent years, but as our fruit still retains a good level of acidity, we are now more confident that we should be able to produce quite a good wine in 2024.

Over the day the flow of grapes remained steady, all moved with some efficiency through the cellar, and so from a harvest point of view our third day was quite uneventful.

When we opened our shutters today we were greeted by blue sky and sunshine, but the temperature was tempered by a fresh breeze. To be honest a breeze such as this is, quite naturally, welcomed by our picking team who spend long hours under the sun in our vineyards.

Tomorrow we will probably start work on the actual wine making process inside the bodega, which means that we have to enjoy our last day of relative ‘freedom’ before our workload effectively doubles (working inside and outside the bodega simultaneously). This is the most concentrated work period of the harvest, when fruit is still being gathered, and the first tanks of grape must require our attention. The double workload may well continue into the middle of next week when the final grapes are collected. From then on, our attention switches fully to inside and creating the very best wine can with the fruit that nature has provided.

Meanwhile, today we were visited by a local TV station – Television Salnés. Having already visited some larger ‘industrial-sized’ bodegas they were quite fascinated by our more hands-on, traditional approach. We actually take that as quite a compliment, as we always preach the gospel of traditional (sustainable) wine making processes. They were not only captivated by the bodega itself but also our history, being one of the founding bodegas of the D.O. Rias Baixas and also a family owned and managed business (actually more rare than you might think).

I sometimes have a feeling that each year is getting shorter, as our harvest seems to come around more and more quickly. (Probably more down to old age)! Today we start our picking under a slightly grey sky, but thankfully completely dry and with good weather forecast for the coming days.

This year we have a strong team of experienced people (following the recruitment problems that we experienced faced in 2023). Virtually from the break of day our pickers got to work in our Castrelo vineyard. Consistently one of our best, and also a site that has achieved full maturity and is now ready to be harvested. By late morning the first grapes were already arriving ready to be loaded into our presses, and by early evening the first tanks had been filled with fresh grape must (juice).

Our first taste of the 2024 must revealed, as always, a very intense, piercing fruit. At this stage the juice appears to have good viscosity and also a refreshing kick of acidity on the finish. Indeed, pretty much all the typical characteristics that we expect of the albariño varietal.

The day itself was pretty uneventful, apart from perhaps one light shower at the end of the day which was a little unexpected. With a steady flow of fruit that was quickly processed, we have taken our first step along the road of converting grapes into fine wine.

No sooner had I posted my words about the hot weather in August, than there was a slight downturn. That’s not to say that it started pouring with rain, but more that the high temperatures dropped by a few degrees. The reality is that we were left with levels more reminiscent of a Galician summer. The average dropped to nearer the mid 20’s C (mid 70’s F) – there has been more cloud (albeit not total cloud cover), and there was even one day of rain, which thankfully, was more or less just that single day. In effect, this actually helps to clean the fruit, and remove any layer of dust that might exist from the dry spell. The other factor that we have noticed are the much cooler nights. In summary, the very hot, dry spell lasted only some 3 or 4 weeks and may not have done quite as much work as we had hoped, in terms of ripening the fruit. Certainly the fruit that has been exposed directly to the sun is ripe, whereas that in the shade is very much on the borderline of being fully ripe.

Samples have been taken, and analysis has been made, that shows us exactly as we had suspected, some fruit would benefit from a bot more sun. The problem with this is, because of the unusual growing season (mostly cool, changeable weather followed by this short burst of summer heat), the acidity levels in some of our fruit is unusually low. As a result we will start picking selected vineyard sites this Thursday 12th September, which is actually very close to the date that I projected some three months ago after flowering.

I think that I must be clairvoyant! Back at the end of June I posted on this site that the weather here had been quite poor, but that in a few weeks we might be begging for cooler weather. Well, that prediction has pretty much become the reality! It was the 22nd July to be exact, that we experienced a quite dramatic change – the sun came out and the mercury immediately hit 30+°C (86+°F), indeed that week we probably exceeded 35°C. By the way, I remember the date so precisely because it was the day that my old friend Tim Atkin MW arrived in the region for a weeks visit (dining with us that same evening).

This hot weather has continued almost without respite since then, with the exception of one day, when we had a little light rain (but barely enough to penetrate the canopy of our vineyards). Of course, this is very much what we needed, as, until that moment, there had been a distinct lack of heat and sun. The effect of this prolonged, hot period has probably changed our original forecast of a mid-September harvest, accelerating the maturity meaning that we may now start in early September. Quality is difficult to predict at this point, but certainly the sun has helped.

Today’s video originates from a recent promotion in Ireland (our thanks to the Seafood Café in Dublin for their support).

Well, Albariño Day is finally over and normal life in the town of Cambados has been restored (where the majority of activities are centred). On the day itself (1st August) I was, as always, first in line at the door of the ‘Tunnel of Wine’ where visitors have a unique opportunity to taste many of the regions different albariños all in one place. There are more than 150 wines on show, and so I usually split my tasting over two morning sessions.

I consider myself to be a professional taster, and as such I feel compelled to make notes on every wine that I try (good or bad). Also, and I find this surprisingly unusual, I am one of the very few people in the room that actually spits after tasting! Heaven only knows what happens to other people and whether they are still standing by the end of each session, but I never really hang around for long enough to find out. Taste and gone, like some sort of wine Superhero!

Strangely, the combined act of tasting, making notes and spitting is so rare that it attracts quite of lot of attention, from those who are simply curious but also from the Press. I am sometimes very aware that there are cameras focused, and this attention did culminate in being interviewed on camera twice. Prior to that I had also pre-recorded a couple of videos that were sent to influencers in the UK, and were quite widely shown around the internet on Albariño Day. Internet fame for me has arrive at a very late age! Attached is one of the videos premiered on the day, but that was actually recorded in February (hence the heavy clothing!)