On Friday morning we opened our shutters under grey, cloudy skies with cool temperatures. All fingers were tightly crossed, as the threat of rain loomed over us.

I mentioned yesterday that I make a post about our grapes, and their quality. For the last two years, we have had what I describe as a-typical vintages – warm, dry summers resulting in low yields and very high alcohol. In 2019 and 2020 it was not uncommon to see albariños of 13% or even 13.5%, whereas several years ago, the ‘norm’ would perhaps be nearer to 12.0% or 12.5%.

So far, it would appear that we will might produce wines that are much nearer to the previous level – my early prediction would be nearer to 12%. The grape must is certainly not as thick and viscous as the last two years, the result of a much cooler summer and just a little rainfall in recent weeks. Obviously we will be able to make a much better judgement of this in a weeks time, when we have all of our crop safely gathered in.

As far as day two, was concerned, it turned out to be a half day of picking, as the rain arrived more or less as forecast. It was really just a short, but significant downpour, and by late afternoon the sky was already clearing. Of course, we did not want to gather damp fruit, and so by lunchtime vineyard work was suspended for the day.

Picking started on Thursday under bright, clear blue skies. Of course, we hope that this sun might continue for a while, but the forecasts are very uncertain to say the least. Our plan for today is to bring our own grapes in on large trucks, with our cases already loaded onto pallets in the vineyard. In this way they can be quickly forklifted on and forklifted off. Less journeys too and from the vineyard (14 pallets per truck), and less labour in the bodega to offload cases. Historically, cases have been unloaded by hand, one by one, and with many of our smaller grape suppliers, this is still the system that we have to use!

Beautiful weather aside, our first day was not without incident. A few technical difficulties with equipment, which, despite having been tested, decided to play up on us. Firstly the machine for cooling the tanks would not start up (we needed to change a digital thermostat). Later, our case washing machine kept cutting out, but then eventually, and quite mysteriously, it decided to work again! (It might have been the moment when I threatened it with a hammer!)

Apart from that, there was no easing gently into the first day – from lunch time we were inundated, and spent virtually the whole day playing catch up, just managing to keep our heads above the water. It was a bit tiring to say the least.

I will write more tomorrow about the grapes, and the quality of our 2021 harvest.

A perfect day to start our 2021 Harvest!

As always, as the harvest arrives, we have to know what the weather is doing, but our simple problem is that the forecasts are proving to be very inaccurate. At the start of this week nearly every weather website said that Tuesday and Wednesday would be 100% rain. Naturally, we have set everything up to start on Thursday. So now, here we are, in the middle of Tuesday, looking out of the window at blue sky – not cloudless, but far from any sign of rain. Even now, these websites are forecasting rain at this time.

With hindsight we probably could have started our harvest at the weekend and enjoyed 3 or 4 days uninterrupted picking, but maybe, if we had taken the risk, then the forecasts could have been accurate. Having said that, it would appear that all of our neighbours have been hedging too, there is very little activity in Salnés at the moment.

Since finishing the picking last weekend we have been very busy inside, racking grape musts and initiating fermentation. The first week or so is extremely busy with quite intense activity leaving little time to sit down and write posts for our pages!

It goes without saying that we always try to grow our grapes and vinify our wines in the most natural way possible, with the minimum intervention. Whilst the resulting wines cannot actually be certified as organic or biodynamic, they can actually be classified as SUSTAINABLE.

If we ever decided to make a natural wine then this would restrict us to the exclusive use of indigenous albariño yeasts that occur naturally on the skin of our grapes. However, the problem is that this natural yeast is generally not strong enough to sustain a complete fermentation. It may well start naturally, but the likelihood is that it would not finish, as this delicate yeast would mostly likely die off before our wine is fully fermented. For this reason we chose to seed with cultured yeasts, as is would simply be to risky to rely solely on these indigenous yeasts.

The seeding process itself (when done correctly) takes a lot of time, and involves a lot of human input. The yeast is first re-hydrated in warm water, at body temperature, which then has to be reduced very slowly, over time, by adding small amounts of grape must from the tanks. The idea is that the re-hydrated yeast (starting at about 38°C) will eventually be cooled to within a couple of degrees of the temperature of the tank. Depending on the wine cellar, and the technique used, the tank temperature could be anything from about 14°C – 18°. If this long, careful procedure is not followed, and the yeast added straight into the chilled must too quickly, then the shock of this sudden temperature change will simply kill the yeast, and the juice will not ferment. It can take around 3 hours to seed a single tank, and so we never usually seed more than 2 or 3 tanks a day.

OK, so you’ve already guessed it. As we move into our seventh and final day of picking the weather is hot and sunny…. again! Today is very much a ‘mopping up’ operation as we gather the final bunches from our Pazo vineyard. As I have mentioned in previous years we don’t necessarily pick vineyard by vineyard, as, in the case of El Pazo, it is picked sector by sector, on different days, according to the maturity of the fruit. Indeed, we actually gathered the first grapes from a plot in El Pazo some six days ago (on Tuesday).

Harvests are often about making calculations of kilos, movements and logistics etc.. For example, we already know the maximum and minimum loads of our presses, but then what happens if we have a few kilos left after the last press is filled? The secret of the final day is to wait until we have every last kilo gathered in, and then calculate how we are going to process them, splitting and sharing the loads between our two presses. The same rules apply to our tanks. For example, there is a minimum level of juice that we need in each tank in order to achieve optimum temperature control. We can calculate the litres of juice from each press (more or less), but we have to spread this evenly between tanks simply to ensure that we don’t have a few odd litres left over at the end of the day!

You may recall that in a previous post I forecasted a lunchtime finish, whereas our last grapes were actually unloaded at 8pm. I should have known better, we always overrun on the last day.

So tomorrow we can focus all our efforts to the grape must, racking and working on fermentation. In the end the forecast says that it might not rain tomorrow, but we have all our grapes safely inside so I don’t really care too much!!!

Yesterday I mentioned that today could be our last day, but it appears that perhaps I was just being a bit over optimistic. When I sat down and did a few calculations late last night I now know that it would be pretty much impossible for our picking team to gather everything today (even though they have been working at hyper-speed). My revised guess is that we will probably finish at lunchtime on Sunday. At least this should mean that our people can enjoy a meal with their families, as is the tradition here in Galicia.

And yes, it is yet another hot, sunny day!

The other thing that I did not mention is that we have also more fruit than we planned for. Before the harvest we walk the vineyards in an attempt to assess the potential yield of the vines. Even with years of experience it is still only our best ‘guesstimate’ and naturally we have to allow for some margin of error. (Bear in mind that we also have to rely on the estimates of our grape suppliers too). It appears that we were just a little conservative, possibly because after such a warm, dry summer we anticipated a comparatively low yield. The effect of this is that we have to check that we have enough materials for the wine making (yeasts, nutrients etc.), and then we have to re-plan the tank movements, to ensure that the extra grape must is evenly distributed, and that we don’t end up with any half-filled tanks. It’s actually much more complicated than you might think!

By the way, my short video shows the ‘fangos’ at the bottom of the tank after we have removed the clean wine. As you can see it’s almost like a mud (from the dust and soil), but also contains a few odd grapes and skins from the pressing.

Today we start in sombre mood, not only for the victims of this terrible virus, but also as we remember the events of 9/11, 19 years ago in New York City….

Our fifth day is yet another hot one. Of course, we shouldn’t complain as this is preferable to cold, wet conditions, and makes life just that little bit less stressful for us.

Today we are working in our ‘bodega’ vineyard – a small one hectare site at the side of the bodega. Of course, this means that grapes are delivered almost as soon as they are picked, and we have a constant flow throughout the day. Indeed, at times the ‘flow’ was almost overwhelming and the reception was processing grapes at warp speed! Our picking team are also working extra hours in order that we can finish either tomorrow, or most probably on Sunday (just before the weather is due to break on Monday). The forecast also says that tomorrow will be 33°/34°C (93°F). Let’s just hope that our weary bones will survive.

I failed to mention that down in the cellar our wine making chores are also underway. Once the wine has ‘settled’ for a couple of days and the fine coating of dust on the grape skin has fallen to the bottom of the tank, then we simply have to ‘rack’ the clean grape must into new tanks, leaving the debris behind almost like a kind of sludge at the bottom. This dust and debris is known in Spain as fangos.

Day four – yet another hot sunny day, but perhaps not for long. The forecast for the beginning of next week shows the possibility of rain. The race is now on to finish by the weekend!

Of course, after saying that yesterday that everything went smoothly, today was a different story. The problem was not with the harvest itself, but rather with our brand new temperature control system in the bodega. (At the moment we are using this to chill the grape must in our tanks, simply as it settles better when it is a little colder).

In our bodega we have mainly small tanks of 9,000 litres, but we also have a number of larger tanks of 25,000 litres. The temperature control of the small tanks worked perfectly, but when we fired up the large tanks, then it was a case of “Houston, we have a problem”! They simply didn’t do what we wanted them to do. Tanks that were switched off started to chill, and tanks that we wanted to use simply wouldn’t chill at all. We called the technicians who installed the new system….

OK, so the technicians came and went, apparently leaving everything in working order – except that it was not! Several hours after the problem became apparent it was finally resolved by one of our own guys. He discovered that all the electro-valves had been installed in reverse! Who needs technicians?!

We move into our third day with yet more blue sky and brilliant sunshine. Yesterday the temperature touched 30°C (86°F), which can make picking a little uncomfortable, more especially when wearing a mask. Of course, the big advantage of our region is that the vast majority of fruit is grown using the pergola system, which in the hot sun at least provides a little bit of shade for our team.

By the end of the evening the bodega was functioning very smoothly (I really shouldn’t really tempt fate), as grapes arrived in a very timely fashion. No sooner had we unloaded one press than the next was ready to go…. if only all days were like this! After three days we must be somewhere near our halfway point.

Today’s photo shows a glass of our 2020 grape must. Admittedly, this example has been ‘settling’ for a day or two, and is much cleaner than the murky brown liquid that emerges from the press. The clarity of the juice is really determined by the amount of rainfall that we have as we approach the harvest. If there is no rain at all then bunches can be covered with a film of fine dust blown up from the ground. Whilst this is not necessarily visible to the naked eye, once the grapes have been pressed we can end up with quite a dark, unattractive liquid. (It tastes great, but simply doesn’t look particularly appealing). However, this year, as we experienced a few days of rain a week or two ago, our fruit is comparatively clean. It is thick and unctuous and should make a very attractive wine. Time will tell!