Whilst the weather is actually warm, bright and sunny, we start our second day under a bit of a cloud, as we hear stories from the Rioja region of spreading virus and further lockdowns. As if a harvest is not challenging enough, I cannot begin to imagine what it might be like with even more strict controls than we already have. Hard, physical work wearing a mask is not easy, especially when the weather is hot and sunny.

So today we continue picking in our second biggest vineyard, Castrelo, which provides some of the fruit for our Family Estate wine (the rest coming from El Pazo). This year we have modified our transport system a little, which not only makes it more efficient, but also helps to reduce our carbon footprint. Castrelo is our most distant vineyard, about 10km from the bodega by road, and in the past we have transported our fruit using a tractor with trailer. We can load 110 cases on a full tractor/trailer, and each round trip takes about 40 minutes (excluding loading and unloading).

This year we are palletising our 20kg cases in the vineyard, and then loading 12 full pallets of grapes onto a medium sized truck. One truck load is the equivalent of four tractor loads, and so this will obviously help in reducing our carbon footprint – not to mention that when the fruit arrives it is already on pallets and easier to manipulate in our grape reception.

For the technically minded, the balance of our grape must is very good this year – pH and acidity at the levels we would normally hope for. As with the last couple of vintages, the only slight anomaly is the alcohol, which, after a long, hot summer is just a little high again. At this point my guess is that we will probably land somewhere between 12.5% and 13% alc., but with the acidity that we have, this should not present any problem.

Yesterday (Sunday) every person in our picking team went to hospital….. for a Covid test (happily no one tested positive).

On a bright, sunny, albeit windy Monday morning we kicked off the 2020 campaign, with yet more health checks! This time it was a simple temperature test, with every detail carefully noted. This was followed by a brief training session about the various Covid protocols in the vineyard, mostly to do with the handling of equipment and social distancing. This year there will be no picking in groups, every individual will be distributed evenly throughout the vineyard. (Probably quite boring for our team, with not too much opportunity for social interaction, but in 2020 this is our ‘new normal’, at least for the time being). We are, of course, obliged to take this pandemic very seriously.

By the afternoon, our presses were already working, with their familiar droning motors echoing throughout the bodega. This is really the moment that you know the harvest is underway.

The tasting of the first juice revealed a bright, intense fruit, typical of the albariño grape, and backed by a very good level of acidity. It will be some time before we can assess the yield of the 2020 harvest (volume of litres per kilo of grapes). We are especially cautious after last year’s low yield, and a very dry summer this year. Only time will tell.

In theory at least today should be the last day of our 2019 campaign. We are finishing the last part of our Pazo vineyard and then all that remains is one parcel in our vineyard here at the bodega. Of course this means that at least our last grapes don’t have too far to travel, and we should be able to gather everything in more quickly.

Although there is not too much happening in the vineyards, inside the cellar the real work is just beginning as we get the fermentations under way. The majority of our wine making process is much the same every year, but having said that we do not stand still. We will be experimenting with at least two or three tanks this year, trying some new techniques and perhaps some new products (usually in the form of different types of yeast). As I have always said, we always work with quite neutral yeasts, as we do not really want our wines to impart any strange flavours or aftertastes – we simply want our customers to be tasting the grape variety itself, something typical and certainly nothing artificial.

Of course our yeast suppliers always arrive charged with glossy brochures, new products making various claims about what they can do. We do not dismiss them completely, but rather ‘dip our toe’ by perhaps making one or two tanks of something different. The proof, of course, is always after the fermentation is complete, when we raise the first samples to our lips.

And so, with year another year behind us the sun sets on the Salnés Valley, and the final curtain falls on the 2019 harvest. All that remains now is a bit of wine making, and of course, my annual vintage report! Thank you and goodnight…..

Today we start picking in one of our most important ‘Family Estate’ vineyards – El Pazo. As you can perhaps make out from the photos, this vineyard has some of our oldest vines, many between 50 and 70 years old.

The final days of the harvest are always the most frustrating, as we sit and wait for the final grapes to roll in – more often than not, at the end of the evening. We try to keep our cellar team occupied with odd jobs, and indeed, we often send a couple out to help with the picking (with the proviso that they accompany every grape delivery back to the bodega to help offload them). Despite all this there is still a lot of waiting!

On my side, I am busy planning and then re-planning the cellar movements, the number of tanks that we are going to need to accommodate the must (and unfortunately the final number often has to be revisited). The movements can be a bit of a chess game – part of the cellar has clean must after racking, whilst the other half is the most recent must which is still left for settling. The reason I have to re-plan is because as the kilos arrive, we have to revise our totals, and therefore the number and location of tanks that will be used for fermentation (which we will start tomorrow). The concern that we have is that we are not left with half-filled tanks once all the fruit has been collected!

We have now broken the back of this year’s harvest, indeed, we are now moving toward the last couple of vineyard locations. In the meantime, work is already well underway in the cellar itself as we chill the fresh grape must to help it settle. After a day or two when all the impurities have fallen to the bottom of the tanks then the juice can then be moved, or ‘racked’ into clean tanks ready for fermentation.

In a way Monday turned out to be quite similar to Sunday – smooth and uneventful. As always, once we start picking we like to continue without stopping and so, quite understandably, when we have rain looming on the horizon we do try to step up the pace as much as we can. The weather radar still showed rain and some thunder moving towards our area, and we were anticipating that it might arrive with us at around 5pm (when we would normally stop picking at 7pm). 5pm came and went, and although we could see dark skies on two sides of the bodega, we somehow managed to escape, as did our vineyards. We heard later that it had been raining within 10km of our location, but luckily we didn’t see a drop….. until about 10pm when there were quite literally just a few spots of rain, but then not even enough to wet the ground. In any event, by that time, all grapes were safely inside and already passing through our presses.

Today’s photo shows our harvest cases drying in the sun. Once they are emptied they are immediately washed, ready to be used again. It is really important to wash the cases as soon as they have been emptied, as they inevitably have a little juice inside, which, if left to dry, becomes hard and difficult to remove, almost like a layer of nail varnish!

Sunday. Yet another sunny morning, with a forecast for more high temperatures. In theory at least, we have almost reached the mid-point of the harvest, which is just as well as we have now seen some forecasts of rain for Monday night (any time after about 5pm).

Traditionally, the weekend is always the busiest time, but despite this slight increase Sunday passed off without a hitch. We had one minor issue with the temperature control in one tank, but this was quickly resolved by our own people.

When we talk of yield at this time of year, we are, in effect. talking about two different things. There is the yield in the vineyard which reflect the amount of fruit collected in each vineyard, expressed in kilos per hectare, and then there is the yield that relates to the amount of juice extracted from the grapes, simply the litres per kilo.

I think I mentioned in one of my earlier posts that yields from the vineyards are smaller this year. Each harvest we try to estimate in advance how many kilos that we might have from our own vineyards. This is done by counting the bunches in a measured area and then multiplying this by our total surface area. On many occasions this is reasonably accurate, and allows us to plan how many empty tanks we will need, and the quantities of materials that we will need for wine making. This year, not only was our own estimate quite inaccurate, but also that of nearly all of our grape suppliers. I understand that this applies to the region as a whole and not only ourselves.

Yet another hot, sunny day. The irony of this is that Galicia is experiencing excessive heat, whilst in the South of Spain several people have now died in flooding caused by catastrophic rainfall. Fortunately it was not quite as hot as Friday, and by mid-afternoon some light cloud cover provided at least a little respite for our teams, both inside and outside the bodega. Unfortunately this cloud was short-lived.

In some ways Saturday was a routine day, but in another way perhaps slightly different. As with every harvest, a lot of our suppliers prefer to pick and deliver their grapes on a Saturday, and so not only is it busy, but it is nearly always a last minute rush! The bodega can be fairly quiet during the day, but once the sun begins to set then that’s when the really fun begins. The secret to dealing with this is simple, to have a good, hard-working, well organised team – some unloading the trailers, some loading and emptying the presses and others washing the cases. (Thank goodness the case washing machine that we installed last year is now working properly – last year was a bit of a nightmare as the filters were choking up every ten minutes which made it very much stop-start!).

We are stepping up the pace as much as we can simply because of the late summer heat. The high temperatures mean quite simply that the potential alcohol is increasing and the acidity is dropping. Obviously, as always, we want our wine to be as typical of our ‘cool-climate’ as possible. Let’s see what Sunday brings!

I should probably start by saying that day one was not without it’s hiccups. For example, a couple of temporary staff did not turn up for their evening shift in the bodega, and at one point our refrigeration machine (for cooling the tanks) cut out completely. We immediately called the engineers (to fix the machine – not to work a shift!), but before they even had chance to arrive, the machine miraculously started to work again. Of course this equipment is fundamental to our wine making (temperature control) and such random, unexplained failures can leave you with quite an uneasy feeling. Fortunately we can monitor this system during the night (by mobile phone), but checking your screen at 5am, after a late night, does not make for restful sleep!

Friday, our second day, was not only sunny but was probably the hottest day of the summer so far! By midday the temperature was already 28°C (83°F) and climbing. By mid-afternoon it had reached a baking 35°C (95°F). We were trying desperately to keep our picking team supplied with fresh water, although I’m sure that they would have preferred cold showers!

One important feature of the 2019 vintage is that it will probably be quite small in volume. Not only are the bunches and berries small, but the yields of kilo/hectare are also well below the norm. Growers simply have far fewer kilos than they thought, which I guess in the long-term, could have an effect on prices. On a more positive note, the must from the presses appears to not only be very concentrated, but also very clean.

Today I have included a photo of one of our lesser known vineyards, from which the eagle-eyed amongst you will spot immediately, is not a ‘pergola’ vineyard (but still produces some of our better grapes).

Here we go again! On a very bright, sunny Galician morning the 2019 campaign gets under way.

By mid-morning the first grapes were rolling in – exactly as I had described in an earlier post. Small berries in tightly packed bunches, green/gold in colour, but with surprisingly thin skins. Normally, at the end of a long, dry summer we might anticipate slightly thicker skin, but as I mentioned before, this is possibly because, although there was plenty of sunshine, it has never been excessively hot this summer (especially at night).

As always, every grape delivery is sampled, analysed and recorded as it enters the bodega, and the first results are similar to last year in a way. High levels of sugar (which translates into higher alcohol), but still with a good level of acidity. Tasting of the must revealed a very concentrated sweet must with green apple and floral hints. Despite this intense sweetness, there is still a fresh acidity in the background, which will help to offset the very ripe fruit.

I just thought that I should explain today’s photo because it can be a bit disorientating (if you are not sure exactly what you’re looking at). The photo is taken from the top of one of our tanks looking down inside. It shows a hose delivering fresh grape must directly from the press. Our press room is on a different level, above the tank room, and so most of the flow is controlled simply by gravity (the less need for using a pump, the better). This shot shows the very first juice of the 2019 harvest.

Galician weather is always difficult to predict at the best of times – for example, at this very moment we are experiencing some significant shifts of temperature, sometimes within the very same day. Our vines are certainly quite advanced for the time of year, and in some small pockets we are already seeing the onset of flowering. This could equate to a harvest at the very beginning of September if the weather behaves as it should. Vamos a ver (we will see).

However, the reason I am writing about alcohol is actually because of what happened during the summer of 2018. After poor spring and cool early summer the 2018 vintage was largely saved by a late burst of sun and warmth in August and early September. So much so that the final, very rapid maturation of the fruit actually took many by surprise, and at least some of the resulting albariño grapes were picked with between 13° and 14° potential alcohol!

Of course, here at Castro Martin we always to our very best to retain the typicity of our grape and our denomination, but even we struggled to pick all of our fruit before it ‘overcooked’!

Last week we racked a number of our 2018 tanks, removing them from the lees. The first step following this is to have every wine analysed, running tests for every parameter including stability. The results were all very good, with the key elements exactly at the correct levels in relation to one another, meaning that the wines are well balanced. The only slightly a-typical aspect was the alcohol, with a couple of wines just touching the 13% mark (not perhaps for the very first time, but certainly not within the last 17 years that I have been in Galicia).

We will need to adjust some of our 2018 labels accordingly.