This morning I was in the vineyard behind our Bodega, mostly to check on the progress of our vines. The rain has finally stopped, and the forecast tells us that the week ahead should be bright and dry… we shall see! After such a prolonged period of cold, wet weather we have just made our first, precautionary, treatment of the year, a small dose of sulphur. Clearly, spraying ‘contact’ treatments in wet conditions would be of no use, and a complete waste of both time and money. Now we simply have to take full advantage of the dry conditions. Anyway, it seems that the plants are healthy and that growth is already quite rapid (a combination of sun and moisture in the soil).

Whilst I was surveying the vines I caught sight of our young oak trees, which 12 or 13 years after being mere acorns, have now grown into something much more substantial (see today’s photo). You may not recall, but the significance of these young trees (to us at least) is that the acorns themselves were gathered from the white oaks newly planted at the 9/11 memorial in New York. I guess that, strictly speaking, we maybe should not have imported acorns in our luggage, but to be honest, we are now quite happy that we did.

Over the last few months there have been some fairly serious supply chain issues – shortages of bottles, slow deliveries and not to mention some really significant price increases.

At one point the supply of bottles was a serious concern to us, as we were accumulating orders that we couldn’t fulfil, simply because we didn’t have the necessary materials in stock. The problem of bottle supply was complicated by the co-operatives and other larger bodegas who were virtually ‘cornering’ the bottle market, as they filled their yards and warehouses with bottles. As a slightly smaller bodega we were left scratching around, doing our best to acquire some stock (almost to the point of begging). It was a huge concern.

Eventually, the problem started to ease a little (as I guess, the big players had all the stock that they could handle) and we were finally able to procure a few pallets….. well, I say a few, but in reality we bought rather a lot!

Although it is possible to leave pallets of bottles in the open air, we prefer to keep them under cover to eliminate the risk of contamination by dust and humidity. Suffice to say that our already limited storage space came under severe pressure with pallets piled high, approaching every square millimetre of our warehouse.

At one point we were almost inclined to answer our phones as “Botellas Castro Martin” rather than Bodegas!!

We are fortunate enough to sell our wines around the world, usually delivered either by road or by sea (and very occasionally using air freight). Normally wines are delivered to European customers by road, and then to more distant locations by sea (sea containers can often take several weeks to reach their final destination). The biggest drawback of shipping by sea container is the lack of temperature control, when wines can be exposed to extreme heat that can damage wine in various ways, the most obvious being maderisation. Using a refrigerated container is the possibly the only real solution, albeit this can be prohibitively expensive (especially during the current supply chain crisis and shortage of containers). Another, less effective alternative is the use of a thermal blanket, that effectively lines the interior of the container in a thermal, foil type material. This has only limited benefits and does not offer any of the guarantees of the refrigerated alternative.

So, not only can wines be damaged by temperature whilst in transit, but they can also be manhandled and physically damaged, as illustrated in today’s photo. Our picture shows two shipments – one to Belgium, and the other to Brazil. Now, you could be forgiven for thinking that the one on the left is Belgium, and on the right is Brazil… but you would be wrong. The Brazilian cargo arrived in pretty much the same condition that it left our cellar door, whilst the Belgium shipment? Well, we have no idea what happened to it. It would appear that not only were the pallets dismantled, and badly reassembled on a cheap pallet, but the cases on top were damaged, and an entire layer of cases had actually gone missing – we assume that they had been stolen!  I should mention that in all cases that the shipping companies are arranged by our customers, and that once a pallet has been loaded on to a truck or container, we are no longer liable for its journey. The good news is that all shipments are automatically covered by transit insurance, and hence the Belgium incident is now under investigation.

I am still convinced that the most misused, and misunderstood term in the world of wine is the word “corked”. For example, we sometimes get bottles sent back by customers as “out of condition”, with a simple explanation given that the wine is “corked”. The strange thing is that the closure that we use on our wine is not made of natural cork, it is actually a synthetic closure (that has a zero carbon footprint, and made from polymers of sugar cane). If one of our bottles was actually corked then it is highly unlikely that the taint originated from our closure.

Of course, it is possible that our wine could be corked, because the fungi responsible for cork taint are also commonly found in wood processing, and therefore could enter a cellar via our wooden pallets. However, most pallets are heat treated these days to prevent the spread of wood infestations and mould.

The taint itself is a chemical compound known as TCA (trichloroanisole) which leaves a distinctive damp, musty smell in your glass, reminiscent of a wet kitchen cloth that has been left unattended for a few days in a damp place. Sometimes, the presence of TCA is barely noticeable, but when it is truly present then it will certainly spoil your wine. As a compound TCA is also very potent, just a few nanograms can ruin a tank, and less than a teaspoonful would be enough to wreck a large wine cellar.

As I mentioned before, however, the term corked is often (mis)used for a wide multitude of wine faults. The other day I cringed as I heard the commentary of a TV programme confidently proclaim “if your wine tastes sour that means it’s corked!!” (A sour wine is much more likely to be caused by a problem with the acidity, such as acetic acid that develops if a wine has been left open for too long).

Of course it is not my ambition to become an influencer on this new-fangled interweb thing, I am very much of a different generation. Indeed, when it comes to computers I am barely out of the two-fingered typing stage! When I was young we simply didn’t have access to computers either at school or at University, and my first piece of tech was probably an LCD wrist watch some time back in the 1970’s.

Having said all that, it is always gratifying to know that people do occasionally read our blog, and visit our website. Indeed, Google analytics gives me all the information that I could possibly need, albeit that it doesn’t tell me what our site visitors had for dinner….. yet!

Just a few days ago I noticed that we had reached one small milestone on the internet – we have now passed 250,000 views of our picture gallery. Perhaps that is a tiny number compared to some of the larger protagonists in the wine world, but for a small, family-owned Bodega in the middle of nowhere, we are quite happy about it. Here’s to the first million!

The month of January was quite exceptional, especially for Galicia. Not only was there almost zero rainfall (I think perhaps one or possibly two days at the beginning of the month), but skies have been largely cloudless for the last three or four weeks. Wall-to-wall blue sky every morning and clear, cloudless nights. Daytime temperature regularly reached the mid to high teens (15-19°C, 60-66°F), albeit that the clear January skies inevitably led to some very cold nights, with temperatures, quite frequently, dropping as low as freezing point.

Of course, as I have said many times before this provides us with really ideal conditions for pruning, and to be honest, progress to date has been much quicker than during the poor winter weather conditions that we would normally experience. Hardly a surprising observation.

The forecast tells us that we might have a little light rainfall tomorrow, but that after this we will return to largely clear, cloudless skies. There is however, a downside to this. The same as in many wine producing areas we rely on our winter rainfall to replenish the water table, and we would much rather have rain now, than during the summer months. We shall see….

I recently made a post about our Castro Martin Family Estate albariño winning a Gold+ Medal in the Distinciones Gallaecia (Guía Luis Paadín de Vinos 2022). Quite naturally, I wrote to my customers around the world to advise them, as obviously this can sometimes help to give a little boost to our sales.

In some countries there used to be, and still is, a fashion to have medals printed onto the labels of award-winning wines. In Australia for example, the culture of wine shows and competitions is very strong, they are held annually in many towns and cities across many States. As a result, a huge number of wines end up with gold medals, and (dependant upon the stature of the show), these can be held in very high esteem. As such, it is quite common to see some wine labels emblazoned with rows of gold medals. (A bit OTT for my personal taste). The problem is that it sometimes can feel like there are simply too many medals on offer, and in the end there is a danger that such accolades become over-used, thereby diluting their credibility.

So, when I wrote to my importer in Australia telling him about this award, he immediately replied by saying “please, don’t print your medal on the label!” To be honest, I actually had no intention, but I did reply by sending him a draft of what I was proposing (see today’s picture) just to test his reaction. I can’t publish his reply…. but it was very funny!

As most businesses are closed at this time of year, or at least very quiet, I thought that I would do a quick catch up on a post that I made about a year ago.

About a kilometer from the bodega, a very strange structure appeared. The metal frame of a building, but somewhat strangely, built around a 40ft shipping container at it’s core. Of course, it was this part of the construction that really attracted my attention, and my mind was working overtime trying to figure out what the building could be. With an integrated shipping container I assumed that it might be some sort of storage facility (especially being located adjacent to a local motorway). I was wrong.

Progress of construction was slow, probably owing to the pandemic, but by the end of summer 2021 a bar/restaurant emerged, with a wooden exterior giving it the appearance of a large cabin.

To be very honest I haven’t tried it yet, but I will, if only to find out how the container has been integrated into its design.

No, this does not mean that we came third in a wine competition, but it does mean that we now have an official number on our door!

Yesterday afternoon our doorbell rang. I was confronted by a man in his high-vis yellow jacket carrying a small plaque and glue gun (and yes, it was fully loaded). “Where do you want it, mate?”, or words to that effect. “Where do I want what?”, I replied. He showed me the small plaque – it was the official street number of our bodega, which apparently had to be fixed at precisely 1.50 metres above the ground.

I was just a little taken aback, as we had had no say in the design or lettering of this plaque, nor had we been advised that it was even coming. It was the definition of a ‘fait accompli’!!

Anyway, I argued a bit with this Council ‘jobsworth’ (an official who upholds petty rules even at the expense of common sense), and eventually persuaded him to attach it at slightly below the sanctioned height. With a slight grimace he left, glue gun in hand, to continue his mission with our unsuspecting neighbours.

So now, we are officially Rúa Puxafeita 3

We wish all of our friends and customers in the United States a very Happy Thanksgiving – we will raise a glass of Castro Martin albariño to you (also great with turkey!).

Whilst we do not celebrate Thanksgiving here in Europe, we have at least, inherited one of your other customs…. Black Friday. For us no turkey, no sweet potatoes, no pumpkin pie, just a bit of serious retail therapy!