As from December 2023 we will be obliged to add nutritional information to our labels. Of course, with the amount of information already appearing on labels (including government health warnings etc.), there is a danger that the label might eventually cover most of the bottle! This leaves us with two options, either produce bigger bottles, or add a QR code to the label linking consumers directly to the information. (The first option of bigger bottles was very much tongue-in-cheek and we have used option two).

Suffice to say that in the very near future we will start to print labels with this new QR code included. (We do already include QR codes that links to the product page of the wine being consumed). The new QR will replace this, but this new link will still include information about the wine itself, so not all will be technical information.

In the meantime, we have already posted nutritional information on our website. On each product page (English and Spanish) there is a link under the downloads (descargas) section. The same link also appears under the general ‘downloads’ header on our homepage. All of these links are clearly marked ‘Nutritional Information’.

Every tank of wine that we sell is tasted by a panel of local experts at our D.O. offices, before the official Rias Baixas ‘tirilla’ (small strip label) can be issued to endorse the quality of our wine.

Naturally, they use the tried and tested criteria for judging – sight, smell, taste etc. However, these days, in a move towards more natural, biological and biodynamic wines, it could be that one or two of these measurements might have to be reconsidered.

For example, at Castro Martin, in a move towards more natural wine making, some of the processes that we used in the past, have now been shelved. In the case of some of our wines, the process of cold-stabilisation and filtration have been discontinued. Even these simple changes can make a significant difference to the finished bottle. Every time that a wine is moved and undergoes these ‘technical’ processes, a small part of the character of a wine is removed (not to mention the risk of oxidation as a wine changes tanks). Of course, there are downsides. A wine that is not cold stabilised can produce tartrate crystals in the bottle, in much the same way that red wine might throw a small deposit. And whilst any deposit in a bottle might be aesthetically unattractive, in the case of both the red and white wines, they are completely harmless.

In the same way, a wine that is not filtered, might not have quite the same level of ‘polish’ when held up to the light. However, by sacrificing a ‘squeaky clean’ appearance, the wine may well actually taste better! It’s really just about aesthetics (perhaps more than the taste).

So, as an example, when we submit a tank to our D.O. for tasting, if it is not absolutely crystal clear in the glass, then there is a chance that the sample could be rejected, even if it is much better on the palate. Maybe this could be time to rethink the rules a little?

For the past few months all talk has been concentrated around a certain virus – but what happens when a bottle of wine gets ‘sick’?

I should start by saying don’t worry, you can’t catch this virus from drinking wine! I am talking about a completely different thing…. bottle sickness. So what is bottle sickness and how does it affect what we drink? Well, to be honest, this problem is much more likely to be picked up by professionals when a wine is first shipped, and will normally have recovered well before the time it reaches you.

It is a phenomenon caused by travel, when the bottles are shipped over long distances, whether it be by road, sea or air. It can also occur when a wine has been recently bottled, again as the result of it being badly ‘shaken up’ – it simply needs time to recover (up to one or two weeks after a long trip)! It is difficult to pinpoint exactly why this occurs, but the effect, in the short-term, can be quite significant. The wine simply ‘closes down’ as many of the usual aromas and flavours that you would normally expect are simply not present. In addition, it can even appear to be a little thin and insipid. At this moment the wine can be described as ‘dumb’ (which in wine parlance does not mean stupid!).

It is important to know that this ‘sickness’ will not occur on your journey home from the wine shop or supermarket. However, if your wine is a little ‘closed up’ when you first open it, this could be just a touch of sulphur (added as protection at bottling). Simply swirl your glass and give it a few minutes to open up again – the best things are always worth waiting for!

These days, a number of people have strong views about the use of sulphur in wine making, indeed, some people have a very low tolerance to it and can suffer side-effects as a consequence. Of course, used at the correct dosage, it is a very effective way to protect wine, preventing oxidation, which is why it has been widely accepted for so long in our industry. The key is using the correct amount. Too little and it won’t really be effective, whilst too much can more or less ‘kill’ a wine completely, so much so that it may never recover.

The presence is always most noticeable when it has just been added. I have no doubt that many a consumer will have received a quick waft of sulphur immediately after pulling the cork. However, given a little time this will dissipate (assuming that the wine hasn’t been over-sulphured)!

A week or two ago we ‘racked’ a few wines from their lees, and transferred them to clean tanks. Any time a wine is moved around the cellar, not only can it lose aroma, but it will also lose a few grams of sulphur too – thereby losing protection at the time it most needs it (during a period of tank storage).

Sulphur is available in a few different forms – one is pure sulphur, which is delivered in tanks and is extremely dangerous. Another is a diluted liquid solution. Usually when a wine requires a significant dose (at the end of fermentation for example) we will use the pure gas form. Whereas when the wine has just been moved and only requires a very small top-up, in this case we prefer the solution form, when we can really be more accurate (the unit of measurement is ppm – parts per million). To put this into perspective, sometimes we may only be adding a few millilitres of sulphur solution to a tank containing 9 or 10,000 litres of wine to move the level by one or two ppm!

In all honesty, we will probably never be able to produce biological, biodynamic or completely ‘natural’ wines here at Castro Martin. Having said that, we do, and always have, used minimal intervention in our entire fruit growing and wine making processes, for as many years as I have been here (and probably long before that). As always, there are two main factors that stop us from overcoming the final obstacles in achieving official certification. Our weather, and at least a few of the controls imposed by our denomination.

For example, no commercially minded person is going to sit back and watch their fruit rot on the vines if there is something that they can do to prevent it – simply for the sake of preserving their biological or biodynamic status. On the one hand, and in certain vintages, it could be a viable option, but year-on-year it would probably be difficult to sustain. (By coincidence I have just introduced a key word – sustainable, and that is exactly how we are classified). We are sustainable producers, in other words we practice ‘mindful winemaking’ – always. always, always with one eye fixed firmly on the environment, and what we can do (within reason), to preserve it.

Of course, I also mentioned the controls of our denomination. By this I mean that if we were to produce a wine completely without filtration (to retain more texture), then if the wine should any single trace of cloudiness or was not crystal clear, then it simply would pass the control tasting and could not be sold as a Rias Baixas wine. This is just one example of the many controls that guide our wine making process.

Apart from only using a very light filtration, one of the steps that we could (and might) take to enhance our wine is to eliminate cold-stabilisation completely. We do this stabilisation to eliminate tartrate, that can, potentially, be precipitated by the tartaric acid in the wine to form (unsightly) tartrate crystals in the bottle. Unfortunately, most people don’t understand that this is actually the very same substance as the cream of tatar that we use in cooking – completely natural and completely harmless. Many consumers simply do not recognise this and could possibly return the bottle as being faulty. Just one of the downsides of minimal intervention.

In the end, it is just not as straightforward as some might think – we can only strive to do our best, whilst respecting the controls and the climate that we have to live with!

Of course, I should have pointed out from the offset, that there is no official recognition or certification for the category of ‘natural wine’ – but clearly, as the name implies, they are simply made in the most natural way possible, with nothing added and as little as possible taken away. As I have mentioned before, the downside can be that the wines themselves are inherently unstable. For example, a natural wine might have no sulphur added (leaving them prone to oxidation), they might not be fined to remove proteins (leading to protein instability and cloudiness in the wine). They are also largely unfiltered – a process that cleans the wine, but also removes body and flavour (according to the type and level of filtration used). In the case of natural white wines, they will certainly not be cold-stabilised (and can therefore develop tartrate crystals in the bottle). If the consumer is happy with this, and accepts a multitude of potential flaws, then why not?

To be honest, all wines are ‘natural’ – certainly they will be manipulated by technology or perhaps ‘chemically’ at some point, but never to the extent where flavourings or colourants would be added. For example, some commercial wines (in some wine growing areas) might allow the addition of grape concentrate to sweeten, or tartaric acid to correct the balance, but even these additions are strictly controlled and limited. (I should add that in the case of albariño, we never need to add acidity – the balance in our wine is simply achieved by chosing the optimum moment to harvest).

Perhaps the only way in which the ‘flavour profile’ of a wine can be manipulated is by the choice of yeast added. For example, in some extreme cases, exotic fruit flavours can be infused into a wine by the use of certain yeasts (which can either mask the natural fruit completely or distort it, almost beyond recognition). At Castro Martin, whilst we are obliged to seed our wines with yeast, we always select a very neutral strain that allows the albariño fruit to shine through. OK, we add yeast, but the flavour of our wine is still natural.

Over my last few posts I have broadly outlined many of the steps that we already take to keep our wine as natural as possible, and in my next post I will talk about possible future developments that we are considering.

A couple of weeks ago we attended a very interesting seminar – ‘Making wines with low SO2 (sulphur dioxide) content’.

One of the most defining characteristics of a ‘natural’ wine is that it will certainly be low in sulphur – sometimes with no added SO2 whatsoever. Added sulphur has two roles to play in a finished wine: Firstly, it acts as a microbicide, killing bacteria or any remaining yeasts that could eventually lead to spoilage. Secondly, it prevents oxidation of the wine, by preventing or reducing interaction of wine with oxygen.

During fermentation yeast will naturally produce a very small amount of SO2 (and so it will always be present), the question is – is this enough to protect a wine in the medium to long-term? For example, it’s worth noting that premature oxidation is actually a very common fault in ‘natural’ wines.

Our seminar talked of this, and offered alternative solutions, products to be used in the grape must to replace SO2, yeast strains that produce very little natural SO2, and pre-bottling additives – all apparently quite natural. We tasted two Spanish white wines from the 2018 vintage made using the low-sulphur products….

When I was a wine buyer, one of the most important issues for me was not only the quality, but mainly the longevity of the wine – looking into its future and trying to imagine how it might evolve. (Bearing in mind that many of my purchasing decisions were made in the producers cellar, tasting raw wine from tanks and barrels). If a wine tasted ready for drinking from the first sip, then the likely hood was that it would not last the course. It is rare that a good or great wine will show it’s true colours during its infancy – and that is where the buyers judgement comes into play.

I say this because of the two 2018 wines in the tasting. They were fine for drinking NOW, very commercial styles, but simply ready to give a bit of ‘instant gratification’. Perhaps perfect for the two wines in question, but not really for our albariño, which can often be consumed two or three years down the road. I’m sorry to say, that we will almost certainly continue with our current policy of adding a little pre-bottling SO2, simply because it works for us, and our export customers (who require an extended shelf-life).

OK, I know it’s Monday, but let’s talk hydrodynamics (the type of word that can be dropped casually into a conversation about wine to impress your friends)!

When it comes to serious wine tasting one of the very first steps in the process is the so called ‘swirling’, necessary to release the bouquet of the wine. The theory behind it is that a gentle circular movement of the glass generates a wave propagating along the glass walls, enhancing oxygenation and mixing. In simple terms this action spreads the surface area of wine exposed in order to make the aromas more prominent.

Scientifically speaking this motion is not yet fully understood – it is all to do with fluid dynamics and the wave shapes generated by this simple movement. Suffice to say that it can make a real difference to the olfactory sensation that you will experience.

By the way, please don’t do what I have seen a few would-be ‘wine connoisseurs’ doing at the table – holding their glass stationery and moving their nose back and forth across the glass. Apart from making yourself giddy, this 70’s disco head movement will have no effect on the bouquet of your wine! 

One of the questions that we are sometimes asked is – why don’t we use screwcap for sealing our our wines? There are actually a couple of answers to this question. Closures have always been a subject of great interest to me, something that I have studied very closely for many years now. The fact that we now use a synthetic closure (with zero carbon footprint) was not a choice that was made casually, perhaps driven by cost – it was a long-studied and carefully considered decision. Indeed, with our current synthetic closure we know that we can, to some extent, now control the evolution of our wines (or at the very least, influence it’s shelf life). Not forgetting, of course, that evolution will also be determined by how the wine is stored….

A recent study, by Oxford University no less, is claiming that perhaps a cork is the right choice – that wines closed with a cork actually do taste better than those under screwcap. A very bold, and perhaps somewhat contentious claim! Having said that, they do qualify this by saying that the ‘ceremony’ of extracting the cork might have something to do with this. That subliminally this process adds a little ‘romance’ to the wine drinking experience – perhaps adding to the anticipation? One of the researching professors added “Our senses are intrinsically linked – what we hear, see and feel has a huge effect on what we taste”. They also went on to say that corked bottles were more likely to induce a “celebratory mood”, and we all know that our mood, surroundings and the company that we keep can all influence our perception of a wine.

My final comment is that we are very happy with our current choice of closure, as are the majority of our customers. This is rarely an area for complaint which pretty much supports the old adage “If it ain’t broken, then don’t fix it”! 

For many years I have been under a slight misapprehension…. that irrigation of the vineyards was, at the very least, frowned upon, and to some extent, illegal! I think that this is probably a throw back to my early days in the wine trade, when the majority of ‘old world’ countries did not allow a single drop of water to be used in the vineyards, whilst the ‘new world’ producers (who used it extensively) were considered by Europe as charlatans, spraying water everywhere with impunity.

The interesting fact is that since around the turn of the millennium, things have been changing – but in a very quiet, almost stealth-like manner, as the traditional wine producing areas of Europe slowly adopted their wine laws to allow irrigation to be introduced. Certainly this is still done with an element of control as, for example, in some areas it is only allowed during certain summer months.

Of course, having made all the initial fuss about the ‘cheating’ new world producers, the old world soon came to accept (persuaded perhaps by the onset of global-warming), that allowing the use of water was actually quite a sensible thing. For me personally, the idea of irrigation is quite similar to the use of treatments in a vineyard – no sensible producer is going to sit back and watch his fruit rot on the vine if there is some step that he can take to prevent it. Yes, we all use products that are as ecological as possible to treat our vines, but in the end it’s all still a form of intervention. And so, logically, if your vines are wilting in the heat (and consuming all their sugars to survive), then just give them a drop of water – no so much as to inflate the berries, just just enough to keep them ‘comfortable’.

Today’s photo shows the drip irrigation that we have just added to our bodega vineyard, where the upper part can be particularly dry in hot weather. The irony is that, as I write this, it’s actually raining!