Archive for ‘Travel’

Guess the destination….

May 16th, 2022 | Customers

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.

Galicia is back!

July 2nd, 2020 | International News

In the coming days Europe is opening it’s air corridors to International travel, although there are still a few exceptions. To be honest it’s really a bit complicated – some countries are, apparently, still subject to quarantine restrictions, depending on where you are travelling from. On top of this, it is evident that some countries are applying these rules far more strictly than others.

Until recently, Galicia has been isolated from the rest of Spain as travel between the different Spanish provinces was banned almost completely. Our local beaches, normally thronging with Madrileños (many of whom have holiday homes and apartments here), have been pretty quiet for the time of year…. until now. Much to the chagrin of locals, the people of Madrid are now filtering back. The reason for their disquiet is simple – Madrid has been the epicenter of Coronavirus, whilst Galicia has escaped comparatively lightly. Galicians simply do not want ‘outsiders’ carrying potential danger into their region.

Having said that, a large part of our local income is from domestic tourism, and so the bars and restaurants are, understandably, quite keen to have them back (with just one or two small reservations). I have to confess that this should mean a revival of sales for our wine too, and so, in the end, we have to be happy about this…..

As publicity to encourage visitors, our local tourist board have produced this rather nice video.

Congratulations!

June 26th, 2019 | Business

The aviation research firm Skytrax announced its 2019 ranking of the best airlines in the world on Tuesday.

In first place was our newest customer – Qatar Airways, where our Castro Martin wine will very soon be served in their First Class cabins. We send them our warmest congratulations!

It goes without saying that we have offered our own services at any time to conduct free in-flight tutored tastings!

Skye’s the limit

September 7th, 2018 | Odds & Sods

We are always proud to say that our wines are sold around the world, and sometimes pop up in quite unusual places. Apart from cruise ships and airlines our wines have been found at the London Olympics, in Hong Kong department stores, at this year’s Wimbledon, in hotels and restaurants on the island of Malta and even in a famous Winery restaurant on the Mornington Penninsula near Melbourne! To be honest, I’m quite sure that there are many other remote and unusual locations that we simply haven’t discovered as yet!

Fortunately we also are sold quite widely around the UK, but we just didn’t know (until this week), quite how widely…. Our daughter (confusingly, also called Angela), was travelling around Scotland with her French boyfriend Matt, and hopped across to the Isle of Skye, in the remote northwest corner of the country. Clearly there is not a huge choice of places to stay, but they found the small but highly rated Uig Hotel, located, by coincidence, in a place also named Uig (not Portree – apparently that’s quite important).

Imagine their surprise to find just one albariño on the restaurant wine list – our very own A2O ‘Sobre Lias’ – Slàinte!

It’s been a while

July 4th, 2017 | Bodega

Oh dear! I am very conscious that I have not posted in a while, but don’t worry, I have lots of ready-made excuses!

Firstly, we had a few days away in Belgium (not bodega business but for the graduation of our daughter after completing her Masters in International Law). Meanwhile, back in Galicia we have simply been very, very busy – possibly taking on too many projects all at the same time: Still working on extending the grape reception, adding an irrigation system to one of our vineyards (more on that later), and racking the final tanks from their lees (after nearly nine months resting quietly).

The truth is that we could perhaps, have left some wines on their lees for a little longer, but the reality is (believe it or not) that we have to start preparing the bodega for the 2017 harvest. Between now and the end of August, we still need to bottle a few more tanks, and empty some of the tanks immediately adjacent to the presses, just make it just a tad more convenient when moving the grape must. Please note that we never ever move wine unless we really have to, and so we usually encompass any re-positioning of our wine within the racking process itself – relocating the clean wine well away from the pressing area. 

Today’s photos shows the impressive tartrate crystal formation at the bottom of our tanks when we rack the wines. They instantly reminded me of the dramatic Jurassic limestone strata of the Dentelles de Montmirail in the Vaucluse region of France, with their sharp-edged ridges and spikes.

By the way… Happy 4th July!

Too hot to trot…

June 19th, 2017 | Odds & Sods

I should start by explaining that when we sell our wines within Spain then our sales tariff usually includes the cost of transport. However, for exporting goods to other countries then the story is the complete opposite – we never arrange transport for the orders of our export customers.

Unfortunately, this sometimes leaves us with a bit of a conundrum. When we are hit with a heatwave (as we have been for the last few days, with temperatures well into the 30’s C (90’s F)), then the question arises, who is responsible for making the decision whether to load the truck or not? Who will be liable if something goes wrong and the wine is damaged? The fact is that we have only a couple of long-haul customers who regularly take precautions when it comes to the temperature control of wine in transit, whereas the vast majority simply rely on normal road trailers or containers (and keep their fingers crossed!). However, if goods are crossing Europe on a two or three day odyssey when the temperatures are excessive, then this is clearly not the best way to keep our product fresh. (In our history there have been only a couple of occasions when pallets have been left exposed and corks have been pushed from the bottles – both beyond our control).

From our side the answer is simple – if we think that the weather’s too hot then we inform our customer, and allow them to take the decision – I think it’s called covering your ****!

(Today’s photo shows a container protected with a Vinliner – not the ultimate type of protection, which is full refrigeration, but certainly offering some degree of temperature control)

Flying in the pointy bit

April 18th, 2017 | Odds & Sods

747You may already know that, owing to adverse weather conditions, the outward leg of our recent trip to the U.S.A. was re-routed via London, and also included a change of carriers, from Iberia to British Airways. Owing to the fact that our journey was so eventful, it didn’t occur to me until after the flight that it is possible we were sharing the flight with our own wines. The difference being that we were in the cheap seats at the back, whilst our wine could have been in the pointy bit at the front….. First Class.

We are proud to say that we have been working with British Airways for several years now. although our supply to them is not continuous. The explanation is that First Class passengers are naturally quite loyal to their preferred airline, and therefore there is a high degree of ‘repeat business’ – the same passengers flying the same routes on a regular basis. To counteract this, British Airways rotate their wine lists, not only over different time periods, but also on different routes. For one listing we might be on North America and the Caribbean, on another we might be on Asian, and so on, The point is that we simply send the wine out, and usually have little idea where it might end up, or how many air miles it will clock up! Therefore, it is possible that our wine was sharing the same flight as us, but we simply didn’t know it.

In 2016 British Airways’ First Class customers consumed more than 160,000 bottles of champagne, 133,000 bottles of red wine and 150,000 bottles of white wine on board flights, and in the same year were voted the best overall cellar at the Business Traveller Cellars in the Sky Awards. We would like to believe that Castro Martin might have played a very small part in achieving that recognition.

The weather is behind us

March 30th, 2017 | Travel

Tasting Florida styleFinally getting towards the end of our world tour of the USA (it just feels like a world tour after so many flights), it seems that, for once at least, we have just escaped some serious weather. Just before we left Tennessee there were already warnings of severe thunder storms, hail storms and even a 25% chance of tornadoes. Even thought there is something quite fascinating, even slightly hypnotic about tornadoes, I confess that I have no real desire to witness one first hand. Anyway, it is reported that since we left Tennessee, in areas around Nashville and Chattanooga, that some of these threatened storms have actually hit, with severe thunder and hail the size of baseballs! The good news for us therefore, that we now find ourselves cosseted in the warm comfort of the Sunshine State – Florida.

For selling albariño Florida is actually a little more complicated for us – although it is a wine perfectly suited to this climate, it appears that the Floridians are possibly not quite as receptive and will take a little more convincing. Our wine really is a ‘hand-sell’ here. The cities are spread out and quite diverse in their approach to buying wine, not to mention that there are already some other brands well established in the area. Maybe we will have to come back to this sunshine paradise on several more occasions, to see if we can get the job done! The upside is that at least one customer yesterday did describe our wine as “kick-ass”…. That’s a new descriptor to add to my tasting vocabulary – it speaks for itself and does not require any explanation!

Was that Elvis drinking Castro Martin?

March 27th, 2017 | Odds & Sods

All RoadsNow in Memphis and Nashville on the next stop of our American road trip, where not only has the taste of our wines gone down really well, but Angela and I have now also tasted something special for the very first time….. real Southern Hospitality. The people here are just so great, you could eat them with a spoon! But seriously, the most important thing of all is that they have really appreciated our wines and so converts to the new cult of Castro Martin albariño appear to be increasing….. we are thrilled.

So here in Memphis we find ourselves caught up in the middle of ‘March Madness’, where the elite teams of the NCAA (college basketball) compete for the National Championship. This weekend saw the start of the ‘Sweet 16’ games, where the final sixteen teams are whittled down to the final four – one from each regional tournament. The Southern games are being played at the FedEx Forum in downtown Memphis, and believe me, this is really serious stuff. National TV coverage and with a visit from the Vice President Mike Pence thrown in for good measure – he was disappointed to discover that MSU (Moscow State) had not made it through!! (Sorry, I couldn’t resist that one)

Just by way of information, Memphis is also the home to both FedEx and Graceland.

Freezer to oven!

March 22nd, 2017 | Travel

[:en]DenverOK, so I’m a bit obsessed about weather, but this is just plain wrong…. New York was too cold, and now Denver is too warm! After a couple of freezing days in New York we flew into warm, almost hot sunshine in Denver on the second leg of our US tour. Talking to the locals in Denver they would tell you that the temperature is probably as much 10-15°C (20-30°F) above the seasonal norm, albeit that this will certainly change in the coming days (snow is forecast, which is more customary at this time of year).

From the point of view of our wine, it was very interesting to discover that albariño is already quite well established as a grape variety in the Denver market. It can be found in the majority of wine (liquor) stores and also on many restaurant wine lists – the the local sommeliers all know it. F, the rom our own point of view the tastings that we made were all well received, almost without exception, and we are happy to say that we have found at least a few new Castro Martin ‘recruits’ in the Denver market. Of course any success does not come easily, and so we really need to acknowledge the help and support of our team ‘on the ground’ (our importer and their distributors) for their enthusiasm, professionalism and unerring belief in our wines.

Today’s photo was chosen quite simply to show the stark contrast in the weather (and also the fact that Angela looks a lot happier in the sunshine!)[:es]OK, so I’m a bit obsessed about weather, but this is just plain wrong…. New York was too cold, and now Denver is too warm! After a couple of freezing days in New York we flew into warm, almost hot sunshine in Denver on the second leg of our US tour. Talking to the locals in Denver they would tell you that the temperature is probably as much 10-15°C (20-30°F) above the seasonal norm, albeit that this will certainly change in the coming days (snow is forecast, which is more customary at this time of year).

From the point of view of our wine, it was very interesting to discover that albariño is already quite well established as a grape variety in the Denver market. It can be found in the majority of wine (liquor) stores and also on many restaurant wine lists – the the local sommeliers all know it. F, the rom our own point of view the tastings that we made were all well received, almost without exception, and we are happy to say that we have found at least a few new Castro Martin ‘recruits’ in the Denver market. Of course any success does not come easily, and so we really need to acknowledge the help and support of our team ‘on the ground’ (our importer and their distributors) for their enthusiasm, professionalism and unerring belief in our wines.

Today’s photo was chosen quite simply to show the stark contrast in the weather (and also the fact that Angela looks a lot happier in the sunshine!)[:]

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