April is certainly living up to it’s reputation, sun one minute, showers the next. Our location on the Atlantic coast inevitably makes for changes to the weather that can be both sudden and unpredictable. Weather forecasts are modified sometimes on an hourly basis, but can still be inaccurate, or at the very best, misleading. This time of year is especially bad, sheltering from heavy rain one minute, and bathing in warm sunshine the next!

Between the showers we are now almost completing the job of burning the vine cuttings from pruning – it’s a shame really because these cuttings do actually make excellent material for firing up the barbecue. Perhaps we could start up a side business just for selling firewood?!

The new shoots on the vines are developing well, we already have the tiny bunches starting to emerge and it shouldn’t be too many more weeks before we move into the flowering period.

Just over a week ago I posted a photo of the vines in our small vineyard here at the wine cellar – there was almost no sign of life at all. A few days of warmer weather has suddenly made all the difference. After a long, cool and largely wet winter we have finally enjoyed about a week of almost spring-like weather. Pleasant sunshine and temperatures touching the 20°C (68°F) mark, which has come as great relief to our guys working outside!

I am pleased to say that there are signs of life in the market too. With vaccination underway, not only here in Spain, but also in our export markets, there is, at last, a little more optimism in the air. A few pallets have been ordered and sent out (including for a new export customer in Belgium), perhaps in anticipation of the Easter break. All I can say is, long may this trend continue!

February continues to be extremely wet, the result being that parts of our vineyards are now very soggy underfoot (to say the least). Certainly, we will not have to worry about the water table being replenished this winter! In the month to date we have  been limited to just one or two dry days, once again making pruning conditions most uncomfortable for our hard working team.

This weekend is proving to be particularly stormy, even by Galician standards. High winds, driving rain and, of course, our lockdown means that it is really a moment to batten down the hatches and simply remain indoors.

As a brief aside, I was just a bit puzzled to see a couple of street sweepers working at the height of the storm. Armed with just a couple of brushes they were doing their level best to sweep up the fallen leaves, and despite their valiant efforts, I have to admit that they were simply fighting a losing battle!

新年快乐 / 新年快樂 (Xīnnián kuàilè) – Happy New Year! Today is the start of the Year of the Ox, and of course, we all hope that it will be an improvement on the Year of the Rat that preceded it. I guess that like all other celebrations at the moment, the 2021 party will be somewhat subdued.

In the meantime I am happy to report that after our first Covid victim, that the Castro Martin team is now back to full strength, and work continues on the pruning (albeit now just a little delayed). Of course, we are simply happy that this was a fairly mild case of the virus and there don’t appear to be any long term side-effects.

Out in the vineyards the weather has been quite miserable – grey, cold and with intermittent rain, some quite torrential. Not a great start to February.

Well, 2021 is here, and of course, we all have our fingers crossed that things can only get better (as they say in the song)!

There is not too much activity inside the bodega at the start of the New Year, but pruning still continues apace. Whilst the first week of January has been sunny, it has also been bitterly cold. Temperatures not much above freezing, and in the last couple of days, a biting wind from the north. Having said that, cold and sunshine, is of course, much better than cold and rain.

Whilst it has been cold in Galicia, many other regions of Spain (including Madrid) are under a blanket of thick snow. In some areas it was so extreme that the army was mobilised to help distribute vital supplies, including the Covid vaccines.

With just a day to go before we start our Christmas break we are now just mopping up the final few gift pack orders, in the hope that they might still arrive in time for the holidays. Certainly it has been a year for buying online, even in Spain, where until recently it seems that many people were reluctant to trust in internet shopping (or perhaps it’s more the fear of losing their money?). Of course we live in a country where the vast majority of people still feel more at ease with face-to-face transactions, and to be honest, I don’t blame them, especially when we witness what is happening to our high streets. No doubt the 2020 pandemic has only helped to hugely accelerate the shift towards both online communications, and shopping (to the detriment of a great many, more traditional businesses).

As always at this time of year, our efforts are still very much focused on pruning, and the very changeable, largely wet weather is not making the chore any easier. They do however, say that there will be sun on Christmas Day.

With that in mind, we raise a glass to you all…. Stay safe, stay well and drink (Castro Martin) albariño!

At this time of year our team have just started work in the vineyards. Now that the leaves have fallen from the vines, the wood is exposed, and the sap recedes from the branches (owing to the cooler autumn nights), we can finally get to work on the pruning. Ironically, whilst there is little activity in the bodega as Covid takes its toll on our order books, the vines now demand our full-time, undivided attention, through until the end of winter. Pruning, is a slow, labourious task, and can be very unpleasant in inclement winter weather.

On the subject of weather, since the end of our harvest it has been quite changeable. More or less as we would expect for this time of year. Some rain, quite a few days of ‘mizzle’ (a cross between mist and drizzle), and a few odd sunny days just thrown in for good measure. Indeed, the weekend just gone, was good… too good in fact. The mid-November temperature hit 24°C (75°F), provoking a few people to take to the local beaches. Of course, even local travel is quite heavily restricted during our current, partial lockdown, and so I guess that it was only the lucky few (that live close to the coast) who could take full advantage.

My picture today shows the Ria of Pontevedra, and on the adjacent hillsides you can just make out the small fires, as people burn their cuttings. The small finishing boats in the foreground are, of course, a very common feature.

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?!

There is no doubt that 2020 has been slightly surreal so far, and getting back into any sort of routine has been difficult, however this week will be used for brushing off those cobwebs…. quite literally! It’s time to prepare the bodega for action.

Over the last week or two we have been trying to work out the volume of wine that we might make this year, obviously by calculating the kilos of fruit that we might take in. Despite reduced sales this summer tank space will not be a problem, as you may recall, 2019 was quite a small crop. However, every tank and every piece of equipment has to be spotless, especially this year (for obvious reasons).

We have also been busy ordering the wine making products that we will require – yeasts, enzymes, nutrients etc., again according to the anticipated volume of fruit that we will gather.

Now is the time to begin our annual “weather watch” (not that there is anything we can do to influence this). It looks good at the moment, and clearly we would prefer the current dry conditions to continue for the coming weeks. However, we also have to be realistic and simply work with what the weather Gods decide to give us! As I say every year, fingers crossed.

After more than a month of sustained sunshine and high temperatures the weather finally changed around the middle of August. A few days of rain and grey skies transformed the completion of our summer completely, and hopefully might be of some benefit to our harvest. A little rain, at the right moment (especially after such a dry period), could add a little more substance to the fruit. The only danger being that if the berries are small and thick skinned, a burst of prolonged, heavy rain could cause the skins to split and allow rot to set in. Thankfully, this does not appear to be the case. At this time the bunches are slowly changing colour, and whilst we can taste our fruit now, it still has a week or two to evolve before we start picking. (It appears that we might start around 7th September).

Of course, this year’s harvest will have quite a different look, with many new rules imposed upon us as a result of the Covid crisis. Obviously, everyone will work in masks (which is obliged by law in Spain), and we will still have to maintain our social distances. There will also be copious amounts of hand gel used, albeit well away from the grapes! Authorities have also created a good deal of extra documentation attached to the harvest process, just for good measure, but that is a whole other story!