In the end, it took nearly all night to clear the backlog of grapes, so it was actually quite stressful on day one.

We move into day two with a slightly overcast sky, and of course the threat on rain looming on the horizon. Most of the weather websites agree that rain will come, but the big questions are, when and in what areas (rainfall can be very localised and unpredictable being so close to the Ocean).

The thing that is perhaps puzzling me the most is that the majority of bodegas have not even started picking yet, and plan to start next week. It can’t be a question of maturity, because the grapes that we have gathered so far and quite healthy and ripe. I simply don’t understand why other producers would delay?

This year, for some reason, Sunday turned out to be quite quiet and uneventful, whereas normally weekends are our busiest days. This is the time when our grape suppliers have family and friends available to help with their harvest, but apparently not so much in 2023.

The good news is that, apart from a very short sprinkling in the afternoon, we managed to dodge the rain, until that is (once all of our fruit was safely inside), it did start raining steadily as we prepared to leave for the day.

After all the trials and tribulations of this year’s growing season, we anxiously watched all the local forecasts (albeit they were changing with every passing minute). With rain surrounding us on all sides the first suitable window appeared on Saturday 2nd September, and with deteriorating conditions threatening, we simply had to jump at the chance.

On a fairly bright and sunny morning we sent our team out into the vineyards to pick as fast as humanly possible. As we now use trucks for moving grapes the first pallets didn’t arrive until around lunchtime. We loaded the first press and the machine whirred into action…. for about a minute…. and then it stopped! Despite having both or our presses fully serviced only a week ago, it transpired that one of the circuits blew, and to cut a long story short, it took about an hour and a half to get it fixed. So then we loaded the second press…. same result… but this time a different piece. What a start!

The problem is that when the presses stop working, for whatever reason, we start to accumulate a backlog of grapes in the reception. Once this backlog occurs we never really catch up, and end up playing Tetris with pallets of grapes to fit them all in.

The good news is that after the first pressings the grape must looks very good, surprisingly viscous and sweet, after all the problems of our summer weather. Clearly, it is only the first day and we will have to wait to see if we can dodge the rain before we can make any definitive judgement on our 2023 vintage.

So today, we are finally ready to start our 2023 harvest. This year’s growing season has been complicated to say the least, and even in the run up to today, it still is!

Pretty much since the moment our vines sprang into life in March it has been one of the most difficult and unpredictable years, meteorologically, that we have ever had. Temperatures have been up and down, rainfall has been on and off, and weather forecasts have been largely useless, changing on almost an hourly basis. Of course, these are largely the worst possible conditions for grape growing. Indeed, very recently I heard one of my favourite quotes ever (made by another producer). He said that it was like “a jacuzzi for mildew”!! (If it wasn’t so serious, and so true, I would be having a good laugh). Suffice to say that, very much against our natural instincts, we have been obliged to give treatments, if only to preserve our crop.

The last few weeks have been largely dry, but with some wild fluctuations of temperature. Two weeks ago we had a couple of days at around 38°C (100°F), and then just a few days later it was down to 21°C (38°F). As the fruit started to reach full maturity we started to take samples (by this time we already knew that the harvest would be early), with a view to planning the actual picking. We decided that the very start of September seemed most likely, but then we looked at the forecasts! At more or less the exact time that we had projected, days of rain were forecast.

The solution we decided, would be to wait until the last possible moment, and then throw every resource possible at getting our fruit in as quickly as possible. So that is our mission for today – fingers crossed.

After a few weeks of good weather the last week or so has been very unsettled…. again. The rain we have had has not been particularly heavy, but certainly enough to penetrate the canopy, thereby creating the conditions that we dread the most – humidity!

The well-known British journalist Tim Atkin MW was visiting our region last week (we shared a very nice dinner with him), and so he was able to witness first hand the weather conditions that I had described to him over our meal. It certainly has not been easy for us so far this year, and at this point we probably only have about one month left to run before harvest.

It is a little strange, considering the conditions, that the harvest will be so early (probably the first week of September), as the sunshine has not been particularly hot, rarely exceeding 25°C (77°F). Nights have also been quite cool.

As we move into the final month, preparations are now under way in the bodega too. As always, we have to ensure that all our equipment is clean, serviced and working properly. Of course, much of this equipment such as the presses (pictured) are only used once a year, and so we clearly can’t risk leaving it until the last moment to uncover any potential problems.

At the end of May I wrote that our weather conditions so far this year have not exactly been ideal for growing fruit. We always try to explain that in our location, immediately adjacent to the Ocean, conditions are often unpredictable, to say the least, and can change very quickly. Until today, I’m afraid to say that the month of June has been pretty much the same – on some days alternating from rain to warm sunshine perhaps three or four times within a 24 hour period. As illustrated last month, every bodega now have their tractors working overtime (giving treatments). Indeed, only this morning I was following a couple along the road as I entered our village of Barrantes. The other downside of having to treat our vines so much is quite simply the cost. For example, we have already used our entire quota for this summer within the space of a couple of months (some six or seven weeks before our normal cut-off point, after which time we are obliged to stop, regardless of the weather). We are now hoping that the summer solstice might have introduced a change in our fortunes, at least in the short-term, as the forecast is now set fair for the coming days. We shall see!

With the ‘vine vigour’ that this weather brings our people are now hard at work thinning the canopy (stripping all the unwanted, thick foliage in order that the small bunches get the sun exposure that they will require to eventually ripen. At the same time this work opens up the canopy allowing it to ‘breath’ so that humidity does not get trapped underneath. Today’s picture shows the result of that work which is both slow and painstaking.

Yesterday we welcomed a small, but important group of UK journalists to our bodega (as part of their two day tour of our denomination). Arriving at 9.30am, we were the very first bodega on their itinerary and at that time in the morning there can be nothing better to rinse the coffee and toothpaste from your palate than a refreshing glass of albariño! As I think I may have mentioned before, the first sample of any tasting can often be a tough one, as it often takes the palate a little time to adjust. Having said that, after an hour and a half of chatting and tasting I would like to think that our wines were well received and that they left Castro Martin with a favourable impression of what we do.

When they eventually left our bodega the weather was not only sunny, but it was also quite warm and humid, and so it remained for much of the day. This morning, however, as we opened our shutters, it was raining, and the temperature had dropped by nearly 10°C from the previous day’s high. As our UK friends started their second day I was thinking that perhaps this experience will give them a greater understanding of the vagaries of our climate, albeit that from our point of view, this is really not the way that we would want people to learn. As a result, I have no doubt we will be obliged to treat our vineyards (yet again) within the coming days.

We are almost at the end of May, and what a month it has been (for weather)! OK, we have not suffered any of the extremes so frequently faced in other parts of the world these days, but from a fruit growing perspective it has not been ideal. Not a total disaster, but simply not ideal.

Our problem has been the erratic conditions, with some days of sun, interspersed with days of rain. Despite enjoying a comparatively dry, sunny spell in the middle of the month the temperatures were tempered somewhat by a cold and very persistent wind from the north. The only upshot of this dry spell was that the flowering did at least pass of relatively smoothly.

The weather today is only 15°C (about 60°F), which for this time of year is cold, and the grey sky is filled with low hanging cloud, almost in the form of a mist. It is very unseasonal to say the least.

The consequence of these conditions is the return of disease – mildew to be precise, which is a simple illustration of why it is (or would be), so difficult for us to produce completely organic wines in our region. Our climate makes it difficult, if not impossible. Over the last few days the local spacemen have been scrambling around on their tractors with their spraying equipment in tow, as the pressure to protect our vines in never ending. (I say spacemen simply as the protective suits and helmets frequently worn these days can resemble NASA spacesuits!)

As if tempting fate I mentioned the possibility of disease in our vineyards in my very last post…. little did I know! Since the extended of sunny, warm weather over the Easter break, April has certainly lived up to its reputation – stop, start showers over the majority of days, interspersed with sporadic sunshine and reasonably mild temperatures.

At this time of year we would normally be giving our first treatments in the vineyards anyway, but this year it has been very tricky to say the least. No sooner have we administered a treatment, than the showers have started and washed off the ‘contact’ treatments that we now use. I use the term ‘contact’, because there are two types of treatments normally available:

‘Contact’ means exactly as it says, it is sprayed onto the vine and dries on the surface, it does not actually penetrate the plant, making it more widely acceptable for use in sustainable vineyards. The downside of contact treatments is that they are simply washed off by rain, especially if not given time to dry completely.

The second type of treatment is ‘systemic’, which works rather like an injection given to human beings, it actually penetrates the plant and gives protection to prevent disease from even appearing. This sounds almost to good to be true, but the downside of this is that over time the immunity of the plant can diminish as it eventually builds up a resistance to the treatment. Apart from this many systemic products are not considered eco-friendly, and certainly are no longer used by sustainable producers, such as Castro Martin.

The long and short of the story, is that, despite our careful vigilance, we have, regrettably suffered an attack of powdery mildew (one of the most common problems faced by vineyards). The only thing we can do now is to remove the diseased vegetation and continue to treat where we can, all the time hoping that our loses will not be too great.

After the outrageously wet weather of Christmas Day and New Year’s Day, Easter provided us with quite a contrast. Warm, sunny weather for the duration of the extended weekend. After a long, quiet winter, almost bereft of visitors, our coastal towns were bursting at the seams with people flocking from Madrid, Spain and many others from Portugal. Our local bars and restaurants were pretty much overwhelmed after months of relative inactivity.

On Easter Monday, just as our visitors were packing their bags, the clouds returned, as did the rain – ‘April Showers’ I think we call them in English (‘Abril aguas mil’ in Spanish).

The pruning is now behind us, which is just as well, as today’s photo shows the vigorous new growth in our vineyards. Of course, the combination of sun and showers is always a big stimulant, whilst on the other hand, alternate periods of warmth and humidity can also help to promote disease. At this time we always have to remain vigilant, as damage sustained now can sometimes be irretrievable.

As I have explained many times to friends and visitors alike, Galician weather is actually quite similar to UK weather, with the difference being that it is perhaps 4° or 5°C warmer at most times of year. One of the reasons for this similarity are the Atlantic weather systems which often clip the northwest corner of Spain on their way to the UK.

The other day I captured an image from a BBC weather forecast in which they showed a rain system tracking from southwest to northeast across the North Atlantic. (A direction from which much of our weather develops, and one of the main reasons that we have the amount of rainfall that we do). If you take a look at today’s picture you will notice one small patch of rain, stationed, almost perfectly, over Galicia, whist the rest of Spain remains completely untouched.

Of course, being located in this cool, green corner of Spain is not always such a bad thing. During recent summers whilst much of Spain has been sweltering in record temperatures, Galicia has often come out of this largely unscathed. Having said that we have had experienced some extended dry spells which helps to explain why three out of lour last four vintages have attained an alcohol level of 13%.