As you may have gathered from my missing posts, our harvest was suspended for two days owing to “bad” weather. As I think I mentioned a couple of days ago, weather forecasts (here on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean), can be especially inaccurate – and so it proved to be. The forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday was for a storm (the tail of a Hurricane), or at the very least, a lot of rain and wind. OK, so it rained during the night on Monday, and was still a little damp on Tuesday morning, but by about midday the sun was shining, and no doubt the fresh breeze had dried any rain on our fruit. In the end, we could have picked, albeit with a slightly delayed start, losing only a couple of hours. It was the same on Wednesday, except with almost no rain at all – dark grey sky in the morning, but with sun by lunchtime…. so much for this famous storm, and so much for the weather forecasts! Of course, the only positive from the inaccurate forecasts is that there was not too much damage to our fruit (water from heavy rain will be sucked up by the plant, and have the effect of diluting the pulp/juice within the grape).

Thursday was much brighter, and with a better forecast (fingers crossed!), and so picking started at the normal hour of 9.30am. Meanwhile inside the bodega, we have been working – indeed, all the musts collected so far have been racked into clean tanks and we will start seeding tomorrow. 2022 is going to be a slightly more complicated year in that we will be starting fermentations and continuing our harvest at the same time. Normally they are more or less concurrent, with one following on from the other.

In the end Thursday’s forecast was largely correct….until about 7pm! Just as our picking was drawing to a close for the day, the heavens opened, and it rained heavily for about 15 minutes. Our picking team were left dashing for cover, as the only thing that was protected from the rain were our grapes (with plastic covers over the pallets). Fortunately, apart from a few damp shirts no lasting damage was done and within an hour and a half we were enjoying a spectacular sunset….

More or less as predicted the day started under grey skies, and just a little light rain. Fortunately this was barely enough to penetrate the canopy, and stopped completely after about half an hour. With a very slight delay our picking team swung into action (although we made a decision to only harvest from our own vineyards) meaning that other grape suppliers would not be asked to pick today. In this way we can maintain complete control, in terms of the actual volume that we pick. The reason for this is simple mathematics, we need to calculate the weights required to ensure that our presses can accommodate every kilo collected.

The good news is that, so far, we have some very high quality grape must to work with – fresh, fruity, with good body and our usual bright acidity. A number of tanks have been racked and so fermentations can be started in a day or two.

Meanwhile in the vineyard, the anticipated rain finally arrived at 5.30pm. Picking was halted for the day, all grapes were covered and delivered by truck to the cellar. By 9.30 pm the final press had been loaded, and we were thankful to enjoy a comparatively short working day.

(By the way, todays photo shows the final part of the racking process – the clean must on top, and the organic residues at the bottom).

Well, the day started bright and sunny as we would always wish, but there is now rain looming just over the horizon. We really need to gather as much fruit as we can, despite the shortage of people.

For our own picking team it was a day of movement, finishing in one location and then moving on to the next, ending the day in our vineyard surrounding the bodega. Of course the advantage of working on ‘home turf’ is that no sooner are the grapes picked that they are delivered and transferred straight into the presses. It’s a very fast process. (Unfortunately not all grape deliveries are so quick).

Today, we also started work inside the cellar, racking the first tanks after a period of cold settling (when all the dust and other deposits sink to the bottom of the tank). After this process the cold grape must, now in clean tanks, will be allowed to recover a slightly higher temperature before we can start the fermentation. Although we prefer to use a slow, cool fermentation, the wine still has to reach 13 or 14°C before it can be seeded with yeast, otherwise the yeast simply will not survive.

Today’s machinery saga was actually not inside the bodega itself, but rather one of our tractors working in the vineyard. We have a forklift attachment on the back of the tractor that we use for collecting pallets to load onto the truck. Until today, when the clutch started to slip! For the time being we will have to use a different tractor until the other can be repaired.

Today we start the 40th harvest in our current wine cellar. The bodega, completed by the visionary entrepreneur Domingo Martin in October 1981, collected its first harvest in 1982. (The Regulatory Council of the D.O. Rias Baixas was not established until 1988). Bodegas Castro Martin is one of the founding members of the D.O.

My first comment regarding this year’s harvest is, inevitably, about the weather. After two months of dry, arid conditions, we now find ourselves dodging the showers. Over the last few days there have been some fairly hefty downpours, which in the first instance (as I explained in my last post), were quite welcome, and no bad thing. The problem is that the wet weather now seems to be hanging around, and so for picking purposes, this can be quite tricky.

At first light today we were quite optimistic as there was plenty of blue sky in evidence. However, as the morning progressed, so the clouds started to gather, and at times, almost looked a bit threatening.

With one eye on the weather, the first grapes arrived mid-afternoon (by which time the sun had returned). As in previous years the 20kg baskets of grapes from our own vineyards arrived by truck, already palletised in the vineyard. This is very much the modern trend for delivery to wine cellars, which admittedly does save quite a lot of physical work in the bodega – offloading individual cases by hand.

Finally back to work after my brush with Covid, catching up and making final preparations for our harvest. The bodega is pretty much set up, all equipment cleaned and tested, so now all we really need is a few grapes!

After a couple of months of completely dry, mostly hot, sunny weather, we now have rain! So far, this is not such a bad thing, as long as it doesn’t persist for too long.

Under normal circumstances rain around harvest time would be considered a bit of a disaster, but this year that is slightly different. Firstly, and most importantly, the grapes themselves are in a good sanitary state, meaning that because of the hot, dry summer the risk of disease has been low (to date). Having said that, the downside of such a long dry period is that whilst the grapes are healthy, they are all ‘skin and bone’ (well, skin and pips actually), there is not a lot of pulp/juice. In a year when grapes are already selling at a record high this would mean that we are paying a huge amount of money for fruit with only very low yields. Economically, a disaster. At least now, given a little more time, the grapes will absorb a little of this rainfall, and return to something approaching a reasonable level of grape must (juice) without too much dilution.

Another small side benefit of the rain is that the fruit will be rinsed and clean. The lack of rain has resulted in the ground under the canopy being very parched and dry. If the wind blows then the dust from this arid ground blows into the canopy and leaves the fruit coated with a fine powder. If this fruit is pressed without being washed by rain, then the must will contain an amount of dust/soil particles that would require more time for settling after pressing.

I wrote just a few days ago about our changing weather, and how we had transitioned from damp, changeable conditions to dry, arid conditions, all within the space of a few weeks. As you will have no doubt seen on the news, these dry, scorched conditions have resulted in some very serious forest fires across almost the whole of Europe. Galicia has not escaped, and whilst the outbreaks have not been as catastrophic as the fires in the southwest of France, they have still been quite significant. Fortunately, many were brought under control quite quickly.

Apart from the fires, the lack of water in our vineyards is now starting to hit home, and although the developing fruit is very healthy, it could turn out to be yet another year of high alcohol, low yields, and (as I mentioned before) high prices. After an extremely dry and hot month in July, August has started slightly differently. Close to the Ocean there have been some very thick sea fogs (much thicker and more persistent than the usual sea mists that roll up our ‘Rias’ from time to time). Clearly, this not only reduces the amount of sun, but also reduces the temperature quite dramatically. It does not, however, provide us any much needed rain. Having said that, in the last two days it has been somewhat grey and overcast, and we have finally experienced just a few rain showers – unfortunately barely enough to penetrate the canopy, let alone add any significant moisture to the soil. Indeed, after such long dry periods, the first rainfall does not really penetrate and tends to simply run off the surface. An now, the latest forecast predicts that the dry, sunny weather will return…

Today’s photos show an outbreak of fire in the hills not far from the City of Pontevedra. The first taken at about 9.30 pm, the second and hour or two later, and the third the following morning when the fire has moved down the hillside, albeit that the air is still filled with smoke.

As little as four or five weeks ago I was writing about vine vigour, when a combination of alternating periods of warm, sunny weather followed by heavy rain had precipitated quite intensive growth in our vines. Today that picture has changed somewhat.

This all changed at the beginning of July when we experienced some quite extreme temperatures (around 40°C or 104°F) – fortunately this intense heat only lasted for a day or two. Having said that the high temperatures continued, mostly in the upper 20’s °C, but with many days actually over 30°C (around 90°F). Apart from one short, sharp downpour, July was almost entirely hot and sunny.

Over the last few days much of the coastal area in the Salnés Valley has been shrouded in a heavy sea mist/fog. In some areas (perhaps a few kilometres inland), this mist ‘burns off’ during the day, and sunny, but marginally cooler temperatures are restored (when I say cooler, I really mean the mid-20’s°C or around 75°F). Despite this mist and slightly reduced temperatures, there is still no sign of rain, and so our vineyards remain just a little parched at the moment.

In the last week or two, despite the baking temperatures, we have been clearing the corner of one of our vineyards. Yes, this did involve cutting a few trees, but I should emphasise that we did seek the appropriate permissions, and that the trees that we cut were mostly eucalyptus, not indigenous to Galicia, considered by many to be invasive, and the cause of many a forest fire in our region. There were two, or perhaps three reasons for doing this work….

Firstly, because we are obliged by law to clear forest areas and scrub land, precisely to reduce the risk of fires. Secondly, because this small piece of land is actually registered as a vineyard, and has never been exploited as such. And thirdly, because of the price of grapes at the moment!

This third reason is actually a major concern for Rias Baixas this year, and all because of one single bodega! I shall not name the property concerned (perhaps for liable reasons), but every bodega locally knows exactly who they are, and that they are owned by a much larger Company from outside Galicia. The simple fact is that they are desperate for grapes, and as such have been making ridiculous, unsustainable offers to local growers, often going door-to-door and poaching thousands of kilos of grapes from their neighbouring wine cellars. I should mention they the size of the bodegas that they are plundering from are not small, and have been left very, very angry indeed (something of an understatement).

Suffice to say that these tactics (apart from being completely unethical), have caused an artificial surge in the demand for grapes, and will no doubt result in highly inflated prices, just at a time when consumers are reducing their spending, and perhaps seeking opportunities to trade-down a little. Enough said, I will stop before my blood boils!

A few days ago I was a guest on a ‘digital tasting’ organised by Tim Atkin MW. Tim had visited our bodega a couple of weeks earlier, and during our conversation I had described our recent weather as a bit topsy-turvy (upside down, or in a state of confusion). Little did I know that Tim would quote me on this during his introduction.

In the last couple of days, since this Zoom tasting (all the participants were sent sample bottles), there has been yet another example of the extremes of our recent, crazy weather. On Saturday temperatures hit about 36°C (97°F) and our local beaches were packed (for those who could stand the heat). On Sunday the cloud rolled in, and by Sunday afternoon, through until Monday, the thermometer never hit much more that 16°C (61°F) – less than half of the previous days temperature. This was accompanied  by a very fine ‘mizzle’ hanging in the air (a cross between a light drizzle and mist from the Ocean).

Today, Tuesday, we are bracing ourselves, with a forecast high of more that 40°C (104°F). This temperature is expected to continue at least until the weekend. Having said that, a week of two ago most of Spain was affected by these high temperatures, but luckily, our small, isolated corner of northwest Spain had pretty much escaped. This week it appears that we are not quite so lucky.

Well, I really don’t know what more I can say about our weather, except that it continues to be both changeable and unpredictable. Having said that, I am sure that many wine regions around the world are telling the very same story. There has been no sustained period of any type of ‘settled’ weather, and indeed it continues to vary wildly almost from day to day. Take this weekend for example – Saturday sunny, with a warm wind and temperatures in the high 20’s °C (towards 80°F), and then Sunday morning cold and wet, with temperatures nearly 10°C lower at about 17°C (63°F). The other weather characteristic of 2022 is that, when there has been sunshine, the air temperature has often remained cool – refreshing in some ways, but again, not really great conditions for our fruit.

To repeat my story of the other day, our cellar is still full to bursting with prepared orders. Of course, we love this scenario, but we now just want to get them out and on the road! Road hauliers have somehow been reluctant to give us firm dates for collections as yet, and my guess is that this is to do with the current shortages of both containers and drivers. We now find ourselves is the strange situation whereby we have stopped preparing large orders until we have more space!