Galicia and the northern coast of this country is often referred to as ‘Green Spain’. This year, however, it should probably be known as ‘Exceptionally Green Spain’! The months of May and June have been alternating between warm sunshine (shorts and t-shirts) and days of persistent rain (raincoats and umbrellas). Great if you’re a plant, but perhaps not so great for grape producers. Whilst our vines are growing like wildfire, these are also the best conditions for spawning disease and infection in the plants. (These are exactly the type of conditions that make it very, very difficult to produce wines that are certified organic or biodynamic – the risks of losing an entire crop are simply too great).

Fortunately for us, our flowering took place during the latter half of May, which was largely dry and sunny, but no sooner had the flowering finished, than the rain returned yet again. Conditions have sometimes been fluctuating on an hourly basis.

Our normally well manicured vineyards are almost looking a bit abandoned, even though we are working around the clock to keep vegetation, both on the vine ‘canopy’ and also the ground below, under control. This wild growth is known as ‘Vine Vigour’, which in 2022, seems like something of an understatement! Let’s see what the summer brings.

After a dry winter, April is living up to it’s reputation – periods of sun interspersed by short, sharp showers. Whilst the rainfall is quite welcome, it has not really been enough to replenish our depleted water table, so far. Similar to last year, one of the characteristics of spring so far have been the cool temperatures. Even in the sunshine, winter jackets are often still required, the clear blue skies are quite deceptive. Of course, from a vineyard point of view these cool temperatures are no bad thing, as the worst possible scenario would be showers and sun accompanied by warm temperatures – an ideal combination for disease in the young vine shoots. The other effect of this persistent cold temperature is that development of the vegetation so far, has been a little slow. It’s still early days, so we shall see how things evolve.

Meanwhile, back in the world of Covid, about a week ago, Spain dropped it’s rules for the compulsory use of masks inside public locations. Individual businesses are still allowed to ask people to wear them, and it is very interesting to note that the majority of people still do, both indoors and outdoors. The Spanish (quite correctly in my view), are still very cautious.

By the way, can you spot our bodega in today’s photo? It is just visible!

The winter of 2021/22 must surely be classified officially as ‘dry’. Over the last month or so there have been a few light showers, but nothing of any real significance. It is only in the last week that we have experienced some heavy downpours, but to be honest, we would probably need at least another few weeks of this to replenish this winter’s shortfall completely. Having said that, it appears that this might not happen, as the sun has now returned and the immediate forecast does not predict much rainfall.

In the vineyards our pruning is finished and we are now simply tying the last few vines before this year’s vegetation springs into life. The only real benefit of the dry weather has been the slightly more favourable conditions for pruning.

As we get closer to springtime, our thoughts return to the cellar, where our wine has been resting quietly on its lees. Of course, we taste regularly over the winter, but it will soon be time to consider blending and racking, and the launch of our 2021 vintage.

The month of January was quite exceptional, especially for Galicia. Not only was there almost zero rainfall (I think perhaps one or possibly two days at the beginning of the month), but skies have been largely cloudless for the last three or four weeks. Wall-to-wall blue sky every morning and clear, cloudless nights. Daytime temperature regularly reached the mid to high teens (15-19°C, 60-66°F), albeit that the clear January skies inevitably led to some very cold nights, with temperatures, quite frequently, dropping as low as freezing point.

Of course, as I have said many times before this provides us with really ideal conditions for pruning, and to be honest, progress to date has been much quicker than during the poor winter weather conditions that we would normally experience. Hardly a surprising observation.

The forecast tells us that we might have a little light rainfall tomorrow, but that after this we will return to largely clear, cloudless skies. There is however, a downside to this. The same as in many wine producing areas we rely on our winter rainfall to replenish the water table, and we would much rather have rain now, than during the summer months. We shall see….

As we move closer to the Holiday Season there is still plenty to do, both inside and outside the bodega. Our overseas shipping orders were mostly sent some time ago, and many of our Christmas gift packing orders have also been completed. Having said all that, we have still be obliged to make a couple of late bottlings, which is quite unusual for December. Of course, as we sell wine to the other side of the world, we have to remember that it is now summer in these places, and albariño season is in full swing (or so we hope). New orders waiting to be collected include Australia and Brazil.

On the subject of summer, the sun is streaming in through my office window as I write this, albeit the temperatures mean that it is not quite beach weather! Indeed, only yesterday, we had our first ground frost of the winter, but the clear blue skies still make this ideal pruning weather (already well under way). December itself started wet, cold and miserable, but fortunately this last week has seen a considerable improvement. The other good news is that Angela and I are both fully vaccinated and ready for the winter!

The 2021 harvest is now well and truly behind us, and, as always at this time of year, our wine is sitting quietly on its lees. In our vineyards the pruning is under way, and the first of the Christmas gift pack orders are being prepared. Christmas orders for our export markets left the cellar some weeks ago. Indeed, with the global shipping problems that exist (and not to mention the post-Brexit delays on goods entering the UK), our overseas importers started to ship quite a bit earlier than they normally would.

Having said all that, preparing orders this year has been much more of a challenge than normal as there have been delays on nearly every product that we have ordered. Not only have prices increased on cartons, bottles, capsules and corks, but currently our label supplier can’t even get the paper that they require for printing! It’s fair to say that I have never taken the supply chain for granted (we normally hold buffer stocks), but at the moment trying to plan for wine bottling can be something of a logistical nightmare.

Meanwhile, on the weather front November was largely dry, until the final few days of the month. Skies were bright and clear, albeit that temperatures were distinctly chilly and autumnal. The first day of December is wet, and so our vineyard team have moved inside to catch up on a bit of labelling (and yes, we do have a bit of label stock left!)

Yet another day dawned with clear blue skies (apparently the last before a few days of rain). The ‘final’ day of picking (we hope), which was planned to be a simple mopping up operation, but has since turned into, what could be, a full day of harvest. The grapes just keep on coming!

The complication that we have, as I have explained in previous years is that we have to wait until every last grape is in before we can start the last presses. The reason being that we have to spread the loads in each press evenly, because if they run with less than the minimum load, then we will cause serious damage.

Inside the bodega, with the first tanks racked a few days ago, we are now preparing for fermentation. This simply means that we allow the tanks to recover temperature sufficiently for the yeast not to be rendered ineffective. We chill the tanks for settling, and then release the temperature control to allow them to slowly increase again. Once they reach about 14°C then we can usually get started (dependent upon the type of yeast that we decide to use).

Finally, at about 8.30pm, the final grapes arrived, kilos calculated, and presses loaded for the last time in 2021. Once the final count was made the quantity of grapes processed was actually more than anticipated, although the volume of juice yielded was almost exactly on target.

Picking started on Thursday under bright, clear blue skies. Of course, we hope that this sun might continue for a while, but the forecasts are very uncertain to say the least. Our plan for today is to bring our own grapes in on large trucks, with our cases already loaded onto pallets in the vineyard. In this way they can be quickly forklifted on and forklifted off. Less journeys too and from the vineyard (14 pallets per truck), and less labour in the bodega to offload cases. Historically, cases have been unloaded by hand, one by one, and with many of our smaller grape suppliers, this is still the system that we have to use!

Beautiful weather aside, our first day was not without incident. A few technical difficulties with equipment, which, despite having been tested, decided to play up on us. Firstly the machine for cooling the tanks would not start up (we needed to change a digital thermostat). Later, our case washing machine kept cutting out, but then eventually, and quite mysteriously, it decided to work again! (It might have been the moment when I threatened it with a hammer!)

Apart from that, there was no easing gently into the first day – from lunch time we were inundated, and spent virtually the whole day playing catch up, just managing to keep our heads above the water. It was a bit tiring to say the least.

I will write more tomorrow about the grapes, and the quality of our 2021 harvest.

As always, as the harvest arrives, we have to know what the weather is doing, but our simple problem is that the forecasts are proving to be very inaccurate. At the start of this week nearly every weather website said that Tuesday and Wednesday would be 100% rain. Naturally, we have set everything up to start on Thursday. So now, here we are, in the middle of Tuesday, looking out of the window at blue sky – not cloudless, but far from any sign of rain. Even now, these websites are forecasting rain at this time.

With hindsight we probably could have started our harvest at the weekend and enjoyed 3 or 4 days uninterrupted picking, but maybe, if we had taken the risk, then the forecasts could have been accurate. Having said that, it would appear that all of our neighbours have been hedging too, there is very little activity in Salnés at the moment.

In the final days before our 2021 harvest the weather is not being too kind to us. Yesterday evening we had a weird, two-part thunder storm. The first part dry, with no rain, just the thunder and lightning, and the second just heavy rain with no thunder. Fortunately, the wet part didn’t last too long.

This morning we have had a few odd showers, or the threat of showers and the whole region is simply cool and overcast. More rain is forecast in the coming days, but we hope that the worst might be behind us before we start picking some time next week (we think).

Meanwhile, inside the bodega, we are almost ready to start! Everything has been thoroughly washed, cleaned and polished, and we are now just in the midst of testing our systems – pumps, temperature control, etc., in preparation for the onslaught!