With the harvest now well and truly behind us, activity in the bodega is still quite frenetic. At harvest time all other activity stops – no bottling, no labelling, our mission is focused purely on collecting and processing grapes. Consequently, as soon as the picking comes to an end and the winemaking is under way, we can then turn our attention to our other day-to-day work.

Today’s picture shows a corner of our warehouse that was completely emptied to create additional working space for the harvest. The top photo, taken shortly after harvest, shows the area after deep cleaning. The bottom picture shows the very same space as it is today, full of orders ready to be collected. As you can imagine, our bottling line has been working overtime (although that’s not unusual at this time of year).

With the fermentation of our 2022 wine coming to an end, we recently lined up samples of each tank side-by-side in order to taste our new crop. It’s actually quite a difficult exercise, even for an experienced taster, as naturally, the wines are still very raw. However, the really interesting fact is that, even at this early stage, the differences between the wines harvested from our different vineyard locations is already starting to emerge. The vinification techniques that we use are the same for every tank and so the apparent differences really do come from the provenance of the fruit. Without going into specific detail, it has to be said that we are pretty happy with the overall result. We are still optimistic that 2022 could be very good. Patience is now the key, in order to see if our babies evolve into the mature adults that we really wish them to be!

With tanks now well into their fermentations, all work is now fully focused inside the bodega. After every harvest our second highest priority, after winemaking, is deep cleaning. Every floor and surface has to be cleaned and scrubbed, to eliminate the stubborn, sticky grape juice, and every piece of equipment has to be stripped and completely serviced ready for next year. The sooner that this can be done the better, because once dry, the grape must can set hard like varnish!

The warehouse space shown in today’s photo is the very same that, some weeks ago, appeared in my posts full of pallets (or sometimes bottle stock). Today it is not. There are many areas that have to be emptied completely during harvest to allow free access, and also to ensure that stock does not get stained or damaged in any way. Suffice to say that space is always at a premium at this time of year.

In the meantime, samples of this year’s must have now been analysed by an official laboratory, rather than just our own small facility in the bodega. The results are slightly different to ours, but in a favourable way. According to this lab the acidity of this year’s wines should be at a normal level for our region (higher than we thought initially), and also the alcohol should be slightly lower, probably a bit nearer 12.5%. Of course, these results are still not definitive, until the wine is completely finished, but they do indicate that we should be producing a very typical, Salnés Valley, Atlantic albariño in 2022.

On Sunday, as we moved into the last few vineyards the sun was beating down on us, with the temperature hovering around 30°C (86°F). To be honest it was quite a slow day, with just a little racking in the morning, and then waiting for pallets of grapes to arrive in the afternoon. In the cellar there is a lot of waiting involved, but regrettably we don’t have too much choice. Our objective is simply to get all the grapes in so that we can do a final count, and know exactly how many kilos we will have in order that we can calculate the final number of tanks that we will need, and how best the must can be distributed between them. It’s not quite as simple as it sounds.

Lunch at harvest time is a very serious business. Our picking team usually stop for between an hour or an hour and a half for lunch, during which time (on very hot days) they try to find somewhere cool to eat – in the case of today’s photo, under a tree. As you can see they are also very resourceful, building a makeshift table out of harvest cases and a couple of plastic pallets. Unfortunately, the sommelier was just out of shot when I took the picture!

When we study the weather forecast for the coming days it appears that the rain is now behind us, and that we will have good conditions to complete our harvest over the next two or three days. We shall see…

Seeding the tanks started today, whilst the harvest continued in the vineyards. Our cellar hand Fran who normally helps us starting the fermentations was fully occupied working on the presses, and so the task was left to Angela and myself – not really a big deal, as we have a few years of experience between us!

The must that we are working with this year is actual a slightly darker than usual, a pale gold colour, probably owing the the extreme heat this summer. The other significant factor being that the level of acidity is slightly lower this year. Being located in the Salnés Valley, in the north of the denomination, we are usually associated with a bright acidity, which, when the wine is very young, can be a little ‘edgy’ – sharp, as some people describe it. This year we might arrive with a wine ready to drink straight out of the press!

Seeding was also a little slower than normal as many pumps and hoses are being used on the harvest. The pumps and hoses used for seeding cannot be shared as the other musts can be contaminated by yeast before it is actually intended. This is very dangerous in the wine making process. Consequently the seeding process for the day was not completed until 10pm, at a time when the grape reception is working at full tilt.

Today’s photo shows a large 300 litre container used for preparing the yeast – when grape must is added the reaction is quite impressive. Starbucks would be envious of this foam!

Over the centuries many different types of container have been used to ferment and store wines, employing a variety of different materials. In the beginning it was simply a question of the range of materials available, such as the clay amphoras used by Romans and Phoenicians. In recent times, as wine making has become more ‘technical’, the type of container used is now more a matter of personal choice – the choice of the winemaker.

Obviously, the type of vessel used will often have a big impact on the style, and possibly flavour, of the finished wine, albeit that some winemakers still opt to use the most inert type of receptacle possible, in order that the wine is not marked in any way, thereby showcasing the flavours and character of their chosen grape variety.

Wine tanks and containers can be made from stainless steel, concrete, clay, stone, glass fibre, wood (and possibly a few others that have slipped my mind). Each different material can not only change the flavour and texture of a wine, but will also control the evolution (temperature and oxygenation) in very different ways. Concrete, for example, will retain temperature much longer than stainless steel, whilst on the other hand, stainless steel is much more hermetic than, say for example, wood. In addition to this, the way in which the chosen vessel is sealed can also change everything.

A trend which has re-emerged (seemingly since the advent of natural and organic wine), is the amphora. Here in Galicia some cellars are now experimenting with amphorae hewn from granite. It seems that wine making techniques have almost gone full circle.

For reasons that one day might become clear, this vintage has been particularly demanding, and as a result, today’s post is long overdue. The last couple of weeks have been fully occupied by the small matter of the wine making. To do things well demands quite a lot of thought and attention, especially when the vintage has not been altogether straight forward.

Following on from a largely unpredictable summer, the 2021 harvest itself has produced a few just a few twists and turns that we might not normally expect. For example, as I have already mentioned during the picking, the amount of grape must extracted from the fruit was lower that it would normally be, perhaps by as much as 2% or 3%. That may not sound like much, but when multiplied by many thousands of kilos, it soon adds up.

So, despite the bosses of our D.O. loudly (and apparently proudly) proclaiming that this was the biggest vintage ever, the numbers alone do not begin to tell the story of how the year 2021 has unfolded. In the end, there is one simple adage that I believe to be true, more often than not – that bigger does not always necessarily mean better.

Over the last couple of vintages I has used the term a-typical to describe the wines that we have produced, largely because they have been very ripe and perhaps just a touch too alcoholic. It was not uncommon to see wines of 13%, 13.5% (or even higher) in both the 2019 and 2020 vintages, whereas this year we are very likely to be somewhere closer to 12%, or perhaps 12.5% – in other words, much more in the style of a typical albariño.

To be honest, I think that is so much more to tell about 2021, that I will really need at least a few more posts to explain everything that has transpired this year (and as a result I will probably have to completely re-write my vintage report)!

Since I started in the wine trade, more years ago than I care to remember, it would appear that at least some aspects of our taste in wine have now gone more or less full circle. By this I mean in the styles of wine that are being produced.

Many years ago wines that were made by old-fashioned traditional methods, might well have been classified as ‘rustic’ by today’s standards. Whilst they certainly had a lot of character, they were perhaps, not always squeaky clean.

It was really in the 1980’s when consumer tastes first started to change, almost certainly influenced by the more modern wine making techniques used in New World’ wines. Countries such as Australia, not bound by centuries of tradition and rules of appellation, used the latest, technical methods of wine making. Whilst the resulting wines may have lacked a little in nuance and character, they certainly had power and concentration in abundance. Big, full-bodied, up front wines, brimming with ripe fruits (and often high alcohol). The significant difference of these wines was that, by comparison to some Old World wines, they were nearly always, bright, polished and squeaky clean. Quite literally ‘text book’ wine making some might say.

Far from being subtle, they swept the board in wine competitions as the first mouthful of their unctuous, juicy fruit would often simply overpower and dominate their more elegant, sophisticated European competitors. On the downside, they were very much ‘one sip’ wines – drinking two or three glasses could be more than enough to exhaust the palate, or simply overshadow some dishes from a restaurant menu.

However, after this era of technical wine making it could be that we have now started to retrace our steps a little. Modern taste is now leaning much more toward more natural, organic wines once again. Traditional techniques have resurfaced, and modern cultivation methods are being withdrawn. Perhaps now, a small deposit or a few crystals at the bottom of your glass is not quite the issue as it was just a couple of years ago and is simply a sign that we have indeed gone full circle.

The most important work in our cellar at the moment is monitoring and controlling fermentation. Of course, by control, I mean by the use of temperature. The fermentation can take place at more or less the required speed (within certain boundaries), decided not only by the wine maker and their preferred technique, but also by the type of yeast used to seed the tanks. (Some yeasts are far more vigorous than others and work within entirely different temperature ranges).

Generally speaking, fermentation carried out quickly, and at higher temperature, will produce a very fruity, easy drinking style, that will be ready consume shortly after the wine making process is complete. By using lower temperatures over a longer period, the wine might not have the same instant appeal and will usually require more time before it is consumed – but that’s really the point. It is up to the winemaker to decide their personal preference, and of course, will also be influenced by the target market and how long the wine might be required to last. The warmer, faster fermentation will normally sacrifice shelf-life, whilst the longer, cooler fermentation will slow down and extend the evolution of the finished wine, thereby ensuring better ageing potential. If extended lees contact is added to the wine making process, following on from the end of the fermentation, then this can change the physiology of the wine completely – extending ‘shelf life’ even further, whilst also adding more character and complexity.

During the fermentation we sometimes see strange patterns of foam forming on the surface of the tanks. Clearly this has something to do with the yeast, and the way that it behaves, but to be honest I have researched this and cannot find any specific explanation. I will keep looking.

In the meantime my photo shows one of our tanks (on the right) and the planet Saturn (on the left). I just thought that they looked quite similar!

Since finishing the picking last weekend we have been very busy inside, racking grape musts and initiating fermentation. The first week or so is extremely busy with quite intense activity leaving little time to sit down and write posts for our pages!

It goes without saying that we always try to grow our grapes and vinify our wines in the most natural way possible, with the minimum intervention. Whilst the resulting wines cannot actually be certified as organic or biodynamic, they can actually be classified as SUSTAINABLE.

If we ever decided to make a natural wine then this would restrict us to the exclusive use of indigenous albariño yeasts that occur naturally on the skin of our grapes. However, the problem is that this natural yeast is generally not strong enough to sustain a complete fermentation. It may well start naturally, but the likelihood is that it would not finish, as this delicate yeast would mostly likely die off before our wine is fully fermented. For this reason we chose to seed with cultured yeasts, as is would simply be to risky to rely solely on these indigenous yeasts.

The seeding process itself (when done correctly) takes a lot of time, and involves a lot of human input. The yeast is first re-hydrated in warm water, at body temperature, which then has to be reduced very slowly, over time, by adding small amounts of grape must from the tanks. The idea is that the re-hydrated yeast (starting at about 38°C) will eventually be cooled to within a couple of degrees of the temperature of the tank. Depending on the wine cellar, and the technique used, the tank temperature could be anything from about 14°C – 18°. If this long, careful procedure is not followed, and the yeast added straight into the chilled must too quickly, then the shock of this sudden temperature change will simply kill the yeast, and the juice will not ferment. It can take around 3 hours to seed a single tank, and so we never usually seed more than 2 or 3 tanks a day.

Owing to this year’s exceptional circumstances we are somewhat delayed in some of our chores. One process that would normally have been completed a month or two ago is racking the tanks of our 2019 vintage (removing the clean wine from it’s ‘bed’ of fine lees where it has been quietly resting). Now that we have returned we are systematically working through the backlog.

There is nothing particularly exciting about the racking process, indeed, the majority of our time is spent simply waiting for wine to be moved from one tank to another. The only real task is to monitor the turbidity of the wine (visually) using a special glass joint that connects the tank to the hose.

Meanwhile, outside the bodega, we are slowly being baked. Pretty much since the beginning of July we have been experiencing wall-to-wall sunshine, with temperatures regularly hovering around the 30°C (86°F) mark. Of course, sunshine is much better than wet weather for our vines, as long as the extreme temperatures don’t continue for too long.