It's raining 'gatos y perros'!

Too much heavy rain could cause serious soil erosion

After more than a week of smoke and fire, the whole of Galicia collectively breathed a sigh of relief as rain started to fall. Ironically, by this time most of the fires had either been extinguished or brought under control, but this was not before approximately 80,000 hectares of land had been reduced to ashes.

The only fear now is that too much heavy rain could cause heavy soil erosion, although we are assured that there is already a regeneration plan in the pipeline - we shall wait and see.

From our Bodega's perspective we were actually quite happy to see a bit of rain. Despite our precious Albariño grapes being completely healthy at the moment, prolonged dry periods can result in very small, thick skinned and slightly shriveled fruit - concentrating the flavour, but simply lacking in juice. A day or two of rain at this point is therefore quite welcomed, provided of course, that it does not persist.

The last few weeks before picking will be focused on the cellar - testing equipment, and generally making sure that everything is clean and ship-shape. Like a good boy scout our motto has to be "be prepared"........