The longest day, but the shortest summer

Please don't get me wrong, I am not announcing that summer is over already, but having just celebrated the longest day of the year (21st June in the Northern Hemisphere), we now look forward to possibly our shortest summer.

Our calendar for summer 2011 will have to be altered dramatically, as we plan for the early harvest. The first thing to disappear will be the planned closure of the Bodega for one week in August. Indeed, the week that we wanted to close may well end up being the week that we start to pick, so I guess that I might have to ask our team to work instead!

But the preparations for harvest actually start much earlier than that....

Not only do we have to order all the materials that we need, but obviously we have to ensure that we have enough space in our tanks to receive the new wine, and this usually involves a programme of bottling to create a bit of spare capacity.

As the wine has to pass through cold stabilisation, filtration etc. before it is bottled this also takes time and forward planning, and so working backwards from the anticipated harvest date, it means that we will probably have a very short summer indeed.

To finish on a more positive note, at least I will save on a bit of sun cream this year!

Summer Harvest?

I mentioned a week or two ago that our flowering had been extraordinarily early this year, and the recent weather has only served to perpetuate the problem - daytime temperatures of mid to upper 20's (75° - 85°F). Using the traditional calculation often used by growers, 100 days between the time of flowering and the harvest, this would, in theory at least, give us a date for picking of week commencing 23rd August.... Looks like there might be less sunbathing time this summer!

Althought we 'enjoyed' a wet winter here in Galicia, and the water tables were well replenished, we have not had any rain at all for some weeks now and certainly surface soils are getting pretty dehydrated. We will therefore have to take this into account when we start our work on the canopies. Certainly 'green harvesting' will not cause any problems, and indeed, should only serve to enhance the quality of the fruit left on the vines, but leaf thinning is a different matter.

Leaves, as we know, are the powerhouse of any plant and provide all the sugar and nutrients required for growth. During the summer we actively remove a percentage of the leaves, not only to provide the fruit with better exposure to the sun, but also to ensure that not all the energy is consumed by thick foliage. The trick is to find the correct density of leaves, and the exact amount that we eventually remove will therefore be determined by how our weather evolves over the next couple of months.

Harvest 2010 Day 7½ - The sun sets on yet another harvest

Sunset at the rear of the bodega

In one way the 2010 harvest was similar to last year - mopping up the last few grapes on the morning of an eigth day, but that is where the similarity ends..... This year we have more fruit than last year; not necessarily because of higher yields, but simply that we have found some great new grape suppliers. As our sales grow, so we need to keep pace.

As always, the final day is a bit of an anti-climax, especially when there are so few grapes coming in. The adrenaline that has been supporting the whole team throughout the last week has finally stopped pumping, and the tiredness has started to hit home - we are finally on our knees (or perhaps I am just speaking for myself, and the younger members of our team will be out on the town tonight).

I have to make a special mention this year to Angela's sister Elizabeth (or Bebe to her friends). For the first time this year Bebe took over responsibility for organising our picking team of  around 50 people. I have to say that everything went like clockwork - grapes arriving faster than ever from our vineyards, all the pickers happy and smiling, and most importantly the vineyards left clean and tidy - not a plastic water bottle, nor one coke tin in sight.

So, a big thank you to Bebe and her team, and also to our Bodega team - Fran working as hard as ever on the presses, Luisa on her computer (recording every single basket of grapes), and not forgetting David & Juan charged with transporting all the grapes from our own vineyards. A great vintage for many different reasons.

Thank you and good night!

Harvest 2010 Day 7 - Wrong again!

There are more than 40 people picking under this canopy - can you spot any of them? 

Suffice to say that the weather forecasters were wrong again, with nearly every website forecasting rain for today. For once I am really happy that they miscalculated as it opened the way for us to make one last charge at the vineyards.

Strangely, the climate within the bodega itself is probably more changeable than outside at the moment - the grape reception and pressing room can certainly get quite warm, not just because of the ambient temperature, but also because of the nature of the work itself.... enough to make a gentleman perspire. In stark contrast to this we have the tank room, where the temperature control system is working flat out to keep the tanks well and truly chilled. My guess is that there must be a variation of up to 15°C (I have to measure this). This is why we always keep a warm jacket handy just inside the tank room door!

By about 7pm our own vineyards were finished for this year, but as always there are still one or two stragglers to come. Indeed, we already know that there is still one small vinyeard to be picked tomorrow morning - hopefully just enough to fill one last press.

2010 has certainly yielded a big harvest of good quality fruit, and as always, we are very thankful for this. I am also given to believe that the denomination of Rias Baixas itself is anticipating a record year, with more than 30 million kilos predicted for the whole area. If this figure is correct, it will beat the previous record of 29 million kilos in 2006.

The other official news is that our Consello (Rias Baixas) have increased the maximum permitted yield per hectare by 8.33%. Personally I think that is probably because of pressure from the 'big boys' (co-operatives)to squeeze every last drop out of the vineyards. To be extremely honest I have always been vehemently against this approach to wine making. It is quite clear that the best wines are always produced by the lowest yields, so for me this is very much a step in the wrong direction. Having said that, our customers should rest assured that we will not be changing our policy at Castro Martin..... Low yield = Better wine

Harvest 2010 Day 5 - Groundhog Day

Our pickers take a break after lunch (I know how they feel)

Of course the truth is that it is really Day 6, but it just seems like we are repeating the same day, over and over again.... it's never ending!

So, just after I pushed the button on my computer to post my blog last night, claiming that we had harvested the same amount each day, it appears that I might have been a little premature. In fact we have created another new record. Now, I'm not quite sure if it's an all-time record, but it's certainly the most grapes that we have pressed in a single day since I arrived here 8 years ago - a  great team effort all-round.

The last few days have been fairly manic for those working in the bodega (including me!), not only have we been handling record amounts of grapes, but also, as I mentioned yesterday, we are busy racking wines too. The greatest motivating factor for all our hard work is the excellent quality of the fruit coming in through our door, which is yielding an intensely sweet, clean must. It would appear that we might have some good raw materials to work with in the cellar this year. Only time will tell on this score.

As the afternoon wore on, so the cloud cover started to increase, and we even felt a few drops of rain on the wind, but nothing more than that - for now.

By 6.30pm, just as the pace was picking up for the evening, we suddenly lost one phase of our three phase electricity supply, together with our presses and the temperature control system..... Disaster!

After one frantic phonecall, and a delay of only 20 minutes, help arrived in the shape of the local electricians that do all our work, and remain on 24 hour standby (for all bodegas) during the harvest period. As quickly as they had arrived, they assesed the situation, changed one rather large fuse, and within one hour we were back up and running! An impressive result that averted complete meltdown in the bodega.

Who ya gonna call?....

With only one day left to go (weather permitting) and tank space in the cellar diminishing rapidly, we headed home to try and grab a decent nights sleep.

Harvest 2010 Day 5 - Alone again

Today's picture is not quite so glamorous - it shows the 'fangos' left at the bottom of the tank after settling. Following a gentle pressing, the grape juice (or 'must') flows by gravity into our tank room and is then left for a period of time to allow it to settle. During this time all the debris, that may include pips, skins, stems and even a little soil (or dust from the grape skins) will slowly fall to the bottom of the tank, after which we do our first racking. We simply draw the clean liquid off the top of the fangos using the rather odd-looking bent pipe that you can see in the picture. What's left on the tank floor is not necessarily very pretty, but it's better than allowing it to reach your glass!

I mention the fact that we are alone, simply because I have noticed that there are many bodegas in our area that have still not started to pick. Of course what other people decide to do is not really of concern to us, and I guess that the decision of when to pick is one of the elements that helps create variation in the style of wine between different bodegas (and long may that difference continue). For example, the grapes coming in today from our largest 'El Pazo' vineyard are perfectly balanced (sugar, pH and acidity) for our own style of albariño, and that's all we need to know. To make a very crude analogy, it's possibly a bit like roasting a chicken.... you leave your grapes on the vine until you consider them 'done', in the same way that you would leave your chicken in the oven. The only thing that I can say is that I prefer my roast chicken juicy and not dried out!

I should also comment that the pace of this year's harvest has been relentless - from the moment we started the flow has been non-stop (pretty much the way we planned it). Obviously the more we do, the quicker we finish, and then we can breath that sigh of relief when all the grapes are safely gathered in. In fact, in the last four days the amount of grapes that we have processed has only varied very slightly, by as little as 3,000 or 4,000 kilos, and so you could say that the flow has been unwavering.

Until now, weather has not been an issue, but there is a possibility that the dry spell could break before the end of this week - we shall see.

Harvest 2010 Day 4 - Little boxes

I made a very casual comment on Saturday about the fact that it had been a busy day, without realising that it had been our busiest day since the huge 2006 harvest. It is a real tribute to our team, both in the vineyards and the bodega, that the day passed so smoothly - processing a huge amount of grapes in a well-ordered and timely fashion.

So, after one day of inactivity on Sunday (we decided that certain vineyards might actually benefit from one further day of sun), we re-launched the campaign on a bright, sunny Monday morning.

Picking normally starts at around 9.30am in our vineyards, despite the sun coming up at 8am - and the reason? Well, at this time of year there can be a bit of dew in the early morning, so we simply allow a little time for the grapes to dry off. Apart from this our people pick until 7.30pm, so even with a leisurely lunch break, it is still a very long day out in the sun.

Of course the secret of a successful harvest is logistics, and today we got off to a great start. By mid-morning we were loading the first press, and managed to get a couple done even before our short lunch break (the break in the bodega is usually much shorter, and I'm not quite sure why). This makes an enormous difference to our whole day, especially if we can keep this early momentum going. There is never a queue of grapes waiting to be loaded, and they pretty much go straight from the delivery vehicle into the presses. Of course this can make a huge difference to a fresh, fruity white wine like ours as any possible fruit oxidation is our enemy!

Ah! Now I remember, the subject of today's post, my little boxes..... The boxes that you see neatly lined up outside the bodega are full of 'bagazo' (grape skins and stems from the presses). These are collected on a daily basis, not by the refuse men, but by the distillery who covert it into aguardiente for us (grappa or eau-de-vie, depending on where you live). Until a few years ago we used to do this on site, but a change in the law now prohibits us from doing this under the same roof as our wine making - again, don't ask me why!

Harvest 2010 Day 3 - 9/11

Today, just a short moment of reflection as we remember the terrible events of 9/11 in New York City, back in 2001 - one of my favourite cities of the world.......

As you may recall from my long history of posts concerning the weather, like all Brits, I am a little obsessed with the subject (it must be something in the English DNA). Anyway, to cut a long story short, today's picture shows a photo of my computer screen taken yesterday - and the reason? Well, a very localised forecast taken from Spain's National Weather Service AEMET, indicated that yesterday and today would be completely cloudy, but as you can clearly see, the sun is streaming in through my office window. Hardly a cloud yesterday, and hardly a cloud today - perhaps AEMET would be better served by employing someone to simply look out of the window! At this time of year, when we rely heavily on weather predictions, this hardly inspires any confidence.

Our first Saturday appears to be passing with peaks and troughs of activity - one minute hands in pockets, the next like headless chickens, as trucks of grapes seem to arrive in unison. There is an old adage in England - that you can wait an hour for a bus, and then suddenly three buses arrive at the same time. This is certainly the pattern that we are experiencing today....

Any Saturday, during any harvest is always the most frantic day of the week. Many of our grape suppliers are only part-time, in other words they hold down full-time jobs and only grow grapes in their spare time. (Of course many of the vineyards in Galicia are so small that this income alone could not support a family). The result being that Saturday is always the most popular day for harvesting, as the family and friends of our growers provide abundant cheap labour.

After a busy day, with presses working flat out throughout the night, it's time to catch up on a little sleep.

Harvest 2010 Day 2 - Working at home

Our car park runneth over

Often the lack of sleep that we endure during the harvest is not necessarily to do with the number of hours that we physically spend in the bodega, but can, more often, be attributed to the dreaded nocturnal 'to do' list. That horrible feeling that you get in the middle of an (already truncated) night's sleep when you either think that you have forgotten to do something important, or that you must remember to do something important the following day. The body might be desperate to rest, but the brain is still clocking up the overtime - hence the 'to do' list..... a piece of paper strategically placed at your bedside on which you can make notes in the faint glow of your digital alarm clock. I have to admit that this is a phonomena that seems to get worse with age, and boy, do I feel old this morning!

Anyway, back at the harvest, we have another bright sunny day as you can see from my photo. You can also see that our car park is full, which can only mean one thing; today we are playing at home - picking our one hectare vineyard that surrounds the bodega. With a team of around 50 experienced pickers this year, we expect to have this done within a few hours, when the whole team will then relocate to our much bigger Castrelo vineyard. It goes without saying that the order in which we decide to pick is 100% determined by the ripeness of the fruit in each site. Indeed, in our larger sites ripeness even determines the route in which we work our way around the vineyard.

Of course one of the great advantages of working on home soil is that the cases of grapes are removed from the vineyard immediately - they are in the grape reception within minutes, and pressed within the hour. You can't get fresher than that!

As the day progressed, so the momentum started to build and by the middle of the evening we experienced the usual 'sunset rush'. The sunset rush is simply caused by the sun dropping in the sky - as the gloom gathers, people stop picking, load up their truck or tractors, and make a beeline for the bodega.

Harvest 2010 Day 1 - A misty start

One of the first grape suppliers to collect cases on day one

When I opened the shutters at home this morning I doubt if I could see more than 100 metres as a heavy sea fog rolled in from the Atlantic, but by the time I had shaved and showered the sun was already beginning to penetrate. By around 10.30am the sun had done its job, and was now dominating the sky over Galicia.

By mid-afternoon the first grapes arrived and the temperature had risen considerably, both inside and outside the bodega - the first signs of stress.... Despite our the careful plans and preparation we always find some small detail left undone. This year, for example, we have altered the concentration of sulphur that we add to the unfermented grape must, and the exact amount that we use is calculated automatically by a computer spreadsheet. As the first grapes entered the press we were still re-calibrating the whole sheet, and finished just in the nick of time. So much for being prepared!

As the first grape must emerged from the press, we were obviously anxious to taste the juice, and we were not disappointed. Fresh, clean, zesty, and as always, an intense, piercing fruit, everything we have come to expect from our vineyards. Of course the first real tasting of our finished product is still some months away.

We ended the first day on a high by creating a new record in the bodega - receiving more than 6,000 kilos on one truck from one single vineyard - as you can guess, it was a pretty big truck, full of really good quality fruit. A good first day all 'round.

Follow the yellow brick road

Well, maybe not so much yellow brick, more a bit of brown cardboard really, but 'follow the brown carton road' doesn't have quite the same ring to it. (At least we do have yellow walls!)

When I was writing about my old harvest shoes the other day I mentioned that when any spilt grape juice starts to dry it becomes really sticky and gets everywhere, well, we do at least take a few precautions in an attempt to minimise the effect. One such effort is to simply stick a bit of carton to the floor and make a walkway between the cellar and the offices.... it may not look very pretty, but it does save a bit of scrubbing when it comes to the big clean-up after the harvest.

Meanwhile, in the outside world, the early part of this week has been wet (as predicted), but a return to warmer weather looks like it's on the way. We only need a couple more weeks of dry weather and we should enjoy quite a good vintage. The grapes that we have tasted so far are quite sweet, and already have good potential alcohol. As always we are just waiting for the acidity to drop a little more in a few of our vineyard sites. For those that already have a good balance, we will start picking tomorrow, so watch this space.....

Preparing for the big 'Kick Off'

This will almost certainly be the last quiet weekend at home before the 2010 campaign gets under way, but even so our thoughts never stray too far from the enormous task to come. Ensuring that everything, and everybody is organised, knows their place, and knows exactly what to do - it's all a question of detail.

For me it was time to dig around in the back of my wardrobe and drag out my old faithful 'harvest shoes', (complete with go-faster stripes).The shoes in question were originally purchased many years ago as football boots made especially for all-weather surfaces - as you may see they have a number of small rubber studs, designed to give a good grip on slippery surfaces.

At harvest time, the grape juice that inevitably ends up on the floor is thick and viscose, that makes it extremely slippery. By contrast, when it starts to dry, its properties change completely and it becomes more like glue, horribly sticky and finding its way into every small corner of the bodega on the bottom of your feet.

Quite naturally, strong and appropriate footwear is essential at all times in the cellar (as the health and safety guys would tell you), but my experience in recent years always leads me back to the same old harvest shoes. Heaven only knows what I will do when they are eventually forced to retire!

First cases of 2010

My photo, taken only this morning, shows the first cases being delivered to a vineyard site, in anticipation of the 2010 vintage.

For the last week or so Angela has been busy in her hovel  laboratory analysing grape samples from different locations - it would appear from her analysis that some of the southern most vineyards might be picked as early as next week. Time and weather will determine exactly when....

After a long, dry summer our focus on the weather forecast becomes more intense - some weather sites are predicting rain at the beginning of next week, but with a return to fine weather by the end of the week. If this is correct, and the rain is not too heavy, then this will serve to clean the fruit, which may actually be a little dusty after the prolonged dry spell.

Counting the cost

With the picking over, and our tanks filled with fresh grape must, we switch into deep clean mode. The sticky juice just gets everywhere - floors, walls, stairs, door handles - you name it. Then of course, there is the equipment - tanks, presses, pumps, hoses, not to mention the odd couple of thousand baskets that we use to collect the fruit - all covered with a gluey, syrup-like coating. The pressure washers are working overtime.

Seeding the tanks is about to begin, but in the meantime we also have to spend time in the office analysing the cost of this year's operation. In addition to the overtime accrued by our own full-time staff we also examine in detail the costs of our casual staff (picking team), and consider how this may or may not affect our future tariffs. The final bottle price not only relates to the price of grapes, but also to every single cost associated with handling them. In Rias Baixas where only manual picking can be used, regrettably this is never cheap.

In recent years we have collected detailed information of all these incidental costs in order that we can compare the efficiency of each campaign, and make adjustments where necessary. In addition to this, Angela keeps records of every single grape, and it's path through the cellar, giving us complete traceability of every step in the winemaking process.

Thank heavens for Excel!

Day 7¼ - Hold the presses!

So, as we limp into what we now believe will be our last day (honest), the final few grapes are gathered in. Of course when we stopped last night we did have to make sure that we left enough fruit on the vine to fill at least one press, otherwise it would be a case of shoes and socks off, and start stomping!

The photo above shows me (quite rare as I am usually on the other side on the lens) measuring sulphur to add to the new grape must. Before anyone panics I should tell you that we use sulphur in solution for this operation, but it is still pretty agressive, hence the mask. If this was 100% pure sulphur, then I would probably kill everyone in the building by adding it like this! (By the way, Angela says I look much more attractive in this picture - I have no idea what she means).

Oh, and one final harvest note about temperature.... At the moment we still have an outside temperature of around 26°-28°C (80°F), whereas in the cellar, where the refridgeration is chilling tanks, it is a mere 14°C (57°F). Dressing for such a wide variation can be quite difficult, and I sometimes find myself sitting in a warm office, with the sun streaming in through the window, wearing a fleece!

So, this is really it for 2009! This photo shows Juan and David tipping the very last case of this year's harvest into the press. Down below, in the pressing room, Fran started the final cycle at 2pm, and so with all the grapes safely gathered under cloudless blue skies, we hand over to Angela to work her magic in the cellar.

With our thanks to everyone in the vineyards and the bodega who have worked so hard for the 7½ days. Now, let the cleaning begin!!!!

Day 7 - The final bunches

Herminda's office - who needs an Apple laptop when you have a Grape notebook?

(photo by mobile phone)

Whilst it was very nice to have a break from picking, today seems like a bit of an anti-climax. Having been in full harvest mode for nearly a week, it just seems really hard to re-motivate everyone, including myself, for just one last push.

The good news is that in a quiet moment Angela and I did a systematic tasking of all the musts, and all I can say is "looking good" - yes, we are very happy with what we have harvested so far. If fermentations etc. go according to plan then 2009 should be a very useful vintage. Expensive, but useful. (If you read one of my pre-harvest posts about grape prices, then you might understand where I'm coming from). Now I am not saying for one second that we make bad wines, and perhaps I shouldn't say this, but for me at least, the 2009 will be better than last year.

Finally, as the day wears on, and the grapes keep coming, we realise to our horror that we might have miscalculated. By the afternoon we have every available person out in the Pazo vineyard helping to pick the 'final' grapes, until in the end, at around 8.30pm, the daylight defeats us and we retreat back to the Bodega. The end was obviously not as nigh as we thought!

Sunday - a day of rest

In English we call it a praying mantis, in Spanish it is a mantis religiosa - rescued from a case of grapes on Saturday. I just thought that with such a name it might be appropriate to post this picture on a Sunday.

As I explained yesterday, we have perhaps only one day of picking left (in one or two sections of our vineyards), but in the warm sunshine, fruit left on the vine for one more day can only benefit.

Despite no picking, there is still racking to be done in the cellar, and so not a day of rest for everyone.

More news on the final day tomorrow.

Day 6 - Watching the temperature

Slowly the emphasis of our work starts to shift from outdoors to indoors, as we have fewer grapes left on the vine, and more juice in our tanks. As with all wine making, temperature is the key, when we start to impose our own individual character on the fruit that we collect. In a way, it is like being a chef - yes, you need to start with the very best raw ingredients, but then the individuality of the final dish, or in our case wine, will very much depend on how we handle our fruit.

Obviously, there are many steps in the wine making process, but in each there is very little margin for error. If Gordon Ramsay does not like the piece of fish that his Chef de Partie offers up to him, he will simply chuck it in the bin and start again (and probably swear a lot in the process!). If we make a mistake in our cellar, we cannot start again, we only have one chance to get it right. At this moment, there are really two important factors that will influence the final outcome - heat and oxidation - these are our enemies, and have to be avoided at all costs. This is one of the reasons that I make such a big fuss about our cooling system - it's an important piece of kit for us!

In mentioning temperature, perhaps I should make a small comment about the weather. So far it has been really kind to us, as we still enjoy brilliant blue skies and warm sunshine. In fact, thinking back over the last few years, I don't think I can recall a vintage with absolutely 0% precipitation - perhaps I am wrong.

In view of this continued good weather we will stop picking a little early today, to give the final plots a chance to drop a bit of acidity. (We may not resume again until Monday, as the forecast for the next couple of days still looks very good). But even if we did produce an odd tank with a slightly higher acidity, we can always use small amounts for blending with other tanks in the future - like adjusting the pepper and salt in your final dish (to use my cooking analogy once again).

Oh, and by the way, the photo shows my little post-it notes stuck on the control panel - with so much movement of must around the cellar this simply gives me an at-a-glance reminder of where everything is - not very high-tech!

Day 5 - Over the hump

Some valves controlling our cooling system (obviously designed by Mr Heath Robinson himself!)

As we roll into day 5 I think it is safe to say that we are well past the mid-point of this years harvest. With around 40 pickers in our vineyards our presses are well supplied, and have no break at all between unloading and re-filling (well, they do only work once a year).

The racking of the clean 'must' is well under way, and so far the cooling system is behaving itself. Indeed, it is proving so effective that it can apparently chill the odd can of Coke! The zig-zag arrangement of pipes in the photo are known as a heat exchanger - this is a length of pipe surrounded by an outer cooling jacket through which the grape juice passes immediately after pressing. Obviously, because the exchanger is icy cold this has the effect of cooling the must very rapidly even before it reaches the temperature controlled tanks - it is just a slightly more effective way to drop the temperature quickly.

I think that's what they call product placement (using our heat exchanger)

As I mentioned a little earlier, I am the one who treads the 39 steps more than most, often rushing samples from the grape reception down to the laboratory two floors below (I lost 2kg in the first 3 days!). From what Angela has seen so far, she is pretty happy with her analysis, and it looks like it will not be necessary to make any adjustments to the acidity this year - we shall see.....

Day 4½ - The 39 steps

Erm, not really a harvest story, but more one of my stupid anecdotes - perhaps I'm just getting tired and delirious.

I may have mentioned at some point that our cellar is built on three levels. Grape reception at the top, presses in the middle and tank room (and laboratory) at the bottom.

Somehow my planning must have gone wrong, but I think that during the harvest my own job entails rushing up and down the stairs probably more than anyone else in the building (which I suppose is quite natural when you want to keep an eye on everything).

Yesterday evening, in a moment of mental and physical exhaustion, I actually counted the steps between the top and bottom levels......

Now I don't know if Angela's father was an Alfred Hitchcock fan, or if it arrived completely by accident, but we quite literally have
The 39 Steps!