Day 7 - A race against the weather

Fran - Hero of the pressing room

As we pick the last grapes from our own vineyards, we are keeping a very close eye on the skies above us. Today is much cooler and overcast - probably the first day that is not 't-shirt weather'. The local forecasts are predicting a changeable scenario over the next few days, and naturally we want to get our fruit safely inside the bodega, so Herminda and her team have switched into overdrive.

Looking around the Salnes valley (northern part of the denomination) there are quite a number of our neighbours who have not even started to pick yet, so I can only imagine that either they do not follow weather predictions, or that their grapes are not as mature as our own. Believe it or not this is actually quite an unusual phenomena, as the sight of one bodega picking usually starts a cascade around the region. However, this year the start date within our local area would appear to be spread over a period of three or four weeks, and it will certainly be interesting to taste the resulting wines to see if there is a marked difference between the early and later harvested wines.

As the tanks in the bodega gradually fill up with must, so the indoor workload starts to increase - racking continues, and the seeding begins.