Vinos Ambiz (Producers of natural, organic, healthful, sustainable wine (Madrid, Spain)

A nice happy trivial post

2012-01-22T12:11:00.000+01:00

A strange thing happened to me on the way to the forum the other day.

I was having lunch with some friends in Madrid, and as it was such a lovely day we decided to chance it outside on a terrace. A typical Menú del Día (set menu) at €11 for which you get a 1st course, a 2nd course, dessert or coffee, plus bread and a bottle of table-wine and ‘Casera’ or ‘Gaseosa’ (a fizzy sweet lemonade-type drink to mix with the wine).

So we ordered the ‘vino y Casera’ and when it came, we tasted it first before mixing in the Casera. We always do that, as a sort of anti-tasting, and talk about the nuances of the disgustingness and undrinkability of these wines! Well, shock, horror, and will wonders never cease!!!! The wine they served us yesterday was actually drinkable, not at all unpleasant and even had some aromas and tastes of a decent wine. This was not due to transitory madness, phase of the moon, or irrational exuberance as they say; there were three of us and we all agreed on the wine’s drinkability. We suspected an error at the bottling or labeling line, but we finished the bottle without ever adding any Casera.

So after lunch I checked out the wine on the internet. More surprises. It turns out it’s made by a winery called Bodegas Virgen de las Viñas, from near the town of Tomelloso, in the middle of La Mancha. It’s a co-op of over 2,000 (that’s two thousand!) grape-growers, with a total of over 23,000 hectares (about 55,000 acres) under vines, and they produce over 150 Million liters of wine. They have a website in English, but it doesn’t seem to work: http://www.vinostomillar.com/

The wine itself was called “Viña Tomilla Tinto”, and is a blend of Tempranillo and Garnacha. It retails at €1,38/bottle plus shipping.

Spanish Table Wine - No 'casera' required in this case!

I was surprised that such a massive cooperative winery could produce such a nice drinkable wine. Co-ops that size usually churn out undrinkable wines that have to be mixed with ‘Casera’. This is true – it’s not just me being elitist!!! At any restaurant in Madrid where they serve a Menu del Día, you automatically get a bottle of fizzy Casera to mix with the wine.

I was also surprised that they had a website in English, even though it doesn’t work. The site in Spanish doesn’t work very well either!

The food at the restaurant was also really good – much better than the usual fare at such places. It’s called “El Ibérico” and it’s on the Glorieta de Ruiz Jiménez next to the taxi rank. Intersection of C/San Bernardo and C/Alberto Aguilera, behind the taxi rank. It doesn’t have a webpage and I couldn’t find any reviews of it in the usual sites!

So if you’re passing through Madrid, hungry and on a budget, … you know where to go!

Pruning, Pesticides ... and Natural Wine Dogmas

2012-01-18T11:16:00.064+01:00

Vineyards

We've gotten off to a good start with the pruning this year. We started right after New Year and have finished the small upper plot of the Carabaña vineyard - about 250 vines (all white Airén variety). It took so long to do because apart from the actual pruning, we also hoed up the earth around each vine to remove the grass and plants and to aerate the soil a bit.

Panoramic view of the small top plot in Carabaña

We don't plough up the vineyard between the rows like all our neighbours do - instead we let all the grasses, plants, flowers and thistles grow, and we just cut them back once or twice a year when they get too high. We also leave the canes from the pruning and chop them up into little pieces; and all this organic matter returns to the soil, improving its structure and fertility.

Close-up of vine before pruning it

This way of doing things has its advantages and disadvantages. The main disadvantage, I think, is the competition for water and nutrients from the grasses and plants. But, on the other hand, grass and plants have relatively small short roots, while vines have very long deep ones, as well as surface roots, and they seem to manage fine; also the vines we have, Airén and Tempranillo, are well suited to the climate and don't need a lot of water.

Close-up of vine after pruning it

The main reason for leaving all the grasses and plants is to provide a habitat for insects that all predate on each other, so no one species ever becomes a problem and attacks the vines or grapes. We've never used any pesticides in all the years (9) that we've been cultivating the vineyard.

Fabio hoeing up the soil around the vines

Yet another reason for not ploughing is that there will never be any residues of pesticides on the grapes or in the wine. I understand, from reading reports and articles, that all conventional wines made from non-organic grapes have traces of pesticides in them. Some people say that these residues are insignificant and harmless, but I have my doubts. I think that, like in many other issues, once you have the actual real facts and hard data available to you, it still boils down to a question of belief!

Fog in the vineyard in the morning

In this case, the facts are:
- There are traces of pesticides in wine
- Experts tell us that the quantities are insignificant and safe for human consumption

BUT, here are a number of doubts (or 'beliefs' if you prefer) that are important enough for me not to use pesticides:

Lovely earthworm - sign of a healthy living soil :)

1. It's happened often enough in the past that a chemical or substance has been banned at a certain point in time, because it was discovered that it wasn't safe after all! I believe that the same could happen this year or next with any product that is currently permitted. I also believe that this is because the authorities pay more attention to corporate lobbies than they do to consumer/safety lobbies.

2. These products may well be safe for human consumption, but what about the runoffs that go into the soil, underground aquifers and rivers? I don't think they're safe for micro-organisms, flora and fauna, or for the environment in general. It's also a fact that the world's pollution problem is caused by industry and agriculture.

3. Even though each individual pesticide may be considered harmless and safe for human consumption, what about the 'cocktail effect' of many pesticides combined. There are no studies showing that they're safe in combination with each other.

Tools of the day - hoe (or is it an adze?), gloves and pruning shears

Anyway, 250 vines down, 1000 to go - in Carabaña. Then we have about 3000 vines in Villarejo (Malvar variety) to prune too. The deadline is around March when the vines wake up from their winter dormancy and the sap starts flowing. It's not a good idea to prune after that happens, because you'd be removing valuable nutrients from the vine. The same applies if you start pruning too early, ie before the vines go into dormancy around November/December.

Rabbit droppings - at least they left something nice behind
after eating 20% of our grapes!

Bodega

Not much happening in the bodega these days. Just checking and tasting the wines to see that they're coming along OK. Basically, they just sitting there and the cold of winter which helps them to settle down. The most pressing task at the moment is to do some bottling. We have several wines in oak barrels that need to be bottled, otherwise the oak will dominate too much.

Crates of recycled de-labelled wine-bottles, ready for washing

The other day I soaked and delabelled about 100 bottles. Sinse the harvest back in September, we've managed to delabel about 1000 bottles; now we need to wash them and fill them.

Poor bat

I found this poor bat lying at the bottom of an empty crate. No idea what could have happened. They usually fly around at night in the patio of the bodega, and inside the bodega itself too, snapping up insects. This is especially useful during fermentation when myriads of tiny fruit-flies appear.

Promotion/Social

Not much happening on this front either in general, though there have been two very interesting events recently. The first was our annual Vinos Ambiz tasting where we presented our new 2011 wines and a couple of older ones too (see this post). This year it was on 16th December and held at CSO Casablanca, an 'occupied' (ie squatted) social centre in Madrid. Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos until the very end, and no-one who was there has sent me any that I can use :( That'll teach me!

The second event was a lunch last Sunday with some wine-people at Los Asturianos restaurant in Madrid. It started off being just a tasting of my new wines between me and my US importer, José Pastor, but as time went by (and Spain being Spain!), things escalated and complicated themselves and in the end there were 7 of us with over 40 wines to taste!!! We were: José Pastor (US natural wine importer), Victor de la Serna (Spanish journalist and winemaker), Alice Feiring (US natural wine writer), Alfredo Maestro (Spanish natural winemaker), Richard van Oorschot (Dutch wine aficcionado), Nacho Bueno (Spanish wine aficionado). And these were the wines:

- Niepoort-Navazos 2009 Palomino Fino (Non-DO)
- Equipo Navazos La Bota de Manzanilla Num.32 (DO Jérez y Manzanilla)
- Ximénez-Spínola Exceptional Harvest 2010 (Non-DO)

- Vinos Ambiz 2011 Airén (Non-DO)
- Lovamor 2011 Alfredo Maestro (VT Castilla)
- Vinos Ambiz Malvar 2011 Carbonic Maceration

- Albariño de Fefiñanes III Año 2007 (DO Rías Baixas)
- Reto 2010 Ponce (DO Manchuela)
- Níspero 2009 Eufrosina Pérez Rodríguez
- Picarana 2010 Marañones (DO Vinos de Madrid)

- Picos de Cabariezo 2010 (VT Liébana)
- Ganko 2009 Olivier Rivièr (DOC Rioja)
- Finca Sandoval Signo Garnacha 2009 (DO Manchuela)
- El Puño 2007 El Escocés Volante (DO Calatayud)
- Vinos Ambiz Garnacha 2010
- Vinos Ambiz Coupage 2010 (Tempranillo Graciano Sirah)

- Ultreia 2008 Raúl Pérez (DO Bierzo)
- Tilenus Pieros 2002 Bodegas estefanía (DO Bierzo)
- Finca Sandoval Signo Bobal 2008 (DO Manchuela)
- Ponce PF 2009 (DO Manchuela)
- Alfynal 2009 Bruno Prats (DO Alicante)

- Casa Castillo Pie Franco 2006 (DO Jumilla)
- Tres Patas 2007, Bodegas Canopy (DO Méntrida)
- Malpaso, Bodegas Canopy (DO Méntrida)
- Guimaro
- Jarrarte Maceración Carbónica (DOC Rioja)

Apart from the above wines (as if they weren't enough!) Alfredo brought these:

Lovamor 2011
Amanda 2011
Viña Almate 2011
Garnacha 2011
Garnacha 2010
Viña Almate 2010.
Viña Almate LA OLMERA 2009
Viña Almate LA GUINDALERA 2009
Tinto Castrillo de Duero 2009
Gran Fausto 2003

and José brought these:

<pending>

I have to say that it was too much for me. I loved all of them, but I didn't have enough time to savour them and talk about them. I was surrounded by experts who could do 2 wines in about 5 minutes (we tasted them in pairs). So I'm not going to post any tasing notes here, firstly because I didn't take any (!), secondly because I'm sure the other 'comensales' will post some comments, and they're all more experienced tasters than me. The only ones I managed to savour were a few unfinished bottles that I stuffed into my rucksack as we left the restaurant, which I thoroughly enjoyed over lunch and dinner at home on Monday and Tuesday :)

I was also looking forward to a nice chat about natural wines, but that didn't happen either :( Too many people, too many wines, too many conversations going on at the same time. But hey, I'm not complaining - I really appreciated the chance to taste so many quality Spanish wines, at the same time, and surrounded by such knowledgeable people. Quite a lot of corners of Spain were represented at our table that day!

Sorry, I forgot to take photos!

Vinos Ambiz Annual Tasting

2011-12-09T15:49:00.000+01:00

Confirmed!

Where:
CSO Casablanca (c/Santa Isabel, 21) (Metro Antón Martín)
Madrid (Spain)

When:
Saturday 10 December 2011, at 19:00 (-ish)

What:
We'll be presenting at least the following wines:

- Airén 2011 (young white), from Carabaña (Madrid)

- Garnacha 2010 (lightly oaked), from San Martín de Valdeiglesias (Madrid)

- And at least two other 'interesting' wines that we we'll bottle up at the last minute!
We'll probably follow the same procedure as last year (and the years before), ie as we taste, and assuming we can get people to shut up and listen for more than 3 minutes, we'll give short speeches on how we grow our grapes and make our wines (eg, organic viticulture, non-use of pesticides and noxious chemicals, no adulteration of the must/wine in the bodega, sustainability, recycling of bottles etc); and we'll be answering any questions that anyone wants to ask.

How:
You just need to turn up; we will provide the wine and the glasses. Entry is free. You can come with whatever attitude you like and you can bring your own cultural baggage in with you - you don't have to leave it at the door! Skeptics and sychophants equally welcome!

Un abrazo, and sláinte

Fabio and Juan

P.S. We're trying to collect photos of previous years' tastings to make a thematic album:

2010: Tabacalera
2009: La Dragona (Ecologistas)
2008: El Patio Maravillas (c/Acuerdo)
2007: CSO Seco
2006: Off-Limits
2005: CSO Seco (antiguo)

If you were at any of these tastings and have photos, please send us a copy!

Pottering Around the Vineyard and Bodega

2011-11-10T11:40:00.049+01:00

Vineyard

Last Wednesday 9th November I went out to check on the vineyard at Villarejo. This is our 'new' vineyard that we took on last year and which we harvested for the first time a few weeks ago (see this post). White Malvar variety, old vines, about 40-60 years old I think.

View (1) of Villarejo Vineyard

There wasn't much for me to actually do, so I just wandered around looking at the vines, and soil and plant cover.

View (2) of Villarejo Vineyard

The leaves haven't fallen off yet, which means that the vines haven't entered their dormant phase over the winter, and that the sap is still flowing.

View (3) of Villarejo Vineyard

I noticed that most of my neighbours have already pruned their vines:

Neighbour's Vineyard pruned Already

I think it's a really bad idea to prune vines before the leaves fall off, because you're removing sap and nutrients before the vine has had time to store them down in the roots and trunk. The vine needs to use these nutrients to produce its first leaves in spring, before the leaves are mature enough to do photosynthesis and produce energy for growth.

Neighbour's canes piled up at edge of his vineyard

Maybe it's not that critical, because a vine won't actually die if you prune it too early! But on the other hand, it won't be as healthy and vigorous as it could be if you gave it the benefit of using all available sap and nutrients; and maybe in the long run, if you prune too early every year, you could shorten its lifespan, as the losses are cumulative.

I think it's also a bad idea to remove the canes from the vineyard. In my opinion, it's better to chop them up as small as possible and scatter them among the vines. This is good organic matter that will help improve the structure of the soil.

More neigbour's canes - ready for removal

I can't think of any possible advantage to pruning so early, as far as vine and grape quality, and health and vigour are concerned. The only possible 'advantage' could be one of convenience, ie the grapegrower has other crops and other tasks to do, and wants get the pruning out of the way as soon as possible!

I was shocked and horrified, and angry and fustrated (all at once!) to see that our immediate neighbour had uprroted his vineyard and burnt the trunks. He must have done it the day before because the pile of ash was still smouldering.

Neighbour's ash smouldering

If only I had known before, I could have spoken to him and maybe reached an agreement to rent the vineyard from him. Personal reasons apart, I think it's a tragedy on a cultural, agricultural and social level to uproot/destroy old vines. They're part of everyone's heritage and history and culture.

Another neighbour, on the other side of the uprooted one, didn't bother to harvest his grapes this year!

Neighbour's unharvested grapes

I tasted a few, and surprisingly, they were still hale and healthy, and very sweet. While wandering around my own vines I came across a crate that we must have forgotten there during the harvesting, so I made use of it, and stole a few bunches of grapes from the neighbour! I'll confess if I ever meet him! In fact, I should really make an effort to find him, and speak to him about renting his vineyards, before he decides to uproot it too!

Bodega

Then I went to the bodega in Morata de Tajuña, to wash some bottles. We ask all our local customers to return our wine bottles to us. We then de-label them, wash and sterilze them, and reuse them.

I was supposed to do this task last weekend, but I had a cold and was feeling awful, and stayed in bed for 2 days instead!

In the end, I didn't do any bottle-washing as such - just soaking and de-labeling, in preparation for the actual washing tomorrow or the next day.

Bottle-soaking station

The stainless steel tank was full of water with an oak barrel immersed in it! It's an old barrel that we're rehydrating so we can use it in the future. Anyway, I used the water to fill the buckets for soaking the bottles, thereby 'saving' a few hundred litres of water.

Close-up of wine bottles getting their labels soaked off

The great majority of the labels come off relatively easily after only about one hour of soaking. A few though are just impossible, no matter how long you leave them soaking. Some labels are 'plastified' and so can't absorb any water, and some use super-strong adhesive.

Well, there are now about 500 de-labelled bottles ready for 'processing'. I hope to see you all at the bodega this Saturday and/or Sunday. Lunch and wine included! :)

Lastly, if you're following me on FaceBook and Twitter, you'll know that our clay amphora (in which we're making 200 litres of an experimental 'orange' wine) was leaking. Well, I think it's reached an equilibrium state, because it's not leaking worse, ie the damp marks on the walls of the amphora are just the same as last week; just damp, no actual liquid coming through.

More lastly, I tasted our Airén 2011 from Carabaña, and was very pleasantly surprised. I took a glass from the bottom of the tank, and it was crystal clear! Not cloudy at all. There was a whiff of an 'off' 'closed' smell (sorry, I don't know the technical term for it!) but it was volatile and disappeared almost immediately. I think this will disappear with a bit of airing at bottling, or a racking if necessary. The aromas and tastes were very intense, more than last year.

And finally lastly, some winery activities that you're all welcome to come along to:

Apart from bottle-washing:

- Bottling the Airén 2011

- Bottling the coupage (60% Tempranillo, 20% Graciano, 20% Sirah)

- Making orujo (grappa, marc, pomace brandy)

If anyone's interested, contact me either on my mobile (697-050-010) or by email enestoslugares@gmail.com for the details, ie date, time, where to meet, etc.

This Natural Wine Thing

2011-10-26T16:28:00.003+02:00

I’ve been thinking about this whole “natural wine thing” for a good few years now and have been following posts and articles and commenting on people’s wine blogs, and I’ve even written a few posts myself. A lot of ideas and concepts have been percolating around in my subconscious during all this time and every so often I’ve received direct conscious stimulus, via reading, via my own commenting and via real-life conversations. And recently the whole big formless thought-mass in my brain seems to have coalesced a bit and so I wrote this post. I hope it’s the last one I write for a long time, because I’m a wine producer, not a wine writer! But anyway, I had to get it all out!

Basically, my big preoccupation has been, and still is: “Why is this natural wine thing making such big waves?”, “Why are so many wine people getting involved in the debate?”, “Why is there any debate in the first place?”, “Why are people taking such extreme radical positions at both ends of the spectrum? And in all the spaces in between too?”

The World of Wine is Different?

This acrimonious debate (between natural wine proponents and natural wine detractors) doesn’t happen in the world of beer. There’s been a “Real Ale” movement around for years and years, and ALL beer drinkers seem to be very happy living together and drinking their beers together. There are no real ale enthusiasts who go around saying that conventional beer is adulterated industrial rubbish; neither are there any conventional beer-drinkers/writers who say that real ale is ‘faulty’ and/or a marketing ploy, while grudgingly admitting that there a few good real ales out there.

It doesn’t happen in the world of food either. There’s a market for say, hand-fed, free-range turkeys, and another one for factory-farmed supermarket turkeys. Same applies to cheeses, hams, eggs, pâtés… you name it! And all these consumers and writers seem to be quite happy to get on with it without attacking the other side.

So, what is it with wine that makes both sides so aggressive and hostile to each other? I have no definitive answer here, just some ideas that I’d like to share, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this whole issue. Here are some of my ideas about why the world of wine is different:

1. The fact that wine is an alcoholic beverage sets it apart, I think, from any other food item. The fact that alcohol alters your state of consciousness must in the end make you more enthusiastic or passionate about the product! Wine (alcohol) can make you feel … well, any emotion you can define, depending on your predisposition and circumstances and events at the moment of drinking: on the positive side, happy, mellow, optimistic, irrationally exuberant, passionate, etc … and on the negative side, sad, depressed, violent, ill, etc. The important point being that it makes you feel ‘different’ from your normal state. This is something that a food item, no matter how exotic or well-cooked can never ever make you feel. (Well, maybe chocolate! But chocolate-lovers also just eat and enjoy their favourite quality chocolate – they don’t have debates about industrial chocolate).

2. But what about beer then? Why is there not such a wide range of passions inspired by beer, which is also an alcoholic beverage? Beats me! Thoughts, anyone?

3. Wine also has certain ‘romantic’ sub-conscious cultural connotations attached to it, in the sense that many people dream about owning a vineyard (like they do about winning the lottery), but no-one dreams about owning a turkey-farm, or even a brewery! There seems to exist in all human beings’ minds this Jungian isotope of a bucolic winemaker, in his dusty cobwebbed cellar, lovingly and carefully hand-crafting his wine! This also must contribute to inflaming passions about natural wine, even though this bucolic picture is as far removed from reality as it’s possible to go.

But the above factors are not enough really, to actually cause all the acrimonious debate we’ve been seeing lately. Enabling and contributing factors, maybe yes, but there’s something missing. Well, a chance conversation a few weeks ago, made another piece of the puzzle fall into place for me. I was talking to a person involved in both the wine AND the beer world, and this is what he said. The beer world is dominated by a very small number of very large multi-national companies who between them have over 90% of the world market and the rest is made up by tiny local artisan type outfits that have little to no impact or influence on anything. In addition, the world beer market is a lot bigger than the world wine market. In contrast to this, the wine world is atomized. There are a few big global wine players but there’s no comparison with the big beer boys. Then there are literally thousands, if not tens of thousands of large-sized wineries, middle-sized wineries and even more small-sized wineries, and countless numbers of tiny, unclassified, unregistered micro-wineries. And all these players have a voice, and influence and are actually listened to.

(Just let me say, before developing this idea further, that I haven’t actually done any research or due diligence to confirm the numbers and the structure of the beer and wine worlds. It just seems intuitively right, from (my) common knowledge, and I haven’t got the time to do it. Can anyone confirm or refute this scenario?)

So, to continue, the only conclusion I could come to (utterly incredible as it seems) was that certain conventional wine-makers are running scared! They must be seeing a real threat in the whole natural/organic/biodynamic wine movement. I realize that this is an incredible thing to say, and I’ve been shocked myself for weeks, but I can’t come up with any other explanation. This doesn’t happen in the beer world because the handful of multinationals are so big and so totally dominate the market that they have nothing to worry about.

Conventional wineries running scared?

Some reasons why I think some conventional wineries are running scared:

1. A lot of ‘conventional’ wineries (large, middle and small) are going bankrupt; they can’t sell their wine, and they can’t even under-sell it. Because their wine is boring, globalized, and indistinguishable from any other of the tens of thousands of similar brands from all over the world. No way can they compete with a natural/organic/biodynamic wine in the same price bracket! Or I am wrong?

2. The Environmental and Health Issue. Consumers are becoming ever more aware of the issue of additives in food products and the use of chemicals in agriculture, and are slowly but surely shifting their purchasing decisions in the ‘green’ direction. Some conventional wineries – the ones with savvy and resources – have been moving in that direction for years. But others just can’t, or don’t want to do it, for whatever reason. They’re between a rock and a hard place.

3. The Labelling Issue. Related to the above, consumers are starting to question why wine is exempted from the requirement to list all the ingredients on the packaging of a food product. Natural/organic/biodynamic winemakers tend to be quite open and vociferous about this issue, and that’s another point in their favour vis-à-vis the consumer.

4. The Quality Issue. I’m not talking about mere compliance with legal, health & safety, and technical requirements, and then printing a ‘quality seal’ on the label. I’m talking about the real intrinsic quality of the grapes and of the purity of the finished product. Conventional (industrial-chemical) wine may well taste nice and comply with all the current tasting criteria, but that’s not enough. More and more consumers know that its full of unnecessary chemicals and substances, that may even have health implications even though they are legal and deemed ‘safe’. There’s no comparison between the clean, pure, pristine aromas and tastes of a well-made natural wine, and those of a ‘well-made’ industrial one.

A Twitter conversation some time ago, about ‘quality’ wine, made me realize that there’s actually a lot more natural wine and natural wine-makers out there than people realize – and they’ve been around for a long, long time! The thing is, they don’t promote themselves as such. I’m referring to top-of-the-range quality wine producers (‘conventional’ ones), who have been quietly practicing organic/sustainable/biodynamic agriculture in their vineyards, but without publicizing the fact; and who have been respecting the must/wine in the winery and haven’t been over-manipulating or intervening excessively; who in fact have been producing natural wines without telling anyone about it! And some of them have been doing it for a long, long time – long before the ‘green’ movement started back in the 1970’s. I think that this fact is very interesting and significant. And they’re not the ones that are going bankrupt!

Basically, conventional industrial-chemical wineries have got a lot to be worried about. In the middle of a world recession, the only sector that seems to be actually growing is the organic/ natural/ biodynamic/ green sector, including wine, so they are seen as direct competition. Hence the aggressive reaction to the natural wine phenomenon. They’re defending their turf – by attacking!

Typical Criticisms of Natural Wine

I’ve noticed over the years that the ‘criticisms’ of natural wine come in several different flavours:

1. The “Semantic” Attack

Many posts start off (or even focus exclusively) on how natural wines are not in fact natural at all, based on the dictionary definition of the word ‘natural’; ie the authors seem to imply that a wine would only be natural if the must spontaneously dripped out of the grapes, fell onto a leaf or into a hole, and fermented there all by itself. Then a human would come by, gather it up and say “Hey, natural wine, anyone?”

Well, I think that everybody (proponents and detractors alike) already know that it’s not natural to plant vines in rows, to prune them specifically to promote fruit production as opposed to foliage, and to use machines and constructs to make wine. Anything that humans do, using even the most basic tools is not natural by that definition.

The question I ask myself is why this focus on semantics when it’s so obvious that ‘natural’ is just a word, adopted spontaneously by a critical mass of people, and given another meaning. Here’s my theory:

The unspoken, unwritten connotations of calling certain wines ‘natural’ implies that other wines are ‘un-natural’ - and that’s not nice at all for the producers and sellers of those ‘other’ wines! (same applies with words like ‘authentic’, ‘real’, ‘sustainable’, etc). I used to be kind of understanding and a bit embarrassed about this issue, and actually took the side of the conventional wine-makers, but I have to say that I’ve come round, and now I think that it’s perfectly fine to call certain wines ‘natural’, because basically it’s TRUE.

The unnecessary additives and excessive processing totally de-naturalize those other wines. The number and range of these additives and aggressive processes that can be applied to wine-making is truly mind-boggling; the final product is so far removed from the grapes and the land that the figure of ‘wine-maker’ is no longer even relevant – we’re now talking about process engineers and chemists - chemical soup-makers adding ingredients and cooking up soup-wines to order, in accordance with commercial and industrial criteria of convenience.

So why the semantic attack? I think that the reason that critics focus so much on semantics is that deep down they also know that it’s true. And it hurts. It’s perfectly obvious, by any definition, that the wines they’re making or promoting are totally un-natural. They’re attacking because attack is the best form of defence, even if it’s a totally irrelevant and trivial attack.

Basically, this semantic criticism is just a distraction from the real, more interesting issues related to natural wine. Those semantic related posts should really be posted on a linguistics page, where etymologists and wordsmiths can discuss the different meanings of the word ‘natural’ in the English language.

2. The “Marketing Ploy” Attack

Many posts critical of natural wine say that this natural wine thing is just a passing fad, a marketing ploy, just the latest cool thing to talk about, write about and drink. Well, on the one hand, I think that this is true, because there really is an extraordinary amount of debate going on, and there are things happening in the real world too (like new natural wine bars opening up, restaurants including natural wines in their wine lists, etc). Well, yes! That’s how we humans operate! Things go in and out of fashion, and now it’s natural wine’s turn to be in the limelight for a while, until the next big thing comes along. But on the other hand, I think there’s more to it than that. Much more. I think that this ‘fad’ is part of a much wider, further-reaching and longer-term phenomenon: I’m talking about the slowly and gradually increasing awareness by the general public of the environmental and health issues related to industrial and chemical food production (including wine), which started back in the 60’s or 70’s, if not before. Natural wine is just another facet of the same ‘organic’, ‘biodynamic’, ‘sustainable’, ‘green’ movement. The zeitgeist has been getting greener for decades and is getting greener and greener as time goes by.

Food scandals and health and environmental tragedies happen regularly every year or so. (I won’t bore you with a list, but just quickly remember, for example: Mad Cow Disease, Swine Fever, poisoned Perrier water, dioxin chickens, wine with methanol, the Hungarian toxic sludge disaster, etc, not to mention certain chemicals suddenly being banned which were previously deemed to be ‘safe’). Just type “food scandal” at Google and see for yourself.

I think the industrial-chemical wine producers and promoters know that slowly the tide is turning, that the zeitgeist is greening, and that their numbers are up! In fact, for many of them, touched by the recession, it’s endkampf already – they’re going bankrupt and they can’t sell their wine. Real data from reliable official sources back me up here – see the exponentially increasing graphs of organic land under cultivation and of new companies producing and/or selling organic products (United Nations FAO, EU Agriculture Directorate, Spanish Ministry of Agriculture, for example).

Basically, this criticism is also just a distraction, with no real content related to natural wine worth discussing here. Such criticisms should really be posted in a marketing or sociology page.

3. The “Mystic, Star-Gazing, Tree-Hugging Winemaker” Attack

Posts critical of natural wines sometimes contain personal references to individual natural winemakers who either said or did something weird, or who in fact really are a bit eccentric. These references are intended to de-legitimize the winemaker by implying that he or she is not a true professional and is more concerned with ‘weird’ stuff like astrology, tree-hugging, cow horns, etc than with the serious business of making wine. Any serious wine critic would just taste the wine in question and professionally criticize it. Again, I’d say this is just another example of distraction, mud-slinging, and finger-pointing.

4. The “Unscrupulous Winemaker” Attack

Another criticism is the insinuation that unscrupulous natural winemakers are selling faulty wine to an unsuspecting public. As far as ‘unscrupulous’ is concerned, firstly I don’t think that natural wine-makers are a species apart and not susceptible to normal human failings. Common sense would suggest that there obviously must be some natural winemakers who are in fact unscrupulous. But it would be a pointless task, in my opinion, to try and find out the exact percentage! And secondly, I’d say “Look who’s talking!” Just think of the number and magnitude and frequency of conventional wine scandals, perpetrated by unscrupulous conventional wine people! Again I won’t bore you with a list, but just quickly remember only last year when unscrupulous French wine producers sold 18 million bottles of fake Pinot Noir to the USA!!! It’s really quite extraordinary for conventional wine people to accuse natural wine people of being unscrupulous! I suppose they must be thinking (again!) along the lines of “Attack is the best form of defence” or pointing the finger at someone else distracts attention from your own misdeeds. Again, just type “wine scandal” at Google and see for yourself.

Basically, this criticism is yet another distraction.

5. The “Lump All Natural Wines Together” Attack

Many posts criticizing natural wines lump them all together and make sweeping statements like “Natural wines are “X” (insert adjective). This is illogical to say the least, as natural wines come in all possible ranges of styles, depending on the region, climate, grape variety, winemaker, etc. There are just as many, if not more styles and variations of natural wines as there are of conventional ones. It’s just as ridiculous to say something like “Conventional wines are “X” (insert adjective). Enough said!

6. The “Faulty Wine” Attack

I’ve been saving this one for the last!

Many posts critical of natural wines state openly that natural wines are somehow faulty or have serious defects, and that they sometimes have minor ones, like cloudiness or ‘funkiness’. (The authors can never resist an attempt at humour and/or creative writing here, when talking about funkiness!). Firstly, I’d like to deal with a minor point, and then move on to the important, interesting and relevant topic of ‘wine faults’:

The Numbers Game. Critics seem to imply that all or most (or just many) natural wines are inherently faulty, but common sense suggests that this simply can’t be the case. Natural wines have been around a long time, so if they really were all faulty then the consumers would have stopped buying them and the winemakers would have stopped making them! What are the real numbers? People who have been to natural wine fairs and tasted a lot of different natural wines would be in an excellent position to opine! Unfortunately, I myself haven’t tasted widely enough, but for what it’s worth, of the limited number of natural wines that I have tasted, I considered none to be faulty.

Now for the “fault” issue. This is where I think an interesting, sensible and engaging debate could be had between natural wine proponents and sceptics. Because this is what it’s really all about! It’s about judging a wine on its own merits. It’s about tasting. The proof is in the bottle, after all, so let’s have no more nonsense about semantics, marketing ploys, mysticism or any other peripheral distraction. The fault issue is in fact, in my opinion, the ONLY area where a legitimate, sensible, useful and interesting criticism of natural wines can be made.

So where do I stand on this issue? Firstly, I believe that many critics and tasters often find “faults” where none exist. How can I say such a thing? Because I suspect that many wine tasters and critics have become too accustomed to the standard, international, globalized, Parkerized style of wine that is considered to be ‘good’ lately, and their range of tolerance, or acceptability, is very narrow and restricted for all the measureable characteristics of a wine considered relevant nowadays. If any characteristic (acidity, fruitiness, sweetness, body, alcohol, volatile acidity, etc) falls outwith their restricted band of acceptability, they’re too quick to call the wine faulty. They can’t see the wood for the trees, or they don’t realize just how restricted and conditioned they’ve become by globally imposed homogenized commercial marketing based tasting criteria.

Secondly, before globalization and planetary-scale exporting, there was a massive range of local wine styles, each of which had its own merits and de-merits. But now all wines, no matter where they come from, or what grape variety they are made from, have to be judged to one global, international standard (ie, Parker’s personal liking for big, alcoholic, oaky fruit-bombs). Why? That’s just one style of wine among many. But why should any wine whose traditional style was anything other than big, alcoholic, oaky and fruit-driven even be compared to such a wine, let alone judged by those criteria?

Thirdly, I believe that the universal presence of sulphites (up to the legal limits) has also blurred critics’ and tasters’ ability to perceive the true tastes and aromas of wine. When these levels of sulphites are lacking (industrial-chemical wines can contain up to 10 times more sulphites than a natural wine), many previously masked tastes and aromas show through that a conventional critic cannot identify or recognize and immediately calls a fault. I think there’s immense scope for a mutually interesting and useful debate on this point, which I haven’t seen happening so far. For example, why are certain aromas and tastes considered ‘good’ or ‘positive’ today and others considered ‘bad’ or ‘negative’ and classified as ‘faults’. The most extreme example that springs to mind is the bubbles in champagne being considered a ‘fault’ back in the 18th century.

Fourthly, in the case of oxidized (or oxidative, if you like) natural wines, conventional critics simply don’t understand that far from being faulty, these wines were in fact made that way on purpose! They are a genre of wine in their own right. Consumers actually like them, buy them, drink them and enjoy them! Like blue, mouldy cheese, for example. A conventional cheese-lover would recoil in shock and horror on being presented with such a cheese for the first time, and would immediately assume that it was 'faulty'. After all, the look, smell and taste of mould is nothing like those of your standard, globalized white cheese, is it?

Fifthly, another thing that conventional critics don’t seem to realize is that cloudiness is not a fault either, but a deliberate feature! Some natural wine consumers actually like cloudiness (sometimes) and natural winemakers actually desist from filtering and/or clarifying on purpose! Why? Because some winemakers and some wine-lovers believe that when you filter and/or clarify wine you also take out the ‘good stuff’ (ie aromas and flavours) along with the supposed ‘bad stuff’. Cloudiness is really just a ‘commercial fault’ because market studies have shown that the average consumer prefers a transparent clear wine to a cloudy one. But what’s that got to do with good wine or good wine-making? Nada! It’s got everything to do with good marketing.

Conclusion

So, where does all the above leave me? Well, as far as the debate is concerned, I’m willing to engage with any critic who focuses on the merits and demerits of a natural wine, in a professional or amateur capacity; I would love to talk about possible faults and characteristics and perception and ranges of acceptability and beyond; but I’ve no more time for semantics or other distractions, even though they’re interesting topics in their own right.

And what kind of wines will I be making? ‘Natural’ or not natural? Well, I’m not going to get bogged down writing my own definition of natural wine and getting into pointless arguments, both with natural wine sceptics AND proponents. For me, this question is best resolved by full disclosure by the winemakers, of what they add and of what they take out, and of what they do and don’t do to the must/wine in the winery. Then consumers can decide for themselves whether the wine in question meets their personal criteria for being ‘natural’. It’ll be a different story, though, if/when legislation is passed officially defining natural wine! So, that’s what I intend to do: provide all the relevant winemaking information on the label and on my webpage.

I’ll be making wines that are top quality – according to my own definition above (and of course also complying with any legal requirements). I believe that the quality of the grapes is fundamental to the quality of the wine. So I’ll be both growing my own, and also buying in from known and trusted growers. I won’t be adding any chemicals, and I won’t be taking anything out. I won’t be subjecting the must or wine to any unnecessary processing.

I guess that makes my wines pretty natural, but I also won’t be dogmatic. If I have to use sulphites, I will. If I have to choose between intervening in some way or risk losing the wine, then I’ll intervene. This may make the wine in question a bit less ‘natural’ in the eyes of some, but I can live with that. My intention is of course not to intervene, but sometimes “mistakes are made”, as they say, due to inexperience, carelessness, or whatever. But even in these worst case scenarios of unavoidable intervention, my wines will still be of a higher quality than an equivalent industrial-chemical one, and will still easily comply with any current organic legislation.

I’ll be growing grapes in a way that is actively beneficial for the environment, and supporting other growers who work in the same way. I won’t be purchasing chemicals, and polluting the soil and groundwaters, and killing wildlife. On the contrary, I’ll be creating biodiversity and improving the fertility and structure of the soil.

I’ll be making wines that express all the above! I’ll be making wines that taste good, but not at any cost; like I said, I won’t support the chemical industry that is partly responsible for the world’s pollution and health problems. Ultimately, this is a very personal decision, because I could easily produce chemical wines if I wanted to – in fact it would probably be easier and cheaper for me! But I’ve decided. Life is short! I want to do something that is not only immensely gratifying to me personally in the present, but is also socially useful and positive, and contributes to leaving the world in a better state than I found it in, for the benefit of our children and future generations. As opposed to the industrial-chemical approach which basically consists of abusing the environment, and treating it as if it were a free dumping ground for their effluents, to be cleaned up later, by others, in the interests of short-term production at any cost.

This is what I’ve decided. The proof is in the bottle. All the rest is just words.

Some Winery Activities (and Why I Hate Pumps)

2011-10-17T17:58:00.029+02:00

Last Sunday 16th October we did a lot of work in the winery, and accomplished three different tasks. We were out there bright and early (at 10:00 in the morning) and we started with the usual procedure, ie washing down and setting up the equipment, machines and bits and pieces; and finished off bright and late (at 12:00 midnight) with the usual procedure, ie washing down the equipment and puting everything back in its place!

Task 1: Pressing the "Orange", "Skin-Contact" or "Sobremadre" Wine

First, we pressed the Malvar grapes, that we crushed 14 days ago, and which had been fermenting in contact with their skins during all this time. This is a special rather interesting wine we’re making, known as "Orange", "Skin-Contact" or "Sobremadre" wine.

Macerated Grapes, before Pressing

Press Full of Crushed and Macerated Grapes

We made a similar wine last year as an experiment (but with Airén and with only 7 days skin contact) but people loved it, so this year we’ve made more. This ‘orange wine thing’ deserves a whole post in its own right, I think, as I’ve recently discovered that far from being a new thing, it’s actually a very old traditional style of wine, and that it was very popular in my region (Castilla La Mancha, Spain) until not so long ago. I’ll have to do some research first, though.

Some winemakers in Spain who have been making this kind of wine include Laureano Serres, Samuel Cano.

Fresh Grape Juice Coming Off the Press

We're really pleased with the way this wine has turned out so far. The aromas are clean and complex; and the taste has some bitter elements and also some fruit. I think this is a wine best left to develop and evolve for some time, at least over the winter. There's still a tiny bit of fermentation to go still, as I got a whiff of CO2 as I opened up the tank.

We did a long, long, slow pressing, in parallel with the other tasks. In total we pressed about 400 litres of wine in 10 hours!

Task 2: Bottling the "5-on-the-dot"

This is a coupage that was created by one of our barrel sponsors, Nacho Bueno. See this previous post about how we went about creating this coupage, or this other one about the barrel-sponsoring scheme itself.

Bottling Device

I’m actually in a bit of a quandary about how to continue with this scheme! This year, a total of 16 sponsors helped me finance 7 new barrels, and more and more people are getting in contact with me to sponsor a barrel for next year. But I don’t really know if I need or want more new oak!!!

I really don’t like the taste of over-oaked wines and much prefer the taste of fruit, minerals, flowers, etc, ... anything really, rather than oak! On the one hand, I like the idea of having consumers participate directly, and I enjoy and appreciate getting their feedback, and sending them updates on anything related to their barrels. But on the other hand, I don’t want to buy new barrels for no apparent reason!!! I think maybe I could use old barrels, for both fermentation and aging. I don’t know, I’ll have to think about this.

This coupage is called "5-on-the-Dot" (Las 5 en Punto, in Spanish) because it contains 5 grape varieties: Tempranillo (80%) and 5% each of Sirah, Garnacha, Petit Verdot and Airén.

The wine was in contact with new American oak for 3 months, and after regular tastings (some with Nacho himself), we decided that that was enough, otherwise the oak would have started to dominate the fruit and other tastes of the wine. We'll have to do more tastings to see when we should release this wine; but I suspect that this is a wine that is best drunk young.

"Bottle rack" (3 x 4 cases of 24 bottles)

288 bottles exactly!

Task 3: Making a Coupage

The third task was to make a coupage: 60% Tempranillo, 20% Graciano and 20% Sirah. The three wines were in barrels already and we pumped them all into a large stainless steel tank. It/they'll stay there for a month or so, to mix thoroughly and then we'll bottle up.

Raquel Helps Us Pump Wine out of the Barrels

We used an electric pump to move the wine. I think I've complained before about pumps, but this operation on Sunday has decided things for me. I'm now going to actively look for a manual, hand-operated pump (like a bilge-pump or something like that). Why?

Firstly, because electric motor pumps make TOO MUCH NOISE. Something tells me that that kind of noise can't be good for the wine. I don't mean that it'll make the wine go off or deteriorate it significantly, but still... the vibrations must get transmitted through the volume of liquid and the wine must be affected in some way or other. For example, maybe instead of having peace and quiet and silence for the molecules to combine to make a longer, rounder, smoother, tastier wine, the vibrations might shatter and/or shake up the molecules and make them shorter and harsher (or prevent them from combining), and delay the aging process.(*)

Secondly, the noise certainly affects MY peace of mind - it makes me annoyed and nervous and unhappy! And that could well affect the quality of the wine! For example, I could decide to do something, or not to do something, while annoyed and/or nervous and/or unhappy that I may not have decided to do while relaxed and happy and thinking straight!

Thirdly, I think electric motor pumps move the wine far too fast and violently, and I don't think that can be good for the wine either. It takes slightly over 3 minutes to empty a barrel containing 225 litres. Just like for the noise, something tells me that that can’t be good for the wine.

Fourthly, the time savings are not as significant as it would seem at first sight, because 1) you have to add in the time it takes to actually set the pump up (ie, getting it into position, attaching the hoses, priming it, running water through, etc); and because 2) you have to add in the time you spend cleaning up afterwards (unhooking all the pieces, cleaning them, putting everything back in its place, etc).

Fifthly: I actually like working in my winery, so I don't need to "save time" there! I think that spending say 30 minutes pumping wine out of a barrel by hand could actually be time well spent: not only is a bit of physical labour good for your health, but more importantly you can use that time to think!

Orujo

So, what did we do with the pomace (ie, the skins and pips left over after pressing)? Did we throw them back into the vineyard to provide nutrients and organic matter to the soil, and close the cycle, as we usually do? No way!!!! This time we’ve kept all those lovely raw materials back, so that we can make some ‘grappa’, or ‘orujo’ or ‘marc’ or ‘pomace’ brandy. To do this, we’ve pencilled in the weekend of Sat 29th or Sun 30th or Mon 31st (it’s a 4-day weekend in Spain as Tue 1st Nov is a national holiday).

We’ve also kept back the pomace from our Graciano pressing a few weeks ago, so we can make two different types of ‘orujo’. So we have the raw materials, we have a still, we have plenty of volunteers to sit around all day watching the still boil and tend the barbeque, and do quality control, ... all we need now is someone who actually knows how to make ‘orujo’!!!! Because I certainly don’t know how to do it.

Three Bins Full of Pomace

Three years ago I spent a whole day sitting around doing quality control while ‘others’ distilled the ‘orujo’ but I confess that I wasn’t paying much attention to the details. I seem to remember that you have to throw the first third out, because it’s poisonous (methanol); you have to throw last third out too, because it’s watery crap! And the quality product is the middle third. More research and due diligence to be done!

Anyone who wants to come and sit around all day doing quality control and/or tending the barbeque is welcome to come. Morata de Tajuña (Madrid). Date, to be confirmed!

Lastly, a photo of the lovely (unexpected) ‘lunch’ we had at about 6:00 in the evening. Raquel, in the photo above standing on the barrels, was in France (Tours) a few days ago and thoughtfully brought back two different types of goat cheese, and two different types of “rillette”. All washed down with fresh skin-contact Malvar, as it was dripping out of the press!!!

Lovely Lunch

(*) This theory is not based on any ‘scientific’ data whatsoever. I haven’t done any research or due diligence. Just my intuition speaking!

Processing the Malvar Grapes 2011 (Part 2)

2011-10-04T17:00:00.085+02:00

Last Sunday (2nd October) we continued processing the white Malvar grapes that we had destemmed and hermetically sealed inside stainless steel tanks two weeks ago (see this post).

Over the last 2 weeks the grapes underwent carbonic maceration, reached a level of about 1 or 2% alcohol, and released a lot of interesting aromas and flavours that wouldn’t have otherwise been released with a conventional fermentation.

We opened up all 3 tanks (700 l, 700 l and 300 l), and this is what we saw:

Destemmed grapes, after 14 days of carbonic maceration

The aromas were beautiful, though the sight wasn’t that pretty! Compare to the day we sealed the tank (here). The white stuff at the bottom left of the photo is not a trick of the light – it looked like (and tasted like) yeast! And a lot of stems had found their way up to the top; we thought that we had eliminated all of them.

Anyway, we now divided the production process into three halves: (yes three! “Innovate or die!”)

1. Crushing, pressing and pouring into a stainless steel tank to finish fermentation

To do this we set up a manual crusher, right on top of the door of a pneumatic press:

Manual Crusher on top of Automatic Press

Juan and Juan setting up the manual crusher

It was a bit precarious, and we had to use some blocks of wood to raise it a little and so it wouldn’t scratch the stainless steel. Also, one person had to hold it steady, while another person worked the crusher.

We also taped some plastic ‘curtains’ around the opening at the bottom of the crusher, so that all the grapes would fall into the press, and not skite out onto the floor.

The press is completely automatic, and we programmed the cycle to be as long and gentle as possible, ie very low pressure so as not to break the pips or stems that were mixed in with the grapes.

Juice coming out the bottom of the press

2.A. Crushing only (no pressing) and pouring into a stainless steel tank for fermentation with skin contact

Next we crushed (only crushed, no pressing) another lot of 700 kg. We moved the manual crusher off the press, onto to top of an empty stainless steel tank:

Production line

In the photo above, two people (Juan and Raquel) are scooping grapes out of the tank in the foreground; passing a bucket to Jacobo (holding a bucket) who pours it into the manual crushed (blue machine in the background, sitting on top of an open tank), while Sonia is working the crusher. The women on the right are stomping grapes with their feet (equivalent to crushing):

Photo of Juan taking a photo of Cristina, Adriana and Jenny’s feet!

Cristina, Adriana and Jenny stomping grapes

We’re going to leave this juice in contact with the skins for at least 1 week, which is what we did last year; but depending on tastings during this week, we may leave it for 2 weeks. Then we’ll press the wine off the skins and leave it to settle over the winter (the cold dark harsh Castillian winter).

2.B. Crushing only (again no pressing) and pouring into a clay amphora for fermentation with skin contact

This was more or less the same as above, but instead of using stainless steel, we used a clay amphora, which we found in a corner of the patio of the bodega. It was a lot of extra work to do this, but I think it will be well worth the effort. First we had to wash it thoroughly:

Insert Washing amphora photo here

The owner of the amphora was a bit worried about us using it, as it has nostalgic sentimental value for him. He remembers it being used in this parent’s house when he was little. We reckon that it’s about 60-80 years old at least. It was made in Colmenar de Oreja (by a company called ‘González’ (photo pending). Back in the post-war period Colmenar de Oreja was famous for its clay amphorae, because it was close to a major clay deposit; and not just for little ones, like the one we’re using. They used to actually make the big ones ‘in situ’ in the bodegas with capacities of up to 20,000 liters. All the ‘tinajeros’ (amphora-makers) went out of business in the 60’s; which is how we know that it’s at least 60 years old.

Amphora base

The base consists of a concrete ring, which is what the amphora actually rests on. This is inside a plastic ‘capazo’ with the top few inches, including the handles, sawn off. There are two bricks in there too (only one visible) just in case.

Moving into position

More positioning

In position, at last

Still in position

Note the corks (above): there are actually three openings: one at the top (what for?), one at the bottom and another one (not visible) even lower. It was quite a task to find corks for those openings and Juan had to spend all Saturday morning traipsing round Madrid looking for some. He had thought to go to Castellana de Corchos, a traditional old cork product shop in the centre of the old part of town, but it seems that it’s gone out of business.

Filling up

We taped a piece of plastic around the edge (above) to protect the amphora from spills of juice, but to no avail, as it was too short; we should have covered it all. But no matter, we washed it down when we finished filling it.

We intend to leave this lot of wine in contact with the skins for a lot longer than 2 weeks – maybe even over the whole winter! This is an experiment. I can’t let a year go by without doing at least one experiment! So we’ll just keep checking on it and see how it goes. Any suggestions most welcome!

Nice, but is it art?

In the photo above are the grapes and the must at the bottom of the tank, tipped over at an angle – so we could reach in to scoop them out. I thought it was a nice combination/contrast between the natural organic world (grapes and must) and the geometrical, mathematical, technological, manmade world (stainless steel, perfect circles, straight lines).

And lastly, this is what was left over after the pressing:

Skins and pips

Moonshine

We usually throw all these skins and pips (and stems) back into the vineyard. There, they decompose and break down into little pieces over time, and improve the structure of the soil.

But this year we’ve kept some back, because we’re going to make some ‘orujo’ (grappa or marc, or 'pomace brandy' even). A neighbor has a still (alambique, alambicco, alambic), and we have the raw materials, so one day in the not too distant future we’re going to join forces and distill some liquor. I don’t know how to do this (but the neighbor does!) so I intend to just sit around, watch the still, and do some quality control work!

And even more lastly, thanks to Cristina (@GazpachoGirl) and friends Adriana and Jenny, and to Richard (@voorschot) and family for coming out to visit and help.

Processing the Malvar Grapes 2011 (Part 1)

2011-09-23T13:19:00.035+02:00

On Monday 19th we processed the grapes that we'd picked on the previous Saturday 18th and Sunday 17th from Villarejo. During the day we kept them inside (at about 25ºC) and at night we took them out into the patio, where the night-time temperature dropped to about 12ºC.

Malvar Grapes, Destemmed

We don’t usually do this but in this case we had no choice. Our usual procedure is to pick the grapes in the morning, stop for a long leisurely lunch, and then process the grapes in the evening.

Yes, I've become a flying winemaker and I'm off to the southern hemisphere in my biplane to do a bit of pruning!!!!

Before starting to process the grapes, we had to do the usual washing and cleaning and setting up:

Washing down the tanks

Washing down the "capazos" (baskets)

Washing down the Beast

with brushes and soapy water

We (my partner Juan and I) had many lengthy debates over the last few weeks about what kind of wine to make with these grapes, and in the end what we did was this: (I really don't know if this is a good idea or not, or if it's risky, or stupid or what! Like I've said before, during the harvest period, my brain doesn't seem to function 'properly'.)

Tipping grapes into the destemmer

Anyway, we destemmed all the bunches, using a very expensive machine, kindly lent to us by the other Juan, the owner of the bodega we're sharing this year. It works very slowly and gently, and destems the grapes in such a way that it doesn't break or crush the individual grapes (except for very few, say about 5%). Then we put these destemmed grapes into several small stainless steel tanks (700 + 700 + 300 kg) and sealed them hermetically. We'll leave them there for about 2 weeks for them to 'macerate carbonically'. Then we'll open up the tanks and continue with the fermentation process (the must/wine should have reached an alcohol level of about 2% by then).

Then it gets complicated! About half the quantity, we'll crush and press and let the must/wine continue to ferment until it's done. This should give us a nice, fresh, young wine, by straight Carbonic Maceration, which will be ready to release in December. About another half, we'll crush only (no pressing) and let it continue to ferment with skin contact, for an amount of time to be decided later (when my Brain 1.0 starts boots up again).

And lastly, as I'm determined to complicate my life, I'm going to ferment about 200 kg of these grapes with skin contact in a clay amphora that I found in the bodega, but for a much longer period of time - to see what happens!!! First, though, I have to clean it. And even before that I have to extract it from the corner from behind loads of stuff, including a 500 kg agricultural implement that will have to be dragged out of the way using a tractor!

And even more lastly, and so as to complicate my life even more, this year I want to make some grappa (or orujo or marc) using the grape skins left over after fermentation. I've already found a neighbour who has a still (alambicco or alambique), and the we have the raw materials; so all we need really is the time to sit around and watch a still distilling all day. I think that can be arranged in about 2 or 3 weeks.

¡Vivan las complicaciones! ("Long live complications!") Life is Short! The Future is Uncertain! Moments of Happiness! Me Cago en el Amor! From that great, great Italian philospher Tonino Carotone.

Malvar Harvest 2011 (Villarejo)

2011-09-21T12:26:00.022+02:00

Last Saturday (17th) and Sunday (18th) we harvested all grapes from our new vineyard in Villarejo de Salvanés (Spain). Incredibly, and in contrast to all expectations, we managed to pick all the grapes and we don't have to go back another day to finish off. We had calculated at least 4 days of picking, but we did it in only 2 days. Two reasons for this, I think:

Harvesting in Villarejo (1)

Firstly, we had an amazing turnout of volunteers to help us pick: friends, friends of friends, and consumers who buy our wines, etc. On Sunday there were 16 of us!

Harvesting in Villarejo (2)

Secondly, I think that the vineyard is actually less than a hectare, which is the size we had just assumed it was, for some reason or other!. I'll have to check it out on SigPac as soon as I can. This is a free online application by the Spanish Ministry of Agriculture. It's a bit like Google Maps, but focussed on agriculture, ie it shows the type of crops planted, the boundaries of each individual plot, easy-to-use tools for measuring distances and aeras, etc.

Harvesting in Villarejo (3)

No rabbits here in this vineyard thankfully, like in Carabaña (see this post from last week), where they ate a significant percentage of our grapes!. I think this is because this vineyard in Villarejo is completely surrounded by other vineyards and olive groves, whereas in Carabaña, the vineyard is surrounded by grassland and low hills, which seems to be more rabbit-friendly teeritory.

Harvesting in Villarejo (4)

Some of the grapes we harvested were affected by oidium or mildew, which appeared suddenly over the last two weeks. This was our fault entirely because earlier this year (in Spring - early Summer) we decided not to spray any sulphur powder, because the vines and grapes looked so healthy and vigourous. I think maybe a preventive powdering will be required next year.

Clusters Affected by Oidium

A Nice Cluster, Not Affected by Oidium

Also, we're going to have to think really hard about the pruning this Winter. All the vines (which are old - about 60 years at least, judging by the size of the trunks) have been shaped in a rather strange way that we hadn't seen before. Instead of the usual main vertical trunk, with three or four horizontal 'arms', these vines consist of just the trunk with the shoots coming directly off the top all round. When the shoots are fully grown, they grow out and down, and they create a sort of upsidedown bowl, with the grape bunches on the inside, with not much exposure to wind or sunshine. (An image is worth 1000 words here, but unfortunately I don't have one!). We'll have to prune in such a way as to give the bunches maximum exposure to sun and wind.

Harvesting in Villarejo (5)

We decided not to stop for lunch as we usually do at 2-ish, but instead to finish picking the whole vineyard. That way we could go for lunch late (even by Spanish standards!) and relax and enjoy for the rest of the day.

Loading Up the Last Cases

All my worrying of the previous days was for nothing! The rational part of my brain knows this! Every single harvest we've done over the last 8 years (and that makes at least 32 harvests!) has always worked out well in the end, no matter what the inevitable complications that have always arisen, so why should the next one be any different? Go figure! When is HumanBrain 2.0 coming out, that's what I want to know!

Some Cases of Grapes

I have to say that I was even a bit short and aggressive to my partner Juan, about some triviality or other (like which rows people were working on or something), which with hindsight now is totally embarassing and ridiculous. But thankfully I think he understands that during vendimia people say all sorts of things that are out of character and that can be completely and safely ignored for the duration! Anyway, I think I'm on the road to recovery. My brain is functioning better every day, and I'm growing a beard to try to hide the cold-sores that have erupted on my face due to the stress and not eating properly! I'm already smoking less and eating more fruit! I know that the grapes are safe and and the fermetations are all under control :)

Fabio, Smoking Less!

Anyway, at about 5 o'clock we took the grapes to the bodega in Morata de Tajuña and put them inside (at a temperature 25ºC), stacked up on pallets, ready for processing the next day. In the end we only took in about 2,000 kg. That night we took them outside into the patio, as nightime temperatures have been dropping a lot here in Madrid lately (minimums of about 12ºC). It's still nice'n' hot during the day though, ie I'm still wearing sandals, shorts and a T-shirt.

Cooling Off in the Patio of the Bodega

Having arrived safety at the bodega in Morata de Tajuña, about 20 km from Villarejo, we lit a barbecue, and ate and drank (our wine from 2010!) and made merry!!! There was no shortage of beer either, because there's nothing like a cold bottle of beer after a long hot day picking grapes!! It has to be said!

Beer!

Music!

And lastly, a Spanish saying, which was tweeted to me the other day by @VdelaSerna:

"Al cura de Villarejo de Salvanés

le cuelgan los cojones hasta los piés"

Pressing Tempranillo, and Crushing Graciano

2011-09-16T18:08:00.002+02:00

Last Wednesday evening/night (14th September) we:

1) pressed the Tempranillo that we harvested two weeks ago (see this post), and

2) crushed about 500 kg of Graciano that we bought in from our friend and fellow natural winemaker, Samuel Cano, from la Mota del Cuervo, a small town right in the middle of La Mancha.

Lovely Cases of Graciano Grapes

We did both tasks a bit in parallel and a bit in series! First we set up the 'assembly lines', inside the bodega for the crushing and ouside in the patio for the pressing. For the crushing we had to position: the pallet with about 30 cases og Graciano grapes, the manual crusher-destemmer, a bucket to catch the stems, two buckets to catch the must/skins/pips, a clean stainless fermentation steel tank for the must.

Tipping Cases of Graciano into the Crusher

Meanwhile in the patio we had: the steel tank containing the Tempranillo wine, skins and pips (In 17 days, the fermentation was complete), one manual cage press, two buckets, another clean stainless steel tank. It took about an hour to set everything up, about an hour to crush the Graciano, and about 2-3 hours to clean everthing up. We did the pressing at the same time.

Manual Cage Press, Bucket, Full Tank, Bucket, Empty Tank

Top-down View of Fermented Tempranillo Skins in the Press

Tempranillo Wine Pouring out of the Press

Crushing really requires two people to do properly: one to tip the case slowly into the crusher while the other picks out leaves, damaged grapes, etc. In this case we owe Samuel Cano a favour, as the quality of the grapes was excellent (none rotten, none damaged, none over- or under-ripe) nor were there any leaves, twigs, earth or any other foreign matter. One of us turned the flywheel while the other held the machine steady, helped the stems and grapes come out, etc. In between cases, one of us would nip out into the patio and press the Tempranillo down another centimeter or two.

Scooping out Tempranillo Wine and Grapes
from the Tank into the Press

We've found that this is actually the best way to press manually, ie very slowly and over a long period of time. The slower the better. In fact, when we opened up the cage to do a second pressing, we found that the cake was already so dry that we didn't have to do it.

It's very difficult to press slowly! For two reasons: 1) because when people are helping us press, they're happy and exited and emotional and so they instinctively want press fast, as if they were pumping water out of a boat! And when we (Jaun and myself) do it ourselves, we want to do it fast so we can finish as soon as poss so we can go home to sleep at a not too unreasonable time! 2) beacause the press is usually quite close to the crusher, and crushing really is a fast and energetic task, and so that feeling infects the people working the press!

Some technical winemaking details:

There were 30 cases of Graciano, but we didn't crush all of them. We decided to pour 5 cases in as whole clusters, uncrushed, stems and all. Hopefully, these grapes will undergo carbonic maceration and fermentation will start inside each individual grape. The stems will also provide a bit of acidity - but no 'green' or 'veggie' notes as we made sure that they were well lignified and not green or unripe.

Posing with a Bottle of Airén 2010 Maceración Carbonica

(which apparantly went down very well at the Chambers St Wine and José Pastor Selections presentation/signing of Alice Feiring's "Naked Wine" that very evening

Airén Harvest 2011

2011-09-14T16:11:00.006+02:00

On Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th September we finished harvesting the Airén in Carabaña (Spain).

The Good News

The good news is that the grapes were very healthy and showed no signs at all of any type of infection (eg, mildew or oidium). They were also perfectly ripe (for the type of wine we’ll be making with them), with a probable alcohol level of 12% and good acidity.

Yours truly

The weather on Saturday was exactly the same as it has been for the last few weeks here in Madrid, ie hot and cloudless, probably about 40ºC max during the day. On Sunday, it was pretty similar but with a bit of light cloud cover, and even occasional breezes (which were very much appreciated!)

A Beautiful Healthy Bunch of Airén

More good news was that we had a very good turnout of volunteers, especially parents and children. (We rely on friends and family and neighbours for the harvesting, and to a lesser extent for the pruning, as we can’t afford to pay professional pickers!). So we managed to finish the Carabaña vineyard and can now concentrate our new vineyard in Villarejo.

A Relaxing Moment

The Bad News

The bad news is that the rabbits this year have eaten a significant proportion of our grapes! Usually, they’ve been content to nibble a few bunches from the vines on the edges of the vineyard, and we’ve been happy with that too. But this year, there must have been a population explosion in rabbit-world for some reason or another! Basically, ALL the grapes from the edge vines were eaten, the proportion getting less towards the centre of the vineyard furthest from the edges.

Rabbit Hole

This year we only have about 600 liters of must, which will give about 800 bottles of wine, when we usually get from 1000 to 2000 bottles :(

Rabbit Hole 2

We’ll have to do something about that next year. Any suggestions welcome! So far people have suggested the following:

A fence (for too expensive and time consuming for us. It has to be high AND buried)
Shiny CDs hanging from the vines
Traps

Crushing and Pressing

Again, as we did with the Tempranillo two weeks ago (see this post), we had a manual crushing machine and plastic buckets for those who wanted to stomp the grapes barefoot.

Crushing Grapes Underfoot

Crushing Grapes with Technology!

Conclusion

First, I’m very pleased about the following:

- that we’ve finished harvesting Carabaña in only 2 weekends

- that so many people turned out to help, and that they all had a great time, especially the children

- that the quality of the grapes was so high. The wine will be awesome (assuming we don’t do anything wrong over the next few months!!!)

But secondly, I’m now a bit worried about harvesting the new vineyard at Villarejo. The grapes are very ripe at this very moment (about 12% probable alcohol, according to the quick n dirty sampling and analysis I did yesterday) so we really ought to harvest them all this weekend. And there’s a lot of grapes there, about 4,000 kg, and we never know how many people will be coming to harvest. My head is full of doubts and worries and minor details (Where are all the scissors? Are there enough cases? Where can we get a van for transporting the grapes to the bodega? What to do for lunch? Who should I call? How to stop these monkeys chattering in my brain so I can think straight? ….) I’ve lost my appetite and am smoking like a chimney! At least I’m still writing posts and uploading photos to FB and Twitter!

PS. There are more photos of this harvest (and of last week’s) in my albums on FaceBook here: http://

Let's Hear It for Industrial Wines

2011-09-06T22:19:00.005+02:00

A parody. Imagine a crazy fantasy world dominated by natural wine corporations, where the vast majority of the world population drink natural wine, where hype and convention and globalized values rule, where wine is rated and sold based on Joly Points... and where industrial wine-makers are the weirdos that are misunderstood (willingly or otherwise), ridiculed and attacked. This is the sort of post you could expect to read.

------------

A new book was the subject of a review at "WINEBLOG"

The book is entitled "Industrial Wine" and it's by FRED BLOGGS and A.N.OTHER.

Put me down as one of the dissenters. There’s no such thing as industrial wine, if what you mean (which is what’s generally meant) is the absence of natural processes in winemaking. Because winemaking is a natural process. Manipulated wine isn’t wine at all, but a chemical compound.

To be honest, you have to grant that while “industrial wine” might mean manipulated in theory, it really just means more manipulation than normal in practice (which is what it has to really mean if the wine is to be wine at all). Even with that caveat, I still have a major problem with the whole concept.

Wine’s main goal is to be good, not “industrial”. In fact, “industrial” is a pretty nebulous concept when everyone is processing their wine with as little manipulation as possible, even those who would claim to be the avid adherents to the creation of “industrial” wine. There are some who really take the manipulative thing pretty far. Maybe for them the use of the term “industrial” wine is a little more apropos. But based on my tasting, another term, “bad” wine, is equally apropos. Since wine that’s really not made with all nature's processes at our disposal tends not to be very good, and lasts way beyond its natural lifespan. I think most practitioners who preach “industrial” wines, but who produce high quality wines, in fact eschew the more radical “industrial” practices.

For reasons I’ve harped on at length, the theory that one wine is better than another quickly yields to the reality that trying to say what is a better wine is a really mushy endeavor. There’s no real agreement among wine tasters, since so much of what one means when pronouncing one wine better than another is simply
that one wine meets that particular wine taster’s preferred wine profile. I.e., if you like big wines, the big wine is preferred. If you like lighter, wines, then a lighter wine is the “better” wine.

The one place where I would definitely recognize that one wine is better than another is where one of the wines has a serious flaw. I do think that a wine that’s horribly infected with Mega-purple, or one that’s totally dominated by artifical tanins, is clearly inferior to a clean, well-made wine. But that’s about it when it comes to superiority of one wine over another. And the more “industrial” a wine, the more likely it is to be flawed.

So when an “industrial” winemaker proclaims that his wine is superior, he’s expressing his own subjective, and highly biased, opinion. And, to my mind, that opinion is less than worthless when repeated studies have failed to show that chemical farming, for instance, really translates into a superior product. And when he says his wine expresses the “banality” of his vineyard, he’s mostly mouthing what has become accepted but meaningless “winespeak” of our age.

You get a bunch of wine tasters together, even not very experienced ones, and exept for the most obvious examples (and maybe not even then), they will repeatedly identify the vineyard, region, state, and continent of the wine they are tasting. If "banality" had the meaning so often subscribed to it, then blind tasters should always fail to accurately identify the wines pedigree. But they can’t.

None of what I’ve said means that I favor the profligate use of all sorts of natural processes in the vineyard on a prophylactic basis. But the use of some natural and sustainable techniques when conditions require some sort of response to the bad hand nature has dealt you, is far better than letting your grapes go to hell. And use of one natural process (biodiversity, for example) to try to control weeds through predation really isn’t in my mind, in theory, any different than using some other natural process for weed control.

So put me down as one who, when he hears the terms “industrial wine” or “chemical wine”, really hears “bunk”.

---------

The above is a parody of this post: http://artisanfamilyofwines.com/blog/?p=1757

Sadly, as is generally the case with these natural wine bashing posts, all the author did really was to touch on the usual stereotypical and boring side-issues. I really wonder why it's like this. Do the authors not do any research at all? Do they just listen to what their like-minded friends utter and then turn it into a post? Where do they get their misinformation? It just seems to be blind faith and no reasoning, an irrational desire to destroy some kind of conspiracy.

To address the points briefly:

The flaw thing. Yes, it's like "I've tasted a few wines from Burgandy and I thought they were flawed, therefore all wines from Burgandy are flawed" !!! Give me a break! Whoever said that there are no bad natural wines? It's just like any region or style of wine - some are good, some are bad. Some you may like, some you may not. Most natural wines are not high in VA, nor are they oxidized. Most natural wines in fact fall in a standard range of acceptablity for all the different characteristics of wine; though some push the envelope, and that's where many conventional tasters find flaws where none exist. Many, though not all, conventional wine tasters are too used tasting big 'soups' laden with sulphites, enzymes, tanines, flavour-imparting yeasts, oak-chips, etc, that they have difficulty appreciating the taste of a real, natural, authentic, un-overly-manipulated wine!

Identifying the terroir. This is new one for me - I've never come across this 'argument' before. So experts are unable to identify a particular wine blind and say where it comes from! What on earth is that supposed to prove or disprove? That the whole concept of natural wine is rubbish? Or what? In fact, thanks to the increasing globalization, homogenization and standardization of industrial wines, it IS very difficult to tell any of them apart, no matter what region, country or continent they come from, or what grape variey was used. All the chemicals no doubt taste the same and are probably manufactured by the same few multi-nationals. This is why more and more people are drinking natural wine!

Spraying. Who said natural winemakers let their grapes go to hell? There are numerous natural, organic, sustainable, non-polluting, non-toxic techniques for ensuring healthy grapes even in adverse climates. The info is out there, so I won't bore you all with it here.

Gasoline for tillage. Jeez! Who said natural winemakers all use tractors for tillage? There are other techniques for weed control, which again I won't bore you with here. And in the case of natural winemakers who do use tractors, I'd say that the use (or abuse) of internal combustion engines is part of a much larger problem that affects the entire population of car-owners, not just grape-farmers.

Manipulation. This is the key concept for natural wines (IMHO), though the author doesn't quite get it. He seems to think that natural winemakers think that manipulation is bad. Duh! Obviously we have to manipulate, as the vines don't prune themselves, nor do the grapes pick, crush or press themselves. Etc, etc. We don't think that manipulation is bad and we know that it's not natural to plant vines in rows, and to prune them so they produce more grapes and less foliage; and we know it's not natural to crush and press grapes using machines. Etc, etc.

What natural winemakers and natural winelovers are against is "excessive" and "unnecessary" interventions and manipulations. I won't bore you all with a long list (the info is out there), but it includes things like adding artifical colourants, enzymes, industrial yeasts, bacteria, oak chips, acids, tannins, micro-oxygenization, reverse osmosis filtering, and in general using substances and techniques that strip the wine of its originality and authenticity and turn it into an industrialized homogenized product.

What was the point of that post? and of many like it? Why are these people trying to debunk natural wine as a category? Do they not realize that there are thousands of natural wines out there, all different from each other? How can they say that they're all bad? Can they not just stick to their globalized brands and leave us alone? Are they scared of losing market share, or what? Do they believe that they're protecting innocent winelovers from unscrupulous fraudsters? I really don't know.

One thing I do know, though, is that more and more people are drinking, and buying and demanding natural wine. That's the bottom line, and all the rest is words, words, words.

Sampling the Airén

2011-09-05T11:48:00.003+02:00

I went out to the vineyard in Carabaña (Madrid) yesterday (4th September) to take samples of the white Airén grapes. First the low-down data, then the anecdotes!

The quality is incredible this year - not a single bunch that is bad in any way or infected with mildew or oidium or anything else. They are all clean and healthy. This is rather unusual, extraordinary even, as most years there are a few vines that are affected in some way.

Healthy Bunches of Airén

Healthy Bunches of Airén (2)

Healthy Bunches of Airén (3)

After looking really hard for something to complain about, I can say that the animals have eaten more than their fair share this year, especially round the edges of the vineyard. perhaps because the grapes are so appetizing! Or perhaps because we haven't taken any measures at all to prevent them. Maybe next year we should hang up some shiney CDs or something.

Vine Eaten by Animals

The quantity was also looking OK. Unlike the Tempranillo, of which there was very little (see this previous post). There were also a few vines that were looking a bit weak and not very vigourous. I think that this year we definitiely have get a lorry-load of manure in.

Incredibly Vigorous Vine (Airén)

I did a semi-rigorous sample this time, ie not quick-n-dirty, but not ultra-rigorous either. Looking through the refractometer, I got a probable level of alcohol of 11.3%. And using the mustometer, 11.5%. For the last 8 years we've always harvested when we get a probable level of 12%, and we're going to do the same this year. If the weather stays nice-n-hot-n-sunny all week, we'll probably harvest over the weekend, after doing another few samples during the week.

Nice Bush, Weak Vine (needs manure)

This time I managed to get out to the vineyard quite early, at 9:30, so it was nice-n-cool! I saw a couple of rabbits eating the grapes but they were too fast for me to take a photo. I remembered to take a pair of socks this time, but forgot my shoes! In Madrid, I usually wear sandals from April, and put away all my socks and shoes till about October - except socks and shoes for working in the vineyard/bodega, but for some reason I stored these ones too and haven't got round to fishing them out.

I also forgot to take a container to hold the grapes that I was picking! I was thinking of what to do, as there was absolutely nothing in the car that I could use. Then I saw something white in the middle distance lying among the vines, and it looked like some litter (shock, horror) so I went to investigate. And was it not a plastic bag! Perfect for holding samples!

Then I went to the bodega and crushed the grapes and did the analysis. My last task of the day was to stick some labels on a lot of wine that we bottled a few months ago. It was the Garnacha 2010 with about 4 months in old oak. Only 4 months and old oak so that the wine doesn't get dominated by the oak flavours and keeps its original aromas and tastes. Just enough to "round it off" a little.

I printed the labels myself, as it would be too expensive to do proper labels at a printers - there are only 300 bottles of this wine (267 bottles as of yesterday!).

Garnacha 2010

Even though a barrel in theory holds 300 bottles (225 liters), in practice we only get about 290-295, because the bottom always contains too many lees to bottle. Especially in our case, as we don't filter our wines. I've only sold 4 of these bottles so far, so that means we must have drunk about 20 in samplings and tastings!

Our Bottle Rack

Our 'bottle rack' is a bit precarious to say the least! It consists of plastic crates piled up 3-high in a tiny space between the wall and the oak casks in the barrel-room. At least the temperature is good!

Tempranillo Harvest and Crushing 2011

2011-08-29T00:24:00.002+02:00

All done! Grapes picked and crushed already! I have to check my notes from past years to be sure, but I get the impression that the harvest is earlier and earlier every year!

Picking

We picked the Tempranillo grapes on Saturday 27th August, and, unusually, it was a very relaxed, no-stress, no-rush, family and children oriented day. Altogether there were 7 parents, 7 young children and only 2 singles!!!

The grape-pickers

We started rather late, at about 10 o'clock. Which is not bad actually, considering that we had to wake the kids up early while they're on holiday with no school, get them dressed, give them breakfast, and get all their stuff together, etc, etc!!! One mother and children hadn't even arrived at 14:00 (when the above photo was taken) and when we were finishing off and getting ready to go to lunch!!!

We picked about 400 kg max, which is the lowest quantity we've ever picked from that vineyard over the last 8 years. I don't know why so little this year. Maybe the climate? It was a rather cool summer this year. I shall have to ask around. Maybe also we need to bring in some fertilizer? In the past we've always brought in a truck-load of organic manure every 2 years, and we should have done it this year, but we didn't (due to circumstances!).

The quality on the other hand, was excellent. Not a single sign of mildew or oidium or anything else.

Nice healthy bunch of Tempranillo

More nice health bunches of Tempranillo

In fact, this year we didn't even apply sulphur to the vines at any time. Some years we spray sulphur powder on the vines if there's a risk of an outbreak of oidium/mildew/etc, but this year it wasn't necessary.

Grape-pickers in action

A corner of the vineyard

Yet another healthy bunch of Tempranillo

It was all over by 15:00, and after taking the grapes to the bodega (in Morata de Tajuña) we all went to a bar with a 'terraza' for coffee, beer, ice-cream, etc, and stayed there till the evening. It was the quickest, easiest harvest I've ever done, in fact it didn't seem like work at all!!!

The last thing I did before heading back to Madrid, was to take the grapes outside, so they could cool down during the night.

Crushing

We crushed the grapes today Sunday 28th August. Again, it didn't seem like work at all as there was such a small quantity. We were done in a few hours.

We crushed most of the grapes using this machine (below): a manual crusher-destemmer. You tip a box of grapes into the open top and turn the wheel (left). The grapes fall between 2 rollers that are spaced at less the width of a grape (eg, about 0.5 cm), are crushed and fall down into the waiting 'capazo'. The stems are ejected at the end opposite the wheel.

Crusher-Destemmer

Crusher-destemmer in action. Empty boxes on the left

But we also crushed some underfoot (see pic below). I've heard that people pay good money to go and stomp on grapes! Hmmmm!

Crushing and stomping

Lastly, as they say in Spain (well, at least in Morata de Tajuña) "You can't make wine without beer!"

Cheers! or "Salud y buen vino"

And really lastly, in the end there was about 400 l of must (including skins and pips) which should be more than enough for a 225 l barrel of crianza, including some liters for top-ups. The density of the must was 1097 which should give 13.5% alcohol, more or less.

Pre-Harvest Sampling (Tempranillo)

2011-08-26T23:42:00.001+02:00

This morning I was in the vineyard in Carabaña (Madrid, Spain) taking samples of the Tempranillo; and as we suspected we're going to harvest tomorrow, as the probable level of alcohol will be about 13,5º.

Tempranillo Cluster

I did a systematic sampling as opposed to a quick n dirty one! ie, I walked up and down every row and picked eithe 1, 2, 3 or 4 berries from each vine, (from different sides of the vine, from different parts of the cluster, etc) so as to get an accurate and representative sample. Quick n dirty smaples are OK during the summer to give you a rough idea, but as harvest time approaches, the more accurate, the better.

More Tempranillo Clusters

Ideally, it's best to go early in the morning to take the samples, because that way it's nice n cool and it's a pleasant task to stroll through the vineyard, listening to the birdies and picking berries! Also the temperature of the juice will be lower and so will give an accurate reading, without having to do any calculations to compensate for temperature differences (most instruments are calibrated to 20ºC). Unfortunately, I couldn't get out till about 12 noon, and it was a bit too hot for confort!

It's also a good idea to wear socks and shoes, as opposed to sandals! I usually keep socks and shoes (and other clothes and tools) in the back of the car, but this was my first trip out to the vineyard after my holidays, and so I'd completely forgotten to load up all the usual stuff.

So all in all I didn't enjoy the (90-minute) experience a lot!

Where's the grapes?

This vine (above) is near the edge of the vineyard, and all the clusters have been eaten by some animal - I suspect rabbits! Note the bottom branch - even the leaves have been eaten off it!!!

Berries eaten

Some of the grapes on this vine have been eaten also, but by a different animal. See how the individual berries have been eaten but the stem is still there.

At this point, my mobile reached its limit and wouldn't let me take any more photos :(

I really must get myself a more modern internet-friendly device, so that I can post stuff straight to the internet from the vineyard or bodega, instead of having to come home and downloading into my PC!

More news and photos tomorrow on the Tempranillo harvest.

Winery and Wine Activites

2011-05-25T13:13:00.054+02:00

The other day we did some winery work:

First, we bottled a barrica (barrel) of Tempranillo 2009. The grapes were harvested in September 2009, and fermented in a stainless steel tank. The wine was racked once to another tank to separate it from the thicker lees, and then we filled the barrel in August 2010. So that makes it 9 months in oak. The barrel was quite old, about 3-4 years so, despite the length of time in there, the oaky taste does not dominate. I’m assuming the wine will need at least 6 months in the bottle for it to ‘round off’. With any luck we can release it in December – for Christmas!

Barrica of Tempranillo 2009

Bottles being filled with Tempranillo 2009

Next, we filled our six (6) new American oak barrels with Tempranillo 2010. These barrels were sponsored (and paid for) by about 12 of our regular customers (See this post). Some sponsored a whole barrel by themselves, while others are sharing a barrel among 2, 3 or 4.

Juan filling the first barrica - 1

Juan filling the first barrica - 2

Juan checking the (fast rising) level in the second barrica

One of the sponsors, Nacho Bueno (who writes a wine blog in Spanish) visited the bodega a few weeks ago to taste the different wines we had available for aging, and he tasted and selected his own ‘coupage’ for his barrel. He’s decided to call the wine “Las Cinco en Punto”, ie “Five on the Dot” because it contains five different varieties:

80% Tempranillo

5% Garnacha

5% Sirah

5% Petit Verdot

5% Airén

Juan pouring some Petit Verdot for Nacho's coupage

Wine stained already!

The other 5 barrels weren’t so complicated – pure 100% Tempranillo. We may do more ‘coupages’ later, if any sponsors express a interest and/or if we have any other wines available in the future!

One the one hand, it was quite easy to fill the barrels, because we used an electric pump to move the wine from the stainless steel tank which was about 40 yds away and in another building. We had to connect up 3 hoses due to the distance. Then we (Juan and I) had to coordinate in order to open/close the valve on the ‘bastón’ and switch on/off the pump at the same time. Once the pump was running, it took about 3 minutes and 20 seconds to fill a barrel.

The difficult part was trying to see the level of the wine through the bung-hole in the barrel. Very tricky, but knowing the approximate time it took fill a barrel beforehand helped a lot, and we managed to fill all six without an overflow accident. Then we topped up the last 5 liters or so by hand, using a jug and a funnel.

I think the pump we used was far too powerful and I’m wondering the following:

- Does moving wine so fast affect its quality?

- Does the horrible noise the pump makes affect the quality of the wine?

I’m also thinking of looking for a manually operated pump! Like the ones you see in old movies where they pump water up from a well in the garden, or pump water out of the engine-room of a steamer that’s taken in water!!! Just an idea!

Lastly, .... This coming Saturday 28th May is the IV Annual Agro-Ecology Day held in the Lavapiés district of Madrid. Apart from having a little table in the plaza for giving out free samples of wine (and leaflets) we are also supplying the wine for the official lunch.

So, the other day I did some bottling, corking and labeling activities:

Bottling and Corking

More bottles

Back-label with QR Code and AVIN number

I'm glad I made the effort to do the QR codes and AVIN numbers, and I'd like to thank André Ribeirinho (of Adegga) for doing the technical part of it for me, and Hola Por Qué for incorporating them into the label design for me.

More labels: front and back

My Reply to Oliver Styles’ Post “It’s Not Natural to be Wine” via Catavino

2011-05-09T13:05:00.002+02:00

The first part of Oliver’s post focuses on the meaning of the word ‘natural’ and its meaning in the phrase ‘natural wine’. Basically he says that if something is in its … er, natural state (eg, tomatoes, onions, garlic, crude oil, etc) then it’s ‘natural’; while if something is manmade or manufactured (eg, bottles, oak barrels, factories, etc) then it’s not ‘natural’. Similarly with processes, eg planting vines in rows, pruning, winemaking in general and cooking, etc are all not ‘natural’.

Well, yes, that’s perfectly correct! It is in fact the dictionary definition of the word ‘natural’. But where does that leave us? It leaves us with a completely useless and impractical definition of the word ‘natural’ as applied to winemaking in general and for the definition of ‘natural wines’ in particular.

What we need is a useful and practical definition, not a literal, dictionary definition.

Ultimately, until ‘natural’ is legally defined by a government agency (as has been done with ‘organic’) then we can all talk forever about it, making analogies and comparisons but not really getting anywhere - though the acts of reading and writing about it is of course great fun, sometimes it’s very instructive, and it either helps clarify peoples ideas on ‘natural wine’ or confuses them even more!!!

I don’t think there’s any practical point in using the dictionary definition of ‘natural’ or asking “Where does it all end?” because it ends somewhere meaningless and nowhere useful! Once we get away from the dictionary meaning of ‘natural’, it all becomes simpler and more sensible and practical.

Oliver also gives an excellent definition of natural wines: “Natural Wines are made with a philosophy of little-to-no manipulation…”. I would simply add “with no additions of any substances” and “ using grapes from chemical-free vineyards”.

Personally (and I can’t speak for other natural winemakers) if I ever had to add any substances to the must or wine, then in my mind it wouldn’t be natural any more, and I wouldn’t call it ‘natural wine’ or sell it as such. I would state on the label and in my literature what it contained. But that’s just my own personal definition.

Oliver asks how the natural wine fraternity views the use of fertilizers. Well, that’s an easy one! I can safely say that we all believe that organic fertilizers are OK, but that chemical ones are not. The oak question is more difficult: some, perhaps most natural wine producers, in fact view oak as an unnecessary addition or manipulation.

I suppose that a lot of people are upset or confused or critical of the fact that there’s no legal definition of ‘natural wine’, and of the fact everyone and their aunties all have a different opinion and definition. Well, to that, I say the following:

1) So what? Drink, taste, enjoy, write/blog/tweet about your experience!

2) What do you need a legal definition for anyway? Maybe you’re worried that some unscrupulous winery or intermediary will sell you wine as ‘natural’ when it isn’t. No doubt that will happen, unfortunately, but it happens right now all the time with regular wine from Appellations, Denominaciones, DOCs, etc. C’est la vie!

3) Natural wines are ‘fringe’ and close to the edge! If you can’t enjoy all that that entails, then go to a supermarket and buy your wines there! These are happy days for natural wines – when the legislators legislate us it’ll be a lot more boring (though no doubt there will be advantages too!)

4) Live fast, die young! The worst than can happen to you is that you get a glass of wine, that you don’t like! Surely that’s not too traumatic?

I agree with Oliver where he talks about the semantics of the phrase ‘natural wine’; I also think it’s a bit unfortunate that it’s called ‘natural wine’ because it raises so many hackles and generates so many unproductive sound-bites. By implication, the word ‘natural’ implies that conventional wines are ‘unnatural’ and of course that word has very negative connotations. But what to do about it? All possible alternatives share the same problem, eg ‘authentic’, real’. (I wonder why ‘real ale’ doesn’t make beer-drinkers upset?). I’m afraid we’re just going to have to live with it.

I also suppose that that people are upset or confused or critical of the fact that not even the natural winemakers can’t agree among themselves on what exactly constitutes ‘natural wine’. And to that I say the following:

1) As mentioned above, at least we are united by the philosophy of minimum intervention in the winery, no additions of substances and use of quality chemical-free grapes

2) My personal advice to wine-lovers who want to find out about and try natural wines is to do a bit of due diligence. Get onto the internet and check out the producers, both on their own webpages and on wine sites. And my personal advice to other natural winemakers is to ensure that all the relevant information about their wines is available to potential consumers

Oliver also mentions a supposed natural wine ‘dogma’ in his post, but I have to say that no such thing exists! A ‘dogma’ for me means a body of literature or rules that is handed down from on high (either by a supernatural being or by some kind of authority) and that everyone has to abide by and believe in. As we all know, there is (as yet!) no governing body, no legislation, no nothing! Maybe I’m being too pedantic here and what he really means instead of ‘dogma’ is the rules and statutes of an association of natural winemakers? Well, in Spain such an association exists (PVN) but it only has eight (8) members! Why haven’t the other hundred or so producers signed up? I’ve read the statutes and they seem very reasonable and sensible to me. There’s an association in France too (AVN) with about a hundred members (I think).

Another thing that Oliver mentions and that puzzles me is this “notion of right vs wrong”. I think this must be a case of the most vocal, charismatic and eccentric personalities generating a disproportionate quantity of sound-bites and column-inches. I personally do not believe for a minute that ‘natural’ wines are in any way better than conventional ones, because:

1) It’s just silly! It’s like saying “Wines from region/country X are better”. Obviously, there are some bad natural wines out there and there will be some that you just don’t like – just as there are some bad Burgundies, Chiantis or whatever

2) I have no desire to have everyone drink natural wines! I don’t go around spreading the word and looking for converts! The world wine-drinking population is huge and multi-faceted and there’s plenty of room for both worlds to co-exist perfectly happily together (see my post on Catavino)

3) If you speak to a large number of natural winemakers (the larger the sample the better) I’m sure you’ll find that this right/wrong, good/bad thing is not at all representative of the opinion of the majority. It’s the equivalent of quoting , say, a Burgundy snob, who believes that Burgundy wines are the best in the world and that all others are inferior because they’re not from Burgundy!

Next, I have to totally disagree with Oliver when he says that natural wines are “difficult to taste” and “generally cloudy, funky, dirty or just downright bizarre”. This is just not true, and I can only assume he wrote that because he hasn’t tasted a wide enough variety or representative enough sample, of the true range of natural wines. Sure, some natural wines are funky and cloudy, but again they’re just the ones that generate a disproportionate quantity of sensationalist column-inches. I’ll even stick my neck out here and say that maybe about 10-15% of natural wines may be like that, and that the rest are completely normal in appearance and partially so in tastes and aromas. A good and practical (and timely) way of verifying this would be to go to the Natural Wine Fair in London and count! Any takers? Unfortunately I can’t go myself :(

I deliberately wrote ‘partially’ in the previous paragraph because it’s true that the range of “acceptable” tastes and aromas in natural wines is wider than it is for conventional wines. And I’m not being euphemistic or apologetic for funky cloudiness here. In natural wines you can taste and smell many things that are masked or eliminated from conventional wines by the excessive amount of additives and manipulations. And I don’t mean bad, off or weird tastes or aromas – I mean nice, pleasant, interesting tastes and aromas that express the grape variety, climate, terroir and winemaker’s hand. But it’s no use me just saying these things – you really have to go out and taste a lot of natural wines until you find the ones you like. It may take you some time because there will be some natural wines that you don’t like, but once you do find them, you’ll be glad you made the effort.

Another topic that Oliver mentions in his post and that I don’t identify with at all is “attacking corporate winemaking”. Is that the vocal, charismatic, eccentric minority at work again? I don’t know, but it certainly doesn’t reflect my personal opinion as a natural winemaker. Like I said before, the wine-drinking market is huge and I believe that the majority of wine-drinkers don’t care how their wine is made and what ingredients are in it. As long as the juice tastes good, is reasonably priced and has a good label, then that’s OK with them. And it’s OK with me too! I believe that the natural wine market will always be small and that it comprises people who do care about how their wine is made.

Far from attacking corporate winemaking, what I do sometimes is simply to describe the processes and list the ingredients that corporate winemakers use. And for some reason, people don’t like that! I suppose it’s because it bursts the illusion that all wines are made in bucolic, family-run wineries – as opposed to the reality of giant industrial factories churning out millions of liters per year. Well, OK, I confess that sometimes I use loaded, emotionally-charged words instead of neutral ones (like ‘adulterate’ instead of ‘intervene’ or ‘dangerous chemicals’ instead of ‘substances’); but hey, I have to give as good as I get sometimes, no? Or do I have to just sit back every time and ignore the stuff about “bearded hippies”, “burying cowhorns in the vineyard”, “drinking murky, funky liquids they call wine”, etc etc..? No way! Not every time!

And lastly, what’s to be “immensely wary” about? (A recent article in the UK’s Telegraph also warned readers to be wary). Come on, guys, is that not a bit of an exaggeration? It’s only a glass of wine!!! If you don’t like it, just try another one!!! Life is short! Enjoy while you can, go explore some new tastes and aromas! And if you’re feeling really daring, try a funky cloudy one while you’re at it!

But seriously, instead of being wary, I say be curious, be adventurous, do a bit of due diligence and read what the mainstream natural winemakers have to say, and taste some mainstream natural wines first. If you need to be wary about anything, be wary about what people (including myself) say about ‘natural wine’!!!

My Biggest Ever Shipment of Natural Wine to the USA

2011-05-04T23:46:00.002+02:00

Just a quick update on the wine shipment:

These are the wines that I'll be shipping on one (1) pallet (ie 540 bottles). That's 46 bottles more than last year :)

1. 100% Airén 2010 (Normal Fermentation)
2. 100% Airén 2010 (Carbonic Maceration)
3. 100% Airén 2010 (On Skins, ie Orange)
4. 100% Garnacha 2010

Final quantities of each, still to be defined.

A Race Against Time

Today I finished bottling and corking the wines, and they're sitting in the barrel room at 18ºC.

Now I have to wait for the labels, which are still at my designer's (Hola Por Que) to be sent to the printer's tomorrow. I redesigned the back-label slightly and it now includes a QR Code thingy and and AVIN number. This means that you can scan said code with your mobile in the wine shop and you can access information about the wine.

I also have to wait for the cardboard boxes. I called today to see if they were ready; they are, but they also have to be sent to a printer for the logo. If it takes too long, I'll just take the boxes without the logo.

The race against time is that it would be good if my wine got to New York by 14th June, because that's the date of the JosePastorSelection Wine Presentation Event. So, if it takes about 30 days for the boat to cross the Atlantic, plus a few days at either end, that means that my pallet has to leave the bodega by May 10th at the latest. Hmmm, I'll have to beg and plead with my label designer and box manufacturer to beg and plead with their printers to be extra fast, or else it'll look really bad. Especially as my friend and fellow winemaker, Alfredo Maestro, who's also sending a pallet to JosePastorSelections, has already bottled, corked, labelled, boxed AND built his pallet!!!

Photo of Alfred's pallet: http://on.fb.me/kXxnHP

There are no photos in this post because my computer still has a "critical hard disk error", and it hasn't fixed itself nor have I taken it to get fixed, so I can't access any photos or download the photos in my mobile. My wife is recovering slowly from her appendicitis operation, and I've said "No" to at least five interesting wine events that I would have liked to go to: (International London Wine Fair, Natural Wine Fair in London, VinoCamp in Lisbon, a wine tasting in L'Anima del Vi in Barcelona and another one which I can't recall right now!). So life is looking up - only two things to worry about :)

A Month in the Life of a (completely abnormal) Natural Winemaker

2011-04-26T11:48:00.009+02:00

(Warning: this is a long one!) (and after reading it, you'll see why I haven't posted for a month!)

I was thinking of calling this post somrthing like "Crisis Management", or "I Need a Holiday", or "How Not to Run a Startup Wine Business", or even "Strategic Planning? Never Heard of That!", but in the end I thought I'd just keep it simple and to the point!

I'm really writing this for myself, so I can clarify in my mind what I've done over the last month, what I'm doing now (and why!) and what I have to do in the near future - because I've been running around like crazy doing stuff and I haven't had a single moment to sit down and think!

OK, running in the background is the pruning. We should really have started pruning back in January, but for some reason or another (which I won't bore you with here) we didn't start till March; that's a bit late, but not too late, depending on your climate and latitude (and number of vines you have to prune).

pending: photo of sprouted unpruned vine (My photos are in my laptop which has a 'critical hard disk error' so they'll have to wait till I get it fixed)

The optimum pruning window is after the leaves fall off the vines, and the sap retreats back down into the trunk and roots, and the vine goes dormant for the winter, and before the sap starts flowing up again when the temperature rises in the spring. We figured that we could prune the 2 vineyards (2 hectares in total) in 8 man-days, ie 4 days each me and Juan. No problemo! But then 'events' caught up with us.

The first event was the Natural Wine Fair in Barcelona (on 27th March), which of course meant no pruning that weekend, and also another day for the bottling, corking, labelling and shipping the wine.

Me and my Table at the Natural Wine Fair, Barcelona

The Fair itself was great of course, and apart from everything I wrote about it in a previous post, I also made two really interesting contacts:

1. The first one was a possible investor who's interested in investing in Vinos Ambiz! We've reach the point now when we have to expand and increase our production in order to become a small viable business, as opposed to the part-time setup we've been running for the past 8 years. basically, it all boils down to finance: to buy/rent more vineyards, to rent a larger winery, to invest in some machinery and tanks, and to cover running costs. This is all rather difficult and time-consuming, and we're still looking at different options: a straight loan (bank or cooperative), private investors, or both. Anyway, this is all on the back-burner for the time being, because it's very complex and important, and my brain's not big enough to deal with it right now along with all everything else!

2. The second interesting contact was Ryan Opaz, and a brief chat at the Fair led me to writing a guest post about natural wines on the Catavino website. Ryan is a bit skeptical of natural wines at the moment, but the important and admirable thing is that he's genuinely curious and open-minded and willing to find out about it. It was no bother at all to write that post, as the force was with me, inspiration was flowing, and I dashed it off in about 1 hour! I'm really pleased with it. It was in fact the first 'serious' post I've ever written, ie a post about something other than my usual vineyard and bodega activities that I usually write about on my blog.

...and talking about writing posts, ... about 2 months ago Fiona Beckett (a natural wine blogger from London) asked me to write a post on sulphites for her blog, but I've been struggling horribly with it ever since then - it just won't come out!

Anyway, after Barcelona, back to Madrid and reality, and a bit more pruning during the week, hoping to get stuck in seriously at the weekend. But guess what? Another event! I'd completely forgotten that a few months previously we'd signed up for another Fair - Eco-Festi-Ball - a European Folk Dancing Festival, with organic products on the side. fotos. So another week end gone - no pruning!

Outside shot of the European Folk Dancing Festival

Again, the festival was great. Lots of weird and wonderful people from all over Europe came to it, and I discovered a whole new world of European folk dancing. Amazing but true! Actually, I have to confess that that I had no idea that it was a dance festival - I though it was just an organic product farmer's market type thing! In fact, the other producers there (olive oil, bread, fruit and veg, quinoa, etc) were all complaining about the lack of interest and custom, and some didn't even bother turning up on the second day. It was OK for wine though, and I even sold a few cases to the official festival restaurant. Wine and dancing go together well it seems!

The highlight of the day for us was when our table suddenly collapsed, spilling about 60 bottles of wine and 90 wineglasses onto the floor. The crash was so tremendous that the music stopped and there was total silence in the hall for a few seconds. An existential moment! It turned out that only 3 bottles broke, though to compensate, all except 3 glasses broke!

Collapsed Table

For the second day of the festival, Juan and I split forces - he did the festival while I welcomed a 'Grupo de Consumo' (a group of people who get together to buy organic products directly from the producers). They were from Galapagar, a town near Madrid, and they came en masse to visit the vineyard, to see the bodega and to get to know their winemaker. So in the morning, I put them to work in the vineyard (pre-pruning) and answered all their questions about organic grape-growing; then we went to the bodega for lunch, wine-tasting and answering more question about organic/natural winemaking.

Galapagar 'Grupo de Consumo' in the vineyard

Galapagar 'Grupo de Consumo' in the Winery

A few days later my 'partner' (in love, not in business!) got appendicitis all of a sudden and had to have an emergency operation, and is in fact still in hospital as I write (she's recovering well, and is bored and complaining about her diet of consomé!)

Next, there was an unexpected invitation to a winemakers' dinner - 3 organic winemakers came up to Madrid from Andalucía, so there was no way I could refuse to go to that, was there? They were: Barranco Oscuro (Lorenzo), Cauzón (Ramón), Marenas (Jose Miguel), and Almate (Alfredo) from Valladolid and a wine distributor (Luisa of Vinosautenticos). And the next evening, I went to their presentation and tasting at the Viñeta de Montecarmelo, for some post-winetasting beers that night.

insert photos dinner and tasting

Then what? (yes, there’s more!) Next, my importer from the USA (JosePastorSelections) called up and confirmed that he wants a mixed pallet of wine, but that he needs it fast, so that he can have the wines for his annual presentation in May.

So, ...

- Do I have enough bottles? Luckily, yes! Not only had we ordered a pallet of new bottles a few months ago, but I've also accumulated over 1000 used bottles that my local customers return to me.

- Do I have corks? No! urgent calls and emails to my supplier (Salmantina de Corchos) begging him to please send them fast. (They arrived last Thursday).

- Do I have labels? No! Urgent calls and emails to my designer/printer (Hola Por Que), but she's on holiday, so we're meeting this week.

- Do I have AVIN numbers and those QY code thingies for the back-labels? No! Urgent email to André Ribeirihno (of Adegga) - he works really fast and he's created them and sent them to me already, so all I need to do is cut 'n' paste them onto the back-labels.

- Do have boxes? No! urgent emails to my supplier (Cartonajes Hurtado) who say they'll send them asap next week sometime

- Do I have a special, plastic, homologated, US Customs approved pallet? Amazingly, yes! We picked one up last year by chance from a neighbouring winery who didn't need it. Lucky we did, otherwise it would have been really difficult and time-consuming to get hold of one.

So that's what I'm doing now and what I'll be doing over the next week or so: bottling, corking, labelling, boxing and building the pallet.

But, that's still not all! Last Saturday I was asked to do an interview on video for a slow-food, slow-life (slow-viticulture) campaign, and which I also couldn't refuse to do! I had no time to prepare anything so I just turned up not knowing what to expect. It was really interesting. A couple were spending 40 days in a bed, a bit like John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and every day they invite someone to come and chat to them on their bed. They invite all sorts of people, from different walks of life, but somehow relayed to the concept of "slow". You can see my session on slow viticulture and slow wine here. (Ah, it's in Spanish only)

And I think that's about it. All of the above is of course in addition to the usual daily routine of taking the kids to school, and holding down a day-job as a translator!

Oh, I almost forgot: a few weeks ago yet another wine blogger (Chris Penwarden aka @Singapoured) from Singapour interviewed me by email for a post he wanted to do for Earth Day. It was no bother at all to do as I did it all by email in my 'spare time'! Here's the link to his post.

Maybe one day, if I can find the time, after I've sent off the pallet of wine to the States, and after I've written Fiona's post, I'll have a quick nervous breakdown or just go catatonic for a while - but only until the next task or event, which is no doubt approaching fast even as I write! :)

Post post-writing thought: writing this post really has helped me to put things into perspective! Basically, what's happened is that without realizing it I've done a lot of promotion and sales related activities, and almost no vineyard and bodega activities. We've always based Vinos Ambiz on three (3) equally important pillars: growing quality grapes, making quality wine and promoting and selling those wines. The last pillar is often overlooked or under-valued by many bodegas, but to me it's very important - because there's no point filling up a bodega or a warehouse with wine, is there? So, I reckon that enough promotion activities for a while. It's time to get back into the vineyard and slow down!

Final horrifying thought: I've just realized that I haven't even seen our new vineyard in Villarejo this year, let alone gone to prune it! In the end Juan pruned it all himself!

Natural Wine Fair, Barcelona 2011

2011-03-29T18:16:00.002+02:00

On Sunday 27th March I was in the Convent de Sant Agustí, as one of the 20-odd producers of natural wines, that had come from mainly Catalonia and France, but also a few from other parts of Spain (including me) and Italy (one).

The Natural Wine Fair

What to say? Was it a success? Did a lot of people turn up? Was it useful to me? Did I make a lot of contacts? Did I have a good time? Did I have sore feet? Did I pour a lot of wine? Did I sell a lot of wine? Was the dinner good? Did I take a lot of photos and videos?

Sticking on my labels

Well, the answer “yes” to all of the above except for ‘Did I sell a lot of wine?’!!! (only about 20 bottles more or less!) and ‘Did I take a lot of photos and videos? (not as many as I would have liked!)

No people yet

I’d say it was a huge success and that hundreds and hundreds of people came. I don’t have exact data from Benoît Vallée, the organizer (L’Anima del Vi), but my own personal anecdotal evidence suggests that it’s true. Right from the moment that people started arriving (at 10:30 – 11:00) I wasn’t able to sit down once or leave my table until about 9:00 in the evening.

Ready for action

I did manage to get to the bathroom once at 5:00, but my neighbouring winemaker (Alfredo Maestro) wasn’t so lucky – he told me he had to wait till 9:00 before being able to take a leak! More anecdotal evidence of the event’s success: sore feet from standing up for 12 hours straight, pouring wine and sore throat from chatting.

Getting busier

There was of course no way for us to go for lunch. But Benoît had a perfect solution: apart from the 20-odd winemakers, there was also a tapas/raciones table run by Bar Cortijo, and they brought us food at regular intervals throughout the day. My major sale of the day was in fact to them – they bought a case of my ‘Orange Airén’ as they thought that it paired perfectly with their sushi dishes. (Forgot to take photos of that!).

3 Airéns - same vineyard, same grapes, same day harvest

Left: Orange (skin contact); Centre: Normal; Right: Carbonic Maceration

Was it useful to me? I don’t know! The usefulness certainly wasn’t reflected in sales of bottles! Maybe future sales? Who knows? I think I promoted and advertised my wines a lot. I gave away about 100 fliers and about 50 business cards. And I only gave them to people who specifically asked for them – I didn’t offer them first.

Reds: Petit Verdot, Sirah, Tempranillo, Garnacha

It was really interesting that such a wide variety of people came. Some were seasoned wine-drinkers who knew their stuff, and asked lots of really difficult and interesting questions. Others were newbies to the wine-world and must have come to the fair to see, taste and learn.

Iconic T-shirt "I don't contain (added) sulphites"

In theory, the event was supposed to end at 5 or 6 in the evening, but at 8:00 it was still packed with people. In the end it was the sunset that drove them out; there were no lights in the cloister of the (ex)convent so it was only possible to see using torches and lighters.

Thanks to more brilliant planning by Benoît, the restaurant where we were to have dinner was just across the street so we didn’t have worry about transport. Just walk out of the convent, cross the road and go into the restaurant.

The Winemakers Dinner

The first ones of us to arrive sat down outside at the pavement tables and immediately ordered beer! It’s not the first time that this has happened. I think that after 12 hrs of tasting wine, and in anticipation of even more wine over dinner, one just has to ‘recalibrate one’s palate’ with a glass of beer or two!

Winemakers drinking beer

Luckily (for the other customers at the restaurant) we were in a separate room! I have to say that we were extremely loud and boisterous, and the staff seemed to be a bit wary if not actually worried about us! Firstly, we all arrived carrying bottles (and cases) of our own wines, which we put on the table and chairs and floor, and unceremoniously opened ourselves before even sitting down. It was like we’d been released from prison! I think each one of us was desperate to taste each others’ wines, because we’d been within sight of each other all day, but unable to leave our tables even for a few minutes.

At table

When we were eventually herded inside, no-one was the least bit interested in the food, and the waiters were unable to get us to order. (I didn’t even get to see a menu, let alone order something specific). In the end, Benoît ordered 30 entrecotes + potatoes as the main course, and 30 assorted starters, to be shared and passed around.

Then things started to liven up a bit! First there was a short speech from Laureano Serres, winemaker and president of the PVN (Natural Winemaker Association), in Catalán, and understood by maybe 5 or 6 of those present, but he received a huge round of applause and unanimous approval of whatever it was he said!

(Link to dinner speech: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDdtswX9Q9M )

People even started smoking at the table - this is now forbidden due to a new law in Spain passed on 2nd January – but spirits were too high by this point for us to remember. But I'm exagerating - we also went outside to indulge in our dirty habit, to get a breath of fresh air and to do some smirting.

Here are some of the wines:

The most well-known was probably this one, by Thierry Puzelat (who was one of the naughty smokers!):

pending: foto Puzelat "in Cot we Trust"
pending: foto Laureano Serres "Brutal"
pending foto Clos du Tue-Boeuf Touraine Le Buisson Pouilleux
pending fotoEls Bassots - Jordi Escodà
pending fotoVinya SanFeliu
pending fotoMacon Cruzille Manganite
pending foto Dinavolo (Italia)
pending foto Alfredo maestro

More Pruning – Days 3 and 4

2011-03-21T15:02:00.001+01:00

I’m still recovering from an intense two days of pruning (last Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th).

Collateral damage

Apart from the blisters on my hands, the following are the muscles in my body are sore today: fingers, thumbs, forearms, elbows, biceps, shoulders, buttocks, thighs, calves and toes!!!! But especially the fingers! I guess that’s what happens when you only do certain movements once a year!

On Saturday, there were 10 of us altogether. Earlier in the week I'd sent an SOS email to my mailing list of usual customers, and asked anyone who could, to come out to the vineyard and give us a hand.

Helpers in Action (1)

We finally solved our dilemma of what to do with helpers who don’t know how to prune. On the one hand, if we were to carefully explain the theory and demonstrate the practice of pruning to them, then we wouldn’t actually get any pruning done!!! And on the other hand, if we were to let them loose in the vineyard with a pair of pruning shears in hand, … well, you can imagine the disaster.

Helpers in Action (2)

What we did was in fact to let them loose with a pair of pruning shears in hand, but with instructions to prune all the canes down to a length of about 10 cm, or leaving at least two buttons. At the same time, two helpers would accompany me and Juan, and we would teach them and explain the technique as we pruned. After a while the ‘apprentices’ would rotate and another two pre-pruners would become ‘apprentices’.

Helpers in Action (3)

This pre-pruning helped us a lot: we could prune faster as there were no long canes getting in our way, and all the helpers got to learn how to prune.

A major disaster and serious error in planning occurred that day: for the first time in 8 years, ie ever since we started growing grapes and making wine, I forgot to bring a bottle of wine from the vineyard. When we stop for a mid-morning break and for lunch, it’s great to drink and taste the actual physical result of our labours (and try to guess which vines it came from!). It’s the most ‘local’ you can get, drinking a wine made from vines that you’re standing beside! Oh well, we had to do without that little pleasure.

The Next Day

On Sunday, it was just me and Juan and his dog.

We noticed a strange thing while pruning – there seemed to be a lot of canes growing from the underside of the ‘arms’ of the vines. Usually, they grow more or less from any position, and a few also sprout from strange places, like from underneath. Like these two, for example:

Canes growing from underneath

More canes growing from underneath

Then we came up with a theory. We figured that it’s related to the late overnight freeze we had last year during the night of 7th-8th May. A lot of young tips were frozen off and so the vine had to sprout new shoots to compensate for the losses; so maybe there were no well-positioned places left and the vine had to use any latent buds it had available, even if they were located in sub-optimal positions. Any thoughts, anyone?

Half-pruned vineyard in Carabaña

By the end of the day, we’d pruned (over Sat and Sun) about half of the Carabaña vineyard, ie 0.5 hectares. That leaves us with 0.5 ha to finish in Carabaña and a whole 1.0 ha in the other vineyard in Villarejo.

On the Sunday, I remembered to bring the wine:

Local Wine: the end result of all our labours

A pre-pruned vine

A pruned vine

And lastly, it looks like we have yet another new neighbour, or neighbours. We found the left-overs of a picnic on top of a few vines:

Almonds!

Second Day of Pruning

2011-03-18T16:11:00.001+01:00

I did some more pruning yesterday (Thurs 17th March). We’re still running very late this year. We’ve only managed to do about 0.25 hectares out of a total of 2 hectares.

I think that spring is also running late in this part of Spain (Madrid Region and La Mancha). I’d really have to check my notes, but I get the feeling that the vegetation hasn’t really started ‘springing’ yet. The only signs of spring so far are 1) the almond trees, which have been blooming for weeks, but almond trees are notoriously early bloomers and 2) those radial weeds called cardos marianos in Spanish (ie Mariano’s thistles!).

This is good news because, if I'm right, then the vines will be running late too and so we'll have a bit more time to finish the pruning before the buds sprout.

Almond tree in flower, with vines in background

Making a virtue out of vice, it's also the case that if you prune later, the vines will sprout later and so will be more protected against the risk of a late spring freeze. Like what happend to us last year on the night of May 7th - 8th, as a result of which we lost about 25% of our yield!

That's an example of a thing I've noticed over the years: no matter what task/activity you do (or don't do!) it will have both positive and negative consequences. In most cases, of course, if you do the 'right' thing, the positive will outweigh the negative. But still, it's an interesting concept.

Pruned vine surrounded by 'Mariano's thistles'

Top-down view of a cardo mariano

After pruning, I also gathered up all the canes and took them to the edge of the vineyard. Later this year, at some point, we’ll chop them up into small pieces and scatter them all around the vineyard. They will eventually decompose and improve the fertility and structure of the soil.

Piles of canes at the edge of the vineyard

I think this practice is also ‘sustainable’ in the sense that we’re not constantly removing material from the vineyard year after year (grapes, canes) without giving some of that material back. We also add organic manure (from an organic sheep and goat farm up in the mountains of Madrid).

More piles of canes

Lastly, it looks like we have a new ‘neighbour’ living in the vineyard. This hole/burrow was right between the two piles of canes shown above. I have no idea what animal could have made it. Seems a bit big for a rabbit.

Our new neighbour's front door

Racking (some good news and some bad)

2011-03-14T13:00:00.001+01:00

Did a bit of racking this weekend:

Firstly, we moved the Sirah and the Petit Verdot from one stainless steel tank to another.

Petit Verdot (near tanks) and Sirah (back tanks)

Closeup of the Petit Verdot tank

The Petit Verdot was smelling a bit of farts and hydrogen! So the airing it got did it a lot of good – it was smelling a lot better after the racking.

We did it by hand: filling a container from the tap at the bottom of the tank, and then pouring the container directly into the new tank from the open top.

Pouring in the wine

Pouring out the wine

The Sirah was smelt a bit ‘closed’ or of being enclosed, but no farts.

Capazo 1

Capazo 2

Gundge at the bottom of the tank

Looking down into the tank

We also racked the Garnacha 2010 for the first time this year, so there was a lot of lees and gunge at the bottom of the tank.

We’re very happy with the way these three wines are turning out.

On the spur of the moment we decided to rack some of the Garnacha to an old oak barrel (+5 years old) as another experiment, just to see how it will evolve.

Burning sulphur

So first we rinsed out the barrel and then we burnt a piece of sulphur inside it.

In it goes

The burning piece of sulphur is in a little cage, so that the bits that melt dont fall down to the bottom of the barrel.

To move the garnacha into the barrel we had to use the pump (because the barrel room is about 30 m away from from where Garnacha was). I really don’t like pumps! They make far too much noise. I don’t know if this noise affects the wine or not, but it certainly affects me!!!

The Garnacha flowing into the barrel

Another thing about pumps (and this one in particular) is that they are far too powerful and move the wine far too fast.

Garnacha flowing onto the floor

Not as bad as it looks - we only lost a few liters before switching the pump off! After cleaning up the mess, I got to write on the barrel with a piece of chalk!

Writing on the barrel

Lastly, and we racked 2000 l of Tempranillo. A bit of bad news here: when we went to open the pneumatic cover, we discovered that it was already open! We forgot to seal it last time we opened it a few month ago. This means that the wine has been in contact with the air (oxygen) all this time.

Not a disaster, but not optimal, and of course really annoying, as we had the use of a beautiful stainless steel with a hermetic seal which we haven’t made use of through our own silly error! Anyway, the wine is fine. We poured about 100 l down the drain, though – the top 25 cm , nearest the surface in contact with the air. Another lesson learnt!

The pump and the tank of Tempranillo

Confessions of a Natural Winemaker

2011-03-11T10:57:00.004+01:00

I confess! I did it! I put some SULPHUR in a lot of wine a few months ago. It was either that, or lose the wine.

Bag of Potassium Bisulphite

But it gets worse! It was the first time that we’d ever added a dose sulphites to our wine so we weren’t quite sure how to calculate the quantity to add, and it’s quite complex if you’re not a mathematician or a chemist.

Anyway the upshot of the matter is that we added way too much. We just got back the results of analysis we sent off to a lab, and it turns out that we’ve ended up with 240 mg/l in there!!! I think that’s over the legal limit for even conventional industrial wine, let alone organic or natural wine!!!.

I think we miscalculated by a factor of 10, because what we wanted to do was to add only 20 mg/l, not >200 mg/l.

The product in question was Potassium Meta-Bisulphite.

Some thoughts in theory

I’ve always said that I’ve nothing against the rational, sensible use of sulphur, but I am against its ABUSE, ie adding it at any and all stages of the winemaking process to cover up the bad quality of the grapes or over-manipulation in the winery. In general, I see no need to use sulphites at all, if you:

1) use good quality grapes

2) keep your winery clean

3) don’t over-manipulate the wine

As they say: “There’s always a first time”, and this was the first time in 8 years for us. I hope it will be the last.

Some thoughts in practice

So what are we going to do with this lot of wine now? Well, ‘luckily’ it was a lot that we were planning to use for a ‘coupage’, and we’re still going to do that. We’ll have do some calculations (and get a mathematician or chemist to check them for us) to ensure that the final sulphite level in the blend is low, and we’ll put that level on the back-label when we eventually bottle the wine.

The lot in question was the Graciano, which I posted about back in October: “Stuck Fermentation” and Status of Experiments.

We’re thinking of making a Crianza that is 10% Graciano and 90% Tempranillo. Such a blend should have a sulphite level of 24 mg/l, no? (ie, 240 x 10%) Plus whatever ‘natural’ level of sulphur the Tempranillo has in it. We haven’t added any sulphites to the Tempranillo, but there’s always a little (between 0 and 20 mg/l) present as a result/byproduct of fermentation.

I have lots more thoughts on Sulphites, but I won’t publish them here and now! I’m saving them up and writing a draft text, which I’ll eventually upload to a section in my future webpage (which I’ve been trying to create for about 2 or 3 years now!!!)

First Day of Pruning

2011-03-01T12:24:00.002+01:00

Last Saturday 26th Feb we finally got started with the pruning. We’re running VERY late this year, as we usually start round about the end of January. We’re still in good time though. We ‘only’ have 2 hectares (5 acres) or 3000 vines to do, which is about 10 full days’ work for 1 person ( or 5 days for 2 people!)

We kicked off on a festive and educational note, so we didn’t actually get much pruning done! About 15 people came to help, to learn how to prune (*) and to see the vineyard, the winery and ‘meet the winemaker’!

All these people are part of a ‘Grupo de Consumo’, a group of people who get together to buy organic products directly from the producers. And among the products they buy, is my wine!

Juan explains how to prune

Lola covers her ears, as Juan gets ready to cut!

Panoramic view of the vineyard

David

Alvaro

Eva and Raquel

Ana

Myself

Scissors

We managed to prune about 100 vines in the course of the morning.

Then it was time for lunch, which we did at the bodega (winery). We make a giant paella, which – surprisingly - turned out perfect. It’s very difficult to cook a giant paella evenly, and usually there are patches where the rice is under-cooked and other parches where it’s burnt!

(pending: foto of giant paella)

Jorge and Dani

At the table

Orange wine

Down the hatch

(*) Here are some of the ‘technical criteria’ we follow, and tried to teach:

- Each vine is different, so the number of ‘thumbs’ to leave depends on its vigour, size and shape
- We leave only one ‘thumb’ at the end of each ‘arm’(sometimes two if the vine is very large or vigorous)
- We leave the ‘thumbs’ that point outwards from the centre, and prune any that point inwards or crosswise
- We prune away all shoots that are growing directly from the trunk or arms

Troop of Boys Scouts Visit Bodega

2011-02-21T18:35:00.000+01:00

Actually it was 11 Girl scouts + 3 Boy Scouts + 2 Pack Leaders!

The idea was that on Saturday (19th Feb) the troop would come to visit our vineyard. We would teach them about organic viticulture (in theory) and how to prune vines (in theory and in practice). At first, a few weeks ago, it seemed like a great idea, but as the day drew nearer and nearer, we began to get more and more worried - about letting a troop of 14 Boy and Girl Scouts loose in our vineyard with a pair of pruning shears in hand! There would only have been 2 of us to try and control them!!! But luckily, we were saved by the weather, as it rained heavily all Friday night and continued to do so all day Saturday.

So they came to visit the bodega instead!

Juan explains it all

We spent about 4 hours in there explaining EVERYTHING about winemaking and answering their endless questions. The questions were really good questions actually (ie, difficult to answer!) and I suspected that they’d been primed beforehand by their Leader. But no, they hadn’t been primed (I asked the Leader!) So it must be true, kids these days (they were 13-17 years old) are much more clever and intelligent than I was at that age!!! (mind you, that's not saying much!)

'Bocadillo' (sandwich) time

They all said they would come back for the harvest and crushing in September.

For those of you who are about to post a comment - please, no jokes about exploitation of child labour. I'm all upset and frustrated, as I wasn't able to exploit them at all! Nada! Not a single stroke of productive work was I able to get out of them!

Spanish Wine at Lunchtime

2011-02-16T15:29:00.002+01:00

Well, I have to confess that, even though I've known about this WBW70 thing for a few days now and was full of good intentions, I completely forgot to find, buy, drink and write about an interesting and unusual Spanish wine!

So what I've done instead is to write about the the wine I had at lunch today. Here it is:

Spanish Table Wine

Nice folkloric label, no? Don Quijote and Sancho Panza with windmill in the background!

As you can see (or can't see, rather!) it doesn't come from any Spanish Denominación de Origen at all, let alone an interesting or unusual one. If fact, it's very difficult to tell where it comes from even in general because it doesn't actually say on the label. You can work it out though, if you know your Spanish post codes (ZIP codes).

Sorry, out of focus! I need to upgrade my mobile!

After taking out my magnifying glass (which all connaisseurs of Spanish table wine carry with them at all times) you can see that it actually comes from the province of Toledo (because of the post code "49586" on the far left). Another clue is the last two digits of the Registered Bottler Number ("-TO", on the far right).

Actually, this only tells you where the wine was bottled - the grapes could have come from anywhere in Spain.

What to say about its organoleptic qualities? Well, suffice it so say that:
1) it's usually served at a temperature well below the threshold of human taste and smell perception, and
2) it's usually served along with a bottle of 'Casera' (a sort of fizzy sweet 7-Up type liquid)

Table Wine and Bottle of 'Casera'

This is normal for any bog-standard Spanish restaurant that serves a 'Menú del Día' for about €9 to €12. The quality of the food, in contrast, ranges from good/acceptable to sometimes surprisingly good (though you can get a nasty surprise sometime if you're unlucky). This is something I've never been able to understand - probably because I'm a 'bloody foreigner' (though I've been living here for over 15 years!)! Why don't these restaurants serve up a drinkable wine with the 'menú del día' instead of the awful stuff that has to be mixed with 'Casera' and served at 0ºC? I know for a fact that a drinkable table wine can be bought for less than €1/bottle ex bodega and a Crianza for about €2/bottle. The cost of the awful wine is about €0,30/bottle and the 'Casera' must be about €1/bottle, so why do they do it? Think just of the space they could save in storing half the number of bottles! Maybe there's a secret conspiracy between these volume table wine producers and the 'Casera' producers? If anyone can shed some light on this question, I'll ... I'll ...I'll send them a case of Pinto and Casera :)

Apart from the wine, other essential ingredients for a genuine, complete Spanish "Menú del Día Experience" include: LOTS OF NOISE coming from a number non mutually exclusive sources such as one or more fruit machines, one or more televisions, coffee-grinder, coffee machine itself, barstaff, waiters and kitchen staff shouting to each other, customers at adjacent tables shouting at each other, and (optionally) a jack-hammer digging up the street just outside. Sadly, one ingredient which will never be seen again (thanks to globalization) is clouds of cigarette smoke from customers smoking between courses or lingering over coffee and a 'copa'. Such is life in Madrid!

Wining and Dining in the Wine World

2011-02-07T12:53:00.003+01:00

The other week I took some time out and immersed myself into the glamorous, fun side of the wine world, which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was great to get away from the usual routines in the vineyard and winery, which I’ve been doing for 8 years now.

I hit the road with US wine importers, José Pastor and Mark Middlebrook (of JPS) for two days (Monday 17th and Tuesday 18th of January) travelling around central Spain, visiting vineyards and wineries, drinking good wine, eating good food, and talking about wine.

Jose (left) and Mark (right) in my foggy vineyard

Don’t get me wrong: I really love what I do (grow grapes and make wine) and there’s nothing I can think of that I’d rather be doing, BUT EVEN SO, a routine is a routine! Maybe I’ve got a short attention span or I’m hyperactive, or something, but I jumped at the chance when José invited me join him on his trip.

Actually, it all started on the Sunday night (16th), when we met for tapas, beer, wine, vermouth and gin-and-tonics (in that order, more or less) in the Lavapiés district of central Madrid. We went first to La Vinícola (c/San Eugenio), an old haunt of mine. I used to go there more often than now as they used to keep their wine boxes for me which I’d use for my own wine, but last year I got some of my own boxes printed up with my own logo on them. They have good wines (nothing special), natural cider, vermouth on tap, great tapas, and a great atmosphere and décor. Then on to La Echartia, just round the corner on c/S.Isabel, for gin-and-tonics. Nice atmosphere, jazz music, good ambiance!

This was the first time I’d gone out on the town since the new no-smoking law came into effect in Spain on Jan 2nd. What a difference! This is a major turning point, sea-change, paradigm shift in the Spanish night-time social cultural scene, and I exaggerate not! On the plus side I see the following: inside the air is nice ‘n’ clean and you don’t get home with your hair and clothes stinking; there’s plenty of room inside to stand at the bar or even to sit down; you can now step outside to smoke, chat, and smirt with a crowd of like-minded people: you smoke less and enjoy it more! On the negative side, I see yet another step in globalization, homogenization and places losing their identity, charm and singularity.

Anyway, after sorting out the wine world’s problems, home early – at 2:00 a.m.!

Monday morning, up bright and early (11:00 am) we went to see my own vineyard in Carabaña. It was cold and foggy.

Jose and Mark in the vineyard in Carabaña (Spain)

We’ll be starting the pruning soon.

Then on to ‘my’ bodega in Morata de Tajuña, for a tasting. This is what José Pastor will be importing into the US in the near future:

- 100% Airén 2010

- 100% Airén 2010 Carbonic Maceration

- 100% Garnacha 2010

And perhaps these as well, but in the not-so-near future:

- 100% Airén 2010 with skin contact. Not yet. This will improve/evolve with time
- Other young red wines from 2010 (Tempranillo, Graciano, Sirah, Petit Verdot). Not ready yet, to be tasted, left over the winter, tasted again, etc
- Other crianzas, to be tasted and/or blended in a few months time

Tasting notes: I’ve never been good at tasting notes, so I won’t even bother to write any here. José can do that himself :) Suffice it to say that I like my wines (that’s why I make them the way I do!), he likes my wines, and hundreds of incorrigible regular customers also like them; and in the near future hundreds more new customers in the USA will be tasting them and hopefully liking them too! This is what it’s all about for me: making unique, genuine, unadulterated wines expressing the ‘where and when and what’ and getting as many people as possible in the world to taste them and enjoy them.

Then for lunch at La Tinaja, a nice restaurant in the centre of Morata. We had the menu del día, but boy did we cover that wine list!!! We ended up doing a spontaneous unplanned wine-tasting. There were so many bottles, that they had to bring an extra table (and buckets so we could spit). Talking to the maitre it turned out that they had a whole load of old wines in the cellar that were not even on the wine list.

Our table(s) at lunch

Check that out

One of the wines we tasted

Then, into Madrid (running late; it was about 18:00), where we went straight to a wine shop (La Tintorería; Pº Marqués de Zafra 35. Tel 910 005 834) run by an interesting trio of wine world characters: César Ruiz, Flequi Berruti and Nacho Jiménez. Basic decor (ie, floor, white walls!) but very interesting wines. well worth checking out if in Madrid.

Now it was time for dinner! See what I mean about wining and dining? The appointment was at Los Asturianos (C/Vallehermoso, 93) owned by Belarmino Fernández and Alfonso Chacón , who (surprise, surprise!) happen to be wine-makers also: Bodegas Canopy. And we were joined for dinner by none other than Victor de la Serna (again!) (See previous post).

Dinner was amazing (again!) But rather than dinner, it was another tasting session accompanied by food at dinner-time! There were loads of wines:

- My own three: Airén, Airén MC, Garnacha 2010
- Victor brought a few from his Finca Sandoval (Manchela) and one Albillo from Navarra
- Belarmino and Alfonso brought a few from their Bodegas Canopy (Méntrida)
- Other wines that I lost track off and didn’t even take photos of!

Then home for an early night: 2:00 a.m. again

Next morning, bright and early again (about 12:00), we headed off to see Belamino and Alfonso’s vineyards and bodega. The vineyards were spectacular, in the Sierra de Gredos at around 900 m. Mostly Garnacha. Old vines. 14 small vineyards of about 1 ha each. Industrial bodega in Camarena (Toledo). Lunch at Gregorio. Only one wine!!!

To be continued…

(Insert text…photos of Canopy vineyards… ) After lunch, we set off to see natural wine-maker Alfredo Maestro in Peñafiel. 100-year old vineyards by night! Visit to the winery. Tasting. Home at 2:00 a.m. again. (photos and text of Alfredos bodega and vineyards)

Gothic Underground Tasting

2010-12-16T13:03:00.001+01:00

Following hot on the heels of our Technical Tank Tasting two weeks ago, last Monday 13th December we organized another tasting - along completely different lines.

It was held in the basements (dungeons) of the former State Tabacco Factory in Madrid. And therein lies a tale! This emblymatic building was abandoned in the 1990's when the Spanish state tobacco monopoly was privatized, and there it lay for over a decade.

Then last year (2009) it was squatted ('okupado') and is now used by over 50 different collectives to carry out their activites. The majority are focused on art and culture (photography, film, theatre, drawing, painting, etc) but they also do things like skateboarding, computer programming, gardening, there's a kindergarten, a library, a café-bar and restaurant, and more.

And what's all this got to do with Vinos Ambiz? Well, apart from all the above activites, it's also the place where about 10 different 'Organic Produce Consumption Groups' meet. These are groups of poeple who get together in order to buy directly from different producers of all types of organic products: bread, cereals, legumes, fresh fruit and veg, milk, eggs, meat, cheese, yogurt, you name it, and of course, wine! I'm a member of one myself (BAH) and I've been delivering wine to them for years, so there was no question, really, of where to do our main tasting this year.

The place is enormous and there are literally hundreds of rooms and open spaces available for activites, but even so I had to book the space for the tasting weeks ago; I was actually a bit worried that things would get out of control, due to the numbers of people in there at any given time, but everything turned out fine; maybe it was because it was a Monday, or because we were in the basement, along a long passageway and around a corner. Any way, about 40 people turned up, which was perfect for the amount of wine and number of wineglasses we brought!

It was joint tasting with two producers: ourselves (Vinos Ambiz) and Bodegas Pincelada, ie the same Juan from Morata de Tajuña, who is letting us share his winery this year.

Wines tasted:

Vinos Ambiz:

young white Airén 2010
unoaked Garnacha 2009 (these are the only two wines we have available right now which are ready for drinking)

Pincelada:

young white Airén (with a touch of Moscatel)
young red Tempranillo (with a touch of Airén)
the star of the show, a Crianza 2006 (100% Tempranillo)

The tasting was scheduled to start at 20:00, but the first guest only turned up at 20:30 (and Juan himself at 20:15); but that was OK because there was a conference happening in the room which I'd booked and they didn't vacate it till 20:30 anyway! The conference was on biodynamic agriculture and some of the participants stayed on for the tasting, even though my wines aren't biodynamic.

Still working on a natural winemaker pose!

So people kept on arriving in dribs and drabs, so I opened a bottle of Airén and we did a pre-tasting (strictly for quality control purposes only of course!) while we were standing around chatting and smoking and waiting.

At about 21:15 a critical mass of people had arrived so I stood on a chair, rang two empty wine-bottles together and called the meeting to order! I managed to speak uninterrupted to a silent and listening audience for about 5-10 minutes. There were even a few questions which I answered and which everyone could hear.

The first wine (our 100% Airén 2010) was rather cloudy in appearance, and there was a question about that. I explained that we don't filter our wines because we believe that filtering removes 'good' tasty and aromatic things, and that simply decanting the wine wine once from one tank to another is enough to get rid of any possible 'bad' things that might spoil the wine. There was also a question about why it was fizzy and tasted like champagne or cider! I answered that I thought it was because there was still some residual sugar in the wine which hadn't fermented into alcohol yet and was actually fermenting in the bottle as we spoke!

Someone also asked why the wine had such a long finish or after-taste (for a white wine), and I didn't really know what to answer there. I was too shy and/or modest and/or nervous up on that chair to say that it was because we make such awesome wine and know how to extract all the aromas and flavours and express the variety and the terroir perfectly :)

Then came the second wine - Juan's 2010 Airén+Touch of Moscatel. But I lost my audience! In the time it took to pour the second wine for 40 people, they had broken up into little groups, and were all talking among themselves. If you can't beat them, join them! So that's just what I did. I circulated and chatted to lots of people and answered questions and topped up glasses. The two young reds got hopelessly mixed up, but we did manage to keep the Crianza 2006 for the last.

There was one experienced taster present in the audience, who was taking written notes, and I recommended that he post them to the Adegga wine site.

Technical Tank Tasting

2010-12-14T15:11:00.002+01:00

Last Friday 4th December we organized an informal tasting of all our 2010 wines with a bunch of wine-lovers, including some experienced tasters, again at La Cave du Petit.

    pending: photo 1 (have misfiled photos of tasting)

The purpose was partly social, ie to spend a pleasant evening talking about and drinking wine in good company; the purpose was also partly technical, in that I was hoping to get some feedback on the wines in general and specifically on which wines would be suitable for oaking and which best drunk unoaked, and also opinions on any possible interesting blends of varieties.

So a few days before I bottled one bottle of each wine straight from the tanks.

   pending: photo 2 (have misfiled photos of tasting)

Also, to make things more interesting, I made a special label for each bottle with a number on it, and was only going to reveal the variety at the end of the tasting. I thought it would be more fun that way and make everyone think more while they were tasting!

Here's what we tasted:

1. Airén. Normal fermentation; our 'flagship' wine that we've been making every year since we started 8 years ago

2. Airén. Carbonic maceration; an experiment

3. Airén. On skins; an experiment (orange wine)

4. Tempranillo; grapes bought in from organic neighbour

5. Tempranillo; our own; our other 'flagship' wine that we've been making for 6 years

6. Graciano; grapes bought in from organic neighbour

7. Shiraz; grapes bought in from organic neighbour

8. Petit Verdot; grapes bought in from organic neighbour

9. Garnacha; grapes bought in from organic neighbour

Why so many grapes bought in? Several reasons: firstly, we were bored making only Tempranillo and Airén year after year, and we wanted to experiment and try new varieties. Life is short! One thing leads to another! So we may or may not do buy in grapes again next year. We are feeling our way forward. We need to expand our production while maintaining quality, and buying in grapes was a way that we wanted to try. We've also taken on a second vineyard this year which we'll be managing ourselves, which is another way. We'll try anything once!

   pending: photo 3 (have misfiled photos of tasting)

   pending: photo 4 (have misfiled photos of tasting)

Conclusions? Feedback? Well, things didn't quite work out the way I'd visualized them playing out. I'd imagined that we'd all taste the first wine, then that each person would comment one at a time, and that I'd have time to write it down; then onto the second wine, etc. Then I'd summarize my notes and post a beautiful tasting note post. How naive! And me living in Spain for 15 years! What happened of course was that everyone started talking at once, split off into little groups of 2 or 3, wandered off to talk on their cell-phone, to change the music, to go to the toilet, to get something to eat, etc; then we tasted the bottles out of order and started making blends in our own little groups, and generally being chaotic, and having 3 conversations at once across the room! Basically, we had small party as opposed to a tasting, and of course a great time was had by all!

    pending: photo 5 (have misfiles photos of tasting)

The minimum, lowest-comon-denominator feedback I've been able to synthesize after 3 hours of partying and tasting (with no written notes whatsoever) was this:

Whites: Airéns (1) and (2) can be drunk now, but Airén (3) needs more time. Some liked Airén (1) because it's slightly pétillant, and is very fruity in the nose and mouth, and with a surprisingly long finish. Others didn't like it because they thought it lacking in acidity and that it had too much residual sugar.

Reds: None are ready to be drunk now. The one closest to being ready and which most people though would be good drunk young and unoaked was the Tempranillo (4). The only other consensus with a majority was that the Garnacha (9) would also be fine unoaked as it was the most distinctive.

So, now what? Well, nothing, for the time being! We're just going to let all the wines sit there over the winter, to settle and to evolve, and in February or March we'll have another tasting party and maybe decide what to do after that!

Who or what ate my grapes?

2010-12-08T21:44:00.001+01:00

Our sparkling wine experiment has suffered a setback.

Look, no grapes!

The aim of this joint experiment, in collaboration with Alfredo Maestro, was to make a few hundred bottles of sparkling wine, using our white Airén grapes. We (Vinos Ambiz) would provide the grapes/wine and Alfredo would provide the special facilities needed for sparkling wine (cooling equipment, racks for placing bottles upside-down, etc) and the knowledge of how to actually make the stuff!

The idea was to set aside some of our normal Airén wine (which we've done) (see #1 below) and then ALSO do a late harvest and ferment a second lot of wine separately. This wine would have a higher alcohol content and would also contain residual sugar which is needed for the 2nd in-bottle fermentation that takes place in sparkling wines.

Look, more no grapes!

Well, as you can see from the photos, there's no grapes!!! We suspect that they were eaten by little animals (rabbits, birds) and/or insects. It hasn't really rained a lot in Madrid since the harvest, except for a few heavy downpours, and night-time temperatures have reached around -8ºC; but the rain and the cold wouldn't have affected the grapes that much anyway. It must have been the animals.

Look, still no grapes!

But all is not lost, and we still have options open. The main thing for me now is to carry on and actually produce some sparkling wine somehow or other and to learn for the experience - after all, that's the reason we're doing all these experiments! And I've been looking forward to doing this since last June when the idea first came up, so I'm not giving up now!!!

Basically we need a source of sugar for the 2nd in-bottle fermentation. And these are the possibilities that have ocurred to me so far (in order of preference):

1. Grapes from our own vineyard (Not possible now)
2. Organic grapes from a neighbour (difficuclt, if not impossible)
3. Conventional grapes from a neighbour (almost impossible)
4. Organic grape juice or must (?)
5. Conventional grape juice or must (?)
6. Bog-standard chaptalization like they do in France (?)

I don't really like any of them. But I don't know; maybe there are other options that I don't even know about (yet). Maybe we don't even need residual sugar at all and can do without? I dunno! I'll have to read up a bit on the subject, and not let poor Alfredo do all the brain-work, as he's done up to now!

In any case, next year (because we'll definitiely be trying again next year) we'll have to think about it more carefully and have some kind of contingency plans in place.

Look, yet more no grapes!

------------
Note #1: Our 'normal' Airén, which we've been making now for 8 years has turned out really good this year. (We organized an informal tank tasting last Frinday (post coming soon) and it went down really well!) We're presenting it and releasing it at a Tasting Event that we've organized for Monday 13th December at 20:00, in Madrid (CSO La Tabacalera, Glorieta de Embajadores, 1). See Event on FaceBook: Natural and Organic Wine Tasting
------------

Status of Experiments (Report Nº 3)

2010-11-25T11:54:00.000+01:00

1. Airén (Carbonic Maceration)

No news is good news. Aromas are good (fruity and intense) and taste is good too. No off-tastes. We may rack it off its lees and release it for Christmas, along with the Normal Airén. (BTW, the we've decided not to clarify the Normal Airén this year, as the clarifier (egg-white) removes good flavours and aromas along with the particles in suspensión that are supposed not good. I think a little bit of extra cloudiness is a good price to pay for extra aromas and flavour. Agree, disagree?

From left to right:
Airén (Carbonic Maceration); Tempranillo; Airén (Normal)

2. Airén on its skins

Again, no news is good news. Aromas and tastes are good. I've been advised by a few people (including Gottfried Lemprecht, who makes this kind of wine) to leave this wine alone for a long time. I guess I'll do that, and keep tasting it regularly to see how it evolves.

However, I'll have to fix the tap because it leaks!

Leaky tap

3. Shiraz

This is only an experiment in the sense that it's the first time we've made a Shiraz wine. We've oaked 1 barrel (225 l or 300 bottles) and the rest is staying in the stainless steel tank.

Shiraz in Tank

Shiraz In Oak

4. Petit Verdot

This lot of P.V. seems to be normal more or less, but we suspect something is up!!! Even though it's finished fermenting (apparantly, as the density is 996!) the aroma is still like what you get at the beginning of fermentation, ie compost, gassy, not very fruity. The taste is rather sweet, which suggests ther's some residual sugar in there. I dunno! At least there's nothing seriously serious happening! I'll have to get an experienced taster in to check it out. Any theories, anyone?

Garnacha (left) and Petit Verdot (right)

5. Graciano Explosion

I've kept the Graciano news for the last, because it's the most interesting! A few days ago the oak cask of Graciano exploded and made a huge mess in the barrel room!

I suppose that it hadn't finished fementing and the relative heat (18ºC) in the barrel room activated the yeast.

I missed the direct action and Juan (who's letting us share his bodega this year) kindly cleaned up the spillage. Here's some pics of the collateral damage:

Close-up of the bung-hole and environs

The bung itself has disappeared! It must be somewhere in the barrel room, but we haven't been able to find it yet!

The ceiling directly above the Graciano cask

The state of the cask beside the Graciano cask

The leak at the front of the Graciano cask

At last! End of Fermentation

2010-11-08T14:15:00.002+01:00

All done!

At last! On Saturday (6th Nov 2010) we finally pressed the last of our red wines off the skins.

Juan manning the pump.

Moving the Graciano into the barrel

Fabio at the other end.

The light is so I could peer into the barrel to check the level

Close-up of the stick-thing used to fill the barrel

It was only about 350 l of Graciano, but it was complicated, and it took us all day! This was because we fermented the Graciano in some old oak barrels that we recovered, and we had to replace the tops - quite a tricky operation if you're not a barrel-maker!

'Engrudo' a mixture of flour and water, used to seal the top of the barrel

Juan and Justo attempt to replace the top.

Note the metal hoops

Two manual cage presses bleeding off Graciano

While we were doing all this, we also filled another oak barrel with Tempranillo 2010, and another one with Shiraz 2010. I forgot to take photos of them, but I have this other one:

Crianza 2009. Cask filled in August 2010

Stuck Graciano Has Started Fermenting

2010-10-19T00:22:00.007+02:00

Yes! yes! yes! Our two barrels of Graciano which had been stuck for about 6 days finally started fermenting today! Look, you can even see some CO2 bubbles (I think!):

Graciano skins (1)

Apart from the tender loving care, what we did was:

1. Put the casks out in the sun during the day, and back in the bodega at night.

2. Mix in about 1 liter of our Airén which was in fermentation and so full of active natural yeasts

Graciano skins (2)

Graciano skins and our "punching down tool"

I can't believe there no word in English for a "punching down tool"!!! I've looked (rather hurriedly) but couldn't find anything better!

More Graciano skins with PDT

Yet more Graciano skins

And that's about it. I'm so pleased :)

Status of On-going Experiments (Report Nº 2)

2010-10-17T17:13:00.006+02:00

First the one that are working out fine. Then the ones with 'complications':

1. Airén (Carbonic Maceration)

This experiment is working out very well so far. Yesterday we opened up the tank that had been hermetically sealed 17 days previously. The whole clusters had started to ferment inside each grape as expected.

Bunches of Airén at bottom of stainless steel tank

We then crushed and pressed the grapes as usual; and the must is now continuing with it's fermentation. The aromas are definitely different from those we usually get from Airén fermented 'normally'; we smelled fruit salad or ripe fruit.

2. Airén on its skins

This experiment is also working out well so far. We pressed the wine off the skins and the fermentation is now basically finished. I think we just need to leave it alone and not do anything at all to it over winter. Time and low temperatures will round it off (I think/hope) and we could bottle it in Jan/Feb. On the other hand, it seems perfectly drinkable to me now, but I suppose it'll improve.

The colour is rather dark for a white wine - sort of browny-ambar-orange- and the armoas are also stringer, darker, more intense than in a normal white wine.

3. Shiraz (or Shirah?)

This is only really an experiment in the sense that it's the first time we're working with this variety. We destemmed, crushed, fermented it conventionally in stainless steel. yesterday we racked it off its lees into another tank. Nothing of interest to mention here really. Again, time and low temperatures will round it off. At some point during the winter, we'll have to decide whether to oak it or not, based on our own and others tastings.

'Gunge' at the bottom of the Shiraz tank

4. Petit Verdot

Here we had a slight complication - it wouldn't start fermenting! Maybe it was due to the colder weather. Nightime temperatures have dropped quite a lot recently here in Madrid and they've been reaching under 10ºC, and daytime temperatures inside the bodegas have been around 16ºC.

So a few days ago we started taking the tank outside into the patio during the day to warm it up a bit. And we also added a liter of our Airén which was in full fermentation, so as to add in some active natural yeast.

I think it's worked, because yesterday for the first time we could see a few tiny CO2 bubbles popping. And the skins seemed to be a little higher (ie being pushed up by the COs).

Two casks of Graciano and tank of Petit Verdot

5. Graciano

I've kept this strange case for last! Again we had/have a case of fermentation not starting, but with a strange twist in the tale!!!

We decided to ferment the Graciano in oak casks because 1) we wanted to experiment with fermenting in oak casks! and 2) because we had run out of stainless steel tanks! So anyway, we duly destemmed and crushed the Graciano grapes and poured them into 3 oak casks, to about the 2/3 full level. The weird thing is that one cask started fermenting on schedule as expected, but the other two didn't! We had done everything exactly the same with all three: same grapes, destemmed and crushed at same time, casks filled at same time, etc).

There's only one difference that i can see, but can't imagine how it could possibly be the cause of this mystery: It's that the two stuck casks are from Seguin Moreau while the one that started is from Demptos!

Anyways, we've been puting the two casks out in the sun along with the Petit Verdot and we've also added a lites of Airén with active natural yeast. Still no sign of fermentation so far :(

Status of On-going Experiments (Report Nº 1)

2010-10-13T17:39:00.003+02:00

Experiment 1. Sparkling wine (Champagne, Cava, Spumante, ... need a name!)

We've made a lot of Airén in the 'normal' way, ie crushed, pressed and left to ferment. It's coming along nicely and there's nothing left to do here, except for one decanting to remove the dead yeast and other larger particles that will have sunk to the bottom of the tank.

We've left some grapes on the vine, to be picked in Nov/Dec, fermented separately and then added at some point in the 'champagne' making process, in collaboration with Alfredo Maestro.

Experiment 2. Airén, (Carbonic Maceration)

We have another lot of Airén that are fermenting. We put the whole clusters, uncrushed into a tank and sealed it about 15 days ago. By now each grape should have started to ferment internally, and should be at 1% or 2% alcohol. Tomorrow or next day we'll open the tank, crush and press the clusters and let it finish fermenting.

Experiment 3. Airén (on skins)

Yet another lot of Airén, we left macerating in their own skins for about 12 days. We pressed them a few days ago, and this lot is also coming along nicely. It has a sort of browny-orange-amber colour and smells more intense than the 'normal' Airén, we also have.

Experiment 4. Barrel fermentation (Graciano)

Last week we rocovered three old oak barrels that we found in the attic of the winery! Actually we tried to salvage 6 but three were so leaky, even after extensive soaking, that we couldn't use them. So we destemmed and crushed a lot of Graciano, and put it into the 3 barrels to begin fermenting.

Old oak barrel, before being soaked

Non-Experiment 5. Petit Verdot.

This lot was going to go into the other three recovered barrels, but as we couldn't use them, we're using a stainless steel deposit. Not much of an experiment rally, except in the sence that it's the first time we've made Petit Verdot.

Our other wines this year are also in stainless steel, made in the same way we usually do, ie no unnecessary manipulations, or adding of 'substances'. This year we have:

Tempranillo (2 lots)
Airén (4 lots)
Garnacha
Shiraz
Graciano
Petit Verdot

Garnacha (Grenache) Tasting 2010

2010-10-04T11:14:00.001+02:00

I should have posted this post a bit earlier as International Garnacha Day seems like it's in the distant past now, even though it was only 10 days ago!

I only discovered that Int'l Garnacha Day even existed on the Monday (20th) and it took me 24 hrs to realize that I could actually do something about it, and organize a tasting! So on Tuesday (21st) I called Carlos, the owners of La Cave du Petit (wine bar, wine shop, bistro) during the whole day, but no joy. So on Wednesday (22nd) I physically went there, and hit him with my bright idea. It was complicated, because on the Friday all his (4) tables were booked for supper, and the place was too small to do a tasting at the same time, though he liked the idea. But over a glass of Alfredo Maestro's Viña Almate 2008, inspiration came: we would do it on Thursday night (23rd) but we would make sure that the tasting ran through midnight, so 'technically' we could say that we did it on the right day (Friday 24th)!

So I got onto my mobile and Carlos onto his laptop and mobile and we began calling people up: producers willing to come with their wares, and wine-lovers willing to come and sample them. We called a lot of people and by the time we were done, the bottle of Viña Almate was done too!

In the end, only a few people came, as was to be expected given only 24 hrs' notice. However, lack of quantity was more than made up for by quality :)

Here's the cast of characters:

winemaker Samuel Cano
winemaker Alfredo Maestro
winemakers me and Juan
wineshop owner Carlos
wineblogger Ignacio Segovia
wine TV producer Eduardo Benito
winelovers Fermín, Julián, Dioni, Sergio and Ben and Courtney

And here's the list of props:

- Vinos Ambiz (100% Garnacha 2009) (AVIN6475421703467)
- Patio Ensamblaje 2008 (50% Shiraz, Tempranillo, Graciano, Petit Verdot) (AVIN8201428759293)
- 3 different wines from Alfredo Maestro (all Tempranillo)
- A French wine from Carlos ("Terraine"?)
- A German Riesling from Carlos

Hmm, it seems that there was only one wine with any Garnacha in it! Well, that's only to be expected too, I suppose, given the short notice. Anyway, nobody complained! The main thing is that we all had a great time, talking about wine for over 4 hours AND I got to wear my loud shirt with (mis)matching fractal geometry shorts, and stripey socks :)

Here are the links to some great videos:

- VinusTV (I understand now why Eduardo Benito took so long to send it to me - The quality is excellent! To be expected really as he's a pro. See the VinusTV web-site for other wine-related videos. There's a short "interview" with each one of the producers. I've seen the video but haven't heard it as the speaker in my computer is broken. I dread to think what I was saying!!!

- VenderVino 2 videos taken by Ignacio with his mobile.

I could't take any photos or videos because that day because I forgot to recharge and the batteries were flat :(

The interviews are in Spanish at the moment, but I'm working on subtitles in English.

Final Harvest and Post-Harvest Report 2010

2010-09-28T15:58:00.001+02:00

Well, basically our harvesting is over, though there's still a lot of work to do in the bodega, and some loose ends to tie up (of which more below). It's been an exhausting 3 weeks (and maybe we bit off more than we could chew) but it's also been very productive, creative and great fun, even if a bit stressful at times. But I'm not complaining! This is what I love to do; and it does keep me off the streets, and prevents me from watching TV, getting bored, etc :)

The reason we harvested so many grapes this year is that it's part of our yearly expansion plan. We want to move up from the level we've been at the last few years (ie, glorified home-winemakers running an expensive, time-consuming, family-destroying hobby!) to at least maybe 'garagiste' level this year; and after that to 'small, viable wine business' level ('world domination' can wait a bit longer!).

This year we're in a 'real' bodega; it's a proper building with a roof that doesn't leak and walls that insulate from the heat and cold, a barrel room with AC and humidity control, and equipment that can handle larger quantities of wine. Now, it's not a chateau, so don't get any ideas, and the views are not spectacular either; it is in fact located in the industrial zone of Morata de Tajuña; it's, shall we say, 'functional' :) I'll post photos in another post, though some have appeared already in previous posts.

Apart from our own grapes which we grow ourselves in our vineyard in Carabaña, this year we also bought in and harvested more grapes from some neighbouring grapegrowers who farm organically. This is what we have fermenting in the bodega at the moment: Tempranillo 1, Tempranillo 2, Garnacha, Shiraz and Airén for a total of about 6000 l. One of the loose ends to be tied up is another possible 1000 kg of Shiraz, which should be confirmed or not this week sometime.

With these 5 (or 6) lots of wine, we have to decide what types of wine to make. One day Juan and I will sit down and work it out; the result could be an interesting and complex flow-diagram! We already know that some will be for young wine, best drunk within a year, and some will be barrel aged, assuming our barrel-sponsoring scheme works out).

We already have a few experiments in the pipeline:

EXPERIMENT 1: Sparkling wine, in collaboration with fellow natural winemaker Alfredo Maestro. Some of the Airén will be set aside for this, and in Nov/Dec we'll take it to his bodega, where he has the space, equipment (and knowledge) required. We've left some Airén grapes in the vineyard to be picked in Oct/Nov when they're super-ripe and have a high sugar content; these grapes will be fermented separately and then added to the sparkling wine, as 'liquor de expedición' (what's that called in English?)

EXPERIMENT 2: We're going to ferment some of the Airén grapes by 'carbonic maceration' to see how it turns out. This is done by putting whole uncrushed clusters in a fermentation tank and sealing the lid hermetically. See this previous post. We did it this way last year with Garnacha and the year before with Tempranillo.

EXPERIMENT 3:We're also going to let a lot of Airén grapes macerate in their own skins for a day or two, as if they were red grapes, again just to se how it turns out.

That's enough experiments for one year I think! With the red wines, we'll do three 100% varietals (Tempranillo, Garnacha and Shiraz), and also try all the possible coupage combinations, and based on tastings and advice, decide what to actually bottle.

Marketing

Then there's the question of what do with all this wine! Well, obviously we have to sell it so that people far and wide can drink it and enjoy it, and so we can make more and better wines in the years to come! So in a week or so when things have calmed down in the bodega, I'll be putting our Marketing Plan down on paper. I remember reading a funny comment to a post about a year ago, on the definition of Spanish marketing: "Make wine; wait for phone to ring." Well, it's not really funny of course, more like sad, as I image a lot of winemakers really do do that. But we're not going down that route. Probably the ONLY thing that's been clear to me since I started 7 years ago and still is clear, is that there are, and always will be, three equally important, and inter-connected, parts to our Vinos Ambiz project:

1) Grow (or buy in) quality grapes

2) Make quality wine

3) Sell it!

Pretty simple and obvious really. 1) If you don't have quality grapes, you can't make quality wine; 2) To make quality wine you have to be really careful not to do anything wrong/stupid/hasty/etc in the bodega, and if you have quality grapes to work with and you keep your machinery/equipment/everything scrupulously clean and hygienic, over half the battle is won; 3) and the part that many winemakers forget about but which I believe is equally essential, is that you have to sell it, otherwise you can't carry on making wine: I mean, even Juan and I and all our friends put together can't drink that much wine!!!

Other Items of Interest

- New Vineyard. This year we've taken on another vineyard in addition to the one we've tended in Carabaña for the last 7 years. The new one is just up the road in the next village (Villarejo). It's 1 hectare in area (2.4 acres), white Malvar variety, 30-40 year old vines. The first year we'll be working with the man (now retired) who used to tend it, as we convert it to organic. Should be interesting!

- Grafting/Planting. We've been meaning to do this for the last 7 years, but finally this Spring, it looks like we might actually really do it! In our vineyard in Carabaña, there are about 200 empty spaces where a vine used to live (it died, dried up, got knocked over by a tractor over the years) and another 50 or so vines that have gone 'wild' (ie the varietal grafted on top didn't take, or died, and the rootstock is sprouting directly). So in the spaces, we have to dig a hole and plant a rootstock+varietal and on the wild vines we have to graft on a varietal. We've finally met a neighbouring grapegrower who both knows how to do this and is willing to do it for us (we'll provide the unskilled manual labour, and look and learn).

- Webpage. I really need to get a good webpage up and running. Yes, I've been saying that for about 7 years too, but now it's becoming embarrassing! Dare I say that I'll have one up for before Christmas?

- Another thing I'd like to do is follow up on the 65 cases of Vinos Ambiz Airén 2009 that shipped to the USA a few months ago. I haven't been able to do that so far, what with the Summer holidays, harvesting and crushing etc. I've heard through the grapevine and from a few posts/comments/tweets that it's going down well, which is really encouraging. I heard that it was presented during the JPS Wine Tour at events in S.F., L.A. and N.Y.

That's about it. Thanks for reading. Any comments, thoughts, questions most welcome. In fact it would make me really happy!

Non-harvest Report 2010

2010-09-20T13:07:00.004+02:00

We had planned to harvest our Airén grapes in Carabaña on Saturday, and everything was ready to go (ie, crusher and presses clean and in position, van loaded up with crates, etc) but when we arrived at the vineyard at 8:00 am on Saturday morning we were afflicted by doubts. We hummed and hawed and walked the vineyard for about half an hour, and then decided not to harvest; for the following reasons:

1) It had rained quite heavily in Carabaña on Thurs and Fri, and it was a bit muddy underfoot. This means that inevitably the bottoms of cases get muddy and some of the mud will find its way into crusher, press, tank and lastly the must

2) The vines had sucked up a lot of water and the grapes were fat and bloated, and the must diluted. So if we harvested, the sugar content (as a %) would be lower and consequently the wine would have a lower alcohol content

3) A dark Cloud of Doom was hovering over Carabaña, while in the neighbouring villages (Tielmes, Perales, Morata) the skies were quite clear. We figured this was the universe sending us a message and we listened!!!

We then took a representative sample (not a quick-n-dirty one) and headed back to the bodega to crush, strain and analyze our sample. We were right, the probable alcohol content had dropped by 0.4% from the previous sample we'd taken before the rains.

Representative Sample of Airén Grapes

Dark Cloud of Doom over Carabaña

Skins, stems and manure

On Friday we were at the bodega pressing the Tempranillo skins that had been macerating with the must since the harvest ofer a week ago. Up to now we had always done this manually, using a press like this one:

Manual press (cage open after pressing)

We used it last week for the small lots of Tempranillo, Shiraz and Garnacha that we have this year. But we also have a 3500 kg lot of Tempranillo, so for that we used this hydraulic press:

Hydraulic Press

Basically, you fill it up with skins and must and close the lid. Then a bag inflates and crushes the skins against a filter around the inside of the shell. You can program the pressing cycle with your desired pressures, times and number of repititions.

Press full of skins, pips and must/wine

We set the press at one of its lowest possible pressure levels as we were a bit worried about crushing the pips, and releasing bitterness and other undesirable flavours and aromas.

Waiting for the press to finish

In the end, it all worked out well, and we didn't get any nasty tastes or smells from the last wine to dribble out. In theory we could have extracted quite a lot more wine, which would have been low-quality table wine, but we didn't. We think there's more than enough of that kind of wine in Spain, and in the rest of the world, as it is!

Dry skins and pips

Juan shovelling out the skins and pips

Ogre-size shovel!

Remains of our midnight snack

Above you can see the remains our our midnight snack, which consisted of jamón (ham), cheese, bread, wine and rolling tobacco!!!

Grape Harvest 2010

2010-09-09T18:25:00.002+02:00

Preparation for Harvest

Well, today is Thurs 9 Sept and I've just about recovered from the harvesting we did on Fri 3rd, Sat 4th and crushing on Sun 5th, and from the cleaning and preparation the week before, combined with the moving of all our equipment from our old bodega in Ambite to our new one in Morata de Tajuña!

First, we had to move out all our stuff from Ambite, which we did in a van. The heaviest things were the presses and the bulkiest the 700 l stainless steel tanks, and all the rest were bits and pieces. We also took along several hundred empty wine bottles for later use. The most complicated item was 300 l of wine which we hadn't got round to oaking. So what we did was load an empty 300 l tank onto the van and pump the wine into it. Then at the new bodega we pumped it straight into the oak cask.

This took about 2 or 3 trips per day over 3 days, as after each trip we had to thoroughly clean everything. At the same time as this was happening we were also negotiating with several neighbouring (organic) grape-growers with a view to buying around 3000 kg of grapes from them. This was because our own production is way down this year due to an overnight frost back in May, which killed off the tips of the new shoots. So we were visiting vineyards and negotiating all week too.

1st Harvest (Carabaña)

On Fri 3rd we harvested our own Tempranillo in Carabaña. This was pretty straight-forward and quick: we met at the vineyard at 7:30 in the morning (I took the van, which we'd loaded up with clean crates the night before). By about 14:00 we we done, as there was only about 400 kg. Then to the new bodega, where we unloaded, destemmed and crushed the grapes using a new machine (not by hand as usual). Then, cleaning up and loading the van again for the next day.

Harvesters harvesting Tempranillo in Carabaña

Crate of Tempranillo

Lunchtime

2nd Harvest (Titulcia)

Sat 4th. This was the big one. We had finally agreed to buy about 3000 kg of grapes and we had 1 day to pick them. We figured (on the back of an envelope) that 7 people could do it, ie 500 kg/person over 10 hours (with 1 person driving, not picking) which equals 50 kg/person/hour, which is five 10 kg crates person/hour, which is 1 crate in 12 mins. So much for the theory.

Well, in fact, it worked out more or less OK and we ended up taking 3900 kg (3500 kg Tempranillo and 400 kg Shiraz). We worked out exactly how many grapes we took by using the municipal weighing machine in Morata. On the trip out to Titulcia I weighed the van empty and on the trip back to Morata I weighed it full. The difference is the weight in grapes!

Municipal weighing machine panel (with token thingy)

It was hard, hard work, and it was hot, hot, hot that day. Tempers and nerves were on edge! At one point we ran out of water and had to to into the village to buy more (we had calculated 2 liters each and it wasn't enough).

Long rows of Tempranillo (in Titulcia)

Note the stones between the rows - they retain moisture.

Clusters of Tempranillo

Almost all the vines were like this one, ie very abundant and healthy clusters.

Crates of grapes awaiting loading

Loading up

Video clip:

Loading up crates of grapes

Lunchtime under olive tree

While driving to Morata with the 3rd load of grapes, at about 3 or 4 in the afternoon (ie the hottest time of day) I started getting all mystical and philosophical (light-headed? dehydrated?). There was absolutely no-one to be seen, neither on the road nor the villages I drove through; just the landscape and tarmac shimmering in the heat. Everyone was either having lunch or sleeping off lunch. I was thinking "What am I doing in the middle of nowhere in the Castillian Plain, at 40ºC, driving a van full of grapes? 'Normal' people are are watching TV or sleeping!!!" It must have been some sort of existential angst attack or something. Anyway, I'm alright now :)

So we finished picking and loading just as the sun was setting and drove back to the bodega in Morata. The last task was to move all the grapes out into the patio so they could cool down overnight and be ready for processing the next day.

Processing the Grapes

The next day (Mon 6th Sept) we discovered the wonders of mechanization! The new bodega that we're sharing this year is a 'real' bodega with a capacity of about 30,000 kg and is full of machinery and equipment that's needed to handle that quantity of grapes. For example, before it took us hours and hours to destem and crush the grapes by hand using this machine:

Manual Destemmer-Crusher

It now takes no time at all to do it using this machine (which has an electric motor attached to it).

Motorized Destemmer-Crusher

The grapes are tipped into the top; the stems are ejected into the blue box on the right; the must, skins and pips are pumped through the yellow hosepipe into the 700 l fermentation tank in the corner. I think we've just jumped into the 20th century :)

Fermentation Tank

A 700 l stainless steel fermentation tank tastefully mounted on a stack of three pallets and covered by elegant plasticized tablecloth.

Another novelty is this machine:

Pallet mover

Now we can move approximately 300 kg of grapes around all at once!!! Before it took us hours and gave us a sore back! Now it takes minutes and makes us grin like maniacs!!!

Here's another 20th century machine:

It's called "Pump"

As the name suggests, this machine pumps liquid from one tank to another, or from the bottom of a tank to the top of same. This latter task is in fact what we've been using it for recently. Whereas before we used to do "punching down" with a stick like this

Stick used for 'punching down'

we now do "pumping over" with the pump like this

Pumping over

The motorized pump (on the floor) sucks out wine/must through the thick hosepipe stuck into an outlet at the bottom of the tank, and pumps it through the thin hosepipe that snakes its way across the floor and up the side of the tank and which is hanging over the lip and over the cap of skins that floats on the wine/must.

Juan (left) and me (right) feeding the crusher

This is actually phase 2 of our quality control system. Phase 1 is in the vineyard where we ensure that we only pick ripe healthy grapes and don't include any leaves, twigs, pebbles, etc. During Phase 2 here, one of us holds the crate and the other drops the clusters into the crusher and removes any stray leaves, twigs, etc that managed to get into the crate.

The final task after cleaning up (at about midnight) was to load up the stems into the van and dump them in the vineyard in Carabaña, where one day we will spread them around and they'll decompose and improve the fertility of the soil. (More existential angst here, ie 'Why am I driving a van full of grape stems in the middle of nowhere at midnight, when I could be sleeping like a normal person!!!' but like I said, I'm alright now.

Grapes stems in vineyard at midnight

Well that's about it. Today was a day of rest, uploading photos to FaceBook, a bit of Tweeting, and writing this post. Hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions, comments, criticism, etc, don't hesitate :)

Taking More Samples

2010-08-27T11:35:00.000+02:00

I collected another sample of Tempranillo yesterday, though this time I did a quick-n-dirty job, ie around 30 berries only more or less at random from all over the vineyard. All done in 15 mins.

Sample of Tempranillo Berries

I just realized that at this stage it's not really necessary to be methodical and to collect a truely representative sample. It doesn't matter of we get a reading of 9% probable alcohol or 10%, as the grapes are obviously not ripe. In a week or two, though, it'll be very important to know of it's 13% or 13.5% for example! Duh!

It was 37ºC at 5 o'clock yesterday.

Wandering around the vineyard I came across this vine: see the incredibly long shoot/cane (what's it called in English anyway? it's a "sarmiento" in Spanish.)

"Oooo my! I've never seen one that long before"

(said the actress to the grape-grower)

Next, when having a rest, some water and roll-up in the car, I was attacked by a cloud of flies!! First I blew smoke at them, but no use. Then I tried rubbing oregano and thyme onto my arms and legs,

Oregano and thyme

but that didn't work either. Finally I managed to get rid of them by trying to take photos of them with my mobile. They must have an instinctive fear of social media! I could only get this one, all the rest disappeared!!!

A fly on my knee

And then, while driving to see a neighbour (fellow producer of organic grapes and wine), to talk about possibly buying grapes from him, (we have excess capacity in the winery and expect a small harvest of our own grapes this year), I took this photo from the window of the car. (I pulled over first!)

An ex-vineyard

That pile in the middle of the field are vines, that have been uprooted. There's been a lot of uprooting of vineyards going on in Spain over the last few years. The EU pays a few thousand Euros/hectare to vineyard owners if they uproot them.

Sampling and Analyzing the Grapes

2010-08-23T19:24:00.000+02:00

Even though it's very early on (harvest is still about 2 or 3 weeks away) we thought we'd start sampling the grapes now, so we can plot a nice graph and see how the sugar level goes up over time!

Link to YouTube: http://bit.ly/ahlmM3 (short video from vineyard)

You need about half a kilo of berries, which you then crush and strain. I thought that you could just wander about the vineyard and pick a few berries at random, but it's more complicated than that - according to my partner Juan - if you want a proper representative sample!!! Here are some of the criteria: berries should be picked from all over the vineyard - if not from every vine, then from every "x" number of vines; from the outside of the vine and from the inside; from the N, S E and W of the vine; from the bottom, middle and top of the cluster; big, medium and little berries.

Well, I made an effort to be methodical and I complied with the criteria, more or less, even though it took me more than 2 hours to collect the berries!

Tempranillo clusters (1) (22 August 2010)

Tempranillo clusters (2) (22 August 2010)

Pretty strange! Some clusters haven't changes colour at all! Any thoughts?

Tempranillo clusters (3) (22 August 2010)

Tempranillo clusters (4) (22 August 2010)

Then at the bodega I crushed the grapes, strained the must and poured it into a test-tube type container: 10.4 on the Beaumé scale, which looked up on a conversion table gives 10.5% probable alcohol content if harvested now. I also put a drop of juice on the end of the spectrometer, held it up to the sun and looked through the other end; you get a view similar to what a U-boat commander sees when looking through his periscope before launching a torpedo at the convoy! The three readings in the periscope were: 19% mas sacch.; 79 º0e; and 16.1 ºKMW Babo; I'll let Juan figure those ones out :)

(Next time (in a few days) I'll take photos of the process. I forgot to take any in the winery)

Ideally we should also test the acidity too. Over time the sugar content goes up and the acidity goes down, and the trick is to harvest at the optimum moment. Too much sugar and the wine will be too alcoholic, flat and heavy. Not enough sugar, and the wine will be thin and acidic.

Does anyone know a way to measure the acidity? (that we can do ourselves, that is, without having to send off samples to a lab)

The above reading were for Tempranillo: I also did the Airén, which had a Beaumé level of 7, which converts to a probable alcohol content of 6.5%.

A lastly, some wild vines (ie, where the grafted varietal didn't take and the rootstock itself is sprouting):

Wild vine (1)

Wild vine (2)

As I say every year at this time, 'next year we're going to graft a varietal onto the rootstocks'!! We never seem to find the time - but this time we really must do it :)

Lazy July Post

2010-07-19T13:06:00.003+02:00

Well, it hot and there’s not really a lot to do, except potter around, procrastinate, and check the vineyard every now and then, to make sure that everything is OK.

Apart from the fact that there are not a lot of grapes (due to the overnight freeze on May 6th – see this video: http://bit.ly/aMtKhR ) the vines are happy and healthy. So far this year, we haven’t sprayed any sulphur (or anything else) on the vines. A few weeks ago we ploughed up between the rows as the grass was extra high this year due to all the rain we got during winter and spring, so the vineyard look a bit scruffy at the moment, but it should look nice again when the grasses and flowers and plants grow again.

General View (not much grass or many flowers)

I made a video with my mobile the other day “A walk through the vineyard” which I’ve uploaded onto YouTube here: A walk through the Vineyard

A vigorous vine

A not-so-vigorous vine

Baby grapes (no veraisson / 'envero' yet)

Bunches (I)

Bunches (II)

White-flowered creeper

Grasshopper

New Vineyard

The other day, we confirmed that we’re taking on a second vineyard as of October (ie after the harvest). It’s near a village called Villarejo, just about 10 km up the road from the vineyard we have now (in Carabaña). It’s about the same size (1 ha), Tempranillo, old vines – even older than the ones we have, judging by the thickness of the trunks. I guess about 50-60 years. I’ll find out soon enough when we get to know the neighbours.

New vineyard in Villarejo

Note the the soil - completely different colour, texture and composition from the vineyard in Carabaña, just 10 km down the road! Note also lack of grass, flowers, plants, etc. We'll soon put that right :)

(I took a video too but am having problems downloading it!)

New Winery

And we’re moving into a new (temporary) bodega. A neighbour in the village of Morata de Tajuña (who also makes organic wine – and organic olive oil) has kindly taken us in for a year, to give us time to look for a suitable place of our own.

So we have to move all our equipment and bits ‘n’ pieces from Ambite to Morata over the Summer. But before that we have to clean and disinfect everything. All our wooden equipment (presses and barrels and accessories) are mouldy because of the leaks in the roof over the winter.

Wine Hits the Shops in The USA

The wine from our first ever international shipment has hit the shops in the USA. This is the wine that we sent off on June Xth by ship and which arrived in Oakland (CA) on July 8th. It’s a Vinos Ambiz young white, 100% Airén, unfiltered, no added sulphites. I don’t know exactly which shops it’ll end up in, but I do know these ones for sure:

- Paul Marcus Wines (Oakland, CA)
- Chambers St Wines (NY, NY)

I’ve had some feedback already, via a comment on this blog in the post below called Natural Wine Shipment

Happy summer

I suspect that this will be the first, last and only post in July, as I’m taking off to Italy (Barga, Tuscany) on Saturday, until mid-August. I’ll maybe post from there, though I won’t be doing much wine-related activities (except drinking the stuff, of course). I hope to visit Tenuta Valgiano, who make natural wine, and which is just down the road near Lucca. So have a great summer everyone. I’ll be back!