Carabaña is a small village about 40 km southeast of Madrid. We have been managing this vineyard for 8 years. It is about 1 ha (2.5 acres) in extent and has about 1,200 vines: 800 are white Airén and 400 red Tempranillo. All the vines are about 40 years old, which is advantageous, as old vines produce good complex grape-juice. Production varies from between 2000 bottles to 5000 bottles depending on the climate in a given year.
We are planning to plant or graft about 250 new vines in the spaces available, where the original vines have died or gone wild. Apart from being a really interesting project in its own right, it will also increase production by about 20% when the new vines become fully productive.
Vineyard in Carabaña
2. Second Vineyard in Villarejo
Last year we took on another vineyard in the neighbouring village of Villarejo, about 10 km from Carabaña. It's slightly less than 1 ha (2.25 acres) and is planted to the white variety called Malvar. The vines are about 20 years old - not so old as the ones in Carabaña but still old enough to give a good complex must.
Vineyard in Villarejo
- - - - -
Another vineyard in Ambite (now abandoned)
In October 2008 we took on a second larger vineyard near Ambite (a village about 50 km from Madrid). It was about 8 hectares in area (20 acres) and had approximately 8,000 vines. Like the original vineyard in Carabaña, the vines were old (also about 40 years).
Production in a normal year should have been around 40,000 bottles, though this is always difficult to estimate exactly. This number is a statistical average for vineyards in the Castilla La Mancha region, but each vineyard is different and so it could be slightly more or slightly less.
The vineyard was very nice to look at due to its setting and, unusually, there was a very large oak tree growing in the middle of it.
Oak tree in the middle of the vineyard
The vineyard was divided into two plots that were very close to each other. The largest plot (5.5 hectares / 14 acres) was Tempranillo and the smaller one (2.5 hectares / 6 acres) was Cabernet Sauvignon. This would have been an excellent combination to have available, as the two varieties blend very well together, so we could have made several different blends (100% Temp, 100% Cab, 50-50, 60 40, 70-30, etc).
The Tempranillo Plot
The Tempranillo plot (see oak tree photo above) hadn't been pruned or tended for two years This means that the harvest for the next few years would have given less quantity of grapes than usual (it would have taken about two or three years to return to full production). In addition, the plot was right next to a game hunting reserve (deer, boars) and as the enclosure fence was in a state of disrepair, the animals had been eating the vine shoots.
The Cabernet Sauvignon Plot
The Cabernet Sauvignon plot also hadn't been pruned or tended for two years, but fortunately was not adjacent to the game reserve and so could have returned to full production quicker.
But then:
One year later (around September 2009) we decided to leave it. It turned out that that most of the vines were in fact dead! It would have meant uprooting and replanting from scratch, which would have been very expensive, and there was no way we could have afforded to do it.
This is a good example of an expensive lesson learned! We invested a lot of time and money in this vineyard.
Posts
