More Pruning – Days 3 and 4

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

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)

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

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

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

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

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

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)