Slew of Back-Posts (4 of 5): Some thoughts on “Authentic Wine” by J.Goode and S.Hassop

I’ve just started reading ‘Authentic Wine’ – only the Preface and Introduction so far, plus some sneaky peeks at the later chapters – and I’ve decided that I’m going to write down my thoughts and impressions on the book as I go.

I’m not really sure exactly why I want to do this, but it seems like an interesting thing to do, if only so I can come back later and read these thoughts at some point in the future. Thoughts and impressions are so fleeting and ephemeral and they disappear almost as soon as you’ve had them, and sometimes you forget you even had them in the first place; and then your opinions evolve without you even realizing it, so it’s nice to be able to go back and find them again. Well, I like to do it anyway! I’ve already noticed this sort of thing happening to me from re-reading some of my old posts from only a year or two ago.

Anyway, let me start (boringly) by saying that I like and agree with almost everything I’ve read in the Preface and Introduction. I like the idea if inserting ‘naturalness’ into a higher scheme of things, along with Terroir, Sustainable Vineyard Management, Correct Harvesting, Faults and Environmental Considerations, to create the concept of ‘Authentic Wine’. The diagram on Page 7 expresses this rather well, though of course you could tweak and rearrange, add/remove, give more/less emphasis to the items according to your own taste. I also agree that natural wines are more interesting, taste better and are more respectful of the environment. No debate there, surely? And I also agree with the vision that the wine world is becoming ever more dominated by homogenous, boring, commodity-type wines.

That’s the boring part over with! Why is it always boring if you agree with someone? Well, here’s the part I disagree with (even if only slightly):

The authors suggest that we’re at a crossroads or fork, and that there is a real choice possible of which road to take, ie on the one hand there’s the road to even more domination by homogenized, industrial, boring branded wines, and on the other hand, there’s the road to a return to an abundance of accessible interesting terroir-driven wines. Well, I agree with the ever-increasing domination of brands part of the vision, but I don’t see a crossroads or a fork; I see a six-lane super-highway with a tiny dirt-track exit ramp that the machines forgot to close off!

Call me cynical, but I don’t see why the ‘suits’ should change tack just so that there can be more interesting terroir-driven wines available. Why do I believe this?

1. Because wine industry corporations (like all other corporations) are first and foremost profit-driven. The present system works very well for them in that they make lots of profits and distribute lots of dividends to their shareholders; and this is the ‘número uno’ criterion for decision taking for corporations. Even bigger, more serious issues (like workers’ rights, environmental degradation, social upheaval caused by supermarkets, etc) don’t bother them in the least in their drive for profits, so I don’t see why a nicety, like having more terroir-driven wines, should deviate them from their present course. In fact, I don’t see why the wine industry should not keep going in the direction it’s going in, in the footsteps of the beer industry. A grim scenario, I know. But like they say in Spanish “Piensa mal y acertarás” = “Think bad thoughts, and you’ll be right” !!!

2. Because the present model works for the consumers too, for a variety of reasons: convenience shopping at the supermarket, pricing, influence of marketing/branding/labels, just not caring that much about wine, etc. It doesn’t look like that’s showing any signs of changing.

Lastly, I believe that the ‘greening’ of consumers (ie increasing awareness and concern about environmental and health issues) is a real phenomenon and a long-term zeitgeist thing that’s been happening for decades and that this is a real pressure on the wine industry, just like it is on any other industry; but I think that it’s a pressure that’s easily dealt with – wine corporations have the budget to ‘greenwash’ themselves and also to actually really reduce their environmental impact. But, IMO, that’s not going to result in more interesting terroir-driven wines being produced – just more of the same boring homogenized ones but with a smaller carbon footprint.

I hope I’m wrong about this. And I hope there’s a place for authentic, natural, terroir-driven, environmentally sustainable wines. Maybe all will be revealed in the following chapters?

Jamie Goode's blog is here

and Sam Harrop's is here

Slew of Back-Posts (3 of 5): RAW and REAL Experiences

Well, a long time has gone by since the Natural Wine fairs in London back in May, and they’re well off the blogosphere horizon now, but I shall post this post nevertheless, even if just to fill in the large gap in this vineyard-winery-event diary-type blog that I’ve been keeping for 3 years now!

Back in May this year, I went to both RAW Fair and REAL Wine Fair.

The first reason I went to the fairs was to meet all the wine people I interact with on FB, Twitter and blogs and forums, etc! In some cases meeting up again after some time, and in other cases, devirtualizing for the first time.

The second reason was to taste and talk about as many natural wines as possible. As I may have mentioned before, here in Madrid, there’s not a single natural winebar to be found so it’s extremely difficult to taste any natural wine.

The third reason was to meet UK importers for my wines with a view to working together for the 2012 harvest.

And the fourth reason was just to get out of Madrid and Spain for a few days!

So, where to start? With the wine shipment disaster anecdote!


Photo: wine boxes ready for shipment


Yes, I screwed up big time! This was the first time I’d been to a proper wine fair, ie big event, abroad, over 3 days and for which I had to organize a shipment of a significant amount of wine. Basically, I left it too late and didn’t use a company specialized or experienced in shipping wine! To cut a long story short, my wines didn’t get to London in time for the fairs! My emergency solution was to take some bottles with me on the plane; so I packed my suitcase with 12 bottles and had to pay for the excess weight to EasyJet. So what I had to work with was: 2 bottles of each type of wine over three days!!!

In the end, it all worked out fine, because I put a sign up on my table, saying “I’ll be back”. Then I would hang out at neighbouring tables and chat with the winemakers and taste their wines, while keeping an eye on my own table. If anyone stopped there for more than 20 seconds and/or cast their gaze around the room obviously looking for me, then I would go over and attend to them. Otherwise, I kept hiding! It was hard going – at 2/3 bottle wine a day over 8 hours, but I managed!

Panoramic view of the RAW space

On the Sunday and Monday I was at RAW Fair which was held at the Old Truman Brewery. It was a great venue. I loved the ‘ ye olde worlde’ look and feel of the place, ie a nineteenth century brick building with steel beams visible! Natural light coming in from the skylights in the roof. Nice high ceilings. All these elements combined to produce a great atmosphere of space and tranquillity for me! The technical aspects were all organized perfectly and invisibly by Isabelle Legeron and her team, and I still can’t think of anything to complain about!!! I really enjoyed the talks and presentations, and I sneaked away from my table on many occasions to listen to the speakers. The food stalls provided were awesome and (I must confess) totally unexpected as I’d resigned myself to putting up with ‘English’ food for a few days, never having had any happy memories of it in the past!!! And lastly, I really liked the smoker’s corner (a little courtyard in the open air) and I hung out there quite a lot, chatting, drinking a wine that I’d picked up on my way there, and generally having a great time. I even managed to get a RAW T-shirt after pestering one of Isabelle’s helpers for two days!

Smokers corner at RAW

In the vineyard in June wearing my RAW T-shirt :)

I also went to the Georgian dinner on the Monday night. All the producers had to bring two bottles of wine, which we put in a big heap on the floor, and then as the diners entered the hall, we all chose a bottle or two to take to our table:

Wine for the Georgian dinner

On the Tuesday I was at REAL WINE fair, organized by Doug Wregg of Cave de Pyrène, and was held at Victoria House in Holborn. The venue wasn’t so grand, as it was in the basement and the ceilings were quite low. But I wasn’t bothered in the least, and the atmosphere was buzzing allday. Tuesday was a trade day so I was more focused on working and networking, as opposed to chatting and networking as I was at RAW! At the end of the day I managed to meet the UK importers that I wanted to meet, and even some other ones from Norway and Canada as an additional bonus! The food stall at REAL were also awesome, which couldn’t have been a coincidence. I wonder if this says something about the tastes and preferences of the people who drink (and make and distribute) natural wines? I got to taste many wines that I’d only read about and which I’d been looking forward to for ages. Especially Arianna Occhipinti and Thierry Puzelat, but many others too.


Photo: real wine


Photo: outside smokers


Anyway, this was all only two months ago, but it seems like a whole world away. I’m looking forward to going again next year (to both fairs, if possible, if there actually are two again, that is). And I’d like to go to some other fairs too, maybe in France or Italy. I don’t think there’s much chance of a similar natural wine fair being organized in Spain, unfortunately. I think that there are too few producers and we’re too dispersed all over the country, and (I imagine) not capable of organizing an event on such a scale. Well, I hope I’m proved wrong.

Apart from the two fairs, there were also a few sneaky wine events that I thoroughly enjoyed too. (Well, they weren’t actually technically ‘sneaky’ in the legal sense of the word, more like additional extras outwith the official schedule!)

First was a Jura tasting, organized by Wink Lorch. I’d heard about Jura wines (especially from the enthusiastic Arnold Waldstein) who is a huge fan of Jura, but I’d never actually tasted one (such is life in the wine desert known as Madrid!) and so I finally got to taste about 17 of them all at one sitting, and meet a few producers, and chat with knowledgeable winelovers! Here’s a link to a post written by Wink Lorch herself, which has lots of info on the producers.

In good company at the Jura tasting, between Jean-Etienne Pignier and Wink

Second was a Garnacha tasting, organized by Ryan and Gabriela Opaz. Or ‘Grenache’ I should say, as the wines were from France. It was held at New Cross House (in the New Cross area south of the river) which is a pub-restaurant but which also had an open-air patio through the back which we had the use of. On this occasion, though I myself was sneaky, as I sneaked in an unofficial bottle of my own Garnacha in my rucksack, and subtly and discretely (I hope) poured a few sneaky glasses. And I managed to get another T-shirt from my friend Luis Alberto J.

#winelover T-shirts

Below are all the Garnachas that were poured that night. Marlene Angelloz just sent me the list, because I couldn’t remember and I didn’t take any photos either. I have to say that I’m totally amazed that there were so many! I was convinced that there were only two!!! I spent some time chatting to one of the producers, who was English. And I had no idea that Escocés Volante’s wines were there, as I’ve been trying to taste them for years! Still without success! Maybe I’ll manage to do so this upcoming Garnacha Day in September. Here's a link to a short video from the Garnacha Day tasting last year; the sound is not good, but you can see my loud shirt!

G-Day Producers:
Chêne Bleu (Le Crestet - Ventoux FR),
Domaine de Mourchon (Côtes du Rhônes Villages Séguret FR),
Clos de Trias (Le Barroux - Ventoux FR),
La Célestière (Châteauneuf-du-Pape FR),
Les Clos Perdus (Peyriac de Mer - Côtes Catalanes Roussillon FR),
La Gramière (Saint-Quentin-La–Poterie Costières de Nimes FR),
Le Clos du Caveau (Vacqueyras FR),
Vinyes Domenech (Capçanes – Catalunya - Spain),
El Escoces Volante (Calatayud Aragon Spain),
Pares Balta (Barcelona – Catalunya Spain)

Slew of Back-Posts (2 of 5): Hanging out with my Importer

So, next morning I duly arrived late for my meeting (1 hour late) as tradition demands (!) but they (José Pastor, Chris Barnes and Mark Middlebrook) out-Spanished me by arriving 1½ hours late. Not to worry though, because I took the time to have an extra coffee and to fiddle with my new SmartPhone, which I still don’t know how to work properly.

Anyway, first stop: the new vineyard in Villarejo, which is easy to get to from Madrid as it’s very close to the A-3 Madrid-Valencia highway, at Exit 48 km.

Here we are, in the vineyard, taking photos and taking in the terroir.

The vines are all Malvar – a white variety that would seem to be native to the Madrid region. It’s completely unheard of anywhere else, and it’s very difficult to fine any kind of wine made with this variety.

  

The vines are quite old – but not as old as they look. I’ll have to check with the owner but I think they’re only about 40 years old. It’s just that they are very vigorous vines. The soil is surprisingly fertile (not at all like the soil in the Carabaña vineyard, only 11 km down the road) and I suspect that there’s water not too far down below the surface.

Last year (2011) we made three different types of wine with these Malvar grapes:

-          Malvar, by carbonic maceration

-          Malvar, by carbonic maceration and 15 days skin contact in stainless steel

-          Malvar, by regular fermentation and 5 month skin contact in a clay amphora (‘tinaja’)

Our next stop was the winery )’bodega’ in Morata de Tajuña, about 15 km down the road, where we proceeded to taste everything I had!

No photos!

The next stop was for lunch in LA Tinaja restaurant in the centre of Morata de Tajuña. This is a great restaurant and I go there quite often. The daily set menu is €8 and the food and cooking are excellent. They also have an à-la-carte menu and the wine-list is good too.

The waiters remembered JP, CB and MM from the last time we were all there last year! I didn’t think that we had behaved that badly!

It was a very productive lunch as we worked out exactly which wines JPS wanted to take and how many bottles of each, and which I duly jotted down on the tablecloth.

Next stop: Madrid, and after saying our goodbyes, I went to meet my architect and … went back to Villarejo!!! We went to meet the owner of a building where I hope to install the winery before the harvest this year. It’s not a pretty building, but it’s functional! It’s in the middle of an industrial estate surrounded by industrial workshops and warehouses. 

I need an architect because the bureaucracy is so complex and ridiculously opaque and time-consuming that it’s easier (and probably cheaper, in the long-run) to pay an expert to deal with it! The most important issues seem to be the electricity and the water supplies. If these two areas don’t have the relevant paperwork in order then you can safely forget about the building itself – it would take months, if not years, and thousand, if not tens of thousands of Euros, to get it sorted. Apart from that, the application forms for a license and the supporting documentation to be handed in, are absolutely extra-ordinary and only a qualified specialist would be able to do it! Such is life in the inheritor states of the Western Roman Empire! I hear that it’s even worse in the East though!

After that, I went home and went to bed!

Slew of Back-Posts (1 of 5): Photography Exhibition

On Thursday 26^th April I was at an ‘event’ pouring wine. It was the inauguration of a photography exhibition by Jutta Pfannenschmidt (from Germany) and organized by Hanna Kress (from Finland), held in a municipal cultural centre (in Madrid).

It was a surprise invitation for me. Firstly I’d never been invited to pour wine at that sort of event – in fact I’ve never been invited to pour wines at any sort of event! The only events that I usually go to are our own annual tastings (the last one in December 2011 was held in La Tabacalera – see this post), the odd local wine fair here in Spain, and the occasional informal tasting/get-together here in Madrid. So it was really interesting to be there, at this art gallery, as the people present weren’t wine-geeks! They were there to see the photographs!

But, having said that, they were also interested in my wines, and I was asked a lot of questions.

Photo Exhibition

Mainly questions about organic grape-growing and organic winemaking, which was interesting as I got some good feedback on what ‘normal’ winelovers are interested in. I tend to get immersed in rather archane technical details – both from reading stuff on the internet and also from the geeky wine people I tend to hang out with! So it was good to get away from that sort of detail and to get a view of what real people are concerned about.

3 Wines - Orange, Red and White

I took three wines there: a white (100% Airén 2011, from the Carabaña vineyard), a red (100% Tempranillo Crianza 2010, also from Carabaña), and orange wine (100% Malvar from the Villarejo vineyard). I was a bit worried about taking this orange wine, as it’s a bit unusual and mainly for wine-geeks – or so I thought! But everybody loved it! It was by far the most popular of the three. Interesting!

Orange wine is basically a white wine, made from white grapes, but made as if it were from red grapes, ie, there is a period of skin contact while the wine is fermenting, and perhaps some more extended contact after the fermentation is finished. I’ve been experimenting with this type of wine for a couple of years now, and I really like it – I think there are interesting possibilities and scope for making some really good wines here. But I’ve only just started and I’ve got lots to learn and lots of experimenting to do.

There was good background music provided by Michael (from Poland) throughout the event. 

Me and Michael, the musician

I missed the opportunity to have my photo taken with the Countess Finck von Finckenstein, who is the cultural attaché at the German Embassy in Madrid! (#hobnobbing #namedropping)

I was also chatting to a young man from Georgia who said he’d send me links to Georgian wine and on the use of clay amphorae, or qvevri as they’re called there.

And lastly, I missed a night out on the Gin + Tonics with Jutta and Hanna and company because I was iron-willed and resolute and went home early (-ish) at 1:00 am, because the next day I had to get up early for a visit from my US importer Jose Pastor Selections. That doesn’t happen often (my being iron-willed!) – as I usually give in to temptation and end up getting home really late and suffering for it the next day!

Events - being overwhelmed by

Well, basically I've been so overwhelmed by events over the last two months that I haven't had time to post any posts on this blog, or even to participate on Twitter and on FB very much! But over that time I did manage to scribble down some notes and texts (on bits of paper using a pen!) for future posts. So over the course of the next week or two, I'm going to upload these posts, to fill in this gap, as it were.

I like to think that this blog is like a diary, with regular posts all related to the daily/weekly/seasonal routine in the vineyards, in the winery and other related wine events (plus the occasional rant on natural wines!). And it's a bit of a shame to have this big gap - a gap caused in fact by so many things happening!

Here are the probable posts:

- Pruning, why I finished so late this year (22nd May), how will this affect the vines/grapes, etc

- New winery, my experience with Spanish bureaucracy

- RAW Fair and REAL WINE Fair in London

- Some thoughts on the book "Authentic Wine" by Jamie Goode and Sam Hassop

- Visit from my favourite importer, bottling up, the ins and outs of, etc

- And maybe some ramblings on the natural wine corner that I've managed to paint myself into!



The first one should be out in a few days. Assuming nothing interesting happens in the meantime!

Pruning and Digging and Snipping Wild Shoots

Hopefully this will be the last pruning post (for this year). Not because I've almost finished the pruning, but because I'm getting fed up writing about pruning and would quite like to write about something else too!!! About vineyard and winery things, that is.

But, I do have some interesting (I hope!) anecdotes from my latest pruning session over the Easter break:

Numbers

I actually counted the vines that we have in the vineyard in Villarejo! It turns out that there are about 820. But I'll have to count them again properly one day and draw a map, because it's not so simple. The rows have 41 vines and there are about 20 rows, BUT it's not a regular rectangle! One of the sides is squinty so it's more like a lopsided parallelogram! Also, the vines are not planted in square grid shape, but in a hexagonal pattern (called 'tresbolillo" in Spanish), so each alternate row may really have 40 or 42 vines!

Anyway, as of Monday 9th April, I still have about 520 vines to go.

Wild Shoots

I'm going at a rate of about 10 vines/hour, which is very, very slow. The reason for this is the wild shoots that are growing around the vines, sometimes directly from the main trunk from under ground level, and sometimes independently rooted just next to the vine.

Ridiculously long, thin and numerous wild shoots

This must have been due to laziness on the part of the person who ran this vineyard before we took it over last year. It would seem that he just snipped these shoots back at ground level, without uprooting them or cutting them back properly from the main trunk. This would solve the problem for a year, but the deeper problem would just get worse and worse. As you can see from this vine above, for example.

Not all the vines are that bad, but I reckon about 75% of all the vines have some wild shoots that have to be dealt with.

State of the Soil

Well, as I'm digging so much in the soil, I've been getting a good look and feel of it! I think it's surprisingly healthy! There are earthworms, and other beasties underground, always a sign of a soil which is alive and healthy I believe. Above ground there's a veritable plague of ladybirds! I've never seen so many. They must be eating up every single aphid in the vineyard! Unfortunately I can't take a decent photo of them with my current mobile.

Other fauna

Butterflies, magpies and another type of singing bird which I can hear but have never seen. Moles, or mice or some kind of tunnel-maker, as can be seen from the holes and little piles of earth here and there. I presume that this is a 'good thing' as this will help aerate the soil.

Flora

The grass has started to grow, and some flowers and plants too. We have mostly little white flowers and little yellow ones and occasional little blue ones:

White flowers

Little blue flower

(pending: forgot fotos of yellow)


Wild Shoot Elimination Sequence

This is how I do it:

1.

This is the way a vine looks (1) when I approach it for the first time. First of all I prune the top, as usual,

otherwise the canes get in the way.

Next step (2) is to clear away the leaves and vegetation (if any) so that I can see what's there, and then to snip the shoots away at ground level:

2.

Step (3) is to dig a trench next to the shoots so as to expose the roots, down to about 20 or 30 cm. Sometimes they go deeper, but I'm hoping that at that depth they won't be able to grow back.

3.

Step (4): Snip! Snip! Snip!

4.

Then, pull the earth back into the trench, and lastly, superficially dig up all the earth and grass in a radius of about 50 cm around the vine, so that it ends up looking like this (5):

5.

Then, repeat Steps 1 to 5, and you get a nice row of vines that look like this:

One row done

I'm doing this so that the vine can have what little water is available. Otherwise the grass and flowers nearest to it would drink it all up. Normally, I don't think that this would be a problem for the vine, as it can access deeper water, but we're in a drought cycle here in central Spain, so I think that every little bit helps.

And the reason for cutting away the wild shoots is so that the vine can focus all its energy and nutrients on the fruit-bearing upper branches - instead of producing and feeding all those unproductive shoots.

The Rain in Spain

Well, even though it rained during the Easter break (enough to spoil everbody's holidays, as tradition demands!), it didn't really rain a lot, at least not to the east of Madrid! And here's the evidence to prove it: the second-last day I went to prune, at some point I took off my jumper, as I was too hot, and laid it on a vine intending to pick it up when ready to leave; but I forgot it, and there it stayed for two days while it was supposedly raining. When I noticed it the next day I went, it was almost dry!!! Only just a tiny bit damp.

My dry jumper after two days in the rain!

A Really Wild Vine

I found this beast (below) the other day, hidden in the grass between the first row proper of the vineyard and the road. I was just about to dig it up, when I thought that it would be nice to leave it alone and see what it does! So I even made its life easier for it, by cutting back the tall grass and flowers near it, and by pruning it a bit.

(dammit, lost the photo, will take again, next time, sorry)

The Natural Wine Movement (and my Back-Label Dilemma)

As I'm sure you all know, there's no such thing as the "Natural Wine Movement", except in the sociological sense, ie in the same way that there's a "Risky Sports Movement", a "Recycling Movement", a "Real Ale Movement", etc.

There's not really a Secret Inner Ruling Council (even though I leaked the agenda from the last meeting here!), no membership cards, no statutes, no articles of association, no head-quarters, no offices, no rules, no nothing.

What there is, is quite a few associations of natural wine producers, mostly in France and Italy. They actually do have rules and criteria for membership, and if a winemaker agrees with them, then he or she can join the association. Here's a list of the ones that I know about:

- Association des Vins Naturels
- La Renaissance des Apellations 
- Productores de Vinos Naturales
- VinNatur
- Simbiosa 
- Vini Veri

What there also is, is a whole lot of people who share an interest! People of all sorts, from all over the world, and from all walks of life. These people include:

- Producers (associated or not). There must be a few thousand, producing an average of say 5 to 10,000 bottles a year. Mostly artisans, tiny part-timers with no webpage, selling only locally to friends and neighbours; some small viable businesses, with proper labels, distribution and sales networks; and even some bigger ones bordering on industrial style wineries. And there's a whole grey area of traditional long-standing producers of fine wines who may or may not be 'natural' depending on your deifnition!

- Traders (importers, distributors, wholesalers). Difficult to work out how many there are, as some carry both natural wines, organic wines and conventinal wines in their portfolios.

- Retailers (winestores, restaurants, winebars). Again difficult to work out how many there are for the same reason, though I believe that more and more such places are opening up. Seems to be the only sector growing this days in the midst of a recession!

- Writers, journalists, bloggers. I don't think many actually focus exclusively on natural wines, though recently over the last year or so, more and more conventional wine writers have started mentioning natural wines - usually negatively and/or focussing on side issues.

- And lastly, consumers, with every kind of day-job under the sun, but who at night come out and indulge in their passion for natural wines. The most inportant category of all, because without consumers, the rest of us would have nothing to do! There must be thousands of them, and increasing in numbers every day.

All these people have one thing in common: we all love to drink, enjoy and talk about natural wines. We all know what kind of wine we're talking about, don't we, even though there's no legal or official definition. Maybe some of us would like to have an official definition, and maybe some of us like it the way it is now, and maybe some of us don't care one way or the other. I personally don't! Life is short! Let's just all get on with it and stop fretting. I mean, seriously, who's got the time and resources to actively attempt to get some
legislation passed on this? I think talking about this issue over a glass or two of natural wine is about the only effort I'm going to make in that direction! Cheers!

No Pedantic Definitions

It would be far too boring (both for me and for the readers of this post) to draw up my own list of forbidden substances and processes, in yet another personal definition of natural wine! Instead, I've decided to abide by Joe Dressner's 14-Point Manifesto, which you can read here (on Cory Cartwright's Saignée blog).

It's anything but boring! In addition I've added a 15th Point:

"I have the right to delete, add to or modify any of the above-mentioned 14 Points, based on how I happen to be feeling at any given time. So there!".

Also, I've decided to publish the information on the wines that I produce, with details of what I do and don't do to each wine. On this blog (and on my future webpage), on printouts, and on the back-labels. That way, the consumers can all decide for themselves of the wine in question is natural or not, or just how natural it is on the scale of naturalness.

Which brings me to the main point of this post.

Below is a draft of the back-label that I've been working on. It would be great if you could give me some feedback on it. I'd be especially interested in your thoughts on the inclusion what the wine DOESN'T contain and what HASN'T been done to it. Is this legitimate? Is it disrespectful or denigrating? Is it legal?! Is it a good idea? Does the consumer have the right to know both what's in a product and also what's NOT in it? Whatever! Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

- - - - - - - - -
I consider this bottle of wine to be natural wine because of the Ingredients.

It contains the following:

• Fermented organic grape juice

And it doesn't contain the following:

• Traces of pesticides, insecticides, herbicides and fungicides
• Industrial enzymes
• Industrial bacteria
• Industrial yeasts
• Colourants
• Preservatives
• Flavour enhancers
• Acids
• Sugar, fruit juice, fruit extracts
• Added water
• Wood chips
• Tannin powder
• Sulphites or other chemicals

I also consider this bottle of wine to be natural wine because of the Processing.

I did these things to it:

• Crushed the grapes
• Pressed the grapes
• Racked the wine from one tank to another

And I didn't do these things to it:

• Heat up the wine
• Cool down the wine
• Filter the wine
• Clarify the wine
• Use reverse osmisis
• Use spinning cones
• Use cryo-extraction
• Use sterile filtration
• Use any other agressive techniques

I believe that all the above information is legitimate and relevant, and that the potential consumers have the right to know about the ingredients and processing of the product they are about to buy.

Signed
(Fabio, grapegrower, winemaker and marketer)
 

Some Vineyard Photos and Comments

Yet more pruning today in the 'new' vineyard in Villarejo. New in the sense that that this is only the second year that we've been caring for it. The vines are actually about 20 years old (Malvar variety).

It's really slow going, as just about every vine has wild shoots growing out of the trunk from under ground level. I remembered to take some photos this time!


Wild shoots from below ground level

 This means that I have to dig down and expose the point where the shoots grow out the trunk and then cut them off. They're usually about 20 to 30 cm deep under ground level. It takes about 10 - 15 mins per vine.

More wild shoots

I only managed to prune about 40 vines today.

This is what the end result looks like, after excavating, cutting of the shoots, and filling in the hole:

Pruned and ready to go

I think the vines are running a bit late this year. The buds are only just starting to show the first signs of swelling, and absolutely none have opened.

And to finish off, our friends and super-predators - the ladybirds:

Ladybird on the landing pad

This photo is quite amazing. I caught it right at the moment of take-off! If only I had a higher quality mobile!

Ladybird taking off