Wrap-up Post for the Year 2013

(This is going to be my last post of the year - unless something really interesting happens between now and the 31st, that is)

Well, what can I say that is not too boring? I think maybe a quick summary of all the different wines I've made this year would be acceptable, followed by some humour :)

Or maybe I should subject you all to my Great Thoughts on the "State of the Wine World" or some such enlightened topic. Nah, maybe I'll spare you for the time being and do that next year! In the meantime you can just browse though my assorted comments and thoughts and ramblings on the 11 different whites and 5 different reds that I managed to make this year: That should be quite bearable :)

New wines of 2013:

Panoramic view of all my wines

Whites:

1. Airén 2013. From Carabaña, fermented in clay amphora

This is the wine I've been making for the longest time. Since 2003 in fact, though no bottles exist from that time as far as I know. The oldest bottle I have is from 2006. I really regret not keeping a few cases back from those days. But who could have known then that it would have been an interesting thing to do at that time? Such is life!

Anyway, at the time of writing this post (mid-December 2013), this wine is coming along really, really well, I'm glad to say (as I touch wood). It's got body, it's got complexity, and it's got its terroir. Sí, señor! This is normal and par for the course for this wine, but it's really quite extraordinary for an Airén from central Spain. Those of you who know me and who read my posts know that I'm not one to blow my own trumpet (or beat my own drum, as they say in Spain!), but after 10 years of positive feedback, I really have no qualms about saying how good this wine is! Even if I say so myself!  All the other 100% varietal Airén wines I've tasted are all wishy-washy insipid affairs that don't have anything to say. (Except for Samuel Cano's 'Patio' Airén, that is. From La Mancha.)

This year's Airén (2013) is slightly different from all my previous vintages, in that the harvest was really late. About 20-25 days late in general. In particular, I harvested this Airén from Carabaña on the 19th October. And that meant that it didn't have time to finish fermenting before the temperatures dropped too low for the yeast to work. I think!  When I taste it, I'm pretty sure there's some residual sugar in there, so I think the wine will continue to ferment in spring (2014) when the temperature rises again. This is a bit of a bore in one way, because I usually release this wine before Christmas. Apart from being good for my cash-flow (!) it's also a really fun and enjoyable experience to drink this year's wine in the depths of deepest darkest winter. It sort of brings light to life.

So, this year, I'm not releasing it 'officially' or promoting it or actively selling it yet, as it were, but if anyone asks or orders it from me on their own initiative, then I'll ship it.

2. Airén 2013. From Morata de Tajuña. Amphora

This is from a vineyard only about 10 km down the road from my own vineyard in Carabaña. I bought the grapes from a young grape-grower who cultivates them organically.

I made this wine in exactly the same way as I made the one above, from Carabaña, ie:

Grapes crushed manually (using a manual crusher), then pressed manually (using a basket press), and then I pumped the juice into these two large clay amphoras. And that's it! Nothing else! I didn't add anything, I didn't take anything out, and I didn't subject the grapes or must to any other processing whatsoever. C'est fini!  All I have to do now is wait for gravity and the cold of winter to do what they have to do, and then bottle up in January or February or March. Maybe it'll be slightly, naturally sparkling? Who knows? I hope so.


3. Albillo 2013. from El Tiemblo. Stainless Steel

The Albillo grapes came from a vineyard a few kilometers from the bodega in El Tiemblo, overlooking the reservoir known as El Charco del Cura. See this post. They were picked by the owner, Vicente (86) and his family, while I drove the van between the vineyard and bodega with the boxes.

This was my first time making Albillo, but it's not going to be the last! I'm really impressed with this grape, though I shouldn't have been surprise because I'd tasted a few Albillos from the area before (by Daniel Ramos, Alfredo Maestro, and others). This is an awesome grape variety that should be way up there with all the other famous and well-known grape varieties. I reckon this is yet another case of Spain (or Spaniards) not knowing how to market and sell their products. Which are of course just as good as the French and Italian equivalents. But hey, what can I do? I'm not an NGO, nor am I independently wealthy, so I can't go promoting Spanish quality products in general! What I CAN do is promote my OWN quality products, which is what I'm doing. It's a bit of a bore having to work with this negative perception that the world has of Spain and of Spanish products, but... this is where I live and work, so let's just get on with it, no?


4. Sauvignon Blanc 2013. Amphora

This is another first for me. I've never made a wine with Sauvignon Blanc before, but there's always a first time for everything, no?  So, just up the road from El Tiemblo, in Cebreros there's a 'finca' (an estate) that produces very good quality olives, honey, vegetables, and ... grapes. I had the opportunity to buy some of those grapes, and I did.

Two days soaking on the skins, then crushed, pressed and pumped into a clay amphora, and into a stainless steel tank. Just like the Airén, nothing added, nothing taken out, no unnecessary processing.

At the time of witing this post (mid-December) it's tasting very nicely. No cat-piss at all, though I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing! For tasting notes and considered opinions on these wines see Nacho Bueno's blog here (in Spanish) and also Mar Galvan's tasting notes here (pending).

5. Sauvignon Blanc 2013. Stainless Steel

Same as above.

6. Chelva 2013 (A). Stainless Steel

Now, this is by far the most interesting experiment I did this year. And I'm definitely going to be doing more of it next year. I did three experiments, but two of them were failures in the sense that the wines were not very pleaseant or interesting to drink or enjoy. But they were of course extremely useful to me, as a winemaker. The third experiment is quite drinkable and interesting, though I'm not going to 'release' it for sale. I will of course sell it and ship it to anyone who orders it. See here for some tasting notes and opinions that are not mine!

Personally, I quite like it, and if no-one else wants it I'll just use it as my own personal table-wine for the year!

7. Chelva 2013 (B). Stainless Steel

Horrible. Crap. Don't even try it it, unless you're a wine geek. It has lots of academic, vinous interest, but it's not the type of wine that you can sip and enjoy while flirting or just having a normal conversation, or while having lunch! It's even more extreme that the above Chelva (A). But don't get me wrong, it has no faults or defects, and is perfectly drinkable, it's just that it's rather ... unusual, or maybe 'green' is the word, I'm not sure what the descriptors are. Basically, IMO, this is because the grapes were picked earlier than the Chelva (B). See about half-way down this post.

Chelva (C). Stainless Steel. This third Chelva experiment, I'm not even going to dignify with an experiment number!


8. Malvar 2013 (A). Amphora


9. Malvar 2013 (B). Amphora


10. Malvar 2013 (C). Amphora

Malvar, Malvar and Malvar

These three white, skin-contact ('orange') wines should have been all the same, because they're made with the same grapes, from the same vineyard (Malvar from Villarejo), harvested on the same day, and processed in exactly the same way - grapes destemmed and crushed manually and everything (must, skins, pips) poured into three different clay amphorae. The only difference is in the size and shape of the amphorae. And maybe the composition of the clay? Or the linings?  Whatever. The fact is that the three wines taste slightly different. I don't know yet whether to keep them and sell them separately, or to blend them all together. Time and tastings will tell.

In any case, I'm not going to release them for at least a year. I believe that 'orange' wines improve over time and age well (at least mine do!). I still have a few hundred bottles from 2012, and they are tasting really well. The complexity and intensity of the aromas and tastes are amazing.

Now the reds:

I think I'll write about the reds some other time, because at this rate I won't have this post finished till next year! Just to say that I have these 4 reds this year:

11. Tempranillo (Carabaña). 
12. Tempranillo (El Tiemblo). 
13. Garnacha (Sotillo)
14. Garnacha (El Tiemblo)

So Merry Christmas, everybody.  For the holidays in general I recommend you drink the wine you like, and will enjoy, and try not to pay too much attention to all these recommendations that ar in our faces everywhere :)

A Wee Anecdote En Primeur

I was at the Le Petit Bistrot the other week for the Beaujolais Nouveau night:

Le Beaujolais Nouveau est arrivé

By the way, as I've mentioned several times in the past already, Le Petit Bistrot is the ONLY bar in all of Madrid that sells exclusively natural wines (ie, wines that do not contain added ingredients, like colourants, thickening agents, sulfites, additives, preservatives, etc), a fact that never ceases to amaze and embarrass me as Madrid is the capital city of one of the biggest wine-producing countries in the world. But my primary reason for going, apart from quaffing some nice Beaujolais, was to meet a distributor who was interested in carrying my wines. So what better place to meet than Madrid's only natural winebar!

By the other way, apart from the 2013, there were also some wines by the same producer from previous years. Not carbonic maceration, but 'normal' fermentation:

More Beaujolais, but not nouveau

 And here's a pic of Carlos, the owner of the bistrot, who is French, despite the Spanish name:

Le Owneur de le Petit Bistrot

I thought that the name producer of the Beaujolais Nouveau wine in question was "Justine Titegoutte", (because that's what it says on the front label!) but it turns out that this is just French humour. Check out the Wikipedia article (here) or other sites of your choice. The idea is to fit a name before the surname 'Titegoutte' and make a play on words, or double-entendre. For example, the case in point: Justine Titegoutte doubles as "Juste un 'tite goute" (ie  'Just a wee drop") geddit?  I thought we British were the only ones to do that kind of terrible punning :)  

So, I didn't take a photo of the back-label cos I thought at the time that Justine Titegoutte really was the name of the producer! You'll have to contact Carlos at the 'titebistrot if you want to know!

Anyway, here's the lineup of my whites of 2013 that I brought along for this distributor to taste:

Airén 2013       Chelva 2013       Malvar 2013       Albillo 2013       Sauvignon Blanc 2013

Each one a slightly different shade of yellow-orange. The only one that really is an 'orange' wine, ie white-grape extended skin contact, is the Malvar; the others are normal whites with no skin contact, believe it or not!

They are all of course extremely young, the grapes having been harvested and processed in August (for the Albillo) and at different dates during September for the rest. So they haven't really settled and clarified themselves yet.

As you can see, I don't have proper labels yet, but I should have some soon. An artist, Jane Frere, from Inverness (Scotland) is working on them, and the artwork should be finished by new year.

Those are not all the white wines that I made this year, but I thought it would be excessive if I brought too many!  I really went over the top this year I think, because I actually have all these:  (11 different white wines from 2013)

Two (2) Airén (one from Carabaña, one from Morata de Tajuña)
Three (3) Chelva (all from El Tiemblo, but two different vineyards)
Three (3) Malvar (all from the same vineyard in Villarejo, but in three different amphorae, and so they all taste different! Go figure!)
Only one (1) Albillo (from El Tiemblo)
Two (2) Sauvignon Blanc (from the same vineyard in Cebreros, but one lot in clay amphora and one in stainless steel)

Assorted containers full of 17 different wines!

Well, I won't bore you all with the tasting notes, and I'll just say that the distributor liked them a lot and actually placed an order for some of them! So, I was very pleased indeed!  This is the time of year when we small artisan producers have to start promoting and selling our wines, as the harvesting and fermenting is finished, and there are no urgent tasks to do till after new year, when one can start thinking about pruning! So, good news! 

The interesting  (weird, even) thing about this meeting/tasting was that "this distributor" insisted on total discretion and confidentiality!!! ie, I'm not allowed to tell anyone his name or what wines he bought or how many of them. I'm still kind of puzzled at this. Also, he offered to buy "en primeur", ie he's going to pay me now and take the wines whenever I decide to release them, the only condition being that the price he pays now has to be less than the price I set when I release them. I don't know what to think any more!  The only occasions  when I've heard of this 'en primeur' business has been in relation to scandals and marketing media-circuses in Bordeaux and in Burgundy etc. And now it turns out that I'm doing it too! On a much much smaller scale obviously :)  But, dammit, now I'm going to have to start thinking seriously about all this!!!

PS. The reds that I made this year are another story, which I'll save for another post!

Harvest Report 2013: Dammit, Everything is Going Wrong this Year!

Well, not everything, but it's hard to be objective when all sorts of sh** happens every day!

I really shouldn't complain, because, despite everything, I've managed to find an awesomely beautiful and spacious bodega (winery) which has infinite possibilities, and which only requires a bit of time, thinking, and planning to make a go of. In the meantime, though, short term, many things are going pear-shaped, and my wine plans (such as they are) seem to be changing every other day. I've made a big effort this year to be rigorous and systematic, and to actually write things down on paper, but I wonder why I bother, as every day brings an new 'event', phone call, circumstance or whatever, that radically changes all my previous plans.

My awesomely beautiful and spacious bodega!

 Anyway, whatever. Here's my latest status, as of today:

Grapes in, wines made, wines being made:

1. Albillo. This year, I made my first ever lot of Albillo. Seeing I've just moved into my new bodega in El Tiemblo, in the Gredos mountain range, I just had to make some Albillo. It seems that this is a variety that is in danger of extinction, as only a few winemakers use it. The problem is that it's also used as a table grape, and is very expensive and difficult to find. I was only able to find a small lot of about 400 kg at the last minute (see this previous post of mine). The wine I made is now practically dry, or perhaps still fermenting very slowly, as I can get a slight whiff of CO2 when I stick my nose into the tank. I don't know what it's going to be like, but I think it will be OK and will only get better after the cold of winter. The fermentation was fast and hot, as I wasn't able to keep it cool, due to 'circumstances'. Next year I will definitely do at least two different experiments. Live and learn. And enjoy!


2. Tempranillo from Carabaña. I harvested it a few weeks ago, last Sunday 22 September. Lovely bunches, totally healthy, not a single symptom of mildew or anything else. I was well pleased. I destemmed and crushed the bunches by hand, and the wine is still fermenting slowly on its skins. The last reading I took a few days ago showed a density of 1020, so almost finished. I've been punching the cap down once a day (and sometimes no times at all). That's not a lot by present day standards, but I don't really want to extract it to death. Nice and easy does it :)  I think I'll press it off over the next few days, before the weekend, maybe. There's only enough to make one barrica (225 liters, or 300 bottles) of Crianza.

3. Chelva. This is a local white variety that grows mostly in Extremadura, but which is found around El Tiemblo too. It's a variety that is looked down upon and frowned upon. It's used for table grapes and has a very negative cultural and vinous reputation. But hey, so does Airén, and I've managed to make a pretty mean and interesting Airén over the past 10 years, which sells very well and generates positive feedback for me, so who's to say I can't do the same with Chelva? There's only one way to find out, isn't there? So I'm doing several different experimental lots this year:

- Chelva Experiment #1. Carbonic Maceration. On Wed 18th September I sealed up a 300 liter tank with selected whole bunches of Chelva. It's still sealed as I write today. Soon, I'll check it out and decide what to do.

- Chelva Experiment #2. Frutteto style. Acting on the good advice of fellow winemaker Daniel Ramos (with whom I'm sharing the new bodega), I laid out about 500 kg of bunches upstairs on the 1st floor of the bodega, in order to dry them out a bit and increase the sugar concentration. They lay there for about two weeks and the other day I also crushed and pressed them, and they had indeed increased in sugar concentration. The reading I got showed 12.5% of probable alcohol; which seems rather a big increase, so I'm suspecting that one of the two reading may have been a bit off.

- Chelva Experiment #3. Crushed and left soaking on the skins, 'orange wine' style. That's about two weeks skin-contact time. This could well be one of the experiments that go wrong. The sugar content was very low and hence the probable alcohol level - only about 10.5%. This could well be lost to acetic acid. I did in fact have a close shave, as the other day when I opened the lid to check the cap, I got a huge whiff of vinegar. To be expected I suppose, with no added SO2, and such low level of alcohol. But all was not lost, it was only in the cap, as the wine I tasted from the tap at the bottom of the tank was OK. So I separated the cap, threw it out, and pressed the rest of rest of the skins.

After all that, I decided to blend the 'frutteto' and the 'carbonic maceration'). The regular vinegary lot, I doused with metabisulfite (about 40 mg/l), and sealed the tank hermetically. I don't know what will happen, maybe it'll turn to vinegar after all, or maybe it will survive. I'll check it every couple of days. Maybe I`ll blend it in turn with the other already blended lot of Chelva.

I was going to do more experiments with Chelva but I won't be able to now. This is because the grapegrower I bought the grapes from is completely unreliable and I couldn't get him to harvest on the dates I wanted.  For some reason or another he unilaterally decided to harvest one day (19th September) and appeared at the door of the winery with almost 1000 kg of grapes. Now if I had been a hard-nosed business-first type of person I would have told him to get lost and sell his grapes to someone else, and that I didn't want grapes with a probable alcohol level of 10.5%; but I don't know why, I took his grapes!

Actually, I'm even more pissed off with that grower because there was another 1000 kg left in the vineyard, which I intended to harvest this weekend, but which now I can't, because he's gone back on his word and he's decided to use it to make some wine himself!  What a disaster! Basically I end up with 1000 kg of grapes that I didn't want, and I don't get the 1000 kg of the grapes I did want!

All I can say is that I won't be buying any grapes off him next year. In fact, I'm even more pissed off, if possible, because I turned down another local Chelva grower who offered to sell me his grapes! Grrrrrrr.

4. Garnacha from Sotillo de la Adrada. Last week, Sat 28th and Sun 29th September, I harvested three different plots of Garnacha. It was hairy. The weather here in Spain that weekend was weird. They were calling for rain, but not too much. To harvest or not to harvest? In the end I decided to harvest, because 2 of the plots were ripe and had to be harvested, and if we got wet, well, we got wet! In the end we were very lucky, because we only got rained on a little on Saturday morning, and not at all after that. So I took in about 2000 kg, all of which I've decided to ferment whole-bunch carbonic maceration. And there they lie, fermenting carbonically, as I write.

Harvests Pending

1. My own Airén, in Carabaña. I checked it out the other day and it's showing just over 11% probable alcohol, which is not a lot really, cansidering the time of year. I'm going to leave it for another week to see how it goes. It was lloking really good, totally healthy, no signs of any rot or mildew or anything. Touch wood!

2. My own Malvar, in Villarejo. It was showing 12% probable le alcohol, so I'm going to leave it for another 10 days / two weeks too. In contrast to the Airén, the Malvar was rather uneven. There were lots of vines that had ripe or ripening bunches and at the same time bunches with tiny immature berries. Very irregular.

3. Tempranillo, El Tiemblo. A nice plot of organic Tempranillo (officially uncertified but grown by a trustworthy grower), which was at a probable 13% last week, but still unripe.

4. Garnacha, from El Tiemblo. Also uncertified organic. Only showing 12% last week, so probably another 2 weeks to go.

5. Maybe an extra surprise that I'm not expecting? I wouldn't be surprised :)

Apart from all that

Now apart from all the above unknowns, I also have other complications or "challenges" to deal with over the next few days or weeks.

Firstly, adding up all the kilos of grapes that will be coming in, I don't currently have enough storage capacity to process them all! This is incredible and/or ironic, but true, as I'm installed in bodega with a theoretical capcity of 1.2 million liters of wine, in the form of concrete tanks (of 16,000 liters each). The problem is that I can't really use them, as I don't have enough grapes/wine to fill even one of them, and it's very risky to only partially use a tank (especially a concrete one). Because of the oxygen contact and possible contamination from the walls of the unused part. So basically I have to buy a few thousand liters of capacity in the form of bins, containers, tanks, whatever. And my only practical option is plastic, because of the price. I would prefer stainless steel, or clay pots, but the cost would be prohibitive for me. I'm almost tempted to do a crowd-sourcing thing, to finance the purchase of say, 4 or 5 1000 liter stainless steel tanks or clay amphorae, but I just couldn't deal with that now. Maybe next year.

Secondly, I don't own a van, so I either have to borrow one from a friend, or rent one. Or not, depending on whether the grapes are ripe or not!

Thirdly, I don't own any cases for harvesting the grapes! I've always borrowed them. This is ridiculous really, and I ought to just go and buy some; there're not even that expensive! So it depends on whether my friends/acquainances are using their cases or not.

- Fourthly, labour!  Whether to hire a few professionals for the day, or to invite friends and family? That is the question.

So, all things considered...

Writing a post like this is very therapeutic for me, because it actually really does put things into perspective. It's very easy, in the middle of the harvesting season, to lose sight of the bigger picture, and small insignificant details can take on utterly ridiculous proportions and make you lose the plot and/or obsess about trivialities! I think it's important to maintain your grace under pressure. It doesn't matter if it all doesn't go 100% according to plan. Like someone once said "No plan ever survives contact with the enemy". And anyway, it's not like this is making war, it's just making wine! Though it is a bit like being a general, or a film director at times, because you are the person who's ultimately responsible for everything, and you're surrounded by people (be they friends/family, be thsy hired help) who are constantly looking to you for decisions, orders and answers to their questions. If you happen to be a general or a film director and you do this kind of thing every day, then I suppose it's easy, but if you only do it once a year, then it's hard to keep on the straight and narrow, to keep that grace under pressure.

Also, I think wine is a slow business, and I don't want to over-expand too fast. I'd rather go slowly and keep the same level of quality that I've been keeping over the years, than throw it all overboard in a year. I think this will be a good year for me, no matter what happens with the rest of the harvests. I have an awesome bodega in the middle of an undiscovered, traditional, wine-producing, terroir-rich, mountain range! It's all up to me to make the most of it now. Who cares if if I got a hair in my soup, or got 1000 kg of Chelva that I didn't really need?

New Bodega - A Hot Summer Week

It's been a hot week here in Spain and I've been sweating like a pig all day and every day this last week or so, as I've been doing lots of physical work in the new bodega. But the end is in sight at last. All the important and/or expensive works have been done, and now it's the final bits and pieces:

- The insulation of the doors was the last major task, which we finished the other day.

The front door, insulated

The back door, insulated

And all the other doors (2 side doors and 4 main grape reception doors, all the same size as the above) are insulated too!

The insulation consists of expanded polystyrene panels, which we had to measure, cut up and fit jigsaw puzzle-like to the doors, which are made of thin metal sheets. They got so hot that if they had been horizontal instead of vertical, we could have fried eggs on them.

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Then we put up some gates, for safety reasons. We don't want any children (or adults, for that matter) to go upstairs, and maybe fall down into one of the fermentation tanks, as several of the covers are missing.

Gate - going up

Open holes with 2.5 m drop onto concrete!

Metal grill

All the holes should have covers like in the photo above, but many are missing. it turns out that building was burgled about two years ago and the burglars took about 20 of these covers and sold them for scrap.

Neither do we want anyone to go downstairs, which at the moment is full of old machinery, and assorted junk, apart from the original crusher/destemmer and conveyor belt. It's just too much to clean up at the moment, but eventually we want to turn that space into a museum/expo room using all the old wine stuff we found lying around, and which we've kept.

Gate - going down

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The conveyor belts are going next Monday. We managed to sell them to the local sawmill! Hooray!

Mobile conveyor belt

Fixed conveyor belt

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The other day I put up insect-screens on all the windows:

Window - before

Sheets of netting + silicon

Window - after

There were about 20 windows like the one in the photo above.

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This was lunch one day, in the bodega. Canned olives, canned aubergines, canned sardines, roast peppers in oil, bread, fruit and wine:

Lunch

Vineyards

I've seen three vineyards already, even before finishing the works at the bodega. Once they really are finished, I'll start looking in earnest both for vineyards to take on and also for buying in grapes.

The latest one I saw was this one, which is literally 5 minutes walk from the bodega. The outskirts of the village are now encroaching on it.

Vineyard in El Tiemblo

I really like this vineyard. The owner says he doesn't use any chemicals, and as you can see he doesn't plough up around the vines. The vines look like they are really old, and the grapes look very healthy and vigorous. My only doubt is that the variety is a local white grape called Chelva, which is mainly used as a table grape, and no-one makes wine with it. After asking around for information, the most frequent comment I got was along the lines of "Chelva's rubbish for wine - a bit like Airén" !

This is what Jancis Robinson, José Vouillamoz and Julia Harding have to say about it in their book Wine Grapes:

"Chelva is widely grown in Extremadura, Spain, where it is authorized, among many other varieties, in the Ribera de Guadiana DO. It is also grown, to a much lesser extent, further south in Andalucía, where it is authorized in regional wines such as Vino de la Tierra de Sierra de Alcaraz but not in any of the autonomous community's DOs. There were 7,490 ha (18,508 acres) in Spain in 2008, the vast majority in Extremadura (6,495 ha/16,049 acres), the rest in Castilla-La Mancha (845 ha/2,088 acres) and Castilla y León (150 ha/371 acres).Unusually, Chelva is used both for the table and for wine but most of these hectares are for wine grapes, producing rather neutral wines that generally disappear in blends."

Well!  What can I say!  So I'm going to make a experimental lot of white wine with it. Maybe I'll be able to prove the experts wrong again, like I believe I have done already with my Airén and Malvar, which are also not very highly thought of varieties for making wine with.

Rickety bridge over irrigation channel in the vineyard

Close-up of bunches of Chelva grapes

This is another vineyard I saw. Garnacha this time, and a bit further from the village - about 5 minutes by car.

fotos of 2 garnacha vineyards

Vines not so old, maybe about 30-40 years. The owners has retired and he wants to sell/rent/get rid of his vineyard, or at least sell the grapes this year. I don't know what to do yet. I can't think straight with all these tasks I have to do at the bodega!

I also popped into my own vineyard in Carabaña:

A lot of grass around the vines in Carabaña!

Parts of it are terribly overgrown and wild looking, as I haven't been able to tend to it properly this year due to the new bodega.

This part of the vineyard is not so bad!

But the climate has been favourable, and the vines are looking really healthy. There's lots and lots of grapes this year, and I've even thinned a few clusters from some of the vines, that were especially loaded.

Here's a picture of a vine that's climbing up a plant which I deliberately left growing right next to it:

Vine in Carabaña