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?

A Whole Day Spent NOT Working at the Bodega

Yes, the other day (Tuesday 13th)* I actually did something other than clean, paint, tidy up or otherwise work at the new bodega! I was so fed up and bored by all this bodega work, that I jumped at the invitation I got to participate in an organic produce farmer's market, as part of the traditional Fiestas de la Paloma held every year in Madrid.

It was a bit of a disaster commercially speaking, but I had a great day nevertheless, as I rested both physically and mentally from the bodega. Basically I sat on my butt all day on a chair behind my counter and chatted to my fellow organic producers and did a lot of good networking!

Calle Calatrava, Madrid

This was what the street looked like for most of the day. Not surprising really if you think about it. First, during the day in the centre of Madrid, it's really hot and airless. Second, the Fiestas de la Paloma is a night-time drinking and partying kind of fiesta, not really a time to go shopping for organic produce!

Me and my wines!

I think I enjoyed myself so much, despite the heat and lack of customers, because technically speaking I was "working" even though I had nothing to do! So I didn't feel guilty about not doing anything useful or productive, as it were!

Next to me on one side was a nice couple, Gabi and María, who produce organic vegeatables in Chinchón, a town about 40 km from Madrid, and not far from Morata de Tajuña. They have a stand at the Mercado de la Cebada, a municipal market in the Latina District of Madrid. They also sell boxes of organic veg via the internet, and go by the name of Rayo Verde. On the other side was a producer of organic honey.

I also met a young photographer who works for an online newspaper (no paper version) that covers local events in Madrid: Madrid Diario.  His name is Kike and he took this photo of me!

Me again!

Then, in the evening, there was a cheese and wine tasting, organized by Slow Food Madrid, at this winebar, also in Calle Calatrava:

"El Almacén de Vinos" on Calle Calatrava

An excellent winebar with an interesting winelist, and good atmosphere. Well frequented too, in fact there were more poeple inside that on the street that evening!

Cheese 'n' wine tasting

A great time was had by all but technically speaking the tasting was a bit of a disaster! The bar was full of normal customers and people who had come specially for the tasting, but there was no way to separate them, nor was there any way to get the normal customers to keep quiet while we spoke!

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Then yesterday (Thursday 15th) I spent at both bodegas, the old one in Morata de Tajuña and the new on in El Tiemblo, and a very pleasantly spent day it was too, because I was accompanied by two 'helpers':  Nacho Bueno, a Spanish winelover and blogger (his blog is here, in Spanish) and who sponsored one of my barriques a few years ago (see this post) and with whom I made a coupage called "Las Cinco en Punto" (Five on the Dot) back in 2010. And Omri Ram, an Israeli wine student, who I knew from Facebook but who I met for the first time.

Here are my two helpers, working hard!  Omri bottling up the Malvar Amphora 2012 and Nacho on the corking machine:

Happy Helpers :)

We then loaded up the car with stuff and went to El Tiemblo, where we did a nice tasting of some of the wines I had there.

Left-to-right:  Malvar, Airén, Airén

The most interesting ones we tasted were:

An orange wine (Malvar 2011) (above, leftmost) which I found in the boot of my car last week! It must have been in there for months, with the heat easily reaching 40ºC when parked out in the sun. So I wanted to see how it was. The cork had already been pushed out by about 1 cm. Incredibly the wine was just fine. Omri took it home with him, and hopefully he'll provide his opinion and some tasting notes shortly :)

The two Airéns above are EXACTLY the same except for the fact that one (right) was crushed in a manual crusher, while the other (middle) was crushed underfoot. Same vineyards, same day of harvest, same pressing, same fermentation tanks, same racking, same everything!

The other interesting wine was this experiment I did last year, with an unknown variety called Rojilla (see this post).

A big bottle of Rojilla

This was the first time I or anyone had tasted it since it was made last harvest in 2012. I was really pleased with it. The colour was very light, almost liker a rosé, despite having spent 12 days on the skins before pressing. Aromas were delicate and fruity and in the mouth too. Shame there's only one bottle of it, even though it's quite a big bottle :)

Rojilla in the glass

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*  Not a lot of people know this, but Tuesday 13th is considered to be a bad luck day in Spain, just like Friday 13th in English-speaking countries. Go figure. In Italy, it's Tuesday 17th! go figure even more!

Pruning, Planting, Bottling, Looking for a Bodega, Tastings, ...

Pruning

Well, it's pruning season again this year, and I'm running late again. There's just so much to do, apart from pruning, and apart from holding down a day-job and seeing my wife and kids every now and then!

Carabaña vineyard, half pruned

The ideal period for pruning, in my opinion, is between when the leaves fall off the vines (in December, more or less) and when the sap starts to flow (in spring more or less). This is because if you prune before the sap stops flowing or after it starts flowing, then you're removing valuable nutrients and strength from the vine. Some of my neighbouring grapegrowers start really early, before the leaves have fallen off, and some even do a pre-pruning at the same time as the harvest!!! Surely not good for the vines in the long term?

Unpruned vine

In Carabaña and in Villarejo the sap has started flowing. It's called the "lloro" in Spanish, which means 'weeping'. I've finished pruning in Carabaña, but I've only just started in Villarejo and it will take me another week to finish there. Oh well, at least I'm not running so late as last year, when the vines had actually started sprouting little leaves. In early May!!!

Planting

At last, after 10 years of talking about it and thinking about it, but not actually doing anything about it, I'm going to plant new vines in the empty spaces in the Carabaña vineyard. There are about 200 of them. I've done a bit of research and asked around already, and it seems that one of the most important things to consider is the choice of rootstock. Apart from the usual criteria, like climate, resistance to certain diseases, etc, in this case it's important to bear in mind that the new vines are going to be planted in an existing vineyard, as opposed to a totally new vineyard. So the rootstock has to be extra vigorous so as to be able to survive and thrive against the competition of their neighbouring old vines, which already have a deep and extensive root system.

If you look carefully at this above photo, you can see a few of these spaces.

I still haven't decided what variety to graft onto the rootstock. I could just go for Tempranillo or Airén, which are already in the vineyard, or go for an 'interesting' but unknown and uncommercial local variety, like Malvar or Torrontés (a Madrid variety, not to be confused with the Argentinean Torrontés or the Gallician Torrontés).

BTW, there's a local saying which goes: "Torrontés, ni la comas ni la des, que para buen vino es!", and which translates as something like: Torrontés, don't eat it or give it away, it's for making good wine, yay!

Then, apart from the empty spaces, there are also the vines which have run wild, ie the rootstock itself has sprouted and the grafted variety has died. Here I have the choice of uprooting the whole vine and planting a new one, or cutting it back and grafting a variety onto the existing rootstock. There are about 50 of these wild vines. And there are also about 50 old vines which have died but which are still in the ground. These have to be uprooted and new ones planted.

But one thing at a time! This year I'm just going to plant in the empty spaces and leave the wild vines and dead vines for another year!

Bottling

At the same time as the pruning, I've also been bottling up. On days when it's been raining too much to be able to go prune. I don't usually do this, but just bottle up from the tanks as orders come in all through the year. Which is convenient in the short term, but there comes a time, before the harvest, when I have to free up all the tanks, and so have to bottle everything that's left all at once. So this should gain me some extra time and peace of mind during harvest preparation time in August!

Yours truly bottling up some Malvar

Lo-tech gravity-driven bottling line

Looking for a Bodega

What a nightmare! What a country to try and do business in! Here we are in the middle of the longest deepest economic recession since the Great Depression of 1930, and there are hundreds of empty buildings, and even actual wineries, for rent everywhere. But is it simple, easy and straight-forward to rent one and start a wine business? No way, José! You'd think that local authorities would be interested in helping, or at least not hindering, small business startups, but unfortunately, it's not the case. The amount of red-tape and bureaucratic obstacles is just ridiculous. I'm not talking about sensible and valid requirements, like safe electrical installations, water connections, fire extinguishers, ventilation, etc, which is perfectly fine. I'm talking about other requirements like having to present an official project description, which you can't just type up yourself, but have to pay an 'expert' to do. And funnily enough it's usually the municipal architect/planning officers who say that as it happens they themselves can do those reports AND sign them off quickly and that'll be €2000 please, thank you very much! And other 'obstacles' which just magically disappear when money is passed! Oh well, mustn't complain! I will find a way!

Tastings

Thank goodness for tastings! Where would we be, and what would life be like without tastings? I hate to think! Anyway, I remember at least two tastings that I was at recently! The first was a tasting of some of my own new wines from 2012: a white (Airén), a red (Garnacha) and an 'orange' (Malvar). It was at Le Petit Bistrot, a bar/restaurant in Madrid, where they exclusively serve natural wines. The only natural winebar in Madrid - incredible but true. How can a country that produces 50 gazillion liters of wine every year only have one natural winebar in its capital city? Don't all shout out at once! Anyway, the tasting was a small, informal affair, with about 15 people, and I chatted and tasted with them all and answered their questions. I didn't have to give a speech or presentation in the end, though I'd prepared one!

The other tasting was even more informal, as it was just a bunch of friends who decided to get together one evening and do a blind Garnacha tasting just for fun, and see if we could guess where the Garnacha came from. We did it in the Vinoteca Pelayo in the Chueca district of Madrid. In the end we were not very successful at all in guessing the regions, even though some of the people there were experienced tasters, and in the wine trade!

A Bottle of Garnacha!

Visits

I also did another two mini-tastings with two Spanish journalists/bloggers in the space of 4 days from each other. Just like the number 27 bus, which never comes and then two come along at once! The first was Joan Gómez Pallarés, who apart from being a food/wine blogger, is a professor of Classical Literature at Barcelona university. He is currently on a month's leave and is touring round Spain, tasting regional foods and wines, and blogging about them, and he included me in his itinerary. He's already written a wonderful post (in Spanish) on his blog about his visit.

The next visit was from Mar Galván, who is a writer and professional wine-taster. She has her own blog here for her poetry and writings, and she also writes wine-related articles for Verema, which is the biggest Spanish language online wine site. A few days after her visit to me, she was participating in the final round of El Nariz de Oro ("The Golden Nose") blind tasting competition.

Mar Galván in the Villarejo Vineyard

Panoramic view of the Villarejo vineyard, taken by Mar

Another Geeky Natural Wine Transport Post (and more)

Following close in the wake of two pallets which have already safely landed in New York, another three pallets of natural wine from Vinos Ambiz (and six pallets from Alfredo Maestro) are on their way to the port of Oakland, California. They are aboard the good ship "Bellavia" who just left the port of Sines (Portugal) a few days ago and is right now somewhere in the middle of Atlantic Ocean bearing a precious cargo of natural wines from different producers from Spain, thanks to importer Jose Pastor Selections. She is due to arrive at the Panama Canal on 17th March.

The Good Ship Bellavia

 (© Patrick Lawson, MarineTraffic.com)

Oh, we sailed on the good ship Bellavia

Out of Arabia and into Moldavia
Cried the crew “No, no more natural wine!
“Give us back our grog and our brine”
or we’ll sail her and sink her in Moravia.

Check out her progress here:


This is such a cool site! At the click of a mouse you can bring up all sorts of useless interesting information on the progress of my (and others’ ) wines on their way from Europe to America, and which will then be distributed to warehouses and eventually find their way into restaurants and winestores all over the West Coast of the USA. Amazing!

Villarejo Vineyard

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, about 450 km from the nearest coastline, in the middle of the Iberian Peninsula, here’s a photo (below) of the vineyard in Villarejo (where the Malvar grapes are from) that I took the other day. A grey and cloudy day, raining on and off. See the grass just starting to grow, see the really old vines (>100 yrs) with really deep roots, so that the surface grass with tiny short roots doesn’t compete for the scarce water, but instead provides biodiversity for insects and micro-life. :)



A grey day in Villarejo



A grey day in Carabaña too

Pruning season

Have started pruning, and am off to a good start. I've finished half of Carabaña already, and when I finish there, I'll start on Villarejo.

Wines of 2012 – A Tank Tasting (or Progress Report)

This seems a good moment to post a progress report on all my wines and experiments from 2012, because it’s the deepest, darkest coldest point of the year here in central Spain, so the wines have already progressed and developed and evolved a bit, and they’re already showing an indication of how they’re going to proceed.

I’m writing this while touching wood because it would be just typical if I were to say that they’re all coming along fine, and then two days later something awful would happen!

But the fact is, that all the wines are doing just fine (more or less!):

1.Airén. This is a wine I make every year, and can be drunk very young. In fact, I started bottling it in December and have been distributing it locally here in Madrid already. At this stage in its life cycle it’s very fruity both in the nose and in the mouth. It’s nothing like any other 100% Airén you may find on sale (generally wishy-washy, insipid, and inoffensive), as this wine actually has a good body, and intense aromas and tastes. As time goes by, it loses it fruity, flowery characteristics, and becomes quite dry and sherry-like. By June/July it is in fact totally sherry-like. Some years, it’s sparkling for the first few months, but this year it’s not.

2.Tempranillo. This is another wine that I make every year. This year, due to the drought and to the rabbits, I only harvested enough grapes to make one (1) barrel of Crianza! At the time of writing (Jan 13) it’s still in the stainless steel fermentation tank, and I racked it once, a few days after pressing, back in October. I’ll move it into an old barrel as soon as I have time, maybe in February, where it will sit for about a year or so, depending on how old the barrel was, and on tastings,

3.Malvar No.1. I made one lot of Malvar (from 100-yr old vines from Villarejo) by straight carbonic maceration. Clusters destemmed and sealed in a stainless steel tank for 15 days. Then crushed and pressed, and left alone to finish fermentation. Tasting good, maybe to be released in March.

4.Malvar No.2. The second lot of Malvar (from the same vineyard) I made with about 30 days skin contact. This is the so-called “orange” wine. Tasting good. I don’t know whether to release or not, because I think it might even get better over time. Have to think. And taste.

5.Malvar. No.3. The third lot of Malvar (still from the same vineyard) I made in old clay amphoras (or ‘tinajas’ as they’re called in Spain) (or ‘qvevri’ as they’re called in Georgia). Back in September, I crushed the grapes and poured everything into the amphorae. I punched down the cap for a week or two, until it stopped rising, and haven’t touched them since then! I scoop out a sample every now and then from the top of the amphora, to check it. Beautiful! (touch wood). Tasting good. This lot I’m definitely going to let sit there for at least six months, maybe even longer, on all the skins and pips, which have already sunk to the bottom.

6.Malvar No.4. The same as the amphora above, but in an old open top oak barrel. I have no idea what to do with this lot! So I guess I’ll just leave it alone, keep tasting it, have tasters taste it, and decide some other time!

7.Garnacha No.1. This is a lot of Garnacha from the Sierra de Gredos (specifically from the village of Sotillo de la Adrada). I’m totally amazed by this wine, and I’m kicking myself for not taking proper notes, because I’d like to make more of it next year, but I fear I can’t remember exactly what/how/when I did what I did! This Garnacha is total drinkable now! I think it would be a loss if I were to try and age it or blend it or whatever. I need to have some more tasters taste it and get feedback from them, but my heart/intuition (and feedback received to date) tells me that this has to be a young wine and it has to be drunk now.

8.Garnachas Nos.2 and 3. These are other lots of Garnachas from Gredos, one from Sotillo de la Adrada, and one from Méntrida. These are all still evolving, and are not very nice to drink young at the moment, unlike Lot No.1. Again I need to have some tasters taste them, but I think these will be good for blending and/or aging. It’s early days though, and they’ll continue to evolve over spring.

9.Garnachas Nos.4 and 5. Same as above (Nos.2 & 3), but with a spontaneous ‘velo de flor’!

10.Rojilla experiment. I’ve only got 1 ‘arroba’ of this strange, uncommon, unknown grape variety. It’s in a glass demijohn and I haven’t tasted it since last October, so I’ve no idea how it’s turned out.

And that, I’m afraid to say, is that!

I was expecting to do a lot more in 2012, but the rabbits, the weather, and the Spanish bureaucrats prevented me from achieving my goals. But not to worry. This year I shall try again. Basically, I hope to find a bigger winery/shed/place in which to make more wines. That’s not much to ask for, is it?

Malvar Harvest 2012

(Sunday 13th October 2012)


I had arranged to meet two experienced grape-pickers at the Villarejo vineyard at 8:00 sharp but I almost didn’t make it, as I couldn’t get the van to start!

The night before I had hosed down about 100 plastic fruit cases and loaded them carefully in the correct configuration; and I had remembered to bring extra scissors – just in case. And I had remembered to bring water, and a hat, and even to put some petrol into the van. All systems go! But then at 7:15 outside my house, the van wouldn’t start! What to do?

Well, I got out the van, rolled up a cigarette, and smoked it while frowning at the van, and thinking of options. But I couldn’t think of any feasible options, apart from to call the pickers and arrange another day! So I got back in, turned the key, and the engine started! Go figure! And it went perfectly for the whole day!

Anyway, I arrived at 8:00 as planned, and we started picking at about 8:15, as it took us 15 mins to unload the crates and stack them next to the van. Then we picked till about 13:00 without stopping. We would make piles of full crates wherever it was convenient and then we would take turns to carry them to the van. It made a change from just picking. Each crate could hold about 8 or 9 kg of grapes, so we could carry two at a time.



Picker posing with the biggest bunches we could find!

We didn’t overfill the crates, so that they could be stacked without the crates above pressing down and crushing the grapes in the crate below.

At about 13:00 I made a trip to the bodega in Morata de Tajuña as the van was full. I unloaded all the crates and stacked them on pallets and took them inside.

Unloading and stacking onto a pallet

Then I loaded up more empty crates. Next stop was a bar where I bought a ‘bocadillo de tortilla francés con tomate’ (half a baguette with plain omelette and tomato) which I ate while driving back to the vineyard.

The pickers had brought their own lunch and were already back at work when I arrived. We finished at about 17:00. We drove back to the bodega, where they helped me unload and stack the crates on pallets, and we were done. I decided to leave the grapes inside the bodega where the night-time temperature would drop to about 10ºC, and then next morning I would start to process them.

Malvar grapes ready for processing

One of the pickers asked me if I needed any more help in the vineyard, and I said that maybe yes, from January onwards to help me dig up and cut off the wild shoots that I didn’t have time to do last year (see this post).

2000 kg of grapes picked in 8 hrs by three pickers, which equals 83.3 kgs/person/hour. Is that a lot or a little? I’ve no idea as it was the first time that I’ve harvested that way. If you’ve read any of my previous harvest posts, you’ll know that my usual procedure is much more laid back!

Usually, it’s a motley crew of friends, family, guests and strangers who turn up to help! And we only pick in the morning and then stop for lunch – a long lunch! Then we crush and/or press whatever quantity of grapes we just picked.

This method has advantages and disadvantages. The main advantage is of course that everybody has a great time and has a really enjoyable day out. This is perfectly doable if your production is small and are have flexibility about when exactly to pick. But as your production increases, your windows of flexibility become smaller, and you really have to harvest a certain quantity of grapes on a specific day, and you can’t rely on friends and family ‘maybe’ coming out to help! I think I’m reaching the tipping point, but I can still go both ways, ie I really do have to harvest some grapes on specific day, but for the time being I can still afford to have a few unproductive, inefficient, romantic days of harvesting with friends and family and guests and long lunches :)

Red grapes all in, White not ready yet

Here’s another harvest post or update of the state of my harvesting this year. This is a good time for me to write this because I’m between harvests, as it were :)

I’ve brought in all the red grapes that I’ll be bringing in this year, and the white grapes are not ready to be picked yet.

So, what have I got this year?

1. The usual Tempranillo from Carabaña that I’ve been harvesting for the last 9 years! The quantity this year was ridiculously tiny – even more ridiculously tiny than usual! On the one hand, because of the drought (it hasn’t rained properly for about a year) and on the other hand because of the rabbits, who have again eaten more than their fair share of grapes this year, just like they did last year.

So, basically there’s less than 300 litres of juice + skins fermenting at this very moment as I write, which means that there will hopefully just be enough to make 1 barrel (225 l) of Tempranillo Crianza including a few litres for top-ups during the year. I harvested early this year, because I was fed up with making the usual +14% alcohol tinto Crianza! Although there’s never been anything actually wrong with my previous Crianzas, they’ve never been anything exceptional either, imho, and in that of others! Hence the risk of experimenting this year. Maybe it’ll turn out better at 13% or 13.5%. Who knows? But I’ll never know if I don’t try it at least once!

2. Some Garnacha from Gredos. I’m going to be a bit secretive here and save the details for later :) Ha ha! I’ll just say that I’ve got four (4) separate lots of old vine Garnacha that is already fermenting separately. Some in open top old wooden barrels, and some in stainless steel. Two lots are from separate plots in Sotillo de la Adrada (see this previous post) and two lots are from ... somewhere else in the Gredos region! Ha ha!

That’s all there is tinto-wise. This is what there will be, blanco-wise:

1- The usual Airén from Carabaña that I’ve been harvesting for the last 10 years. The grapes are not ripe yet – they were at 11% a few days ago, and there are still quite a lot of green bunches visible. I’d like to harvest this at between 12% and 13%, and make the usual young white that I usually make every year. I’m really happy with the way it’s been turning out, and I think my clients are too. I’m on a little, personal Airén crusade here, I think, because I believe that really good wines can be made with Airén, especially if a better winemaker than me were to put his/her mind and hand to it!

Airén has such a negative cultural and vinous baggage to carry! Sigh! Oh woe, is life not hard enough already without having to shoulder all this negative baggage? :) Ha ha, only jesting! Deep down, I’m really a masochistic cynical bastard who thrives on hardship and albatrosses! Ha ha, jesting again! But seriously, I really do like Airén and really do believe that great wines can be made from it. So I shall make more of the same this year, plus of course I shall do a few experiments. Firstly, as I have all these old barrels available, I’ll do a bit of fermenting in them, in addition to the usual stainless steel. Secondly, I hope to come up with some other experiment to do when the time comes! Suggestions welcome! Here’s an interesting article about Airén by FringeWines: 

2. Malvar from Villarejo. Again I’m going to do the same as last year with these grapes. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” I was really pleased with last years’ wines and experiments. There were three lots of wines last year: Carbonic Maceration, Skin Contact (15 days) (‘orange’), and a straight 5-month skin contact ‘orange’ from an old amphora (tinaja in Spanish), all from the same Malvar from Villarejo. And I think my clients were happy with them too. So this year, I bought another amphora (see photo) so as to make another 300 bottles, in addition to the original 300!

And that’s it, I’m afraid (apart from the older wines from previous years that are still aging). Only about 4,000 bottles in total, I think. I had originally intended to make quite a lot more wine this year, but my best laid plans were rudely scattered to the winds by the great plough of life and circumstances, and will have to be rebuilt next year. C’est la vie!

So now, it’s the calm before the storm, ie just checking the white grapes in the vineyards, and checking on the red fermentations in the bodega.

Lastly, quite a few people have contacted me over the last few months with a view to visiting the vineyards and winery, but I haven’t been able to arrange these visits properly – due to my own inability to deal with emails and to arranging visits, etc. But I really do like receiving visits, so if you’re reading this, please just contact me again and insist harder! I’m not being exclusive or playing hard to get here, it’s just that I can’t cope with everything that I have to do all at once! So the ‘de facto’ or ‘fait accompli’ solution or whatever it’s called, is to tell me that you ‘have to’ visit on such-and-such a day, and then I’ll work all my other tasks and activities and urgent urgencies around the visit! Et violà! Problem solved!

And really lastly, I read somewhere that all posts should have at least one photo, so here it is:
 

Ambite vineyard under snow in January 2009!

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

Almost Finished Pruning

I finished pruning the vineyard in Carabaña over the weekend. This vineyard is planted to Airén and Tempranillo, all mixed up at random!

Vineyard in Carabaña all pruned

It's rather strange that the vines haven't started 'crying' yet. Usually around this time, the vines come out of their winter dormancy and the sap, stored in the roots and trunk, starts flowing. You can tell because it drips out of the cuts left by the pruning for a few days until the vines heals itself.

pending: photo vine crying from last year

I have a few theories:

1.As we're in the middle of a drought here in central Spain, maybe some self-defence / survival mechanism has kicked in and the vines are holding back the sap, or not sending it to the extremities?

2.Maybe they're just late this year. The buds haven't even started to swell yet

3.It's happened already, but I haven't noticed? Unlikely! surely I would have noticed!

Semi-wild roadside vines on the embankment



Another semi-wild vine

These vines are semi-wild! They're growing on the embankment beside the local road from Carabaña to Villarejo, which runs right next to the vineyard. Usually we pick these grapes only if we have time, and have the energy to scramble up the embankment through the undergrowth. So I thought this year I'd clear away the grass, etc, to make access easier. I also pruned the ones down low, but I just left the top ones to run wild(er) and see what happens.

Vineyard in Villarejo, last year

Anyways, now onto our other vineyard in Villarejo. We actually started, last week, but we only did about 100 vines. Another 400 or 500 to go. This vineyard is planted to Malvar.

We have an added complication in this vineyard. For some reason, almost all the vines have shoots coming out of the trunk from below ground level. (Sorry, I have no photos - will remember next time). So the quick-n-dirty solution would be just to quickly snip them off at ground level. But they would probably sprout again over the spring/summer, taming energy and nutrients away from the productive shoots up top, and making access difficult, and creating humidity by blocking the wind and sun! What we really should do (and what we've in fact done so far for the first 100 vines) is to dig down, expose the roots, and snip them right at the base where they grow from. That way they shouldn't grow back.

This takes about 10 minutes per vine, more or less, two people (one digging, one snipping). Which means 6 vines/hour, which means 50-60 vines/day, which means 8/10 days. Hmmm, maybe doable, maybe not. We'll just have to wait and see how it goes.

Experiment Update: Pressing Grapes out of our Amphora / Tinaja / Qvevri

Background

Last Saturday we pressed the grapes from our clay amphora. This is an experimental lot of about 300 kg of grapes that we crushed and fermented back in September 2011. Ever since we moved ito the current winery in Morata de Tajuña a few years ago, I'd been noticing these two old clay amphorae sitting in a corner of the patio, gathering dust and leaves. So finally, last August, I made the effort, and I managed to convince Juan (my partner) and the other Juan (the owner of the winery and of the amphorae) to clean one and to use it to make wine.

So in Spetember, when we harvested the Malvar grapes from our new vineyard in Villarejo, we filled up the amphora with manually crushed grapes, sealed it, and basically left it alone (see this post). We didn't add any substances at all (no SO2) and we just punched down the cap every so often until the skins didn't float any more. Anyway, that's 5 months of skin contact.

During this time, the skins, pips, lees, etc all sank to the bottom and the top became liquid - a golden transparent liquid.. Every so often we would open up the 'lid' (a plastic sheet tied down tightly) and we would taste the wine to see how it was developing.

Operations

Phase 1, as is the case with any of our operations, was cleaning and setting up. In this case it was quite simple as all we needed was a basket press, a stainless steel tank and pneumatic lid, and some assorted bits and pieces.

Cleaning the press and tank

Phase 2 was scooping out the liquid part from the top of the amphora. We used buckets and poured it straight into a separate airtight container, not into the press. We want to keep this wine separate from the wine we press off the grapes, to see if they are different in any way. With hindsight, we realized that we could have moved this wine by gravity, just using a simple plastic hose or tube, but we didn't think that there would be so much of it. We expected only a few bottles worth, but we ended up with about 50 liters. A little lesson learned there for the future!

Juan scoops out wine

Pouring and filtering

Phase 3 was scooping out the grapey-winey semi-solid mush and puting it into the basket press. This we did with buckets until the level got too low for us to reach down into.

Juan and Juan scooping out grapes

Pouring into the press

Phase 4 was tipping the ampora over so we could continue to scoop out and fill the press. We had to be really careful as we didn't want to have an accident and break the amphora, so we secured it to the wall with a rope, after tipping it over to about 45º.

Amphora secured to wall

But it was no use! We still couldn't reach all the way down to the bottom, so we laid it down horizontally.

Horizontal

Mission accomplished! And with the added bonus that the quantity on the amphora was just right to fill the basket press, so we could press the lot in only one session. :)

Pressing is hard work!

Mushy grapes

Murky turbid wine. Note the ingenious filtering device!

Phase 5. The last phase is always cleaning the equipment used and tidying up. A great bore to be sure, but really necessary!

Hosing down

Cleaning out

Some thoughts and some tasting notes

We were all surprised at the quality of both the liquid wine at the top and of the soupy gunge at the bottom. There were absolutley no off-tastes or off-aromas. During the tastings over the last 5 months, the dominant tastes and aromas were those of clay and earth! And we weren't really too happy about that. But on Saturday, for the first time, we tasted the wine physically far away from the amphora (we went outside into the patio), and the clay and earth tastes and aromas were almost gone! They certainly weren't dominant. Instead we could taste 'normal wine' with notes of citrus, quite tannic and mineral and bitter, but with some sweetness there too. We think that this wine has got some way to go still, and that it will age well. In fact, we're thinking of looking for a used oak barrel, that was used for white wine, and ageing it in there for a while. In a week or so, depending on tastings, and ambient temperatures, and level of clarification, we'll rack off the big lees, let it settle down again, and see how it develops. Maybe we'll keet the two lots separate or maybe mix them back together again.

Nice clear golden wine from the top of the amphora

I wonder how they did it in the old days before stainless steel and when clay amphorae were common, especially the big fat ones that ccould hold thousands of liters. How on earth did the move the grapes/must/wine/pomace?

Surprise Visit

Mid-morning as we were pressing the grapes, we received a surprise visit from a group of people who are going to open a stall in the Municipal Market (in the Lavapiés District of Madrid), selling organic wine, not only in bottles but also loose, by the liter, in recyclable, reusable containers, in some arrangement with their customers. I think that's a great initiative, as these municipal markets are kind of languishing these days - I suppose due to competition from supermarkets, shopping malls and an aging population in the city centre.

They told me that the Ayuntamiento (City Council) has relaxed its Byzantine requirements for obtaining a license, but that even so it was still a Kafkaesque nightmare! They haven't actually got their license yet, but they've started sourcing their local organic wines already - hence their surprise visit. After us, they were off to see another organic wine producer Andrés Morate in Belmonte del Tajo. Anyway, I hope they like the samples we gave them and that they succeed in obtaining their license and that they order some wine from us :)