Winery and Wine Activites

The other day we did some winery work:

First, we bottled a barrica (barrel) of Tempranillo 2009. The grapes were harvested in September 2009, and fermented in a stainless steel tank. The wine was racked once to another tank to separate it from the thicker lees, and then we filled the barrel in August 2010. So that makes it 9 months in oak. The barrel was quite old, about 3-4 years so, despite the length of time in there, the oaky taste does not dominate. I’m assuming the wine will need at least 6 months in the bottle for it to ‘round off’. With any luck we can release it in December – for Christmas!

Barrica of Tempranillo 2009

Bottles being filled with Tempranillo 2009

Next, we filled our six (6) new American oak barrels with Tempranillo 2010. These barrels were sponsored (and paid for) by about 12 of our regular customers (See this post). Some sponsored a whole barrel by themselves, while others are sharing a barrel among 2, 3 or 4.

Juan filling the first barrica - 1

Juan filling the first barrica - 2

Juan checking the (fast rising) level in the second barrica

One of the sponsors, Nacho Bueno (who writes a wine blog in Spanish) visited the bodega a few weeks ago to taste the different wines we had available for aging, and he tasted and selected his own ‘coupage’ for his barrel. He’s decided to call the wine “Las Cinco en Punto”, ie “Five on the Dot” because it contains five different varieties:

   80% Tempranillo

    5% Garnacha

    5% Sirah

    5% Petit Verdot

    5% Airén

Juan pouring some Petit Verdot for Nacho's coupage

Wine stained already!

The other 5 barrels weren’t so complicated – pure 100% Tempranillo. We may do more ‘coupages’ later, if any sponsors express a interest and/or if we have any other wines available in the future!

One the one hand, it was quite easy to fill the barrels, because we used an electric pump to move the wine from the stainless steel tank which was about 40 yds away and in another building. We had to connect up 3 hoses due to the distance. Then we (Juan and I) had to coordinate in order to open/close the valve on the ‘bastón’ and switch on/off the pump at the same time. Once the pump was running, it took about 3 minutes and 20 seconds to fill a barrel.

The difficult part was trying to see the level of the wine through the bung-hole in the barrel. Very tricky, but knowing the approximate time it took fill a barrel beforehand helped a lot, and we managed to fill all six without an overflow accident. Then we topped up the last 5 liters or so by hand, using a jug and a funnel.

I think the pump we used was far too powerful and I’m wondering the following:

- Does moving wine so fast affect its quality?

- Does the horrible noise the pump makes affect the quality of the wine?

I’m also thinking of looking for a manually operated pump! Like the ones you see in old movies where they pump water up from a well in the garden, or pump water out of the engine-room of a steamer that’s taken in water!!! Just an idea!

Lastly, .... This coming Saturday 28th May is the IV Annual Agro-Ecology Day held in the Lavapiés district of Madrid. Apart from having a little table in the plaza for giving out free samples of wine (and leaflets) we are also supplying the wine for the official lunch.

So, the other day I did some bottling, corking and labeling activities:

Bottling and Corking

More bottles

Back-label with QR Code and AVIN number

I'm glad I made the effort to do the QR codes and AVIN numbers, and I'd like to thank André Ribeirinho (of Adegga) for doing the technical part of it for me, and Hola Por Qué for incorporating them into the label design for me.

More labels: front and back

Spring is Springing in the Vineyard, but General Winter is Still Camping Out in the Winery

Another day of pruning in the vineyard.

We should be able to finish just in time before bud-burst. It's very important to finish pruning before the sap starts flowing in the vine; if you prune after the sap starts flowing then you are removing nutrients that the vine needs to sprout new leaves. It takes a few weeks for these new leave to mature and start to photosynthesize sunlight to make their own energy. Until that happens, the vine relies on the sap that it stored in its roots and trunk during its dormant period in Winter.

Octavio (3 1/2) helps his Dad (me) with the pruning

Lavinia (5) also helps her Dad

This is a baby thistle, which will turn into a 2 m (6 foot) monster by this Summer!

 We like to create bio-diversity in the vineyard. Instead of ploughing up the rows between the vines and leaving the soil naked and exposed, like our conventional neighbours do, we let all the grasses and plants and flowers in the vineyard grow and we only cut them back when they get too tall or too near the vines. On the one hand (1) this is a good pest-control system, because all the little beasties eat each other up and no one species ever becomes a problem. if you plough up the land, you destroy the habitat of all the beasties except for the one that lives on the vines, and the only way to deal with it now is with chemicals because you've destroyed the habitat of its predators.

Secondly (2) we believe that by leaving all these plants, grasses, thistles, flowers along with their populations of insects, pollens, native yeasts, etc, we obtain richer and more complex tastes and aromas in the must and in the wine.

Thirdly (3) by leaving all the plants and flowers, we protect the soil from erosion due to wind and rain.

And here are the buds on the almond tree - still haven't opened

In the bodega things are a few degrees cooler!

Disk of ice

Corks drying out, in the sun

Belated Post - Bottling, Corking and Posing in the Winery

This post should have been uploaded two weeks ago, but I was waiting for my friend Edu to send me the photos, as I forgot my mobile (cell-phone) that day! He finally sent them last night, so here we go.

These first three are of poeple actually working:

Manually filling bottles of wine

Manually corking the young red (97% Garnacha, 3% Cabernet Sauvignon)

More manual corking

And these ones are of people posing:

Yours truly (Fabio) beside the fermentation tanks

Bottlers, corkers and quality controllers

Lovely lunch, after a hard morning's work

Recycling and sustainability

Here's a summary of what and how we're recycling.

Recycling of bottles:

Right from the start of this organic wine project (5 years ago), we have made an effort to reuse our bottles. Apart from the obvious envirnomental reasons for recycling, there is also an economic benefit - both for us (the producers) and for you (the consumers). This is because we pass on the cost savings to the end customer by keeping our prices lower than if we had to buy all our bottles new.

Each new bottle costs us around €0,20 if we were to buy a whole pallet of 1561 bottles, and it would cost a lot more if we were to buy smaller quantities. We estimate that our consumers return about 50% of the bottles over the course of the year, which we then wash and reuse.

It's easy to return your bottles to us (in theory!). Just leave your empties at your pick-up point on delivery day (or a few days before if possible) and we'll take them away. You can also take them to the winery of course whenever you pop in for a visit.
We can also use wine bottles that are not ours, but in this case, we'd really appreciate it if you soaked the labels off first.

Cardboard boxes:
We've never actually bought any 6- or-12 bottle boxes, ever! We have this arrangement with a wine-bar whereby they keep their empty boxes and we pick them up every week or so. A classic win-win situation, as we get free boxes and they get free trash removal!

Corks:


Used corks can't be used to reseal a bottle of wine, but you can return them to us if you want. We've accumulated several thousand so far and we're saving them up make 1) anti-fly curtains for the doors and windows of the winery and perhaps 2) cover a wall of the winery like this shop has done: [link]

Reuse of stems, skins and pips:
We have two uses for these materials. Usually we take it all back to the vineyard where it decomposes/composts and so we improve the quality of the soil by adding organic matter. Some years we make grappa/orujo using a still.

((Vinos Ambiz - sustainable vineyard, natural, genuine, authentic, good quality wine expressing the terroir, recycling as much as possible, improving the fertility of the land, doing our bit for the environment and people's health))

Bottle-washing day

Here we can see the "semi-automated bottle-washing line", with a stategically placed bottle on the hydraulic bottle-washer!

We are almost ready to bottle the Crianza 2007. It's spent 10 months in oak and is very good (even if I say so myself!). This weekend we washed over 300 bottles that you've been returning to us these days. Recycling all the way!

When we have an exact date for the bottling, I'll publish it, in case anyone wants to come out to help.


Here are the boxes (also recycled) full of nice clean bottles, ready for filling.