Tasting and Pruning With Gabriel

I spent the other day (Sun 2nd Feb) pruning with Gabriel, my first ever "intern" who spontaneously volunteered to work for free in return for whatever I could teach him! Wow! I was honoured that anyone would want to do that. Lots of people have helped me in the vineyards for free over the years of course, but they were always people I already knew - family, friends, regular consumers of my wine, etc.

Gabriel tries his hand at pruning

On this occasion it was different, as I'd only met Gabriel (Sánchez Blocona) about 2 weeks ago at a tasting that we were at. As it happened, it was a tasting of the wines of Basilio Izquierdo, which would merit a whole post to itself, as there were some really incredible wines there. Including some really old ones (for me!) like a CVNE 1948 which is the oldest everest wine I've ever tasted in my life. But I won't go on about that - I've been getting paranoid lately about turning into a wine-bore! I think that's what happens when you read the Hosemaster of Wine!



Anyway, that was in the morning. After lunch (here) (which, btw, was the most expensive lunch I've ever paid for in my life, and where I witnessed for the first time a bottle of wine being opened with a pair of heated tongs!) we (Gabriel and I) decided to gate-crash another tasting in the evening.



This one was one of these wine-tasting clubs of friends who get together regularly to taste and comment on interesting wines. I knew a few of these friends (including Alfredo Maestro) so I figured that they wouldn't mind. As luck would have it they were doing a blind tasting, which I love, even though I never identify any of the wines.



The only clue we had was that all 6 bottles were non-Spanish. Incredibly, I was the only one who identified the country of provenance of 4 of them (Georgia)!  I think this was because no-one else there had tasted Georgian wines before, while I had - once, two years ago in London at RAW fair. Amazing! Then of course I had to explain that I'm not an expert or even experienced taster and that it was just luck that I remembered those wines. This is true, I'm a very inexperienced wine-taster, as the only tasting I ever do is of my own wines, and even then just checking for faults/off-tastes/strangeness/etc. I'm practicing though, and I try to get to whatever tastings I get invited to, time and tasks permitting!



Gabriel on the other hand is a wine-geek, an experienced taster, and collector of old rare wines. But he doesn't know much about grape-growing, vineyard work, pruning, etc. So, there was a win-win situation if ever there was one.

Now pruning is quite a skilled task, it's not just manual labour; so it's a bit of risk to just let anyone loose in your vineyard with a pair of pruning sheers! :)  A bit of a risk only in the sense that he/she might snip off a bit too much, or the wrong canes, and hence reduce the production of a few 'mutilated' vines!  I mean to say, it's not a catastrophy or a disaster. Vines can survive a lot worse than a crazy pruner :)  But in any case, why do it wrong, when it's so easy to do it right?

Here's me pruning a vine

So this is what we did: First he just followed me and watched, while I pruned and explained. But that gets boring after a while and the 'student' doesn't really learn anything new, after so much theory. So I sent him a vine ahead of me to do some pre-pruning. This entails snipping off all the obviously unwanted little canes, the canes growing from obviously wrong places and those growing in obviously wrong directions (all of which I explained beforehand).

Nice ladybird. Super-predator. Eats up all those nasty aphids

Contemplating ladybirds :)

 
I also got him to snip back all the remaining major canes but leaving 5 or 6 buttons. Then I myself would either prune these canes right back to the wood, or prune it to 1 or 2 buttons, as appropriate.

Those tasks that I set Gabriel to are very useful for getting to know those obviously useless canes, which can then just be snipped off without a second thought, and also for learning to handle the pruning shears, getting to know their weight and balance, how far they open, possible angles of entry, etc.

Nice earthworm. Sign of healthy living soil

His final task was to pick up all the snipped canes from where they fell and to put them in little piles in the middle of the lanes. Now that really is pure manual labour, but it saved me a lot of time :)  Come on, I had to do SOME brutal exploitation!  :)

Vine and thistle

The next time he comes out to help me, I'll teach him how to actually choose which canes to prune and keep, and which ones to prune right back to the wood. That is of course the most important piece of knowledge in pruning. How well you do that impacts not only the quantity of grapes that the vine will give you that year, but also long-term it will affect the health, vigour and longevity of that vine.

Ready, steady, prune!

Gabriel is also an awesome photographer, and he took all the photos in this post (except for the one of himself, obviously!).

His camara has also got this function that makes speedy videos. (For UK reader: think Benny Hill!) Check it out:

I'd be happy to teach anyone who wants to learn what I know. It's just a question of arranging to meet. Which is actually more difficult than it sounds because I usually don't know when I'm going to prune until a few days before! Anyway, feel free to contact me if you're interested.

Another really useful thing to do when short of time and you have thousands of vines to prune, is simply to temporarily duplicate yourself:

Me and my double ready to go

 After a hard day's work, our just reward:

In a bar, back in Madrid

Very pretty, but is it art?  ha ha!

Second Day of Pruning

I did some more pruning yesterday (Thurs 17th March). We’re still running very late this year. We’ve only managed to do about 0.25 hectares out of a total of 2 hectares.

I think that spring is also running late in this part of Spain (Madrid Region and La Mancha). I’d really have to check my notes, but I get the feeling that the vegetation hasn’t really started ‘springing’ yet. The only signs of spring so far are 1) the almond trees, which have been blooming for weeks, but almond trees are notoriously early bloomers and 2) those radial weeds called cardos marianos in Spanish (ie Mariano’s thistles!).

This is good news because, if I'm right, then the vines will be running late too and so we'll have a bit more time to finish the pruning before the buds sprout.

Almond tree in flower, with vines in background

Making a virtue out of vice, it's also the case that if you prune later, the vines will sprout later and so will be more protected against the risk of a late spring freeze. Like what happend to us last year on the night of May 7th - 8th, as a result of which we lost about 25% of our yield!

That's an example of a thing I've noticed over the years: no matter what task/activity you do (or don't do!) it will have both positive and negative consequences. In most cases, of course, if you do the 'right' thing, the positive will outweigh the negative. But still, it's an interesting concept.

Pruned vine surrounded by 'Mariano's thistles'

Top-down view of a cardo mariano

After pruning, I also gathered up all the canes and took them to the edge of the vineyard. Later this year, at some point, we’ll chop them up into small pieces and scatter them all around the vineyard. They will eventually decompose and improve the fertility and structure of the soil.

Piles of canes at the edge of the vineyard

I think this practice is also ‘sustainable’ in the sense that we’re not constantly removing material from the vineyard year after year (grapes, canes) without giving some of that material back. We also add organic manure (from an organic sheep and goat farm up in the mountains of Madrid).

More piles of canes

Lastly, it looks like we have a new ‘neighbour’ living in the vineyard. This hole/burrow was right between the two piles of canes shown above. I have no idea what animal could have made it. Seems a bit big for a rabbit.

Our new neighbour's front door

Natural Wine Shipment

At last! On Friday 28th May, our pallet of wine (Vinos Ambiz, Young White 2009, 100% Airén, Unfiltered) began its journey to the USA.

It took me two-and-a-half months to do it, counting from the day that importer Jose Pastor came to visit the vineyard and winery and taste the wines (on 11th March).

This is basically what I had to do:

• Design and print a front label and back-label (by Hola Por Que)
• Find a box manufacturer who would sell me ‘only’ 100 boxes (Cartonajes Hurtado)
• Remove labels and wash and disinfect 400 bottles
• Fill and cork and stick on labels and put in boxes
• Find a special US-homologated pallet, (thank you, Vinos Jeromín) stack it and wrap it
• Do the paperwork!

The ship is leaving the Port of Barcelona this Saturday (5th June) and arrives New York about two weeks later, so I assume that by the end of June the wine should be in the shops.

I’m looking forward to following up on the ‘progress’ of the wine down the chain of consumption and interacting with the final customers and/or retailer on blogs and forums, etc.

Here’s some final photos:

Truck backing up to winery gates

Wine moving out

Thank you, Juan, for doing all the hard work, while I swan around taking photos!

Elevator... going up!

Bye-bye wine

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men …

I’ve been meaning to post this post for months, but one thing after another kept cropping up and I just couldn’t find the time to write it up.

These ‘things’ included a number of wine tastings/events (which I’ve posted on below), and I’ve also been busy organizing our first ever shipment of wine to the US, which involved 1) finding a box-manufacturer willing to supply us with just 100 boxes (minimum orders are usually around 2000 boxes!). We did find one in the end (and will probably favour him with our orders in the future for making the effort) 2) accumulating, sterilizing and reusing 400 wine-bottles (our regular local consumers responded well and returned all their bottles and more) 3) working with our label designer on a new front label for white wine and a back-label (I think/hope they’re at the printer’s as I write! I try not to call them too many times a day for the latest news!) 4) and dealing with the horrendous paperwork required by the bureaucrats of Spain and the US, who seem to have made a special effort to make things as difficult and time-consuming as possible for us producers and other people who actually do something useful during the day [end of rant].

As if the above weren’t enough, I’ve also been involved in an initiative between local organic producers and consumers (not just of wine, but of many other products too) in and around Madrid aimed at co-ordinating and optimizing transport and distribution of our products. This involved going to a number of meetings which were frustratingly unproductive (apparently) though things seem to be moving in the right direction (slowly). I’ve been to meetings with just consumers and also with just producers, and the difference in ‘procedure’ is incredible: at the consumers meeting, they pick a moderator, who keeps an ordered list of people who have signalled that they want to speak. The producers all shout at the same time and if anything at all is decided it’s whatever the person shouting loudest and longest was shouting!

Anyway, time to get to the main point of this post: basically, our best laid plans for the coming year were utterly trashed by ‘circumstances’ about two months ago, but happily a number of ‘events’ occurred (at the same time that all of the above was happening) which has resulted in everything working out just fine. A ver:

• The winery where we were planning on making our wine this October (by renting some of their space, vats and machinery) called to say that we couldn’t do it. The reason: due to the recession, they had fired some workers and so couldn’t provide this service anymore!

•  The owner of our current ‘winery’ in Ambite refused to pay for the costs of fixing the roof or to reduce our rent. We fixed a bit of it by ourselves some time back, but we can’t afford to have it fixed, and we don’t have the time to fix it all by ourselves

•  The owner of vineyard we’ve been renting from for the last 6 years, finally gave us his reply to our request to sign a written contract. And his answer was “No!” We needed a written contract so we can apply for organic certification and for the ‘Vinos de Madrid’ Denominación de Origen label

So after all this, I was getting pretty depressed (and stressed!), but talk about finding solutions right under your nose!!!

1.  First, the winery: on the way back to Madrid one day last week I dropped in on a neighbour and fellow organic wine-maker in a village just down the road (to exchange bottles of wine as we’d been attempting to do for months). I just blurted out “Er, could we share your winery this year, until we find a place of our own?” and he said, “Sure! That would be great!” Just like that – 1 major problem solved!
2. Then a few days later, I was in the centre of Madrid, in a neighbourhood that I hadn’t been back to for about five years. I decided to go for lunch to this restaurant that I used to go to and where I knew the owner. As I walk in, the owner recognises me and says “Fabio, how are you? You still making wine? You wouldn’t be looking for a new vineyard, would you? Because I have one that I’m trying to rent!” Incredible, but true! Another problem solved!
3. Next I went to see the owner of our current vineyard, to tell him that we’d keep on renting anyway and that we weren’t so bothered about the contract anymore (we like the vineyard and know it and grow good grapes in it, after all). He said OK, and then offered us the use of his tractor this spring/summer for free!

So there you have it. I’m now trying to relax and get on with things in a more regular sort of way, ie with not so many emotional and/or economic ups and downs!

My plans for the coming months (ie up to grape harvest in September) are based on focussing on the long-term ‘important’ things, and not worrying about ‘urgent’ things that may (and inevitably do) crop up and which just distract and cause stress!!!

- Be on the lookout for a new winery (for harvest 2011)

- Define my long-term marketing plan properly and on paper (it’s just in my head and on the backs of envelopes at the moment!)

- Everything else is secondary!

This was not one of my usual ‘normal’ posts (ie, diary of day-to-day vinous activities), but I thought I’d spit it all out anyway, seeing as all the above events have had a big impact on the Vinos Ambiz project.

Well, if you’ve read this far, thank you and I hope you found it interesting. If you have any comments, I’d love to hear them.

International Organic Wine Trade Fair (FIVE)

Last Wednesday 28th May, I went to a wine tasting/presentation in Madrid, that was held in the basement of an organic product shop, called Abonavida.

I only took one photo (and not a very good one!):

But, you can see a good video of the presentations and tasting here: http://www.vendervino.com/. In fact, in the photo above you can see fellow blogger, Igancio Segovia, actually taking the video!

The occasion was for a presentation of the first ever trade fair in Spain, EXCLUSIVELY for organic wines.

It’s called FIVE (Feria Internacional de Vino Ecológico) and will be held in the town of Pamplona, the capital city of Navarre (Spain) next 11th and 12th of May.

It’s organized by the Asociación de Empresas de Agricultura Ecológica de Navarra (Organic Agriculture Association of Navarre).

52 organic wineries from Spain, Portugal and France will be there.

After listening to the short presentations from Edorta Lezaun (Bodegas Lezaun), Ignacio Bidegain (general co-ordinator general of the FIVE) and Salvador Estebanes Eraso (Spokesman of the Regional Government of Navarre), we got to the good part of the event, ie tasting some excellent organic wines from Navarre.

And for more info on the FIVE Trade Fair: http://www.five-bio.com/

Intense Three Days of Vinous Activities - Day 3

Sunday 28th. Next morning I slept in ‘late’, ie till 9 o’clock and was totally refreshed. I’m usually up by 7 every morning so it was lovely. We had a nice leisurely breakfast, went out to walk the dog, had a coffee on a pavement café next to the Sagrada Familia, then back to the flat to pick up the wine samples and head off to the ‘Salón de Vinos Naturales’. Aargh! Then I realized that the clocks had gone forward 1 hour during the night, so I arrived later than planned, ie at 12 o’clock new ‘real’ time.

View of the Sagrada Familia

I was so exited because for the first time I was going to meet face-to-face a whole bunch of fellow producers of natural/organic/whatever wine from Spain, who I’d been in contact with for a year or more over the internet, via blogs, forums, twitter, etc. Amongst others there were:

Cloister of the Convent Sant Agustí

- Laureano Serres (founder and current president of the PVN (Association of Natural Wine Producers), and the man who encouraged me to make the effort to come to this event in Barcelona)
- Samuel Cano (from Cuenca, maker of ‘Patio’ wines)
- Lorenzo Valenzuela (Barranco Oscuro, Granada)
- Ramón Saavedra (Bodega Cauzón, Granada)
- J. Miguel Márquez (Bodega Marenas, Córdoba)
- Jordi Sanfeliú (Tárrega)

At the fair (1)

At the fair (2)

At the fair (3) - Samuel Cano pouring his 'Patio'

And a few others, who I forgot to take their cards from! Very unprofessional of me! There were some non-producers there too, ie people related to and interested in natural, organic wines:

- Malena Fábregas (Obsevatorio del Vino)
- David González Martin (Adictos a la Lujuria)
- Joan A. Fradua (Aldespy)

At the fair (4)

And again a few others who I also forgot to take cards from! I also spoke to some members of the general wine-loving public (who didn’t have cards for me to forget to ask for!) and we promised to meet again. There was a significant French (and to a lesser extent Italian) presence at the fair; in fact I suspect there were more French producers than Spanish ones. The French also have a natural wine association: AVN. There was even a Chinese producer (Jing Jing Yuan): I was intrigued but didn’t have time to chat with him, and find out if he had come all the way from China or if he lived nearby! In fact I didn’t get to meet any of the foreign producers as I was so busy with the Spaniards. I had to leave at 4 o’clock to catch the AVE back to Madrid. AGAIN I missed a great dinner organized by the producers that evening. I really must organize my timing better next time so I don’t miss all these lovely meals, where no doubt is the best part of the day and where we producers talk about all the things we producers are supposed to talk about!!!

At the fair (5)

I didn’t have a table/stand to myself as a producer, this year, because I was too late to apply but I did take samples with me (2 young whites, 2 young reds and 2 Crianzas) which I opened and shared out. I think I tried almost every wine, and even spat some of them out! What can I say? I’m not an experiences wine-taster or wine-writer; I liked most of them, a very few I didn’t like at all, and one or two I liked a lot. Unfortunately I can’t remember which ones they were! – again, very unprofessional of me!

Well, that was my first experience at a wine fair, and I loved it, loved it, loved it! And I can’t wait for the next one I’m going to go to, as soon as possible! I can’t believe that I’ve been making wine for 6 years and never done this before. I think I’ve just made contact with Planet Earth, ie other people who are doing the same thing as me (more or less) and who understand where I’m at, coming from and going to!

There could be a lot of topics for discussions or for more specific posts here, ie What is this ‘natural wine’ thing all about anyway? I’m sure that there are people out there who don’t know. I myself don’t know, and I make the stuff!!! Or How is it different from organic wine? Or IS it different from organic wine? And the organic certification issue: at one point during the afternoon, I was taking part in overhearing a conversation between a wine importer and a producer that went like this: Importer asks: “Why is this labelled as table wine?” and “Where’s the eco symbol?”. Producer answers: “I don’t give a d*** abour DO’s, symbols or anything!” Wow, heavy stuff! I’d thought that thought secretly to myself before, but would I dare to go down that route? At the moment I’m not certified organic, because my production is so small that it’s not worth my while. But I would like to certify next year, if and when I can up my production to a certain critical level. But who knows? Maybe both routes are possible?.

And lastly, some insider news/gossip which hasn’t been officially released yet! I’m so happy and on such a roll right now that it’s making me even happier to think that you all read this here first! And the news is… that another similar event is being planned for Madrid in June. The details are still pending, but possibly it might be in the centre of town (in Lavapiés district) with all the usual Spanish and French suspects producers invited.

Intense Three Days of Vinous Activities - Day 1

Last Friday 26th March I got up early so as to get to the winery as soon as possible because I knew I had an intense 3 days ahead of me. First I had to bottle and cork about 100 bottles of assorted wines: some young white (2009, 100% Airén), some young red (2009, 97% Garnacha 3% Cab Sauv) and some Crianza (2008, 100% Tempranillo). Thankfully the Crianza was already bottled last year, so I only had to pack it up in boxes.

Crianza Labels

The day before I had prepared sticky labels to distinguish it from the young red – as all our bottles are recycled/reused it’s difficult to tell one from the other as all the shapes, sizes and colours of the bottles are used randomly among all the types of wine!

Crianza labels close up

This is what we call in Spain a ‘chapuza’, ie a quick-n-dirty highly unprofessional job done very quickly (and perhaps effectively).

Crianza bottles being labelled

More Crianza bottles being labelled

 

On the way to the winery I wanted to stop off in Tielmes at the laboratory where they’re doing an analysis of some of our wines, to ask when the results would be in, but it was closed - Easter holidays started early for some! So, on to the winery, or rather on to the bar for a coffee and sticky bun, before starting the bottling.

I needed all those bottles for an organic trade fair in Puebla de la Sierra (Madrid) – more on this event in Part 2 of this post. Well, the bottling was quite straight-forward, as I’d soaked and scraped off the labels beforehand. While I was at it, I bottled a couple cases for some consumers and on the way back to Madrid that night I dropped them off in Perales.

State of the vineyard on Friday 26th March

It was now about lunch-time and time to go to the vineyard to do some more pruning. We STILL haven’t finished, but there’s not much left to do. After munching down a ‘bocadillo’ and a swig of wine in the vineyard, I managed to do quite a lot of pruning; when till the sun started to set, it got chilly and a cold wind came up, so I decided to call it a day even though I could have carried on for another hour or two before it got too dark to see. And besides, my back was sore.

Another view of the vineyard

Spring Has Sprung – But The Pruning Is Not Yet Done

We did more pruning over the weekend, but we’re still not done. There’s about another 300 vines to go. It’s very late in the year now, and we’ve passed the folkloric popular-wisdom deadline of 19th March, by which you’re supposed to have the pruning finished. But I think we’re OK as the buds haven’t opened yet, even though they’re swollen and ready to burst any day. Not optimal, but OK.

The almond tree in the vineyard, and all the others in the Tajuña valley have blossomed at last. Very late in the year, this year, as usually they blossom in February round here.

Blooming Almond Blossoms

(compare with previous post)

The same almond tree

I was cutting back some grass that was too close to the vine, when I uncovered an earthwork. This is good news, as it’s a sign that our soil is healthy and full of nutrients. And even better news is that worms actively improve the fertility of the soil.

Earthworm in the vineyard

Some time back, (in this post: ___ ) I mentioned that we were going to transplant some sapling oak trees that had sprouted next to some vines, and over the weekend we moved two of them (out of a total of five that I’ve found so far).

Oak sapling's original position

Digging a hole for the sapling

Organic manure to help the sapling on its way

Planting the sapling in its new home

New Home 1

New Home 2

And lastly, here’s a pic of two little thyme plants (‘tomillo’ in Spanish) growing next to a vine. Do you think they could have any influence on the characteristics of the grapes/wine?

Little thyme plants next to a vine

More recycling of wine-bottles

The weather has been so bad recently, ie raining a lot, that we haven`t been able to finish pruning the vines, it's so muddy underfoot. It really must stop raining soon, as it's getting rather late in the year. The local folklore here says that you should have your pruning finished by San José, ie 19th March. Well, we have a week! I think the idea is to have the pruning done while the vines are still dormant and before the sap starts flowing, otherwise you'd be removing the nutrients that the vine needs to sprout before the leaves can photo-synthesize energy for themselves.

So, if the vineyard is out, .. to the winery, to recycle wine-bottles for the end of the month:

Ismael scrapes labels off

We left these bottles soaking last week, so most of the labels came off quite easily. Some, though are just impossible to take off no matter how long you leave them soaking. it makes you wonder what kind of glue these wineries are using.

More bottles soaking

We managed to de-label about 150 bottles, and next week (or whenever!) we'll set up the washing-sterilizing assembly line, before bottling and corking.

150 de-labelled green bottles

And talking about corks, here we have 000's of corks that we've been accumulating over the years. The idea is to make "curtains" for the windows and doors of the winery, but of course we never have any time! There's always something more urgent/essential to do!

Used corks awaiting recycling

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