Harvests 2016 all done

Another year, and once again all the grapes are in. My last harvest was the Malvar on Monday 10^th October.  And not a moment too soon! Because after a long, long, hot, endless summer with zero rainfall, it stated raining heavily and properly all over Spain on Wed 12^th! Ha! So I’ll have to find something else to complain about, as viticultural tradition demands J

I did a total of 15 harvests this year, in 15 different plots, for a total of 15 different wines:

1.      Albillo (Charco)

2.      Albillo (Fx)

3.      Garnacha (Charco)

4.      Doré (Fx)

5.      Doré (Pp)

6.      Sauvignon Blanc (Qx)

7.      Tempranillo (TET-A)

8.      Garnacha (Castañar)

9.      Garnacha (Dehesa)

10.   Garnacha (McCarb)

11.   Chelva (Early)

12.   Villanueva

13.   Chelva (Late)

14.   Airén (Carabaña)

15.   Malvar (Villarejo)

That’s 2 red varieties (Garnacha and Tempranillo) and 7 white varieties (Albillo, Doré, Sauv, blanc, Chelva, Villanueva, Airén and Malvar).

I vinify each plot separately even if it’s the same variety, because it’s more interesting that way. It’s amazing how different the wines are, even if the plots are close together and the winemaking techniques are the same. For example, in El Tiemblo (Sierra de Gredos) the Garnacha Castañar plot is only about 1 km away from the Garnacha Dehesa plot as the crow flies, but the grapes and wines are totally different.

The novelty this year is a variety called Villanueva. It’s not uncommon in the area but it’s usually just a few vines interspersed among another predominant white variety. But by chance a local grower, who has an entire vineyard planted to Villanueva, came by the winery one day to offer them to me. ‘Why not?’ I thought. It’s a rather tiny plot, and there was only 150 kg. So I crushed them and pressed them and let the must ferment in small tinaja – in tinaja because it was the only container small enough available at the time!

All the rest I’ve done before, and am following the line of ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’! That’s to say that for all of the wines listed above, I followed (am following) the same techniques that have worked for me in the past, with regard to decisions on type of container (steel tank, wooden barrel, clay tinaja), maceration times if any, with or without stems, etc.

The only crazy experiment I’ve done this year is to follow a recipe I read in Pliny the Elder’s ‘Natural History, Book 14, Chapter 12. I followed the first recipe of the three he gives. So I guess I’ve made (am making) a beverage called ‘deuteria’ by the ancient Greeks and ‘lora’ by the ancient Romans. This is the stuff that was quaffed by slaves and labourers. The original glou-glou wine?

Following are some assorted photos, from over the summer:

 

View of the Albillo (Charco) vineyard, with the Alberche river in the background.
El Tiemblo, Sierra de Gredos

Bird's eye view of Albillo macerating

Bottling machine

My Garnacha vineyard using no chemicals, next to a naked agro-chemical wasteland vineyard!

Bottling up

At a wine fair

Sheep in the Garnacha vineyard, eating weeds and dropping caca!

Sheep entering

Living soil, for healthy vines

My pet nat exploding on me! Too much pressure!

My Chelva vineyard, surrounded by the houses of El Tiemblo village

In another Garnacha vineyard, steep, in El Tiemblo, Sierra de Gredos

Bottling up!

And to finish off, a note on the word “sapid”

I generally find it impossible to have decent in-depth discussion on FB or other social media sites. And a few weeks ago, I found myself feeling frustrated because I couldn’t say what I wanted to say! I think that FB and other sites are just not the right place for a proper discussion or debate: basically, they all tend to favour spur-of-the moment, shooting-from-the-hip type comments, right there and then, whenever you happen to come across an interesting post that you feel like commenting on. There’s just no time to think before typing! Apart from wine, I also like words, so I was doubly affected!

This had been annoying me for days, so I decided to do something about it. After searching on the internet and after doing a bit of ‘due diligence’, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not a very useful word to use in written wine-tasting notes or while speaking live to an audience. The due diligence consisted in asking native-English-speakers, uncontaminated by knowledge of a foreign language, if they knew what ‘sapid’ meant. Not one did! English-speakers who know a Latin language would know ‘sapido’ (It, Sp, Pt) or ‘sapide’ (Fr) where it’s quite a common word for everyday use and just make the connection.

Firstly it’s not a very common word at all in English (see here, this is just one of many word-frequency sites) and so it’s not likely that the readers/audience would understand what it means. This may depend on the level of knowledge/culture of the audience though, so an audience of hardened winelovers may have come across it before. But still!

Secondly, once you discover the meaning of ‘sapid’, you also discover how useless it is, for it means “having flavour” “tasty”. Which covers just about every edible/drinkable substance in existence, except for water!

I suppose that a slight degree of usefulness might be attained if a bit of common sense is applied by the reader/listener, ie by assuming that the writer/speaker really means ‘very’ or ‘extra’ flavourful/tasty. But then why bother with ‘sapid’ at all? Why not just say ‘very/extra tasty/flavourful’ and make life easier for your readers/listeners, who are after all reading/listening to you with a view to learning something about wine! But then again, maybe they would enjoy learning a new word? Or are happy to be introduced to the secret and occult world of wine-tasting? Or would they hate wine forever on account of the arcane vocabulary used?

Well, whatever. Anyway, I feel a lot better, now that I’ve got that off my chest.  J

Albillo Harvest 2016, Sierra de Gredos

Well, that was quick! I can’t believe it’s over already! After only four days of intense work I now have about 2500 litres of Albillo fermenting away nicely.

Day 1: in vineyard, harvesting from 7:15 (crack of dawn!) till about 15:00. Six of us took in about 2000 kg. Lunch, then crushing. All done by about midnight.

Day 2: in another smaller vineyard, again at 7:15. This time the six of us took in another 1000 kg and we were done by 13:00. Lunch, and all crushed by midnight.

Day 3: pressing off the first harvest, after 2 days maceration

Day 4: pressing off the second harvest, after 2 days maceration

Scroll down for photos.

This year I decided not to do any experiments with the Albillo like I’ve been doing over the past few years. I’ve tried lots of options and variations, like different skin maceration times, fermenting in stainless steel, open top barrels, amphorae/tinajas, etc. So based on the feedback I get from people and on my own personal taste and preference, I’ve decided to make my Albillo like this:

-          - Crush and macerate for 2 days in stainless steel

-          - Press off, and put juice back into stainless steel

-         -  One racking only into a large tinaja, to remove the really gross lees

-         -  Bottle up in spring, after the cold of winter has passed

-         -  Age in bottle for at least 1 year

This was in fact the way I made my Albillo 2014 (from which I’m constantly receiving good feedback, AND it’s one of my personal favourites). So that’s that!

Climate/weather

Basically, this year in Gredos there was a very mild dry winter and then it rained a lot in May/June, and then a long hot dry summer. I presume that this affected the ripening of the grapes which was a bit odd; they ripened steadily and normally until about the middle of August when the sugar content was indicating a probable level of alcohol of 13%-13.5%, and then it just stuck there. I’m guessing that the vines shut down their sugar production due to the heat. So eventually I decided to harvest at 13.5% (on 27^th Aug) as the grapes were otherwise perfectly ripe, ie golden skin, crunchy pips, stems starting to lignify, some leaves turning brown already, etc.

Well, there you have the meteorological info! I know some winelovers like that sort of data, but I personally find it kind of boring and not even all that relevant. I know that it’s important, but on the other hand, I also know that the interventions of the winemaker are much much MUCH more influential on the final wine. So it leaves me kind of nonplussed when I hear a comment like “yes, the 200X was a very wet/dry year” or some such. Or is this a cold-climate thing? Maybe in the Sierra de Gredos, with its dry continental climate, the yearly weather variations, like the one I just described above, it don’t really make that much difference?

More winemaking info

Sulphites. I haven’t added any sulphites (or any other substance, chemical, additive, nutrient, enzyme, etc) to the must. Why not?

1.              Sanitary reasons. Because there is no need to. I ensure that the grapes are perfectly healthy, ripe and clean; I select in the vineyard and reject unripe, rotten or otherwise undesirable grapes, and don’t take in any leaves, dirt, pebbles, etc (see this page for info on what I do and don't do in the vineyard)

2.              Terroir reasons. Because adding sulphites kills the yeasts and thus removes the complexity provided by all the different varieties of yeasts that are present at this time.

During the first few days, saccharomycescervisae is hardly present at all – the active yeasts are other species, including the ones feared so much by enologists and chemical winemaking engineers! (ie brettamonyces, candida, kloeckera and others). During these first few days, these yeasts provide all sorts of interesting flavours and aromas (including so-called “off-tastes”). But, as the alcohol level increases, these yeasts die off and good old saccharomyces begins to take over, because it’s very tolerant to alcohol. And at the end of the fermentation process it’s 100% dominant. This is what I believe is happening during fermentation. But I could be wrong of course!

Racking. I usually do only one racking to take the wine off the really gross lees, but I prefer to leave the fine lees in there. I believe that this a good thing because:

1.              They contribute to the taste and aroma of the wines

2.              They provide protection for the wines against spoilage over time, which is important as I don’t use chemical preservatives or stabilizers to do that

Filtering, clarifying and fining. I don’t! For the same reasons as above, ie for taste, for protection and for terroir expression. This often results in a cloudy wine which many people don’t like. Oh well, you can’t please all the people all the time, can you? And there’s no accounting for tastes! In any case I’ve found that if you leave the bottle standing vertically for a few days it clarifies itself nicely.

It’s interesting to note that all wines must have been cloudy (or clarified naturally by gravity) ever since winemaking began about 8000 years ago. It was only with the advent of bottling technology and the need to store and to distribute to a mass market, that wines started to get filtered, fined and clarified.

It’s not actually necessarily an intrinsically ‘good thing’ to clarify wine, in terms of quality, taste or terroir expression. It’s done due to the need for the wine to be stable and inert so that it can be transported and stored over long distances and over long periods of time.

Clarified wine is also of course ‘prettier’ to look at than a cloudy wine and so is easy to sell to the mass market. A bit like beautiful, perfectly round, shiny tomatoes (which sadly don’t taste of anything).

Photos and anecdotes

Albillo vineyard in El Tiemblo (Sierra de Gredos). River Alberche in the background

Tree in the shade of which we store the cases of grapes 

Close-up of Albillo grapes

  

Close-up of me!

Top-down view of Albillo macerating on skins (destemmed)

Albillo juice flowing out of the press

Flamenco moment :)

Albillo juice in full fermentation

Slight overflow of Albillo fermentation foam

All nice and clean again

Rest and relaxation time under pergola structure in the patio of the bodega

Sheep in the Garnacha Vineyard

Well, for this post I have some interesting anecdotes about sheep in my Garnacha vineyard in El Tiemblo (Sierra de Gredos).

A flock of sheep entering the vineyard

But first...

This is the same vineyard that I wrote about in my previous post (here), when I discovered that ‘someone’ had pruned my ‘Roman’ vines which I had trained up the olive trees, without asking me first. So the other day I had a meeting with the owners of the vineyard and asked them if it was them who had dunnit – and indeed it was! I’m glad that I didn’t speak to them immediately on discovering the unauthorized pruning, because I was upset and angry and would probably have said things that I would have regretted later! But with the passage of time I had calmed down, and now of course it doesn’t seem so important. They were quite amazed when I explained the Roman thing to them, but they were willing to cooperate. Now I just have to wait another year for the vines to grow and try again.

Anyway, I was in this vineyard again the other day, doing more of the same – raking up last year’s dead grass into piles, pruning and hoeing up around the pruned vines. I alternated these three activities so that the same muscles wouldn’t get sore! The method seems to work J

And an ‘interesting thought’ came to me while I was raking up the dead leaves. At first, I had started raking up dead leaves and grass and tidying ‘just for fun’ and to do a bit of gardening and to make the vineyard look beautiful (and alternating tasks so my back muscles wouldn’t suffer so much). But now I’ve discovered a valid agricultural reason for doing this! By raking up the last year’s dead leaves, it makes it easier for the new grass and plants to come up, as there is no physical obstacle stopping their growth, more sunlight hits the earth and little leaves making germination and photosynthesis more efficient, and also the action of the rake on the ground probably helps stir things up and speed them along! I was actually a bit worried that maybe the grass, and plants and flowers would grow too much, to the detriment of the vines, perhaps. But the perfect solution presented itself spontaneously. Sometimes the universe works in your favour, and “they’re not really all out to get you”!

The perfect solution, of course, consisted of a flock of sheep! As I was working, a man called out to me from over the wall of the vineyard. He was a shepherd and he wanted to ask if he could let his sheep graze in my vineyard. I agreed immediately and off he went to get his sheep, which were grazing in a neighbouring vineyard just down the road.

Sheep grazing in the vineyard

Sheep and lambs

Panoramic view

The deal is that I get free manure and short grass and the shepherd gets free grass for his sheep.

Close-up of my free manure

And also, according to my friend and fellow grapegrower Mario Siragusa (who grows grapes in Barolo country near Turin), the sheep also impart positive electro-magnetic energy to the vines from their wool. Interesting theory - I will have to look into it when I have some free time.

This deal only works until about March, when the vines start to sprout. Otherwise the sheep would eat the young leaves.

Sheep leaving the vineyard

Luis the shepherd says that he only drinks wine from the vineyards where his sheep have been grazing! Because his sheep don’t like the grass from chemically farmed vineyards and because the wine tastes crap! Natural wine drinkers are everywhere these days J.

Other vineyard news

There is still a lot of pruning to be done, some of which I will do myself and some of which I will outsource to neighbours. Then there are other assorted tasks to be done too: removing canes, hoeing up around the vines, fixing fences, and general tidying up. I won’t bore you all too much with the details! Yet!

Bodega news

There are lots of tasks I have to be getting on with in the bodega too. Most urgent is the bottling up. I got off to a good start this year but last week I ran out of corks AND bottles! Duh! So now I have to wait for delivery, which takes about 7-10 days. Which is OK really, as I can now concentrate on the vineyards. I also have to fill two barrels with white wine. It took me about a year, but at last I managed to get my hands on two second-hand white wine barrels. They are incredibly difficult to find, for some reason. More about this later. I also have to thoroughly scrub and clean and disinfect two amphorae, which contained wine and which I have already bottled up. Then I have to press off a tank of Garnacha which is still on the skins! And a tinaja of SB and one of Doré. And lastly I have to tidy up the patio and finish building my pergola. Oh, where is all the free labour?

Other news

In about three weeks I’m going to a natural wine fair in Piacenza, Italy: Sorgente del Vino LIVE 2016. It will be my first time at a wine fair in Italy, so am especially looking forward to it. Attenzione importatori italiani J

And in about one month I’ll be going to another natural wine fair in Barcelona: Vins Nus (which means Naked Wines in Catalan). This is one of two natural wine fairs organized in Spain, which is pretty underwhelming really, considering the numbers for France and Italy.

Enough for now. “Salud y buen vino”. (that means ‘Health and good wine’, in Spanish)

In the Vineyard

January is already drawing to a close, and I'm focusing on three different aspects of my mini-wine-business: in the vineyards, pruning, removing the canes, hoeing up around the vines, and other miscellaneous activites like cutting grass, fixings drainage channels, and fences, and generally tidying up; in the bodega, bottling up older vintages from barrels, and filling said barrels with new vintages; and on the home front, writing a HACCP (pronounced "HAZOP"), ie a food safety management plan! Amongst other things. But enough of that! Here's my latest news from the mountains:

In the Vineyard

The other day I was in my other Garnacha vineyard in El Tiemblo (Sierra de Gredos), having completely finished pruning the first (rock rose infested) Granacha vineyard that I wrote about in my previous post. Actually, I still have to finish raking up pine needles and checking and fixing the perimiter fence, but those tasks I have relegated to a lower priority, to be done 'some other time'!

So I spent the whole day here in this vineyard, but in a terribly inefficient manner - I only did 5 rows of about 10 vines. But I did them absolutely beautifully! More like gardening, rather than agricultural labour! I did it this way for a few reasons:

1. The vineyard now looks really beautiful as seen from the gate, so that keeps the owner and neighbours off my back - no more comments on how bad the vineyard look, etc, etc!  I'm used to it by now and I pay no attention, but it's still annoying!

2. A whole day's exclusive pruning is sore on the back muscles, so it's better to do a whole range of different activities that use different muscles

3. It was great fun and immensely satisfying to make such a beautiful 'garden' in the vineyard!

Here's some photos:

Natural State

The photo above (Natural State) shows the vineyard in, errrm, its natural state at this time of year; except for the near foreground, the vines are unpruned and there's lots of dead grass from last year between the rows; and there's new grass growing already, which is quite strange, but not surprising given climate change and generally increasing temperatures. I've even heard news of grapevines budding already - but not in Gredos.

 First Rows

The photo above is of the first few rows of the vineyard as seen from the road. After pruning the vines, I then cut the long grass with a sickle, and then hoed up around around them. I think this is a good idea, as the vines will be able to benefit from 100% of the rain that falls on them, with no competition from the grass and plants. They don't actually need all that water to survive, as their roots are very deep and can find water that the short-rooted plant cannot; and they are hardy drought-resistant varieties anyway. But even so, a little extra competitive advantage won't do them any harm, what?

Then I even raked up all the dead grass between the rows! I don't think there's any good agricultural reason for doing that, but what the hell? I felt like doing it, and the result look quite nice, no? It will be interesting to see if there are any consequences. For example, all the new grass might grow better now that there are no dead leaves and grass in their way. Maybe this spring these first few rows will be overwhelmed by new grass? Has my intervention upset the balance? 

Close-up

Above is a close-up of a pruned vine and its immediate surroundings.

Worm

Above is a lovely worm, evidence of a living healthy and balanced soil. Worms aerate the soil via the tunnels they make, thus helping to protect it from erosion; and they also improve its quality by eating, digesting and exceting it! Go figure!

Healthy balanced soil is very important, because vines can extract from it all the nutrients they need, neither too much not too little, but the perfect amount of each nutrient and micro-nutrient. Industrial-chemically farmed vines produce unbalanced faulty grapes because the soil they live in is biologically dead - it's just a substance that holds the vines upright, and which has an excessive over-abundance of some nutrients and a complete lack of others. There's no way possible to make a complex, interesting, terroir-expressing wine with grapes from that quality of soil. (Enough ranting already - Ed.)

A piece of bad news and really annoying too, is that 'someone' (I'm guessing the owner) took it upon themselves to prune the vines that I had deliberately allowed to climb up the various trees growning in the vineyard. This was so I could make a tiny experimental batch of 'Roman' wine. I haven't spoken to the owner about it yet - I'm letting time pass so I won't be so upset and angry when I do bring the subject up.

The Romans had three systems of grapegrowing: trellised and bush vines which we inherited from them, and also a third method which consisted of letting the vines grow up trees, which we have lost today. Pliny and Columella write about it at length here and here, respectively.

I hope to finish pruning this vineyard soon and make a start on my third, newly acquired, Chelva vineyard here in El Tiemblo.

That just leaves the Carabaña (Airén/Tempranillo) and Villarejo (Malvar) vineyards, but they have interesting issues/complications, ... which is another story!

I've also done some work in the bodega and at my computer, but I'll leave that for another post and another day.

Attack of the Rock Roses (Part 1)

Not so long ago in a vineyard not so far far away, all was in harmony and equilibrium. The dominant life-form (Garnacha vines)  were busy producing beautiful, aromatic, complex and well-balanced must, in collaboration with all the other minor life-forms who also lived in the vineyard. All lived together, the many species of grasses, plants, flowers and thistles and the many species of insects and assorted beasties, all the way down to microscopic size and even the invisible yet important unicellular life-forms like bacteria and yeasts; and also the occasional macro life-form which either lived in or just passed through the vineyard, like spiders, worms, birds, goats, sheep, cows, all the way up to the vigneron himself!

Old vine Garnacha vineyard, in El Tiemblo (Sierra de Gredos) Spain:

Harmony in the vineyard

But then, one day when the vigneron went to the vineyard to start on the annual pruning, he found that the balance and the harmony had been lost; for one of the minor life-forms (the Rock Roses) had invaded the vineyard and were starting to dominate it, to the detriment of the rightful species, the Garnachas.

Invasion of Rock Roses

Most of the rock roses were concentrated in a patch at the bottom of the vineyards out of sight of the top gate, hidden by a dip in the land.

Rock Rose patch at bottom of vineyard

What had happened? How had this come to pass? Was this a case of too little intervention by the vigneron? Perhaps. Some of those rock roses were quite tall and must have been there for at least two years. Others were small, less than one year old.

A tall deep-rooted 2-yr old rock rose

Rock roses are OK 'near' and 'around' the vineyard as they provide a habitat and biodiversity, and they look nice and smell good, and make a positive contribution to the quality of the grapes and must and wine. But no way can they be allowed to grow 'in' the vineyard among the vines. This is because rock roses and actually bushes and can even turn into small trees if the conditions are right for them. They are perennials, have long deep roots and would directly compete with the vines for water and nutrients.

Too many rock roses in the vineyard

This is totally different from life-forms such as grasses, plants, flowers or thistles, which are annuals (ie die off and decompose within the year), have short roots and don't directly compete with the vines.

So, there's no doubt about it in my mind. They have to go! But how? Having renounced the use of chemical weapons of mass destruction, I will just have to uproot them all by hand! By crouching down and/or bending over, then grabbing and pulling.

I can feel the pain already - all those muscles that I don't normally use, in my feet, bum, back, hands and fingers!!!

So the plan of action is one or two days of mobilization of muscle power (situps, pressups, toestands, ankle rotations, hand and finger exercises, etc) then launch a counter-attack on the rock roses.

They're everywhere

Rock Roses invading Garnacha vineyard

I hope to be done in one or two days!

Happy New Year, btw :)

Winding down for the summer

Well, its late mid-June-ish, and all is well. More or less. The vineyards are beautiful (touch wood); the bodega is semi-prepared for the coming harvest; (touch wood); and the marketing and sales is going really well too (touch wood!).

Vineyards

I’m really happy with my vineyards. I've let all the grasses, flowers, thistles, etc grow all year, and now all I'm doing is cutting them all back around the vines, so that they will be easier to access during the harvest. The reason I do this, instead of ploughing, is of course to create a living soil and a living ecosystem, full of micro-life (bacteria and other invisible organisms) and visible life itself (insects and other small animals).

Flowery grassy vineyard, Garnacha, El Tiemblo, Sierra de Gredos

If the soil is rich and complex and alive, then the vines can take all the nutrients they from it. No more and no less, but just exactly what they need. The way I create this rich and complex and living soil is just to let everything grow, reproduce, die and decompose; and help the process along a little by cutting the grass and plants back with my sickle. I also keep the canes from the pruning and chop them up into tiny pieces.

At this time of year, dry grass and thistles!

Every few years I add some manure, which I bury near the vines. It's better to bury it because if you leave it on the surface all its nutrients are used by the surface grasses and it doesn't get down to where the vine's roots are.

By letting all the different species of grasses and plants grow, you create diverse and interesting habitats for many different species of insects; whereas if you plough up and keep the vineyard naked, then only one or two species can live there – precisely the ones that eat vine leaves and grapes! Obviously, because there's nothing else left to eat! So now you have to use chemicals to kill them because otherwise they'll destroy your vines and grapes!

This natural system, IMO, produces grapes of a much higher quality than industrially-chemically farmed grapes. The must of naturally farmed grapes is much more complex and interesting and contains a much wider range of components and micro-components; the bunches of industrially-chemically farmed grapes may be bigger and more impressive looking, but the must is diluted, unbalanced and poorer in diversity of flavours and aromas.

more grass

Each to their own. To produce millions of liters of 'affordable' supermarket wine at nice price points, it may well be necessary to pollute the environment and use lots of dodgy chemicals, but to produce small amounts of quality, terroir-expressing, comment-worthy fine wines, it's essential to practice sustainable, environmentally respectful and safe agriculture. IMO.

Next year I'm going to give my vines a fortifying booster, in the form of a horsetail infusion (Latin: Equisetum; Spanish: Cola de Caballo). It's been a few years since I last did this.
The other day I watered the 200 new Tempranillo vines that I planted back in April.

Bodega

The bodega is more or less under control too; it's just that there are lots and lots of minor loose ends to be tied up, but for which I never find the time.

For example:
- The patio outside
- Shopping for ‘stuff’: Hermetic lids, Boxes for harvesting, Crown cap machine, small bits n bobs
- Cleaning everything: steel tanks, tinajas, presses, crushers, floors, etc
- Bottling up some barricas
- Stick insulating panels back on doors
- Line a new tinaja with beeswax

Not much shade here - maybe next year!

I have to do all the above and more, but I have no time to do it all! So I have to prioritize and decide which tasks are more important, and which can be left till ‘later’. The main things are in fact done, ie most of the wines are sold, most of the bodega and equipment is clean and ready for the final pre-harvest thorough cleaning. I will just have to be philosophical and come to terms with the fact that there’s no way I can do everything and have everything ‘just so’ to my entire satisfaction. :)

Marketing and Sales (the unglamourous part)

No real complaints in this department either. One of my goals last year was to diversify my exports, instead of selling exclusively to JPS in the USA, and I’ve managed to achieve that. I now also export to Denmark, Belgium, France and the UK (see this page for details).

a nice big pallet of wine, almost ready to go

I also decided to try to sell in Spain too, but that is proving more difficult. I do sell regularly to three places in Madrid (Enoteca Barolo, SoloDeUva and Montia) and also sporadically to another few places. But I see two problems here: firstly there is a lot less demand for natural wines in Spain, it’s still very much a novelty, like it was back in the 80’s or 90’s in other parts of the world. And I have no desire to ‘evangelize’ or try to persuade to drink natural wines. My approach is “if anyone wants to buy my wines they are more than welcome to do so, but I’m not going to argue or justify.” That’s a completely different thing from providing information or answering questions, of course! Which I do, a lot!

The other difficulty with selling wines in Spain is that I don’t have the time, resources or skills required to be a distributor! I can only just manage those three places I mentioned above, and even then it takes me weeks to respond to orders! What I really need, I suspect, are some proper distributors! J

Winding Down

So, time to wind down and try to relax. The first thing I have to look forward to this summer is the H2O Natural Wine Festival, held in the village of Pinel de Brai (Tarragona).

Next up will be the Albillo harvest, at the beginning of August. (Albillo Real is a very early ripening variety!) Then there will be a respite of a few weeks, until the regular varieties become ready for harvesting all through September and October.

Before, during and after those two events I hope to hang out in Barga (Tuscany) my family’s home town, and apart from doing the usual odd-jobs about the house and garden, I hope to expand my knowledge of Italian wines at the local enoteca – Colordivino, set right in the centre of the old part of town :)

Natural Wine fair in Madrid (and other ramblings)

Yes, incredible but true!  There's going to be a mini-natural wine fair held in Madrid this coming Sunday 10th May 2015. I say 'incredible' because it's been many years, if not decades, that natural wines have been produced, sold and drunk around the world, but the phenomenon seems to have passed Spain by. But mustn't complain! It's going to be a great event, and great fun shall be had by all :)

Save the date and the place, which is very conveniently very central and right next to Atocha train station:

Here's the list of the producers:

– Alexandre Coulange – Domaine Thuronis – Languedoc
– Jacques Broustet – Chateau Lamery – Burdeos
– Nacho González – La Perdida – Valdeorras
– Bárbara Magugliani y Joan Carles Torres – Can Torres – Ampurdán
– Manel Rodríguez – Wiss – Montsant
– Marcel Carrera y Ramón Viña – Vinya Ferrer – Terra Alta
– Miguel J. Márquez – Dagón – Valencia
– Rafa López – Sexto Elemento – Valencia
– Fabio Bartolomei – Ambiz – Madrid
– Julián Ruiz – Esencia Rural – Toledo
– Samuel Cano – Patio – Cuenca
– Juan Pascual López – Viña Enebro – Murcia
– Jose Miguel Márquez – Marenas – Montilla
– Ramón Saavedra – Cauzón – Granada
– Torcuato Huertas – Purulio – Granada
– Manuel y Lorenzo Valenzuela – Barranco Oscuro – Granada

And you'll be able to taste the wines of:

– Domaine Meyer – Alsacia
– Patrick Bouju – Auvernia
– Costadilá – Veneto
– Frank Cornelissen – Sicilia

Only €5 to get in, and you get to keep the glass! A bargain at twice the price :)

Other Ramblings

Well, I've been incredibly busy lately and amongst other things I managed to plant about 200 new Tempranillo vines in the Carabaña vineyard in the empty spaces where the vines were missing for some reason or other.

Here's a panoramic view of the vineyard from a few days ago. Note the grass just starting to grow, and the tubes protecting the newly planted vines:

Panoramic view of Carabaña vineyard

 And here's a view from the top! See the cane for the young vine to grasp onto, and you can just see the tiny vine at the bottom:

Bird's eye view!

I also managed to hoe up around about 30 vines or so, before my back said 'enough'!

Hi hoe, hi hoe, it's off to work I go!

Meanwhile, back at the bodega, I finally got round to bringing a barrica of Tempranillo 2010 from the previous bodega I was working out of, in Morata de Tajuña, two years ago(!) to my current bodega in El Tiemblo.

Due to the fact that a full barrica weighs about 275 kg, and in a not very accessible position, what I had to do was: pump the wine out of the barrica into a steel tank in the back of a van, load the empty barrica, drive to El Tiemblo, and then pump the wine back into the unloaded and palletized barrica:

Pumping Tempranillo back into its barrica

I also finally got round to tidying up the patio of the bodega a little bit. Here you can see the space next to the wall that used to be covered with brambles, which I had left alone on purpose last year, in the hope of harvesting some brambles! But there were hardly any to be had, so I uprooted the lot. Pending for May is the planting of some roses or other climbing plants that will help prettify that enormous blank wall!

Here below you can just make out the tiny plants of lettuce, tomato, onions, etc:

 And the latest addition to the garden is some basil. The large-leaved Italian variety. I actually have lots more plants to plant, in fact I intend to cover that whole row, in order to make jars and jars of pesto :)

The main thing that I managed to do though was to bottle up all my 2014 vintage wines (Airén, Doré, Albillo, Sauvignon Blanc, Garnacha, Tempranillo), and free up all my fermentation vessels, and so I can relax over the summer knowing that all I need to do is wash them before use!

Here's where I store all my wines these days - in niches under the concrete fermentation tanks:

The Albillo niche

And lastly, yet another pending item on my "to do" list - this is the future lovely pergola, that will be covered in vines and hanging fruit, providing a shady decadent luxurious space for slothing around in easy-chairs and/or hammocks while sipping wine and nibbling on aperitivos! Alas, it won't be ready for at least another year:

The future decadent wine-tasting area

And really lastly, I was in a place in Madrid the other day where they had an interesting selection of extraterrestrial wines:

"Importados de otros mundos" = "Imported from other worlds"