Well, one more year, we already have all the grapes in the winery. For all of us who work in the winery, the grape harvest is a time of great workload, but it is the time of year that we live with the most enthusiasm. During these almost 2 months we have to pamper, care for and guide the grapes that we have been “breeding” for almost 9 months, to achieve our wonderful wines with all their aromatic potential, all their elegance on the palate and, above all, maintaining the personality they possess. During those 9 months, there is hard and little recognized work that allows us to produce these magnificent wines, because without good grapes it is impossible to make great wines. This work begins in the cold and harsh winter, carrying out the pruning tasks, which will allow the plant to perfectly distribute its food until the last bud, and obtain the precise amount of grapes that allows it to reach good maturity. With the arrival of spring, sprouting will arrive and with it the green pruning, absolutely essential to obtain quality grapes, because in it we will choose the branches that will later give the grape clusters and their arrangement on the plant. A good quantity and placement of these clusters will be of great help to us in the ripening of the grapes and in the fight against fungal diseases especially. A few days later, vegetation placement work is carried out, necessary for the good health of the vineyard, trying to generate a good, homogeneous and ventilated plant wall that allows us to shade the bunches and avoid agglomerations. Approaching the harvest, leaf removal, stripping, and trimming will be carried out depending on what is necessary in each of the 7 different varieties grown in Hacienda Albae in order to keep the vineyard healthy and obtain the desired maturity in each of the varieties. Finally, I do not want us to forget the tireless walks through the vineyard, carrying out samplings and more samplings to control the state of the grapes, perform analytics that allow us to see a wide spectrum of their chemical parameters and the tasting of these. All the data obtained, both chemical and organoleptic, help us to decide the exact time of harvest for each variety, something very important in all grape varieties.
All this work, we have the obligation to praise it, show it and enhance it if possible in our scarce 2 months of Harvest. An exciting, exciting and often strenuous job, which we love. I try to show you in a small photographic report. In a few days, with the finished wines, we will talk about the results.