End of harvest

When I wrote the last entry, there were still some grapes to be harvested. These are all in the tanks now, which was duly celebrated last Friday with all our staff. The weather was fine, so we did a barbecue in front of the cellar. Since Monday 21 May is a public holiday in Chile, we had an extra day to recover, before starting to work again on tuesday. Only the cellar master and I had to work a little over the weekend, because a few tanks are still fermenting.
With all the grapes in, it was time to look at yields, which were very decent: 8500 kg/ha on the Syrah and a little less, slightly over 7000 kg/ha for Cabernet Sauvignon. This translates to about 60 and 50 hl/ha, which doesn't seem excessive at all.
The last grapes to be harvested were Carmenère, as usual, and the little Grenache and Mourvèdre that we have. All of this was done under beautiful weather, and we've had rain only once until now. This weekend more rain is announced, but that can't harm us any more! By the time we harvested these grapes, the leaves were beginning to yellow, and by now, almost all the vineyard is looking yellow, although the process was slow this year. Retaining green leaves this late in the season allows the plants to build up reserves to survive the winter and bud evenly and with a lot of energy next spring.
Some of the tanks have been drained and pressed off now, and the wines still look great. Not only lots of color, but also some sort of natural sweetness that is hard to explain. It has nothing to do with sugar, as all the wines we produce are dry, which means that there is less than 2 g/l of sugar in the wine, which is imperceptible.
The end of fermentation was slow this year, and it took one tank a week to drop from 4 to 1.6 g/l of sugar, but that is fine, as long as it keeps fermenting. I've heard of a lot of stuck fermentations this year, which is a real nuisance to a winemaker. A stuck fermentation can reward you with a really unctuous and complex wine, as long as volatile acidity doesn't go up too fast. This is a real danger, so most of us prefer a tank that ferments to dryness without too much trouble.
Our custom-made tank heater, a moveable water boiler that circulates hot water through a double wall around the tank, worked like a charm. We spent much less on gas this year than last year, as we don't have to heat all the water in the cooling/heating system, but just the littlewater needed for every tank individually.
Meanwhile, in the vineyard, we're grubbing up 2 hectares of Syrah this year. Syrah suffers from decline, a disease that is very specific to this varietal, and especially some clones of Syrah have been proven to be very susceptible. The causes are still unknown, but for some reason the trunk and the bark start to split, shoot growth becomes stunted and the plant eventually dies. In our case, about 50% of the older blocks of Syrah clone 99 is affected, and about 10% of the plants is dead, so it's time to replace the whole block. It is virtually impossible replant only the affected vines, as the existing ones will not let the new plants grow, so it's all or nothing. We're going to replant with a little Malbec, which reportedly does very well in our type of soil, and some more Cabernet, which does extremely well.
Before we start pruning we'll also apply the manure we have bought at the farms surrounding us. Most of them were happy to get rid of their cows' and horses' droppings, and for us its great material to improve the fertility and structure of the soil. Instead of using chemical fertilizer, this stuff adds more life and trace elements to the soil. This year we'll try lime as well, as this also releases nutrients and improves the structure of the soil. Another thing we'll do is to sow cover crops between the rows, which also increase life in the soil and enhance long-term fertility. In the short term, cover crops compete for water and nutrients with the vines, so we'll start on the more vigorous blocks and observe the effects, before covering the whole vineyard.
The weather is really getting cold now. As I'm writing this, the sun is shining, but warms very little. Since my office is facing away from the sun, it feels even colder. I'm almost through the firewood I bought last month, so it's time to chop a few trees down. Before we start pruning there's hopefully some time left to do this, and there are plenty of eucalyptus trees in a corner behind the vineyard.
The good weather last weekend made me ride by motorcycle to Coya, a quaint mineworker's village up in the Andes above Rancagua, the largest city nearby. I guess I can do with a break, now the wines are almost all finished, so I'm looking forward to traveling to the USA (California and New Mexico) in June to meat the people of Vino del Sol, who are selling our wines there. Yesterday I got my new passport, so everything is ready!