Well, growth in the vineyard has exploded! All throughout the vineyard we see lots of growth. The guys have been busy tending the quickly growing vineyard. They have been busy putting up wires in the vineyard to keep the tender growing shoots in place. Without these crucial wires the tender shoots would be susceptible to the elements and could literally break off the vine. A new tender shoot is very similar in consistency to a thin spear of asparagus. In addition the guys have been completing the job of shoot thinning.
Grapevines have the mind set that more is better. So a vine will put out more shoots than is necessary for producing premium wines, of course the vine does not know that is our intentions. More shoots means more fruit and too much fruit makes wines that lack concentration and depth of flavor. Nature has different reasons for producing fruit than we intend it for. Nature wants to produce fruit that is just tasty enough to entice something to consume its fruit. This "taker" will hopefully pass the seeds to a new area or location and the vine can now establish a new territory. This is natural selection at work! If you look at the world of wine and what is planted some varieties have done a very good job.
We have been busy racking reds out of barrels in the past week. The reds continue to show nicely and I will be very excited when these will eventually reach the bottle next year at this time. Racking is when we pump the wine out of barrels. When we rack we pump out all but about a half gallon of wine or so. This small amount of wine which we call the 'dregs' is discarded. The dregs have all things that gravity has naturally pulled out of the wine. Okay, what do I mean? Well, picture a clear container of orange juice that has pulp. When you first see the bottle all of the pulp is at the bottom. If you shake the bottle vigorously the pulp disperses and there is no longer any pulp at the bottom. However, if you wait several hours you will see that gravity pulls that pulp back out of suspension. Well, gravity takes a little longer with wine. About every three months we rack wines off of their pulp or in our case 'dregs'. Once the barrels have been pumped we then clean the barrels. After we have racked all of the wine, we clean the barrels and then return the wine to clean barrels. This whole process is repeated every three months up until the wine is bottled.
I want to thank, congratulate, and wish Matheus Xavier Gabriel the III good luck! After many years of service Matt will be leaving Martha Clara Vineyards for a design job. When I first heard that Matt would be leaving MCV, I immediately assumed it would be to pursue his life long love of photographing Quinceneras and Bat mitzvahs! I was informed by Matt that this would continue to be "just a side gig and that dream has not yet been realized." Please see below for one last look at Matt's fine work.
Matt has worked tirelessly on many projects while at Martha Clara. We thank him for his hard work and we wish him the best of luck!
Cheers Ya'll,
Juan.
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