The (relative) lack of sunshine in July had slowed down the ripening of grapes and we were thinking that harvest would be about 2 weeks later than last year. And that would have been great! A whole two weeks extra to get ready for harvest, but no! The sun decided to make up for lost time and temperatures have been up in the 30s even reaching 39°C during the whole of August. So my lovely Grenache Gris grapes in Maury look like they will be ready for picking at the end of August - the same as last year.
So now it is panic stations at the Vatican wine cellar in Tuchan to get everything ready. We are checking the equipment - well, we turned on the water cooling system and that doesn't work. And when that happens and you live in the middle of nowhere it is a major headache to get it fixed. Especially as the whole world seems to be on holiday.
We have built a cold storage area for the bottled wine - 3 days work but amazing what you can do with bamboo, string, rolls of insolation and an air con unit.
Oh yes and we have a concrete floor to lay to put the vats on - the list just seems to go on and on and on.
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