When a hobby becomes a passion

Our friend Luis, the owner of www.projectgarnacha.com has been a dedicated follower in all our travels, especially those to do with wine. It is now time for us to follow him.

I have known Luis for over thirty years. He is a very important friend for me. We have lots in common. He comes from the same hometown and studied the same degree in Toledo. He then emigrated to London and a few of us followed him a couple of years later. Therefore, he is partly to blame for me having left Spain.  . I have lots to thank him for! My parents may think differently!

He usually comes to Spain for Christmas. Coincidently, we are around so we must meet up. At the end of the day, we have not seen him since we started our travels four months ago. Also, as we have becoming so interested in wine, we cannot wait to see his vineyard in Segurilla (a village ten minutes drive from Talavera).

“Don’t expect too much of it”, he modestly says. “The vineyard is nothing spectacular, too small and too rustic”. This sounded perfect for us.

We have also been thinking about our very small garden back in Ebbsfleet. We had been planning to plant some fruit trees around the edge, but we have been rethinking. I love vines and planted my first in my parents garden when I was a teenager.

My grandfather used to also make wine, not from grapes, but from fruit found around the countryside and pears from our garden. We were bought up on this stuff and must have started drinking it when we were really young. I remember him having over two hundred bottles stacked in the loft, so much it used to make the ceiling bow with all the weight. A loft is not such a good place to store wine, but I also remember helping him, the demi-johns, bottling and corking, applying the labels-Chateau Col.

Maybe it would be nice to follow in his footsteps. Maybe we could get a dozen vines in the back garden and two in the front and try our hand a producing a little white wine. Maybe we will get some hints from Luis.

GDR

We awoke to a very foggy day. The fog is so thick and low that we cannot drive faster than 40 kms per hour. We hope that the day clears up and ends up being the normal bright and sunny one.

It did. After a longer than usual drive, Luis was patiently waiting for us in Segurilla. We drove to the vineyard, just outside the village.

I love this drive, it is one we take fairly regularly to create variety. It heads through Hontanares and the landscape is really beautiful and the road is usually clear.

GDR

The vineyard, with a size of around 5,000 square metres, has enough space for  1,500 vines. Most of the vines produce the Garnacha red grape variety and a few of them, Tempranillo. Although he has also a few white grapes, he only produces red wine. “White wine follows a different making process” he says. “It requires a bit more of my time being around. Red wine is pretty straightforward. After the harvest, the wines can be stored directly in the barrels and I leave them there for the entire year”. Fair enough, less work for him and his father, who is the one looking after the wine when Luis is in the UK.

His vines are over twenty fives years old. Good age to produce a decent wine. He has lots of empty spaces to plant new ones. It will take about three years for a new vine to be ready to give us some juice.

The vines used  to grow on the ground, the traditional technique in Spain. Luis has cut them back to their trunks and is in the process of retraining them. He has installed tensioned wires so that he can train them in the double Guyot system. This will make it easier to prune, harvest and manage the vines, protecting them from disease. A rose bush sits at the end of each row. This is used to detect disease. The rose is a little more fragile and will get diseased before the vine, hopefully giving you enough time to prevent contamination of the vine.

The vineyard is big enough to hold a few pine trees. Excellent! The trees give enough pine nuts for the whole family. Shame we have arrived just when the season has finished. Pine nuts are an expensive business in Spain but we love them! Luis’ father has also been planting some other young trees. Luis will have quite an orchard in a few years time.

The vineyard offers stunning views of Sierra de Gredos, our home mountains which he also loves. To the extent, they are the background of the wine labels.

We try to locate Guisando. Some villages nestle in the foothills. Where is our little village?

“It is time to prune the vines and I have brought some tools, do you want to help?” he says. Gary enthusiastically joined him. I am not so sure. “I will follow you to make sure you prune them correctly” I joke

Gary looks particularly concerned about spoiling Luis’ vines. “There is no right or wrong of how and where to cut the branches. If you need to choose, pick up the oldest ones. If you make a mistake, you will know for next year” Luis says, reassuring Gary. Luis generally has this layed back approach towards life. I love it.

We are also hoping to get a few hints on how to look after our vine back in Guisando. We planted it a few years ago in our courtyard mainly to give us some shade in summer. Because we are very rarely around at pruning time, the vine is not growing as we would like it.

This also partly the reason why Gary is having difficulty in training it to direct the branches where he wants. Gary has set up a series of wires along the wall. One of the wires does not have a vine branch following it. “You can also graft on a new shoot”. Luis suggests. Great idea. He has then given us a few and explain that we will need to cut a notch in the branch, insert the new shoot and strongly wrap them with strips of sturdy fabric and wait. Hopefully the graft will take.

The other advantage is that Luis has given us a Tempranillo grape, so we will get both red and white grapes from Guisando. How cool is that.

Time for lunch. Back in the village he takes us to the best place to eat. “Not a difficult decision” he jokes “considering how small the village is”. Also this is pretty much the only restaurant.

Jokes apart, we loved the choice. The restaurant does amazing local food. We chooses their speciality, ‘cochinillo asado’ (roasted baby pig) with fried potatoes. We have only gone for half and we believe there will be left overs.

Luis, stop playing with your food and starting serving for goodness sake.

It tastes so good. There is no need for garnish during roasting. The meat is tender and tasty. The skin is nicely roasted and crispy, this is one of Gary’s favourite bit! He also has mine.

For three wine lovers, the meal has to be accompanied with full-bodied, local red wine from the area, chosen, of course, by Luis.

The charming waiter is encouraging us. “Come on, it will get cold!”. We just don’t know how to start!

Over food, we have lively and interesting discussions. As the wine levels go down the conversation becomes thicker and thicker. We went from food and wine, through out travel experiences and ending with our current reading lists. Luis becomes interesting in what Gary has to say about his current book: “A universe from nothing” by Lawrence M. Krauss. Gary is passionate about science, especially what it has to say about the existence of god (or lack of). Luis enjoys having this type of discussions with Gary and how he logically puts his arguments together. I agree with him, Gary is a very good orator.

Blimey it is already 18.00 almost dinner time!

Let’s go to the place where Luis makes his wine, in a plot of land that his father owns just outside Talavera.

Down in the cellar it is cold and humid, Luis keeps four barrels. The first one is full of grappa, which needs to be kept for ten years before coming Brandy. So far, it has only been there one. A long time to wait.

In the other two, he keeps last year’s wine. “Is it French or American oak?” Gary and I snobily  joke. “F off” he laughs. We try a bit of it. Yes, still young, but you can start tasting a subtle vanilla flavour. It won’t be here much longer. The wine has to be bottled soon so that the barrels can be used to store this year’s wine.

His is trying something new this year: sweet wine. Not so sure about this one. We are not precisely sweet wine lovers but with a very open mind though. We will give it a try when it is ready.

He has a present. Last year’s wine for us, my brother and my parents which will be tasted on New year’s eve.

Luis, thanks very much for such an interesting and entertaining day. I am sure we will get back to you with lots of questions when we start our wine project next year.

Take care and see you back in the UK.

SM & GDR