Harvest in GarciGrande – Rueda
- Weather conditions
The 2019 harvest in Rueda was determined by the following aspects:
– A year of strong drought, both during the winter rest period and the vegetative cycle.
– Maturation neither early nor late, in its usual time, a harvest with warm weather but without excessively high temperatures.
- Harvest data
This drought situation in Rueda has caused a reduction by 10% of the yields comparing to last year. However, due to the new plantations that have brought grapes, the harvest of the Denomination ended up arriving to 115 million kilograms of grapes. In GarciGrande, the harvest took place from September 12th to 26th, for the white grape, while the red wine grapes from Tierra de Castilla y León were harvested in the first days of October.
- Production
Verdejo grapes, from our usual vineyards of Rueda, La Seca and Nava del Rey, have been harvested at a good ripening point and with excellent sanitary conditions. In the oenological plane, wines have been obtained with a lot of extract, with a lot of mouth, with a well-adjusted acidity and with a complex nose, full of citrus aromas and white fruits for the white wines, red fruits and licorice for the reds
The usual work with white musts has been followed in the cellar. Using dry ice to protect the grapes from the field. We continued the maceration the skin, in our macerator, in a good proportion, to extract all the aromatic potential of Verdejo. We have continued with the work of the sludge, in our small deposits of 20,000 L, to finish obtaining all the sweet and kind substances in the mouth that the musts polysaccharides give us. The fermentations have developed clean, with a good kinetics, developing spectacular citrus aromas, of white, creamy fruits, … Once the fermentation is finished, we continue with the aging of the deposits with their fine lees, they already carry more than one month and apparently we can continue with the process, mínimum one more month.
In the 2019 vintage we will have real Verdejos, Verdejos, pure GarciGrande essence. Our GarciGrande Verdejo, 12 Linajes and Viña Gormaz lines will once again be loaded with varietal, fennel, citrus aromas, with wide, creamy and fresh mouths. While for brands such as Mozares, or Garcigrande Verdejo-Viura, they continue to stand out for that extra point of sweetness along with the characteristic fruity aromas with tropical touches, from previous vintages. On the other hand Anier, as in previous years, we developed a part in 500 L barrels with subsequent aging in the same barrel and with its lees, to contribute to the final mixture that characteristic complexity that the wine has. On the other hand, Tempranillo red grapes, from vineyards of several villages in the provinces of Valladolid and Zamora, have been harvested with a good balance, obtaining wines of good color. Due to the gentle work done in the maceration, we will have very aromatic wines with fresh and round mouths.
Harvest 2019 in Rioja – Valdelacierva
One more year, the harvest in the Valdelacierva Winery brough us a great satisfaction.
From the grapes collected, more than 70% belong to the Rioja Alavesa and the rest distributed between Navarrete and Tudelilla.
In the production, we have worked more selectively with two reception lines:
- Traditional hopper reception system with small capacity trailers.
- In boxes with 24h of refrigerated truck at 4º to unload through the whole grain selection line to gravity-covered.
On the climatic and cycle data of the vine, we must highlight:
- 25% less grapes than in 2018, which was a historic crop of Rioja in 2018 with a total of 486 million kg collected and 330 million liters protected.
- In 2019: 375 million kilos of grapes in total of the region.
- Good vegetative situation of the vineyard at the time of harvest, with an optimal sanitary state and a balanced vigor, less compact clusters and less weight of the berries positive parameters to determine a high quality vintage.
- It has been a dry year, although “with rains in key moments of the cycle, including those difficult days of September, but, with the arrival of the north wind, the threat of botrytis was cut.
THE HIGH QUALITY OF THE GRAPE OF 2019 GUARANTEES ALL THE WINE RANKS THAT WE CURRENTLY COMMERCIALIZE.
New projects and interesting works in the search for improvement and trials within the winery.
- Harvest of the singular vineyards: Cantogordo and Montepedriza.
- R&D projects with new grape varieties and prototypes that help us to work the different varieties of Rioja: Sweet Malvasía or Garnacha Blanca with late harvest.
Harvest 2019 in Ribera del Duero – Gormaz
Climatology and phenology.
The year 2019 has been a year characterized by a medium-low rainfall with respect to the last 10 years and very high maximum temperatures, the latter coinciding with the physiological state of flowering, causing a flower shift and therefore a harvest reduction in some areas of our vineyards. Both climatic factors have resulted in a 25% reduction in production in the Ribera del Duero, but it has also led to a high level of quality, which has been endorsed by the good weather. Thanks to the high temperatures experienced during the harvest days, they have allowed us to collect the grapes at the precise moment of ripening, making a separation of the various plots for the production of our most special wines.
Productions
At the level of Ribera del Duero, 25% less has been taken than in the 2018 harvest (125.4 million kg), this is indicative of a maintenance and increase in market prices.
In Gormaz, values very similar to the 2018 harvest have been taken.
Technical assessment of the crop
We can speak in general terms with a qualification from winery level as “Excellent”. The wines obtained are of high color and IPT, high alcohol content, very aromatic and balanced, with very silky tannin, elegant, good length and persistence. In short, the vintage is about aging wines that will surely be proven very long in time.
The wines have been made from the vineyard, making a plot selection level obtained very good results, so that we can transmit the land and be able to differentiate the old vineyard plots.
Grano a Grano has been made from our Quintanilla plots of old vineyards, 80-100 years old, to be sold in 2021. We have also developed several barrels of 500 kg of different plots of more than 100 years, of sandy land for our future “12 Linajes finca los arenales 2019” currently in the process of making malolactic fermentation in French oak barrels of 500 liters capacity.
