August 2026 Update

For winemakers, summer is one of the rare moments there is not much do do in the vineyards. The vines do not need our help to ripen the grapes, fungal pressure is under control. We start preparing for harvest in the winery, and also reflect on the intense past few months. 

Overall a good year up until now, not easy, as it never is, but everything went as well as I could hope. 
Started off with a long time dream coming true, as Marceau Bourdarias came to visit us, and I helped him give pruning courses to fellow winemakers. This was a first step towards us giving more of such courses here in Portugal, stay tuned for more info,
At the same time, Mariana, a promising young winemaker came to start working with us. 
She has been doing great work, and I can without a doubt put some of the fluidity and quality of this year's work as being her doing. 
Bud burst was rather early, and was followed by a warm month, making all the vineyards come to pass flowering very early. Fortunately it does not look like we have been hugely impacted by the high temperatures of june and early july. Those have been followed by very mild weeks, so much so that I am starting to think we might harvest only a few day earlier than usually, which is a bit unexpected.

6 to 7 treatments depending on the plots, putting be just under 1kg of copper / hectare. Still with very low losses to downy mildew. 
Our usual applications of camomile tea and fermented nettles to boots the plants were joined by a new natural product : application of natural whey to fight off powdery mildew.