Harvest *drama* 2023
If you know me personally, you know I love *drama*, so considering my harvest plans for 2023 changed like every other day, involved two continents, and also a few bureaucracy battles, this one was a good one. And again, if you know me personally, you know I have been trying to get my residency here in Spain for the past year or so, it’s really all I talked about and is ultimately what decided my course for the vintage of 2023. This visa issue is now resolved and fortunately, I will now need to find a new personality and pastime.
So. During the Spring of 2023 I was applying for harvest internships in California and Oregon, deciding to take a small break from the personal winemaking adventure and work a harvest out west. I was eager to learn from an amazing estate like Littorai, and have some fun going back to the California cellar rat days of working long shifts on the crush pad and living off a 90% burrito diet. I also wanted a pulse check on whether I was interested in working for a winery in the US (as I’m applying for Spanish residency, I know). But fate had other plans.
I quickly learned I was not allowed to leave Spain and work in the US while my papers were being processed (which makes sense), but was assured I would be good to go by the end of July. So I planned a trip back home to Colorado in late July and interviewed to work harvest in Spain for a winery in Malaga. As time passed, this seemed less possible, so I pushed my US plans to August/September and decided to make my own wine in Gunnison, CO with Buckel Family Wine, I was thinking of an aromatic white like Riesling. By August, time crept up on this plan and as the harvest in Gredos was very early this year with the hot weather I assumed I was too late and began to accept I might not work harvest at all this year.
But I couldn’t just do nothing... So, very last minute I was able to source a small amount of fruit in Gredos, about 600kg of Garnacha from the same vineyard I used last year. It was a very hot and dry year, so the grapes were harvested a month ahead of when they were last year (eek climate change). However, the conditions gave the fruit a lot of concentration and I am excited for the resulting wine. It made me so happy to have a fermentation to tend to and just participate and appreciate the process. And as I make my wine in a shared winery with a lot of other winemakers who are my friends, it feels good to be involved and see everyone at the bodega, helping each other with punch-downs, and tasting each other’s grapes.
Garnacha in Gredos, harvested August 20th
Around mid-September, just when my wine was finished fermenting, and I could close the lid on the tank, I got approval for my residency. Yay! My primary motivation was to go home and see my family (specifically surprise my dad for his 60th birthday). But of course, I couldn’t help but reach out to the Buckel’s and ask when they were harvesting their red grapes, to see if I still had a shot at making some Colorado wine. It turns out they were bringing in Cabernet Franc on October 6th. Opposite to Spain’s dry, hot year, Colorado had an abundance of snowmelt/water and a temperate summer, making for a later harvest and an abundance of fruit. I needed to decide fast, but pulled the trigger and said yes to making a little more wine!
Pressing off my Cabernet Franc in Colorado (October 16th)
If anything the harvest of 2023 was about relinquishing control, staying patient, and enjoying what you can. Which turned into more than I even imagined, making wine on two different continents with the help of friends and family in both Spain and the US. And I’m really excited to be able to share some wine with all of my American friends and family now that there’s a fermentation going stateside. The drama was worth it.