Today is officially the first day of autumn and it is raining heavily in Lisbon though no rain fell in Portalagre. Listening to the radio in the car this morning they reported that this summer has been the second hottest in Portugal for the last eighty years (they didn’t say which was the hottest). We are now just over halfway through vintage. Yesterday we picked enough Touriga Nacional to fill a balseiro (vat) which came out at 13.5 baumé, much the same as on our grape sample analysis at the end of last week. This is the problem that many growers still face – the grapes have stopped ripening and there seems no point in waiting any longer. There huge swathes of vineyard down in Beja, the hottest part of Portugal, still waiting to be picked and the sugar levels seem to be stuck. Many adegas have run out of space than there is big demand for more vats for storage. Yesterday afternoon I tasted all the wines we have made so far. The young vine Aragonez is light, soft and fruit driven. The Syrah/Viognier is dark, firm and very promising for such young vines (planted in 2006). This year’s Trincadeira is fresh, firm and fruit driven with some promising structure and depth. The old vine Trincadeira and Aragonez is now in new oak (Seguin Moreau and Saury) and tastes firm, fine and focused with good concentration but it perhaps lacks the weight of the 2009 for which I have high hopes of a Pedra e Alma.                       

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A pause in the vintage. We have stopped picking for the last four days because the Alicante Bouschet and Touriga Nacional are still not ripe. The crop is large (despite our green harvest in June) and with the warm dry weather continuing the vines have shut down. I understand that we are not alone in this and that Alicante is not ripening anywhere in the Alentejo. My fear now is that the grapes may never fully ripen! Still, the wine we have so far is looking good. The old vine Trincadeira and Aragonez is now in barrel, the Trincadeira (2000) vineyard produced some good wine this year and the Syrah/Viognier, although still fermenting, looks dark and well structured, especially for young vine fruit. I think that we will start picking the Touriga Nacional at the end of the week (when rain is forecast) and leave the Alicante Bouschet until early next week. It is going to be a long vintage.   

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Mandy de Azevedo Coutinho of www.amendoeirasemflor.com came to stay and took some great photos of the quinta during vintage. You can find them on our new facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Sonho-Lusitano-Vinhos/158423754186455?v=wall&ref=ts 

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The rain never came so we continued picking (although further south and over the border in Spain they had a night of torrential rain). The young vine Syrah is looking good and for the first time we also have some Viognier to ferment with it (14.6 baumé). That leaves Touriga Nacional, Alicante Bouschet, some old vine Arragonez and Cabernet Sauvignon for next week plus some other odds and ends. We sent samples of the Touriga and Alicante off for analysis today to ascertain when they will be ready to pick. I recall least year saying that we had a happy atmosphere in the adega with plenty of singing. This year we have music to keep us happy, from an old ghetto blaster that someone has brought in. Yesterday it was Radio Cidade (mostly R&B) today has been Fado Day. I discover today that Alexandre who works with Luís in the vineyard during vintage  (and is a knife grinder in Portalegre the rest of the time) is a pretty good fado singer. At the end of the day today he promised to bring a cake in next week and sing fado!                         

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The weather is on the turn. We had our first rain for weeks last night, just after a churrasco (barbecue) at the adega with achegã (so called ‘black bass’) fished by José Luís and Luís Garcia from the barragem on the quinta. Today it is much cooler and thundery and as I write this a strong and surprisingly cold wind is blowing across the serra. With the threat of rain we opted to pick as much of the remaining Trincadeira as possible. It seems to have ripened quite well, especially where the soils are deeper. On the shallower soils it has retained a slight herbaceousness characteristic of slightly under-ripe Trincadeira but we can’t risk it being spoiled by the rain. The adega is nearly full but with more rain forecast for tomorrow we will probably delay picking the Syrah until next week when cool clear weather is forecast.                      

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