During December and January we rebuilt over the old animal barn using the same footprint and keeping the very old stone walls for part of the building. Our decision to build the bodega is outlined in this post.

Old walls kept

Thermolite blocks used for walls to aid nsulation

The joints between the stones and rocks of the old walls do not have cement but lime mortar, so we will get good humidity. We have been running out of space for storage of bottles mainly, but also having the wine in barrels and tanks on the terrace has been taking up space.

Roof beams going on

Roof going on

We also found that the wine we have made is at first tasting uncomplicated and fruity with a light body. It has improved considerably in the bottle, due to the wines natural acidity and fairly high alcohol. So it seems that we have to wait four years at least to get to the stage where it begins to take on more complexity. We do not filter the wine when bottling and only add small amounts of potassium metabisulphite at fermentation and when storing in barrel and tank. The wine is a field blend, so the proportions are not exact but as we have 700 tempranillo and 400 syrah, a bottle is about 70% tempranillo and 30% syrah.

So it is a very natural wine, it is unsettled when transferred from barrel, or tank, to bottle so needs time to settle and seems better when tasted from barrel than when tasted from bottle shortly afterwards. So the movement between barrel and bottle causes ‘distress’ to the wine which reflects in its taste.

Roof nearly finished

We are bottling around 1,500 bottles this year, so although we are going to harvest later this year and maybe have less grape juice, we will still need a storage capacity for 8,000 bottles or so, to allow time for the wine to mature in bottle.

Bodega back view

Just need to build brick recesses to store the bottles and it will be complete, except for the 8,000 bottles we intend to put in it!