Antiyal

Well ,we pressed our first wine on Saturday May 2, Alvaros birthday, so he spent it pressing, our first wine, our Cabernet Sauvignon from around our house in Alto Jahuel. Alvaro finds it deep , full of fruit, and good concentration, now its doing malolactic fermentation in barrels , 5 barrels from our homegrown, and one barrel of press.
Monday we harvested one of our two Carmeneres from Escorial, and on tuesday we crushed some Syrah from Alvaros mom in Isla de Maipo. Tomorrow Saturday May 9, full moon we will be crushing our last Carmenere from Escorial. So we hope it goes well.
After the harvest we waited for the moon at the winery with some friends and had an asado al palo , made by Ian our friend. He started at 3 and we ate around 8 at night, beautiful day.
Monday we got the oldest Carmenere we get from Isla de Maipo planted in 1984 by Alvaros father.
Great grapes.
Our press went bad, so we are waiting for it to be repaired as we are starting to press our Cabernet sauvignon from Escorial, after 25 days of total maceration, the ones we crushed on April 17 and 18.
Today May 12 we have our first rain, so its been a very nice harvest season, and now this little rain is very welcome.
So this afternoon just before the rain we sowed our flowers in between the vines, just in time!
We are planning to get our last grapes in from Isla de Maip o during friday and saturday 15, 16 May!

With a beautiful, but a little more chilly-ness, we harvested on Saturday 25 a part of our Syrah. We chose a fruit day [ on the biodynamic calendar] so that we get the best expression of the fruit. The grapes arrived in excellent conditions and very cold. We started  picking at 7 am so by 10:30 we had picked everything and this helped us get the grapes into the tank at 13 celsius for a good start on the cold maceration. We had some visitors from the States as well as Japan– Shinya who came to help out. Over the past few days, we haven’t harvested, as we have been working the vines, the soil, ploughing, and spreading  biodynamic compost as well as preparing to sow our flowers and grasses in between the rows.
We are receiving our first new barrels n these days– ohhh allways a difficult part as they are so expensive..but thats our lot or not!
And more pictures :

Over easter weekend we started a tank of our own home-grown Cabernet fermenting [2.000 lt.]. Thus we have lots of work to do with pump-overs and detestage a.k.a. an “Australian” a.k.a. “un trasiego”. The whole family helped out  as it  was a long weekend and extra collaborators were scarce.
Then, on Friday April 17 we harvested 3.000 kilos of Cabernet Sauvignon from our parcel in Escorial. On Saturday we contonued with more Cabernet and Friday 24 we have our first 2009 must finished and dry. Saturday 25 we shall be harvesting our Syrah from Escorial– 5.000 kilos.

The harvesting conditions have been very good so far. Thus far it is a very dry year and this has allowed for healthy long maturation of the fruit on the vine.

And now more pictures…

This week’s WOW
2003 Kuyen, Alvaro Espinoza, Maipo, Chile (£8.99)
You may have heard of Antiyal (£19.99, Adnams). it is my favourite Chilean red and it is certainly one of the most serious reds in the world. The 2003 is due here very soon, so form an orderly queue, but in the meantime – and for less than half the price – you can snap up the ‘second’ wine from the Kuyen estate. My wine of the week is a wondrous creation, which needs to be decanted and left for half-an-hour before you attack. When you do, you will find yourself in a whirlwind of red and blackberry fruit, with oak, leather and spice also in the vortex. This is the definitive autumn wine, so get in quick.

The Mail, September 2006
Matthew Jukes

If you wish to be on our mailing list and/or purchase bottles directly from the winery please use the form below. The bottles that are available are very few and are on a first come first serve basis. In future when we have small stocks to sell, and/or previous to our yearly wine releases, we shall be in touch with you to purchase direct if you wish at that time.

cforms contact form by delicious:days