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Mario Pablo Silva, managing director, Vina Casa Silva, blog number 5 of Chile harvest

Published:  27 March, 2009

Mario Pablo Silva, managing director of Viña Casa Silva's fifth blog on the harvest from Colchagua Valley, Chile

It was all hands on deck last week at Viña Casa Silva as we reached a crucial time in the harvest.


The warm days are back and everything is now reaching maturity. In just a few days we picked all our Viognier at Lolol in what we call the Coastal Shadow. Despite temperatures soaring to around 30°C at midday, the evenings, nights and mornings remain very fresh in Lolol due to the arrival of the sea breezes every afternoon.


This is a key factor enabling the preservation of freshness and acidity in the Viognier, which looks very promising.


Our best Cabernets are now macerating in 500 litre French oak barrels -
and some have already started fermentation. Using these small barrels enables us to vinify each 0.1 hectare micro terroir plot separately. Each barrel holds up to 400kg of grapes and rests on specially designed wheels, or rollers, allowing us to rotate them by hand very gently.


Working with them is very time consuming: this week we've spent a lot of time hand-filling them but the difference in quality is worth it.


Over the weekend our tasting panel completed the first tasting session of the new 2009 wines. Despite the fact that none have finished fermentation, some of the musts are already showing great potential. In fact the Sauvignon Gris is very advanced with barely 15g/l of sugar left, having already reached almost 12% alcohol.


Now I must get back to work as we are still very busy with the last plots of Cabernet Sauvignon, and the first of Petit Verdot and Syrah. We will also begin to pick the first Carmenère vineyards very shortly. Until next week, saludos....

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