Spanish Secrets: Loony Cycle
Craig Briggs discovers that the most important factor in making Galician wine is the Lunar cycle.
Last weekend our neighbour and my wine making tutor Mellie, came to the house on what has become a regular inspection visit. She is making sure that I am following her wine making instructions to the letter and giving me all the help and encouragement I need.
With the natural fermentation process drawing to an end, she deemed it appropriate to impart the next step in the procedure. This involves separating the liquid, which is in the early stages of becoming wine, from the mulch or waste, skins, seeds, stalks and anything else which inadvertently found its way into the barrel.
At this stage the barrels could be cleaned, the wine put back in the clean barrels and the barrels sealed air tight. She decided that we should undertake this task in four days time, which was last Thursday.
On the Tuesday evening Mellie arrived at the house in somewhat of a panic. What on earth could the problem be?
Mellie quickly went on to explain: under no circumstances should we separate and clean the wine on Thursday. It must be done on Wednesday.
When deciding previously what day we should separate the wine, she had failed to take into account the single most important factor, the Lunar cycle!
To some people, among which I include myself, this may seem quite strange. Here in Galicia I sometimes get the impression, that the moon is more important to the local inhabitants than their devout Catholic faith. The Lunar cycle accounts for the timing of fields being ploughed, crops being sowed and even the best time for getting your hair cut.
Without hesitation I agreed. If there was even the slightest possibility that this cosmic occurrence could affect the outcome of our wine, I was not going to take any chances.
On the Wednesday we followed Mellie's instructions, separating, cleaning and refilling our two barrels, and finally making sure that they were both air tight. After eight and a half hours we had finished up with about 100 litres of white wine and 80 or so litres of red.
As expected Mellie came to the house that evening to check that everything had gone to plan, with the inspection complete it was time for our first official tasting.
Mellie, being tea total, could only comment on the colour and smell, but her pleasure and approval were plain to see. As for Melanie and I, we sampled the flavours of our young wine.
Impatiently, we are waiting the month or so required for it to reach its full potential.
