What a week! Just ask our head winemaker, Antonio, and the rest of our team. They’ll tell you how relieved they are to put aside their Paco & Lola polos and workboots and get back to working more civilized hours free from the stress and excitement of the crush.

Harvest time means a lot of hard work for all the team and the atmosphere around the winery has been full of energy and anticipation. The crush team this year expanded to more than 60 people working in different sections of the winery to receive and crush this year’s harvest and make it a great success. Everything looks set for a great vintage for Paco & Lola’s Albariño wine and iWine.

The harvest and grape crush are key steps in making Paco & Lola’s wines and the culmination of a year’s work for our growers who take great care in the manual harvest, transport and handling of our grapes.

On arrival at the winery samples are taken to grade the grapes and control quality before they are destemmed and crushed firmly but gently by our state of the art wine presses.

The crush is also key to making Paco & Lola’s lively and delicious iWine, as the iWine’s grapes are macerated at much lower temperatures than normal by adding dry ice to the process which concentrates the natural sugars in the grapes and results in a sweeter wine with intense flavors.

The 2010 harvest has been moved forward a week as Spain has experienced one of it’s hottest summers in recent years and the grapes have reached their optimum maturity slightly sooner than usual.

This summer’s warm temperatures and low humidity have contributed to make 2010 a good year for grape quality and from here on in we’re in the capable hands of our head winemaker, Antonio!