Casita del Río..the story so far.

CASITA DEL RÍO... (Small house on the river)

The story so far...

In 2017, while at a wine show in Melbourne, one of the wine merchants told us about the Ribeira Sacra region of Galicia in North Western Spain. He pulled out his phone and showed us incredible photos on of the steep hillside valleys of the Sil and Miño rivers covered with grapevines. It was a stunning landscape and completely different to the relatively barren wine areas like La Rioja and Ribera Del Duero we were used to. It was an instant attraction and we had to go there ASAP and started planning a trip for September. While researching the area, I discovered a website run by an English ex pat specialising in rustic properties for sale in Galicia and noticed a little place high on the hillside (450mtrs) overlooking the the Miño near the town of A Barrela.

The 2 bedroom stone cottage had been extensively renovated and up until a few years ago, it has been run as a bar (A Taberna) with patrons being able to enjoy the incredible view of the river valley from the expansive deck. At only 59k €, it seemed like a steal so I got in contact with Mark the agent to get some more info and photos. 

At this point, Wendy knew nothing about all this! 

Fast forward to September 2017, we're back in Spain but this time in Galicia. True to the wine guys photos, the area is stunning. Lush green hills and valleys, winding roads and vineyards right down to the waters edge. They call it Heroic Viticulture in these parts as the vines are grown on terraced ledges built by hand, some dating back to Roman times.

By now I'd told Wends about the place and showed her a few photos. She was luke warm. "We're not buying a place in Spain!" Undeterred I suggested we at least do a drive by and check it out..to which she reluctantly agreed.."It's 40 minutes out of way!", she says. "We've just driven 5 hrs from Madrid," I say. "OK, fine" she says. 

So on a perfect sunny day we arrive at the place after passing through a gorgeous little village (Castro) on the way. The impression was instant. "How much is this again?" Wendy asks.

First visit, Sept 2017

                                      

The rest is history!

We signed the contract a few months later after agreeing to the terms of the sale. In Spain, a very common purchase method is a kind of "rent to buy" scheme where a deposit is paid (10-12%) then a fixed amount is paid monthly for 5 years (300 €  in our case) with the balance to be paid after 5 years. 

June 2018

On June 23rd we arrived at the Casita to meet the previous owner, Maribel and her husband Jose Antonio for the handing over of the keys. In the back of the hire car was a suitcase full of tools that we'd brought from Australia. A month of hard work was about to commence. Later that day, Antonio from further up the hill behind the Casita came and introduced himself bearing wine, homegrown cherries and walnuts.

                                                    José Antonio and Maribel 

Although Maribel had spent a lot of money on the place in recent years (new septic tanks, rewired, new roof etc) because the place had been run as a bar, there was no functioning kitchen as such. The first step was to completely gut the bar area and figure out how to get a kitchen to work with uneven floors and 200 year old stone walls. We decided to get the stone walls pointed and the floor fixed by some local tradies that Maribel put us on to. While they worked away downstairs, Wendy was upstairs cleaning the wooden floors for a coat of lacquer and I was downstairs turning the wine glass shelving rack that used to hang from the roof in the bar into a kitchen bench. Appliances (washing machine, new elec HWS, microwave, fold down sofa beds etc) were ordered on line and being delivered.

Appliances delivered!

A week into the trip, our good friend from Heathcote, Eugene turned up on his way to Ireland via Morocco and helped rip up the old timber decking that had pretty much all rotted away. A week later, the old boards were off, the subframe levelled and sealed with a mixture of sump oil and diesel ready for the 34m2 of new decking that arrived a few days later. As Wends painted sealer on both sides of the  90 boards, I started laying them. A few days and 1500 screws later, the new deck was done.

 
    Eugene working on the deck.                                      Finished deck with new railing 

Despite the long hours of hard labour, we did manage a few side trips to Ournese or Monforte de Lemos for Tapas and supplies (more wine) as well as a Catamaran trip on the Miño river, lunch at Playa a Cova which is a "beach"on the river. Every Saturday night we were invited for dinner at all our various new neighbours places where homemade wine and home cooked local food was enjoyed well onto the early hours.

                                          Playa de A Cova

 

After 4 weeks at Casita del Río we managed to achieve more than we had expected and have pretty much got the place ready for visitors. The plan is to spend 6 to 8 weeks there each year and rent it out to friends at other times as well as Air B&B etc.

Neighbours Marie Carmen, Leno, José, Antonio


Directions to the Casita.

The house is located in a small hamlet called A Voutureira, about 15mins from A Barrela. The best way to get there is to take a train from Madrid to Ourense (5 hrs). It's then a 40 min car trip from there up to the house. Alternatively, fly into Santiago de Compostela and hire a car from there.

The details and google map reference is:

Casita del Rio

27532 Carballedo, Lugo, Spain

0417 178 658

https://goo.gl/maps/E9Ui7xd5SgF2

Looking forward to seeing you there! Adios.

Autumn update.

AUTUMN 2018

 After a hectic start to the year, things have settled down slightly at Three Dams and finally a bit of welcome rain has greened things up and the crisp Autumn evenings have arrived.  
Late in April, the first vintage of Tempranillo was transferred into two oak hogsheads, one French and one American. 

 The idea behind this is to try and replicate the traditional winemaking style of Ribero del Duero in Spain. We also decided to buy a quantity of finished Shiraz from a local Heathcote producer so we now have a third barrel full of wine!

Lloyd Hudson lending a hand in the winery.

Wendy is pretty excited about finally getting her white stones to border the house. Having put that job on the back burner many times, the stones were finally ordered and Wends spent many hard hours spreading them...so far around the house and fire pit. 

A bit more tweaking of the solar PV system has happened as well with the addition of 2 x 250 watt panels facing directly West designed to catch the fading rays of the winter sun. Now we have a "real" electric fridge, harvesting the maximum solar energy is now more important than ever so hopefully panels facing East, North and now West as well will help achieve this aim.

Time now to enjoy a few nights by the fire and plan for the next Spain trip in June and the new venture, Casita Del Río!

First Vintage at Three Dams and a new Winery. Summer/ Autumn 2018

After three years, the first Vintage at Three Dams is in tank! 

On March 3rd we began harvesting, taking 1100 kg of healthy fruit of the 310 vines that we painstakingly planted in 2015. After a spell of blistering hot weather in late Jan/ early Feb, the vines shut down and ripening slowed. Recent cool nights and mild days allowed the sugar content to gently increase to the required Baumé of around 13.5%

This extended ripening period allowed me extra time to finish converting the shed to a winery. This involved slabbing the floor (with drainage) insulating and cladding all the walls and roof and installing the $200 Ebay trough and connecting running water.

With the winery finished just in time for harvest, it was a hive of activity 2 weeks ago when our assembled army of helpers picked, lugged, weighed then crushed the 1100 kg of grapes. 

After a short break of pizzas and wine on the deck....

 ... it was all hands on deck with the crusher/destemmer!

A week of fermentation allowed me time to reassemble the restored basket press in time for another day of activity in the winery..PRESSING! Yesterday we pressed off around 680 litres of wine, separating about 280 litres of free run juice into a smaller 300 litre tank for later blending. 

With the wine now safely in stainless steel tanks to allow for settling and stabilisation and for the MLF (malolactic fermentation) to start up, we can relax for a month or so before transferring the wine into a combination of French and American oak barrels where it will sit for 12 months maturation before bottling.

Time to pause and reflect and enjoy the Autumn sunsets. a great effort by all involved. 

Special thanks to all the people that have helped with their knowledge, physical labour, chemistry skills and general tolerance of first time wine making novices!

Eugene Meegan

Phil Meehan (Meehan Vineyard)

Simon Osicka (Osicka wines)

David Maine (Wild Duck Creek)

Kate Knight

Jeremy Davis

Goranka Davis

Matt Ockendon (Carpentary skills!)

Tarkyn Watt

Alan Pritchard

Jodie Cahill

Jenny and Gus

Happy New Year from Three Dams! Summer Update

Dec / Jan Summer Update 2017/18

Wild storms, crazy grapes, fresh raspberries and stone fruit and a NEW FRIDGE!

So here we are halfway through another Summer at Three Dams and as usual, we're hard at work with various projects around the place, namely keeping the vineyard ticking along and preparing for our first vintage in a late Feb/ early March. For whatever reason, we've ended up with a serious case of overcropping which has meant we've had to bunch thin to reduce the amount of fruit the vine has to sustain and ripen. Fortunately we've had the help and advice from several well respected wine growers up here. Special thanks has to go to Simon Osicka, Phil Meehan and Eugene Meegan for their expert knowledge.

One nice thing we have been following in the vineyard is the progress of 3 little blue eggs we noticed in a tiny nest amongst the vines one day. The perfectly round nest now has two tiny little (blue wrens?) hungrily chirping away waiting for their next meal. It won't be long now and they'll be able fly away themselves.

 

Some other big projects we've managed to get through so far this summer is the building of a wood shed. Made completely out of recycled materials and salvaged timber, the new shed will hold more than a winters supply of fire wood and will also keep it dry and out of the weather. An unintentional advantage of this shed is that it will be able to rapid dry and green firewood due to the internal temperature at this time of the year! 

A few weeks back we had a massive storm that lasted about 20 mins. Ferocious winds, lightning and horizontal rain went through bringing down lots of trees and subsequently a massive clean up/recovery effort was needed to salvage all the potential firewood. We ended up with an 8 x 5 trailer overflowing with the stuff and there are still more trees to cut.

In the garden, things have been great this year. We've had our first cherries, a decent amount of apricots and peaches and the raspberries and blackberries have also come good this year. Onions, beans, silverbeet, kale, lettuces and garlic have also been really successful this year probably due in part to the abundant late spring and early summer rainfall we had last year. As usual, the apples, figs, passionfruit and nectarines are still to come in the next few months.

OFF GRID SYSTEM UPDATE

Over the years I've been tweaking the power system to get the optimum performance from our meagre system. From our humble beginnings of 360 watts, we now have just over 1000 watts which is still tiny compared to the average household rooftop array. This is mainly because I still haven't gotten around to putting up the 6 x 250 watt panels I bought back in July last year! This is mainly due to laziness on my part but also because our current system is performing better than expected and we haven't ever needed any more power, even over the winter. This may be all about to change now as this week we purchased a fridge! Yes a brand new ELECTRIC fridge!!! For the last 5 years or so we have been running a gas fridge which has been excellent, albeit a little small for our needs. The new fridge has a 4 star energy rating and when it comes on, it uses around 100 watts for 15 min or so which I reckon our system, even in its current configuration can more than handle. For example, yesterday afternoon we had the fridge, the vineyard irrigation and the pool filter all running and the batteries remained fully charged. We'll see how things play out over the next few weeks but I'm considering tweaking the solar panel arrangement slightly. I want to have the 300 watt panel facing the east rising sun, and use the 6 new panels as follows:

4 x 250 watt panels facing north and 2 x 250 watt panels facing west. 

This configuration will allow full sun throughout the day and late into the afternoon.

I'll put an update on how that goes (if and when I get around to doing the retrofit) in the next blog update.

In any case, it's great to know now that we will be saving money on gas from now on and our meagre total energy bills will be even less. Approximately $120 per year (one 45kg bottle)

Wends is rapt to now have the vegie crisper at an accesible height and a decent freezer compartment. I'm rapt to have a 6 bottle wine rack up top!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!