IN SEPTEMBER THE GRAPES ARE RIPENING

This weekend I thought I would be checking the proof copy of my third children’s book,The Adventure of Princess the Pony. When it did not arrive on Friday I contacted my publishers who traced it to a depot in Jaén, about 100 miles away, where it has been languishing for 10 days. The couriers claim they cannot deliver because there is no street on my address. I have told everybody that I live half-way up a mountain and there are no streets up here. I collect my mail from the little post office in the next village, Guájar Faragüit, but if a packet is sent via a courier, all they have to do is drop it off in Bar Carmen, in Guájar Alto.
Carmen signs for, and keeps safe, deliveries for many of us reclusive camposinos whom a courier van driver would never find.

Instead we have spent Sunday harvesting grapes so we can start making our annual vino de tierra. We have not enough grapes on our own land to fill a couple of barrels, so we normally supplement ours with grapes from neighbouring cortijos. This year we were asked to look after a small cortijo recently purchased by a Dutch lady who has returned to Holland for a few months. Her vines are rampant, obviously unattended for some time, and are climbing all over the rocky terrain below her house, collapsed with the weight of their own fruit. Her soil must be fertile because the crop was heavy and comprised mostly juicy sweet Muscatel grapes.

We follow the traditional process of making wine up here. First, we lay out the bunches of grapes in the sun for a few days in order to concentrate the sweetness and hence the alcohol content. Then we crush the grapes before putting them through a manual press. We simply pour the juice into oak barrels and leave it to ferment. After about 40 days the liquid in the barrel stops making a noise, indicating that it is ready to drink.