Harvest at Pazo Baión: more quantity, exceptional quality

Winemaker José Hidalgo highlights the green mantle that covers the property as a sign of the excellent care the vineyards have received. The grape harvest at Pazo Baión looks very exciting

The harvest at Pazo Baión is a celebration. Intense days of hard work, but which give meaning to what we do. And this 2021 everything indicates that we are going to receive good news. In terms of quality and quantity.

That is what the prestigious winemaker José Hidalgo believes. Advisor of the winery and one of the key figures of the exceptional viticulture and enology team of Pazo Baión.

Hidalgo visited the property these days and confirmed some forecasts that, in the absence of the beginning of the grape harvesting works, are flattering. Both for the quantity of raw material that our vines have and for its exceptional quality.

This is an essential variable for making the three jewels that are produced on the estate: Pazo Baión, Gran a Gran and Vides de Fontán.

«If the weather doesn’t go wrong, we are going to have a harvest of extraordinary quality. If a little bit of water were to come in the remaining days it wouldn’t even be bad for us», he argues.

The harvest at Pazo Baión is approaching with excellent forecasts despite the fact that 2021 has been a complicated year. With somewhat unstable weather conditions, especially in summer.

This has meant that the harvest has been delayed until after the first fortnight of this month. These dates are more in line with what has been traditional in the 22 hectares of vineyards of the estate.

It shouldn’t be forgotten that 2020 was a somewhat strange year in this matter. The harvest at Pazo Baión began relatively early due, to a large extent, to the high temperatures recorded during the summer.

«This year we will return to normality and it would be logical to harvest more or less around the third week. These days we have been checking the grapes and the harvest will be similar to that of the 18th or 19th year».

The winemaker has no doubts about the quality of the grapes. An added value that he does not hesitate to attribute to the great work done by Pazo Baión’s viticulture team.

And he points to a singularly visible element for anyone who visits the property during these weeks. Indeed, a striking green mantle runs through the estate. The vineyards look healthy and full of grapes. A symphony of colors and smells. A marvel at the service of the senses.

«The vegetation is perfect. Perhaps like no other year. This indicates that we will have a great harvest in terms of quality because the sugar factory is in the leaf. We have photosynthesis working at one hundred percent and that makes the grape accumulate sugars, and the acidity is balancing and acquiring nuances».

In this sense, the winemaker explains that during these weeks the grapes extract the sugars and aromas that will truffle the nuances and personality of Pazo Baión’s single-estate albariños.

To obtain all this raw material of singular quality, the winery’s team has achieved a deep knowledge of each plot. This is one of the keys that explain the consolidation of Pazo Baión wines in the market.

Very precise care

«At Pazo Baión we play everything on one card. We only have one trump card because we make single-vineyard wines. And that forces us to take extreme care of all our vineyards. We have to get it right, no matter what».

For this, the viticulture team carries out an exhaustive control plot by plot. This work began more than a decade ago and has yielded excellent results.

Not only to obtain a raw material that is always of high quality, but above all to know the particularities of each corner of the property. A surgeon’s precision that, over time, has made it possible to create each of the three Pazo Baión albariños.

«Each plot receives a very personalized treatment. We know them inside out, which ones have more water, which ones have less, which ones tend to be healthier and which ones need a little more treatment… This experience accumulated over the years is today an asset», Hidalgo concludes.

Such in-depth knowledge is transferred, for example, to the elaboration of the coupage. The secret to give each of Pazo Baión’s wines a powerful personality.

In short, a delicate work of enormous added value that now, just a few days before the harvest at Pazo Baión, reaches its maximum expression.

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