Nayan Gowda (vinosity in days of yore)

Moody morning in Zona Sur, La Paz, Bolivia.

A mere 3,400m above sea level.

I am here for a few weeks, to catch up with friends; and do a bit of cooking.

For me it's the perfect rendition; even better than the Rach recordings

There's no start to them, Jane.

Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30: I. Allegro ma non tanto Sergei Rachmaninoff, Vladimir Ashkenazy, London Symphony Orchestra, Anatole Fistoulari · Rachmaninov: 3rd Piano Concerto · Song · 2011

Listening to Rach 3, this morning, makes me realise how much I miss playing.

Last time was Kazakhstan; so that's over a decade ago.

open.spotify.com/track/6Gmfpk...

Truly, truly, the last fruit of the 2025 vintage.

It's a bit of a field blend, mostly Moscatel, that has been dried for a month.

It will be fermented, overnight, before being pressed and fortified.

It will go into the solera for our Final Feliz.

WTF even is this; the polyhedron is orange.

Whoops!

That will teach me to try to experiment with a full-solids ferment, in the egg.

Only a couple of litres lost, luckily.

Take Yo' Praise Camille Yarbrough · The Iron Pot Cooker · Song · 1975

First time I have the"original" version.

Hits very different from Fatboy Slim.

open.spotify.com/track/2c4zwl...

We were especially stoked that everything was physiologically ripe at low potential alcohols.

Still have a heap of work to do.

But everything will ease up massively after the weekend.

I am totally buggered; but incredibly happy.

Very much looking forward to a holiday.

Last pick for harvest 2025, today.

It's the Moscatel de Alejandria for one of our whites.

In 31 harvests, this has been the most intense.

I'm back down to a weight (and waist size) I have not been since my 20s; no bad thing.

The wines are looking amazing!

Step up from that...

López de Heredia...

Structurally, the 24 is quite similar. Just a shame we do not have the large, old oak, to be able to age it.

25 is definitely different. Much more fruit-forward.

Absolutely not!

All of our wines are aspirational; based on great wines we have enjoyed.

The style we are trying to emulate for the rosado, is LdH.

The 24 actually wasn't that far off; the 25 will be a lot more "friendly" due to vintage conditions.

Hoping so.

The variety we make our reds from, Negra Criolla, has very little colour.

We cannot have a rosado darker than our reds.

Funny you should ask that...

It's a bit darker, at this stage, than we wanted.

Colour drops significantly, during fermentation, though.

Some is partially fermented on skins; some is pressed directly to tank; and some is left to soak, overnight, in the press.

The whole melange is then co-fermented.

It worked last year; so we thought we would give it another try.

Potential alcohol is about 12%; which we are rather happy with.

Filling the press for our Rosado.

Like last year, it's a total leap of faith.

It's a field blend of bits and pieces from the San Roque vineyard.

There's some Moscatel, some Blanca Redonda, some Vischoqueña, some Negra Criolla sin pepa, and a whole host of other stuff.

Main benefit is cost.

This was about 300USD to make.

An equivalent, mechanical, version would be in excess of 10,000USD, here.

Also, we get very little berry breakage and juicing, which suits what we are trying to achieve with Negra Criolla (it's a very tannic grape)

Downside is time.

Destemming Negra Criolla from Finca Lumen.

We have worked with Doña Lumen since 2023, but this is our first time working with her Negra.

Much darker in flavour than that from San Roque, it will make a great addition to our single vineyard series.

For those following at home, and who may be interested (all two of you), these are the same ferments, about 14 hours on.

Now, in 2025, we are also playing with subplots of one single vineyard; Finca San Roque.

The photo is from our subplot ferment tasting, last night.

All the fruit is being treated in exactly the same way; so all we are seeing is the individual plot, itself.

It's an incredibly fascinating exercise.

In 2021, Jardín Oculto started looking at single vineyard expressions of Negra Criolla; working with three different growers in the Cinti Valley.

In 2023, we ventured into single vineyard expressions of Vischoqueña.

More amusing than anything else.

Two difficult cuts, to save a bit of hand manipulation and two easy cuts.

As we hand sort everything, it was always going to be found.
Even if it wasn't, it would not have been serious.

There is always one lazy harvester.

I truly believe that everyone has their favourite tree.

This is mine.

Bless you, Gina.

I wish we made more wine.

Available on Six Continents, Merlin Bird ID Can Now Identify 6,000+ Bird Species MORE ABOUT THIS TOPIC The idea for the Merlin Bird ID app was hatched at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in 2009 as we asked, “Can we create an interactive tool to help people identify birds?” Th...

Thanks to Olga and @johnmaher12.bsky.social, we at Jardín Oculto have become mildly obsessed with the Merlin bird app, from Cornell.

Think of it like the Shazam for birds.

On the last run, at San Roque, it pinged 14 different species.

www.birds.cornell.edu/home/expandi...

I'm doing this in another space; so why not here...

We could've been anything that we wanted to be
But don't it make your heart glad.
That we decided; a fact we take pride in...
We became the best at being bad.

Hail-scarring of the berries, for me, gives very weird characters to the final wine.

Some random shots from our first day of harvest.

This is Tannat from Tarija, that goes to our second label; Lado B.

Fruit characters are excellent; though the hail damage from pre-veraison meant we spent more people-hours, than we anticipated, sorting the fruit.