The un-seasonal rains have kept coming; an economic disaster for the area, for many small farmers and for us. This year will go on record as an exceptionally bad year for wines. Rains have pelted the entire province for many days at a time when the grapes needed sunshine and warmth to produce the necessary sugars. Wineries now are accepting grapes with a grade much below standard. Weather has been the vineyards’s enemy this year.

We have not even harvested, our soil is too muddy to be passable for the heavy trucks. Besides everybody is backed up and harvesters and trucks are in short supply. The pickers, a traveling band of nomads many from Paraguay have left the area to try their luck at other places; and, who can blame them? Daily we walk the vineyard and test the grapes for sweetness, many have turned sour: vinegar on the vine!!! As we speak another rainstorm is releasing its pent up water, annulling the drying of the earth which we welcomed with such great joy. Our harvest scheduled to begin tomorrow may be cancelled if the rain does not stop. Even the fact that the bodegas remain open during Easter weekend might not help us.

The atmosphere is gloomy. For a couple of days a frenzied rush on the vines and in the vineyards was taking place. Shouts of harvesters filled the air; beeping of horns to announce last call before departure of a truck; and, a low-rumbling sound of heavy diesel engines were our constant companion from dawn to dusk. Hourly we heard the creaking sound of heavily loaded trucks slowing down for the ruts in front of our house. People are trying to save whatever they can but with every step another obstacle is thrown in their path. Silence has set in again after the latest rains; an ominous sign. I am not easily given to depression, but this potential crop failure of our only moneymaker at this very last stage of production is too much. To calm my nerves I am writing this blog and to occupy my mind I have been laying a jig-saw puzzle. It is a trying time, but it will pass. 

Every cloud has a silver lining and so does this one: the patio has returned to its original red sparkling color, the rains have washed away the sand; in addition, we are glad that we opted for a dry climate with occasional disaster instead of the rains of New Zealand, a country which had been high on our list of places to live. We would not have lasted with so many a rainy day!