The big day finally arrived! On Friday 26th April around 50 Virtual Winemakers came along to join us for a night of celebration at the Virtual Winery Launch Party.

Virtual Winemakers were welcomed at Iberica Restaurant, Marylebone, in London with a glass of bubbly (or two), before hearing short presentations from Virgin Wines Marketing Director, Paul Adams, and Victor Fernandez Manzanos, CEO at Finca Manzanos. Paul and Victor talked through the background to the Virtual Winery project, the winery and the making of the wine. Then, it was then the time everyone had been waiting for – time to try “Doncella Roja”, our Virtual Winery wine.

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So it looks like we are about to finish this wonderful experience we have had with you.

It has been very positive for us to share this year with you.  We have explained what was happening at the winery and with your wine almost every week but now the time has come for you to enjoy your finished wine.

We finished bottling Doncella Roja by the end of the first week of April, so we made sure it could arrive on time for the launch party and it’s looking and tasting pretty good if we do say so!

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Doncella Roja has been made taking into account your choices, and so we can say that it is a unique wine! It has never been done here at Finca Manzanos. So if you like it, or you would like your family and friends to taste your masterpiece, you’d better ask for more before we run out of it!

If by the time you order some more there isn’t any left, you can always taste some of our wines -they will not be as lovely as yours, but at least we try. And here I will help you to decide which of them will best satisfy your expectations.  Virgin Wines has the full range of our Finca Manzanos Selección de la Familia.

FINCA MANZANOS SELECCIÓN DE LA FAMILIA BLANCO

This a Viura and Chardonnay Rioja white. It has the fresh character of white varieties. The nose offers ripe white fruits aromas with floral and citrus notes. It stands out because we harvest the grapes when the fruit is fully ripe and we have a careful elaboration process. This is very important to achieve natural acidity to obtain fresh wines that pair well with all your food. This has been described as Spain’s new star attraction, so it should be worth a try!

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In this week’s post, Phil Adair, Head of Design at Virgin Wines, takes us through the label design process from start to finish.

After asking the Virtual Winemakers to come up with some suggestions for label designs we received quite a few.

Selecting the best of the designs was quite a task, as the quality of the ideas was high. But we were looking for a concept of a visual approach that would translate into modern print processes, and which would be suitable for such a great wine and project.

The selection process reduced the number to just 6 designs which were then used as inspiration to create the final design concepts (and which were then put to the vote). To produce the final concepts, suitable imagery was either photographed (or bought) which visually enhanced, yet remained faithful to the spirit of the original ideas supplied by the customers. This provided challenges – finding a great looking cherry (for one concept) was relatively easy – getting a girl dressed in red with a slightly Spanish feel took more time.

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Here’s the second part of Ben’s account of his trip to the Finca Manzanos winery.

Day 2:

After plans to meet in reception at 9am, we managed to spectacularly miss that when we realised we failed to adjust our alarm forward an hour. Possibly we did consume enough the night before… Thankfully, Andrew reminded us we were in Spain and so an hour late was not really considered late at all, so we breakfasted and after another brief issue with those pesky ticket barriers (Car 1 again), headed back to the winery for a drive round the many vineyards, this time joined by Victor’s even younger brother David – as we learned, this is one youthful operation with the majority of staff still in their 20′s, hence Andrew appearing grizzled for this trade!!

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Over the last few weeks, Andrew told you all about his trip to Spain with David and Ben, the Virtual Winery trip winners, plus their partners.  This week it’s Ben’s turn to recount what happened – we feature Day 1 here and look out for Day 2 coming next week.  This way we get to see if Andrew really was telling the truth!  Enjoy!

Day 1:

Not too early a start, like a normal work morning but happily with much more pleasant expectations! We rocked up to Heathrow and met the other winning couple, David and Alice at the Vueling (yeah, we hadn’t heard of them either, think Easyjet but far more relaxed) airline desk. We were shortly joined by Andrew Baker, head wine buyer at Virgin, a grizzled old winesman (I may have made that word up) who looks far less camp than his web pic, with many stories of interesting characters from the trade – check out his youtube clips to see him in action. Interestingly whilst looking at one such clip, a related link offered was “How to make homemade wine the redneck way”. I was hopeful the gang at Finca Manzanos were a touch more sophisticated whilst these are the guys making our Virtual wine!

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In our last newsletter we invited you to take part in our final vote and select the blend of our Virtual Winery wine.  Victor talked us through the blending process and proposed two blend options to choose from.  We can now reveal that the winning blend option (voted on by a whopping 85% of you!!), is…..

Blend Option 1 

70% Tempranillo, 30 % Garnacha – This wine will have more of the lush, Rioja characteristics – the bundles of exuberant fruit – coupled with the notes of vanilla and spice from our barrels. The Garnacha will be well balanced in this, allowing the fruits to shine but giving good palate weight  This is the most usual path to follow, years of experience has taught us this achieves very drinkable results!

Thanks to those of you who voted.  We think this blend of Tempranillo and Garnacha is going to taste delicious and we can’t wait to taste the wine when it’s ready!

While we’re busy in the winery putting the finishing touches to your wine, we’re also thinking about next year’s vintage. We are taking care of the vineyards, as we always do during the year, because we know that the quality of the grapes is key to cultivating a good wine. Only great grapes can create great wines. That is the reason why we devote a lot of time, money and effort during the year to look after our vineyards.

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We’re heading towards the finishing straight in the making of your Virtual Winery wine but before we can bottle it up and ship it to you, one final decision remains.

Hopefully you have received an email inviting you to vote on the blend that you would like to see make up the final wine.  We’d love you to cast your vote – it is your wine after all!

If you have signed up to the Virtual Winery and haven’t received the newsletter email with details about the name vote, please get in touch with us at virtualwinery@virginwines.co.uk. Voting closes at 5:00pm on Friday, 1^st March 2013  

Today is D day, we are doing the blending, or, as we call it, the coupage, (the French word for blending). We are going to blend our wines to craft that perfect, balanced wine that we have been looking for!

Generally, a wine is the result of the blending of different types of wine.  Towards the end of October, when we finish the harvest, we make the decision to oak or not (as you have done) and various other methods (eggs, tank etc as we have discussed before). At Finca Manzanos, we have many different varieties of grapes, so we can produce a wide variety of different wines, depending on the method we choose to age the wine and the variety we introduce in each deposit – as we talked about in our previous posts.

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The results are in from our third vote where we invited you to choose your favourite label design.  We can now announce that the winning design is as follows…

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It is not long now until you will be enjoying your finished wine at home, and what a journey we have come on from the first stages of picking the grapes at harvest to the pre blending post this week.

We have many different options when it comes to blending the finished wine, from the different types of oak that can be used through to the types of vats the wine is held in.

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As you may recall, when you signed up to the Virtual Winery, we automatically entered you into a draw* to win a trip to the winery.

The deadline for entry has now passed and we’re delighted to announce that we have picked two lucky winners.  David H from Royston, Herts and Ben C from London will be heading off on an expenses paid trip to the winery at the end of February.  Well done to you both – we look forward to hearing all about your trip!

* T&Cs applied.

I am sure that you have already met some of our team at Manzanos Wines. You met us a while ago when you decided to sign up in this incredible virtual winemaking experience. This is the very first time that we have been involved in making a wine together with our clients in UK and we have really enjoyed the experience. It has been fun – all of the team working at Manzanos Wines has been curious about your decisions and your votes! We think you will like your wine, Doncella Roja, very much.

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Among all the festivities last month, we invited you to submit ideas for the wine label. We realise that it was a busy time, so thanks to those of you who managed to find a few minutes to send in designs. There were some good ideas, which our creative folk have used as inspiration for draft versions of wine labels.

Hopefully you should have received an email inviting you to vote on which design you prefer and we’d love you to take part. Voting closes at 5:00pm on Friday, 25th January 2013.

If you have signed up to the Virtual Winery and haven’t received the newsletter email with details about the name vote, please get in touch with us at virtualwinery@virginwines.co.uk.

Today we are going to explain the four ways to maturate wine.

When talking about maturation and ageing we usually think of barrels because we are most used to hearing about Crianza and Reserva being in oak barrels for two or three years, however today we are going to learn that this is not the only method to age the wine.

Normally we have four options: concrete vats, barrels, stainless steel and the so-called “eggs”.

“Egg”: This is something quite recent, like a plastic barrel except that it is made of a porous material that allows small amounts of oxygen to pass through the barrel and act as a softening agent upon the tannins of the wine. This is a great alternative to the oak barrels.

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If you find yourself with a minute to spare over the festive period, why not take up this creative challenge?  Now we’ve got the name of our wine sorted, we need to come up with a label design for the front of the bottle and we’d like you to submit your ideas. As we did with the name, we’ll then create a shortlist, which we’ll ask you to vote on in the New Year.

Hopefully you should have received an email from us explaining how you can submit your design – the deadline for submissions is 3^rd January 2013.

If you have signed up to the Virtual Winery and haven’t received the email with details of the above, please get in touch with us at virtualwinery@virginwines.co.uk.

A few weeks ago, we asked you to vote on the name of our Virtual Winery wine from the shortlist of rojo mojo (red mojo), doncella roja (red maiden), illena de amor (full of love), rojo vivo (alive red) and unico (unique).

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Having explained the process of throwing away all the gross lees and transporting the clean wines into another tank, our tasks now are clarification and stabilization of the wines. The winemaking process naturally produces sediments that can precipitate out of the wine, so clarification refers to the processes by which insoluble matter suspended in the wine is removed before bottling. We eliminate the less interesting tannins of the wine and this way we obtain smooth and light wines ready for bottling.

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Last week we dealt with racking, and this week we will explain what we do with lees. Lees are deposits of dead yeast or residual yeast and other particles that gather at the bottom of a tank during the malolactic process. As we explained, there are two types of lees and we use fine lees, once they are treated with micro-oxygenation, and we introduce them to the wine whenever it is necessary, as they help the wine develop new aromas and more intense colour.

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Not so long back, we invited you to submit suggestions for the name of the wine. Thanks to those of you put on your creative caps – you came up with some great ideas!

We’ve narrowed the list down to a shortlist of five but we’d like you to choose the winning name – it is your wine after all! Hopefully you should have received an email inviting you to vote and we’d encourage you to take part. Voting closes at 5:00pm on Friday, 14th December 2012.

If you have signed up to the Virtual Winery and haven’t received the newsletter email with details about the name vote, please get in touch with us at virtualwinery@virginwines.co.uk.

With the festive season around the corner, and food and wine inevitably playing an important role, we thought we’d take some time out from updating you on the progress of the Virtual Winery wine and focus our attention to getting the most from your wines during this fun-filled period.

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At Manzanos Wines we are eager to have our 2012 wines finished. We are now preparing the wine for bottling (in the case of young wine) or ageing (for crianzas and reservas). We are getting closer to the moment we will begin selling our young 2012 wines and we hope you will all have chance to enjoy them soon.

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After alcoholic fermentation and micro-oxygenation, which is a process used to introduce oxygen into wine to enhance colour, aromatic bouquet and mouth-feel, Malolactic Fermentation (MLF) takes place.

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With things ticking over nicely in the winery and the oak vote under our belts, it’s now time to turn our attention to what we’re going to call our Virtual Winery wine.

This is a chance to have your idea immortalised on a bottle, and there are no rules!

You know where the wine is being made, you know some of the history of the winery and the people involved, but ultimately it is up to you, be as wild and daring, as poetic and transcendental as you like – whatever you feel best captures the essence of this project.

Those of you who have signed up to the Virtual Winery should have received an email recently detailing how you can put forward suggestions for the name of the wine. We’d therefore encourage you to pull on your creative hats and have your say. If you haven’t received the email, please get in touch with us at virtualwinery@virginwines.co.uk.

Happy naming!

You may recall that at the end of last month we invited you to take part in our very first vote where we asked you the following question.

Would you like your Rioja to be matured in small oak barrels to give it toasty vanilla notes & extra mouth-feel OR would you like it to be unencumbered by oak & free to express its natural fruit?

Over the two weeks that the vote was open, many of you had your say to help shape the future of your wine.

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Hard work on the vineyards always pays off. We had a really good harvest, the quality of the vines was even better than last year. We have already finished with alcoholic fermentation and after some fifteen days of really hard work, now is time for pressing. Pressing is the act of applying pressure to grapes or pomace in order to separate juice or wine from grapes and grape skins.

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