Harvest 2022 and tasting 2021

This year the picking was different from other years: I picked Finu' Onica's vineyard, received in exchange for the two grandparents' vineyards to make the work easier and I pulled and tasted the last barrel of the 2021 wine.

We also had serious help both with the picking, but especially with the pressing of the grapes, where the electric de-stemming machine borrowed with help from a handsome man, who is also passionate about wine, was very useful.

Good vineyard, methodically cared for by fathers all year, but especially at the end when the heat could have burned the grapes, as happened in many vineyards. He knows it, sir, so the wine will be excellent. And besides that, we got a lot, because it didn't fit in all the barrels we had and we had to put it in the boots and in the compote jars :).

The wine will come out a little different compared to previous years, both because Finu' Onica's vineyard has other grape varieties (Vopsitoare, Copacel, Romanian dragasanca or mat vine) but also because we have not harvested Otela separately to make Costica wine. I promised my father that this year we will do as he wants, next year we will do as I want :). So we'll see what comes out and from next year we'll adjust.

Speaking of grape varieties, I thought that the vineyard also had Parci, that is, black babesca, and during the picking I kept looking for the variety. We found it, we were happy, we marked the cattle so we could know which ones they were and follow them, and we also took a picture to make sure we immortalized the moment when we laid the foundations for Costica cel Nobil (the main picture is of the so-called Parks). But in the evening when we went to Finu' Onica to take him a few sacks of grapes, so that he could also enjoy a wine from the vineyard that he worked for a lifetime, he told us that he would not have Parci in the vineyard but would be the variety received from the state (vine from Mat, it was called). I will continue the search until I find Parciul, because it is a variety from the area and it seems that it is a few vines away.

The moments with sheep pastrami and fresh must, the evening stories and the wine from 2021 that was not missing from the table, were as tasty as every year, to fill you with energy and joy no matter how hard you worked. And you work, no joke. The culinary surprise from this gathering was the baked and sliced ​​pig's ear, bought on the way home from a store with Plescoi products. I can't wait to do it myself for Christmas.

It's the first year that my father had almost a barrel full of wine since 2021. He drank less, but the quality of the wine also started to change, the longer it was kept and it seemed that he also started to like the old wine and no more cigarettes :).

And I put Costica the Wise in Romanian oak barrels at the barricade and shot Costica the Gentle. Well, let's keep the wine from Costica's vineyard and in years to come it will remind us of the old vineyard...