I still remember that vintage as if I’d harvested it only yesterday. We’d just entered into the new century, and the ember days were predicting a legendary year. By the second half of April we certainly looked to be on track. The first buds on the vines had begun to shoot, turning the whole vineyard into a sea of green, confirming those expectations. Each day, both in the morning and afternoon, I went through the vines, carefully checking on the new shoots and spurs. And after each day’s work in the vineyard, I sat in the porch, in the company of a Tempranillo from a previous vintage, telling myself that all I needed to do was to keep a close eye on my vines, and then nothing bad could possibly happen to them. The fifth month in the calendar arrived. Then, barely twenty kilometres away from my vineyard, I happened to be walking along a path bordered by white holly flowers, and it was there that I met my partner in life. She would share with me my love of wine and become my other half. Alongside her, I learned how to care for grapes more than I would ever have imagined and almost even more than I had wished. She was the perfect vigneron and cared deeply about vines. Kisses and caresses filled our days during that summer, at the end of which I felt the luckiest man alive. Together, we strolled through my small parcels, tasting the berries, vine by vine, for their acidity, body and sweetness, in what would be an incomparable vintage. Some would say that the excellence of that vintage, like the craziest things or the greatest of love stories, was down to chance, pure luck. But I can assure you people who continue to perform this noble task of vine-growing that no such magnificence will ever occur by sheer coincidence.