GuytheGrape

A Vintage Year Part 2. Those of you with memories that go back as far as last September will know that I wrote in The Leveller about the potential for the 2018 English harvest and I’m glad to say, it seems that potential has been realised. You are never quite sure how things will turn out until you taste the finished wine but, winemakers with much longer memories than me are saying that it’s the best harvest that they have known in this country. What makes it great is that we got quantity and quality, anybody that was here on harvest day will attest that the grapes tasted amazing with real intensity of flavour.  One question is, where will all this English wine go. The answer is that the big producers have been having to hold back on sales as they just haven’t had the stock and so this will allow them to grow both here and in particular, in North America which as a huge appetite for what we’re doing.  The futures bright and the future's fizzy! Wine Tip of the mon

A Winemaker’s best friend. Here we are in December and the year has flown by! It must be something to do with getting older as it seems like only weeks ago that we were planning our vineyard work and wine making for the year. It’s a nice time for us, the wine is safely in tank and the vineyard is  completely dormant and so we have winter pruning to look forward to in the new year but for now, it’s a chance to sit on the sofa in front of the fire. We do have one vital task though , recruiting a new vineyard dog. Our dog Fred arrived one week before we planted the vineyard. He was just a year old and we were already his fourth owners. It wasn’t his fault, he was just a regular energetic young Labrador but through circumstance he was shuffled around between people and was completely untrained. Like all great dogs, he quickly became part of the family regularly entertaining visitors and stealing our thunder during vineyard tours. Sadly we lost him after a short illness in the