For the next 4 weeks we will be pruning the vines ready for the 2010 crop. This, for the first time, will involve all of our acre of vines. Each of the 1350 vines will be cut back to a single or twin fruiting cane which are then carefully bent over horizontally and tied to the fruiting wire. We currently have some Dorset Down ewes,shearlings and lambs for sale
We have made an application for the above so that we are able to sell our wine to vineyard visitors from the Spring of next year
Several volunteers helped us to harvest a bumper crop of grapes on the 25th September followed by Lunch.Over 1.5 tonnes of grapes were picked and were processed by the winery a couple of hours later to produce 750Litres of Red and 350L of Rose wine juice.
Our first vintage has been awarded The John Buchan Agronomy Shield (Best Red Wine from a small scale producer) and also a bronze award in the main red wine category where we competed alongside top wine producers in the UK. We are very excited to have received such prestigious recognition of the quality of our wine and we will work to maintain this standard in future vintages.
Our Open Day of the 25 May 2009 proved to be very busy and successful. On a very warm/hot day we carried out five guided tours of the vineyard and raised in excess of ?120 for Hospiscare. Feedback on tastings and wine sales was very encouraging and we are now looking forward to launching our 2009 vintage which will be a Rose wine. Thank you for your support.
Booking is essential. Tel 01395 443877 for guided and self guided tours, tasting and wine sales (cash only please). Entry will be ?2.00 per person which we will donate to Hospicecare.
We have a vineyard open day during Devon Wine Week on Monday the 25th May where we will be offering our first vintage for sale. Booking is essential please. Bud burst has occurred and we are hoping that the good weather continues all year!
Winter pruning has been completed.We have doubled our potential fruiting Rondo this year to 400 vines. Next year our 2008 equal plantings of Bacchus,Seyval Blanc and Pinot Noir Precoce should also be fruiting giving a total of 1350 vines on the one acre site. Lambing has finished and we have some Dorset Down ewes and lambs for sale.
Our second harvest was carried out on the 24th September and the grapes were whisked off to the winery and pressed within 2 hours to make a Rose wine for 2008 .The grapes had a very high natural sugar content which should ferment out to 12% Vol Alcohol wine. Faye has successfully completed the winemaking course at Plumpton College in East Sussex. As out first vintage is a red wine,we will be storing this for ageing and will be offerring it for sale in Devon Wine week next year(May 2009)
We have collected the bottles from the winery. A sample has been sent for quality wine testing so that we can finalise and print the labels.
Alan has now completed his course in the Principles of Vinegrowing at the national centre of excellence for Wine Studies, Plumpton College, East Sussex. As a follow on Faye will be attending Plumpton College to study winemaking in the autumn. Our 2007 vintage has now been bottled and is being sent for analysis to establish its quality and grading so that we can then prgress to finalising our label.
We would like to thank all those who visited our small vineyard in support of Devon wine week and hope they enjoyed the tours and very warm/hot weather that we were blessed with