English wines will take centre stage during the Jubilee holiday week in June, as local vineyards, wine merchants, farm shops, delicatessens, hotels, pubs and restaurants get involved in English Wine Week 2012, which takes place from Saturday 2nd – Sunday 10th June.
English Wine Week is a countrywide campaign to highlight English wines and vineyards. During the week, vineyards across the country will also be opening their doors to welcome visitors, offering tours, tastings and special offers. Other local and regional outlets will also be supporting English wines by holding in house tastings, special menus and many other promotional activities.
English Wine Week falls over the extended Jubilee Spring Bank Holiday, which is also half term holiday for most schools. It marks the start of the tourist season, and the vineyards themselves are waking up to the new growing season – there is plenty to see and enjoy.
Highlighting English wines over one week enables local/regional outlets to promote their wines and their business, particularly those that work with local producers.
It has never been a better time to promote English wines. They consistently gain top marks or awards in national and international competitions. Sparkling wines are just one of the success stories for England’s vineyards. Crisp dry to medium dry whites, refreshing rosés, luscious dessert wines and light fruity reds also enjoy a wide appeal. What better way to enjoy the summer season than with a glass or two of delicious English wine? English wines are perfect partners to the wide range of outstanding English food, from seafood, light meats, to cheese and salads, or just delightful on their own.
All events and participating outlets are listed by region and by date on the English Wine Week Website www.englishwineweek.co.uk, which is constantly updated.
Today, October 17th, is two years exactly since we took on the resurrection of Colliers Green Vineyard in 2009. Perhaps it is apt therefore, that today ukvine, a website dedicated to wine grown and produced in the UK, has published a feature based around an interview with me, Richard Jebb, on the vineyard’s progress. The feature covers our story and plans for the future, you can read it here: http://www.ukvine.com/its-all-about-the-grapes/
An update on our first harvest and wine will follow soon.
Tomorrow at 6.30am, work will begin on our first real harvest. I say ‘real’, because we have taken grapes in both 2009 and 2010, but this year’s harvest is the first large enough to consider making a commercially viable wine from. It’s not large though; the vineyard is capable of producing around ten times the grapes we will pick tomorrow, nonetheless we’re excited! This is what is has all been about, we’re growing vines to make wines.
Colliers Green Vineyard - Ready for harvest
Ripe bacchus grapes
Pink and ripe - schoneburger grapes
Sunlight shines through the seyval blanc
Vineyard Update
So this year started really well, we had pruning complete by end of March and the vines that had once been overgrown, then pruned back to just trunks, were now once again ready to produce grapes. Two canes with rows of 5-10 buds on either side were all tied down and in position. Each bud should produce a shoot and each shoot grapes. April was hot, the hottest in years and the vines loved it. But, for us, it turned out to be nature’s little trick; the sunshine was luring the vines into a trap. A frost trap.
On 4th May a late frost hit the vineyard and the result was the buds and shoots that were looking so promising very quickly died. Not all of them, but I’d say approximately 70% were lost. It was devastating to see. I remember tweeting on the weekend before that the vineyard was looking beautiful and the vines were progressing well. A vineyard consultant replied that in his opinion the vines were coming on too fast and were particularly susceptible to frost damage. We couldn’t imagine it would happen then, but a few days later we had learned another valuable lesson.
There was always hope though. Hope that the buds that had survived the frost would bloom into flowers that would set into healthy fruit. Hope that the vines would send up new shoots and a hot summer would enable them to ripen. We’re tenacious Justin and I, so while there was still a chance of a salvaging something out of this year’s growing season, we would do all we could to achieve it. By and by we continued to take care of the vines the best we could and gradually got used the fact that our harvest would be smaller than originally anticipated.
Frost damaged vine
Clean Grapes
One of the most important elements of grape growing is to ensure your fruit remains disease free. Being previously uncared for, for over ten years, our vines have fallen prey to such diseases as powdery mildew and botrytis on many occasions. In fact it has been said that now that disease was in the vineyard, we would struggle to keep it out. Well, we have. I believe it is one of our greatest achievements this year that our grapes are ‘clean’ free from disease and ready to be made into wine.
Disease free 'clean' grapes
Sweet Taste
A benefit of the reduced harvest is sweeter fruit. Faced with little competition for sugars from their siblings, the surviving bunches have ripened beautifully. It’s a real pleasure to squeeze one of our juicy bacchus grapes onto the tongue and taste that wonderful blend of wild elderflower, gooseberry and kiwi, the similarity to taste of bacchus wine is undeniable; thus the anticipation is intense.
Morning dew on powerfully tasting bacchus grapes
Positive Attitude
Negativity is not allowed in the vineyard; it’s not a good vibe for the vines, and we feel all in all it has been another inspiring year in the English wine business, a year of learning and of enjoyable hard work. We look forward to our first harvest, and feel positive about our progress this year, while looking forward to a more bountiful harvest next year.
So it’s been a while since our last post, too long, but now we’re back at the vineyard, working, and planning, for our second year. Before we look at the year ahead at Colliers Green Vineyard, here’s a quick review of the closing months of our first year.
At the point of the last post, the vineyard was cleared, pruned and re-growing. We were considering getting more people involved through Rent-A-Vine and there was a lot of expectation of our first harvest; we were preparing to make our first commercial wine. None of that happened. Here’s what did.
Summer
By July the vineyard looked fantastic. We had worked really hard to make it look great for the public to see it at our May Fair and with the vines now in full growth, it was a wonderful place to be.
Meeting Wine People
Away from working at the vineyard we were also invited to attend the UK Vineyard Association’s wine tasting event, which was held within the meeting and event suites at Chelsea FC. Justin and I were both very excited about this; it was a chance to meet bonafide winemakers and producers and taste the full gamete of wines from this country. We were also a little apprehensive, here we were, inexperienced, naive, never having made wine or produced grapes, rubbing shoulders with the big players in the wine industry. And of course we’ve all heard how snooty wine people can be with those that lack a proper understanding of their product.
We travelled to the event with Kobus, a winemaker who we had got to know, he told us we had nothing to worry about, we would be welcomed, and he couldn’t have been more correct.
The generalisation about wine people proved to be wrong and we thoroughly enjoyed chatting to many of them about their wines, their approach to making them and they all listened with interest to our story. The best part was sampling the numerous and varied wines on display, most were pretty good, some excellent, and a few not so good (I specifically remember a Seyval Blanc varietal that tasted like grass!). Overall it was a great first experience of English wine and ironically we ended up going for a beer with a bunch of good folk from Chapel Down, before heading home somewhat light headed.
UKVA English Wine Tasting
UKVA English Wine Tasting
UKVA English Wine Tasting
Spraying
So, all was going well, we were getting to know more about English wines and the English wine industry, while back in Kent, our vineyard was looking beautiful. Naturally we wanted to protect this against the various evil diseases and fungi that could come and destroy the vineyard’s crop. Actually, we also would have like to have taken an organic approach, but with two of the three varieties we have in the vineyard, this simply isn’t possible. Thus, with a very small budget, we had to look at a spraying programme solution. The answer came from ebay and a little mechanical tinkering.
We were lucky to discover a vineyard sprayer that had been given up on by its owner. Not surprising really, it doesn’t look like much, but after sourcing a new carburettor from Germany, we got it running and put it to work. And it’s got it where it counts! Here’s a photo of Justin as he gallantly sets off on his mighty stead to protect our vineyard from evil.
Justin dressed to thrill on our rickety rackety sprayer
Winemaking Equipment
Along with the sprayer and in preparation for our harvest, we had also managed to source some essential commercial winemaking equipment. Two harvesters/grape crushers and 1000litres worth of wine vats. For the processing of the grapes and the first stage of wine making all we really needed now was a press. Well, and some grapes. This is where the problems begin, as there was now increasing evidence that our harvest would be somewhat light.
You may remember we have three grape varieties, Schoneburger, Bacchus and Seyval Blanc. The Seyval is the one that has been most affected by the vineyard’s unused years and has many empty patches where new vines need to be planted, so there are only around 400 plants. At the end of last June, these were the only plants that had flowers on. The bulk of the vineyard, around 3000 plants, had no flowers and clearly, without flowers there would be no grapes.
That’s not to say the grapes that were beginning to grow on the Seyval weren’t welcome. They were, we loved them; they were our only hope for wine. It was a delight to watch them grow and we took great care of them.
Young Seyval Blanc Grapes
Reality Check
Nonetheless the fact was that, as we’d been warned by numerous people along the way, there would only be a tiny yield of grapes. In reality, even the Seyval only had a few bunches on each vine, so our harvest expectations dropped from hopeful to hopeless.
And along with them, any plans we had previously had for rent-a-vine went too. It’s not much of an exciting proposition to rent a vine from a vineyard with no grapes, so we postponed our plans.
Harvest and Winemaking
Determined to ensure we retained some benefit from the year, we continued to look after the vineyard and did make wine from the grapes we had. This was an important exercise, as it was a practical opportunity to go through the process of harvest to winemaking. Although quantities were low, by including grapes from another local vineyard we have a relationship with, we were able to muster up enough fruit to put our equipment to use and squeeze out around 100 litres of juice for winemaking.
Harvesting the grapes
Loading the Crusher
The Crusher Gets to Work
Preparing to fill wine vat
Stirring in the yeast
Our First Wine
Although not available commercially, our first wine is almost ready and we’re really pleased with the way it has turned out; it has a full fruity taste is great with food.
Pretty good for our first vintage
Now we’re back on the vineyard pruning and tying down. The approach we took last year, cutting the vines back to almost nothing but trunk, has paid dividends, the vines are in great shape and we’re looking forward to our first proper harvest in October this year. Next year we’ll have an even better wine and we plan to make it available commercially!
We’ve just published the first Kent Vineyard Newsletter. To find out all the latest goings on at Kent Vineyard, such as update on Colliers Green Vineyard, Rent-A-Vine, details on the vineyard we planted, how we’re setting up our winery and a recipe for Elderflower Wine, simply click the link below to read our newsletter.
Yesterday was a momentous day for the Kent Vineyard team, it was the day of our May Fair which followed weeks of planning and three days solid working against the clock to finally make sure the vineyard was totally presentable. More than that though it was the first time ever that we had welcomed the public into the vineyard.
Making the Welcome Sign
Initial Concerns
We had a few concerns during planning; will the weather hold up, will the vineyard be ready, we’re not producing our own wine yet, where will we get the wine for wine tasting? And of course, will anyone turn up!
Kent Wine Tasting
Well there was nothing we could do about the weather bar cross our fingers and hope. The wine was sorted by striking a pretty good sale or return deal with Chapel Down Winery (who have been very helpful to us) and a good price for wine from Biddenden Vineyards. This meant we could offer wines without the risk of having a massive bill if nothing sold. It also meant that our English wine tasting was actually more of a Kent wine tasting, which on the whole we feel was more appropriate for us. Some people may think it a bit odd for us, with ambitions to produce our own wines, to be promoting the wines of other local wineries, but we don’t see it like that. There’s a bigger picture, we’re raising the profile of Kent wine production, encouraging local people to try and buy the wines that are made on our doorstep. By showing more people that quality wines are being made here, we help grow the market meaning all local wine producers will benefit, including us.
Kent Wine Tasting Stall
The Fair Begins
So with the Kent wine tasting stall set up and all the wonderful artisan, craft and local produce stalls waiting, the time for the May Fair to begin, 1.00pm, came. And there were just two people milling around. The weather hadn’t really gone our way, it way was a sort of half glass empty, glass half full situation, as it wasn’t at all sunny, it was actually cloudy and quite cold, but on the positive, it wasn’t raining. By 1.30pm, we’d seen about six people enter the fair; had the poor weather put them off, was this going to be a disaster? Our hope, and the dry weather just about held out and gradually it was paid off. As 2.00pm approached a modest but steady stream of people started arriving and by 2.30pm there was a definite buzz in the vineyard. Our May Fair was happening, we were serving customers. Numbers remained steady up until around 4.00pm and all in all it was a pretty good turn out. If I’m honest, we’d hoped for more people, but based on the cash we took on the gate, there was around 150 people at the fair during the afternoon, which all in all, I think isn’t bad. Here’s some pictures taken on the day.
A Day Full of Fond Memories
On reflection, my fondest memory of the day was talking to a family that had driven over from Surrey to see us. They were obviously having a wonderful day and were full of high spirits. The ‘mum’ of the group asked me to explain our proposals to launch a vine lease opportunity to them as, she said, they were all very interested. I tried to capture their interest further with boasts of restaurant meal deals and wine tasting events and she simply said, ‘Yeah, that’s fine, but what we’d really like is to be able to come along and get involved with the harvest!’ Wonderful! That’s a family that really get’s what we’re about. Get involved, get something back.
At last at our Kent vineyard, Colliers Green Vineyard, things are beginning to take shape. The vineyard clearing that we began last year is complete, the enormous task of pruning away several years of growth from the ‘wild’ vines and then picking up and burning the masses of clippings is finished. So the vineyard is now cleared and looking healthy; it’s resurrected. But, by far the best bit is that, at long last and after what seems like an age of anticipation, the vines are now budding. It’s such an exciting time, we’re finally see these vines come back to life and it is genuinely one of the most rewarding experiences. These latest pictures show the tamed vineyard and the early stage of bud burst.
Masses of unwanted growth have been cleared and burned
The Kent vineyard is once again clear of unwanted growth
Not a bramble in sight!
Vineyard resurrected
Bud burst begins!
The atmosphere throughout the vineyard has changed now that spring has arrived
Young leaves are appearing
Kaiser the dog keeps a watchful eye!
It’s amazing to see these little bud protrude from the most unlikely places on the vine, it seems they are as eager as we are to get things going and start producing grapes and wines. There’s a lot to do yet though, now the leaves are out, the danger of disease is lurking and our spraying programme must begin as soon as the fair we are hosting at the vineyard on 31st May is over. The Kent Vineyard May Fair is, in some ways, as anticipated as bud burst, as it is our first opportunity to bring the story of the vineyard’s resurrection to life and finally meet the people whose enthusiasm for our project has been supporting us. Can’t wait!
Winter Turns to Spring
As we draw a close to the first three months of the year so far, I realise that we haven’t posted a proper update on our progress at the vineyard for a while. First thing to be sure of is that it’s not been because we haven’t been up to much, oh no that’s certainly not the case, it’s been the busiest three months we’ve had, both at the vineyard and outside of it. We’re moving closer to our ambition of creating a productive working vineyard, but there’s also been some stumbling blocks on the way. A lot of which I’m not going to talk about, but I am going to use this post to provide an update on our year so far.
Lunch with the Chairman
The snow in January set us back a couple of weeks when it came to clearing and pruning, but we didn’t stand still. We were very kindly invited to have lunch with Frazer Thompson, chairman of English Wines Group PLC, the company behind Chapel Down, the famous winery in Tenterden, which for those who don’t know is in Kent, about 10 miles from the vineyard we are resurrecting.
Justin and I felt quite humbled to meet with Frazer. Here was the chairman of England’s biggest wine producer, and he was prepared to give up his time to discuss the future prospects of our vineyard with us. Needless to say, it was a very interesting meeting, Frazer gave us some great advice and the lunch in Richard Phillips’ restaurant, which is housed within Chapel Down, was fabulous.
One thing I particularly remember about the meeting was Frazer’s comments on our approach to describing our experiences at the vineyard, “You’ve eloquently captured the essence of Kent” he said. Thanks Frazer.
‘Kent Vineyard’
We then decided that Frazer had a good point, we love our county and it’s very important to our vineyard, so we adapted the theme we started with the ‘Tales from a Kent Vineyard’ blog, to simply call our vineyard ‘Kent Vineyard’. We produced a logo, a website, a personality. People in marketing, like me, would say, we created a brand.
'Kent Vineyard'...we'd created a brand
Enter the Winemaker
Meanwhile the snow melted and we got back to the vineyard. Pruning began. It was daunting, the vines were still wild with years of uncontrolled growth. Training a spur would be impossible, we’d have to cut the vines back to almost nothing and let them start again. As we’d originally feared, there would be no crop for 2010. Luckily though, just as we had begun pruning, a gentlemen arrived at the vineyard who had contacted me and expressed an interest in our project. The man was South African winemaker Kobus Louw. Kobus explained and showed us that we could have a crop this year, if we just left two short five bud spurs on each vine. Admittedly, it would be a smaller crop, but nevertheless, it gave us such a boost. Kobus’s passion for growing grapes and making wine was inspirational, he was a great help to us and has become a close friend of the vineyard; we look forward to working with him to make our first wines.
The beginnings of the May Fair
So late in January, with pruning going well, some workable ideas in the pot and an innovative winemaker showing an interest in our project, prospects for ‘Kent Vineyard’ were looking rosy and it was then that we toyed with the idea of having a fair at the vineyard, although we’ve never organised a public event before, we wanted people to see what we’ve been up to and this seemed liked the best way. Around the same time I visited Kathryn O’Mara at her sophisticated and friendly wine bar, artisan & vine, in Battersea. I mentioned that we were considering having a fair and she said they’d like to be involved; they would come down and provide wine tasting. Fantastic! ‘In that case’ I thought, ‘the fair’s on – we’re doing it’.
And, as I hope you saw, we started promoting the Kent Vineyard May Fair through our website, and other local event websites.
Not ‘Kent Vineyard’
Then I was made aware by someone in a position of authority, e.g. someone from the Wine Standards Branch of the Food Standards Agency, that if we attempt to sell wine under the name Kent Vineyard, we run the risk of getting sued! The reason, as I understand it, is that Kent is a registered wine region, just like Champagne in France, and if we produced wine under the brand Kent Vineyard we are sort of usurping a quality standard and identity that belongs to all wine produced in Kent. Well that was never our intention, and we certainly do not want to get sued, or indeed upset anyone, and while no one has said we are definitely doing anything wrong, we’re not planning on running the risk. The vineyard we refer to as ‘Kent Vineyard’, is actually registered as Colliers Green Vineyard, and from now on that’s they way it will stay. Kent Vineyard operates from Colliers Green Vineyard, when and if we make wines, they will be Colliers Green Vineyard wines, and that’s they way things are for the time being. I have however checked with Kent trading standards and they have no problem with the name Kent Vineyard or us using the white Invicta horse in our logo.
The Vineyard Pigs
This update would not be complete without a mention of our pigs. After a happy free range life, which saw them turn the grassy field in Sussex where they lived into a muddy mess, the pigs were sent to slaughter early in March. It was a sad time, but they were always destined for this end and the quality of the meat produced from them was fantastic and enjoyed respectfully. With so much meat available it’s an opportunity to experiment, so we are currently making a prosciutto ham (it’s currently buried in salt and will soon be hanging in a barn for 5-6 months) and Justin is now selecting his next pigs, to accompany the chickens that he has.
Back to the Pruning
And of course while all these activities have been going on, we’ve been working at Colliers Green Vineyard, pruning through each of its grape varieties. First the Schöneberger, then the Bacchus and finally the Seyval Blanc. And on Saturday 20th March, the last day of winter, our pruning job was complete. Here’s some of the latest pictures taken of the pruned vines. (I’ve left them too big to fit the column deliberately, they just look so much better like this!)
Aisle 83
Vines pruned to five bud spurs
Kaiser the vineyard dog chews the lopped off top of a vine
The vineyard is a happy place for a dog
So now, with pruning complete, we look forward to bud burst, when the vines come back to life. We’re preparing for our fair in May; there’s still much to do to ensure the vineyard is cleared and presentable to the great people that have been following our project. We’re all considering our options for spraying the vines; it’s essential to prevent disease, but also very expensive and we don’t have our own equipment. Any suggestions welcome!
Vineyard Creation
We’ve also realised that the tales from the Kent Vineyard, is perhaps a story that spans further than Colliers Green. We’ve learnt so much about caring for vines, about resurrecting a vineyard and we’ve made some great contacts in the wine industry. It’s a natural progression for us to turn Justin and Tom’s hard-earned skills in landscape gardening, agriculture, horticulture and fencing, into a vineyard creation service, and as we endeavour to engage with customers that would like us to install vineyards and resurrect forgotten ones, we’ve already started our first project to create a new vineyard in the grounds of a private residence. We’re looking forward to telling you more in future posts and discussing our projects with anyone who wishes to chat at the upcoming May Fair.
Just a quick note to let you know our new website is now live at www.kentvineyard.co.uk. The blog is still live and will continue to tell our story, it is accessible through the link – Tales from a Kent Vineyard, which appears on each page of the new site.
Kent Vineyard May Fair
We have also announced our first event. Remember before we asked you to keep 3rd May clear if you can, well it’s because we are hosting the Kent Vineyard May Fair at Colliers Green Vineyard on that day; it’s a bank holiday. We couldn’t announce it before because we had to secure parking, now we have (in a field right next to the vineyard). The plan is for the fair to begin at 1.00pm and it will include wine tastings of our wine varieties (although not our actual wines, as we haven’t even had our first harvest yet, let alone made wine), a local produce farmers market, family fun based stalls with entertainment for children and of course food and refreshments. There’s lots to do to ensure it is a success, and the work starts now.
We’ll keep you updated as progress continues. And if you think you would like to have a stall, please get in touch.
There’s lots going on with our Kent vineyard project. The vineyard is now all but resurrected and we are nearing the completion of our first pruning in anticipation for our first harvest later this year. We are now working with a winemaker and have plans to invite people to the vineyard for open days, fairs, tours and wine tasting events. We will also be launching a new website for the vineyard, which will be used to tell you about the many ways you get share this experience with us. We can’t wait to get the website launched, so thought we’d give you a sneak peak of what it will look like. Not sure when we will actually launch yet, but we will let you know when we do, via our newsletter and Twitter. Here’s a sneak peak of the new website.
P.S. The pigs are doing great too!
P.P.S. If you can, keep 3rd May (Bank Holiday) clear.
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