Hello from the vineyard!
Winter has well and truly arrived at Wild Kite. The vineyard has been looking beautifully frosty and a little bare (thanks to a vigorous pruning), but behind the scenes there’s actually rather a lot going on.
So… what are we doing in winter?
Quite a lot, as it turns out.
Wine, wine and more wine
While some of it has a while to go before it’s ready for bottling, we’re only a few weeks away from bottling our first wine. Our winemaker James Snowden has been spending plenty of time in the winery, coaxing our Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, friends-and-family rosé and our rather ambitious 500L Cavin French oak barrel of Pinot Meunier along their journeys.
At times it’s been cold, really cold, so cold in fact that James has been using fish tank heaters (yes, actual aquarium heaters) to keep fermentations moving. At one point, this also involved a tent inside the winery. We are learning the extent to which winemaking is an art; part science, part inspiration and part creative improvisation.
The exciting bit? Tasting. One of the great perks of owning a vineyard and winery is getting to taste the wines as they develop, and we’ve been doing plenty of that with friends and family. Our Pinot Noir continues to amaze us as we start tasting how our early decisions are already shaping the final wine. Three barrels and one stainless steel tank, all made from the same grapes, pressed on the same day… and yet each tastes slightly different. We have already tried blending a small amount and it’s tasting wonderful.
Elsewhere in wine-world…
Some of our wines are being made at Itasca (our barrel-fermented Chardonnay, still rosé and sparkling wines) and these have all completed malolactic fermentation (a process whereby tart malic acid is converted into softer lactic acid) to reduce any harsh acidity and bring out the more complex flavours.
We recently attended our first blending session which was great fun and helped us decide more precisely what flavours we would like to bring out in our wines.
Bottles, corks and labels
Our still rosé will be ready for bottling in February, which means… bottles! About 9,000 of them, arriving from Italy as we speak. Corks are being branded, labels are being test-fitted (the Wild Kite gap must be just right), and we’re pleased to report that our Wild Kite logo is now officially a registered trademark. A small milestone, but a very satisfying one.
Out in the vineyard: pruning season
January means pruning. Rory from Vinescapes and our hardy Romanian team have been out in conditions best described as “character-building”. Thank goodness for the kitchen we kitted out last year which provided much needed shelter and relief.
Pruning is a skilled art that the two of us have not yet mastered; choose the wrong cane and you can ruin not one but two harvests. No pressure there then! We use a Guyot system, which leaves one or two lonely-looking canes behind. It’s hard to believe that these spindly survivors will burst into life and produce grapes in just a few months’ time.
A little Burgundy magic
And finally, not everything has been hard work! We attended Burgundy Week in London, where we learned a new word: La Paulée - meaning an event where you are requested to bring along a bottle of wine you have made to share with everyone there. Our barrel makers Cavin hosted, and it was a joy to see English wines being poured, tasted and genuinely appreciated by French winemakers. There may also have been singing. And possibly a small lesson in wine-world rituals we’re still getting to grips with.
As ever, thank you for following along with our journey. Please keep sharing our social media posts and our subscribe link, it means a lot.
Until next time,
John & Nicola
