Hello from the vineyard!
Winter has finally wrapped its tendrils around the vineyard. The last of the brilliant red and yellow autumn leaves were whisked away by November’s mood swings, our wild kites roam free and the vines are now officially asleep. John describes them as looking gaunt and spidery – a bit like he feels after a hard day in the vineyard.
But while the vineyard snoozes, the winery is decidedly wide awake. And so are we.
When we took our first tentative steps on this adventure and started looking for a vineyard, we weren’t exactly sure how many vines, grape varieties and ultimately wines, we were going to end up with or what they were capable of. And suffice it to say, we’ve now got quite a few.
James, our endlessly patient winemaker, has been putting the basket press to work to process the fruit in our winery. It was fascinating to see the juice seeping out the sides of the press and running into the tray below, leaving a large, semi hard bright purple cake in the bottom of the press formed from the skins, seeds and stalks.
During this process, we discovered two things:
- Watching juice seep out of a basket press is weirdly mesmerising.
- Cleaning out hundreds of tiny seeds wedged between wooden slats is not mesmerising. Nicola can confirm!
Now, let us tell you about what we’re really all here for – the wines...
The Friends & Family Rosé: pink, pretty and picked by our favourite people
Our lovely crew of friends and family harvested 1.36 tonnes of early-ripening Precoce (pinot noir’s faster ripening sibling). We blended it with some Pinot Meunier and it’s now quietly becoming a still rosé with the most joyful pink hue. If all goes to plan, you’ll see it in bottles early next spring. We cannot wait.
The 115 Pinot Noir: our potential future show-off wine
This one feels special. We picked 1.6 tonnes of our precious 115 Burgundy clone Pinot Noir, protected under nets that thankfully kept the birds from hosting their own buffet. The grapes were sorted and pressed the same day and have now completed fermentation, transforming into a wonderful still red with a beautiful red burgundy colour.
It’s now resting in three 228 litre French oak barrels from Tonnellerie Cavin, beautifully named Aphrodite. We bought them second-hand from Burgundy and they’ll cradle the wine for the next 1–2 years. Although it has a long way to go before it’s ready to bottle, we all have great hopes for it and think it could become our flagship Wild Kite red.
Pinot Blanc: a tiny but mighty batch
We picked 2.6 tonnes, sold most, but kept 600kg for ourselves to make a small release of a still, light white wine sometime next summer. We really love this wine – we are great fans of the Weissburgunder still whites produced in Germany and Austria and are hoping to produce something along those lines.
Pinot Meunier: “Pigeon-eye pink” and the ultimate slow burn
Around 1 tonne of Pinot Meunier has been pressed and fermented into the most delicate ‘pigeon-eye’ pink. James is super enthusiastic about it and it marks the beginning of an exciting and innovative project for both James and John.
500L is now ageing in a huge Enée French oak barrel we imported from Burgundy. This barrel is the start of a long-term, three stage process to create a single barrel classic cuvée sparkling wine. This Pinot Meunier will stay in the barrel for 12 months and will then be replaced by Pinot Noir from the 2026 harvest and eventually by Chardonnay from the 2027 harvest. It will be a trinity of different grape varieties all matured in the same barrel and then blended together. It won’t be ready to bottle until 2028 and it will then need at least 2 years on the lees, so the the earliest we are likely to be selling this is 2031!
Meanwhile, outside the winery…
As well as working with our winemaker James, we’re also working with contract winemakers Itasca to create a Blanc de Noirs (sparkling white wine made from red grapes), a sparkling rose, a still rose and a classic barrel fermented Chardonnay, all from grapes we harvested at our vineyard.
So what now?
While the vines rest, our energies are now turned to choosing bottles, creating labels digging ditches, trimming hedges and cutting back the never ending brambles, not to mention sorting out our solar power in the winery which we have realised needs serious upgrading (more on the challenges of running off-grid in another newsletter).
Winter may look peaceful from the outside, but we can assure you, there is always plenty to do.
Thank you, truly, for joining us on this slightly chaotic, endlessly fascinating journey from grape to glass. Your enthusiasm keeps us going (well, that and the wine).
With warm wishes for the festive season,
John & Nicola
