Picking Pinot Noir

My second day of picking grapes was at Davenport's Rotherfield vineyard in East Sussex, set on the side of a lovely peaceful valley. 

This picture was taken at 8:30am just as the sun was beginning to light up the pinot noir vines. It was lovely to watch the sun creep up the rows.

A pinot noir bunch. It had been a difficult year in which to grow pinot and lots of the bunches had many less grapes in the cluster than this one.

A well earned lunch for the grape pickers.

Autumnal hues showing through on the leaf.

A view down the rows to the west side of the valley.

The Rotherfield vineyard is where the winery is so it was good to have a look around and see the tanks and barrels and all the other paraphenalia a working winery needs. It's a shame this picture doesn't capture the smell of fermenting Baachus!

A very satisfying day made all the more so by the company and the weather which meant I was picking in my shirt sleeves for most of the day. Not bad for the end of the first week in October.

Picking Bacchus

Here are a few pictures from my first ever day picking grapes. This took place thanks to a chance look at the web site of Davenport Vineyards who were asking anyone interested in picking grapes to get in touch. I had just recently tasted their Limney Estate 2006 at a tasting panel organised by Sparkling English Wine and rated it the best of the bunch on tasting that day so it seemed an ideal opportunity.  

This first photo was taken on arrival around 8am in the morning in Davenport's vineyard in deepest Kent in South East England. Overcast but dry initially it turned into a reasonable day for picking. If you look very carefully in the top left hand corner of the picture you will see the "hawk" - not real of course - that is flown above the wines to deter starlings. It works for about three weeks or so I am told then the starlings get wise and go for the grapes.

Some of the morning's pickings of ripe and sweet Bacchus grapes with lots of good clusters. Towards the bottom of the slope however the clusters were less well formed, caused by frost in the valley earlier in the year.

Ripe Bacchus grapes just ready for picking.

If you read Decanter magazine, you will have seen the piece on the back page featuring a vineyard dog of the month. This one is Nelson, a bundle of energy who likes nothing better than nuzzling up to the pickers with a tennis ball. They fall for it, throw the ball which Nelson then brings back and the whole cycle starts over again. Its a time waster when you are meant to be picking grapes but great fun as he is such a lovely dog.

Finally a picture of the newly arrived press which was going to be put to good use the evening we picked the Baachus, slowly pressing the grapes over night all two tonnes of them.

An enjoyable day. Next week it's pinot noir.

Sparkling English Wine

Recently a small group of us gathered in the splendid dining room of an old Sussex farmhouse to taste some English sparkling wines. The group included a Master of Wine, England’s most experienced winemaker and two graduates of Plumpton College, England’s premier college for wine studies. Our job was to taste 10 sparkling wines from 6 producers and decide which wines were good enough to be sold by Sparkling English Wine on their web site. I was lucky enough to have been selected to join the tasting panel.

Our task was made easy by the quality of what was on offer -  it was consistently good. We did however only chose 6 out of the 10 wines that had been submitted as 4 fell short of the high standards we had set ourselves. However it was pleasing to find out afterwards that we had selected one wine from each producer who had submitted a sample. The producers varied from the well known such as Carr Taylor through to the less well known such Upperton. Its great that the less well known get an opportunity to sell their wines to a wider range of winelovers through Sparkling English Wine.

The star wine for me, and I think all of us, was the Limney Estate 2006 which is incredible value for money and the best rose was the Sedlescombe organic cuvee rose brut 2008.

All of us are looking forward to the next submission of wines from English producers so we can select some more wines to expand and enhance the range of sparkling wines offered by Sparkling English Wine.

Cheers!