Last week I was up in The Lake District's torrential rain but left Friday and Saturday when the Lakes had most rain ever, we were finally, at long last!, harvesting Barbara and Cherry's Oxfordshire vineyard … in the dry!
If the Bordeaux harvest was a bit of a miracle, the English one was a total miracle!
Those grapes have been out on that exposed hillside through storm after storm, the whole sodden summer. Yet a crop was produced with a quarter of the spraying done last year (seemed no point spending the money protecting grapes that couldn't possibly ripen). And it was extremely healthy at the end – I saw just two mouldy grapes.
Wasn't a big crop. Just over a tonne. Not excessively ripe either but that's OK for making a Sparkler. It was the Chardonnay that saved the day. A good crop. The Pinot crop was tiny. Runty little bunches.
As usual it was a volunteer work group. Thirty kind folk turned up. We started 9.30 and were done by 11.30. Just two hours for over an acre. Whereupon hot soup was served up in the barn with cold meats, fruit cake and cheese. No wine though! Bit severe, that. But Barbara and Cherry expected we'd have to be lashed back to work after lunch and last time that proved difficult after a long liquid lunch.
But this vintage was all done and dusted. All packed in neatly stacked boxes on the lorry for the journey to Mike Robert's Ditchling Winery. The Greatest Living English Sparkling Winemaker was taking in fruit from five vineyards the same day. So it wasn't just us were so late. Mike confirms it’s been a funny year all round. People expecting 8 tonnes only got one tonne. (Theale vineyard was right down due to botrytis but it still tastes very good apparently).
But you've really got to want to do this English Vineyard lark. Barbara and Cherry work incredibly hard. They also get – and need a lot of – free help all year from Laithwaites staff, friends and neighbours (the latter also have to put up with the bird-scarer banging away all day for the last weeks as well!)
Anyway, a nice little crop means about 80 cases of fizz in three years time. Another benefit; we cleared 10 years of accreted rubbish out of the barn and had a lovely Harvest Supper on trestle tables decorated with all the colourful leaves and fruit of the season.
Great party. And tidy barn. Thanks to all helpers.
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