Wyfold Harvest

Fighting the English weather … to the bitter end. Barbara's vineyard is, crucially, a bit higher than Henry and Kaye's or Theale Vineyard. She and Cherry planted at 300 feet in the Chilterns which doesn't sound high but nonetheless shortens the growing season by two weeks.

Wyfold vineyard looked immaculate this year. The best it’s ever looked … in Spring. Then, well, the weather started. That Jubilee weather held back the flowering by a month or so. Then carried on being vile so the grapes got so little sun they couldn't grow.

So last week we had only mini bunches of grapes to pick. They were healthy, though. They'd been well-tended.  Leaves had been stripped back to leave the tiny bunches exposed to whatever sun and dry air there was. (Not a lot). They just hung there. And we hung our hopes on a last-minute burst of Indian Summer sunny weather, such as has saved a few harvests lately. But no such luck.

Barbara never gave up. She never does. Kept going back to Wyfold, trimming and dropping the most under-ripe, hopeless bunches.

Then a little Botrytis was seen. Tiny bit of rot. The odd grape going furry. But with the very moist warmish weather, that could explode all over. So they had to pick. Thursday. Nine till five we picked. It was a weekday. Only a few could help. And perversely such a tiny crop is fiddly and slower to pick.

The black grapes were over the minimum sugar level. Just. But so few of them. 20 boxes. The bigger crop of Chardonnay was under the level on average, but some bunches were riper than others.

If we only picked the ripe ones?  We tried. We really did. Problem is, with white grapes it’s hard to tell just by looking. You can tell by biting a grape, but after a while you feel ill. The best way, we found, was to squeeze every bunch. Sqidgy? Pick. Hard? Discard. Got quite good a grape-groping.

The net result was just half a tonne. Enough to fill our small trailer. Lee took them off down to our winemaker Mike Roberts at Ridgeview in Sussex. He and Barbara have a mutual admiration thing going; we knew if he could work a miracle he would …

Alas, we have just heard it was not to be. No miracle for Wyfold in 2012. Theale, yes. Henry and Kaye's as yet unnamed Marlow vineyard, yes. Windsor, won't get any grapes 'til next year. Wyfold, no. Didn't make it. 

Annus Horribilis for English wine? Well, yes. But far from a total wipeout. You hang on in there and sometimes you can make it. But sometimes you can't, quite.

Farming was ever thus.

 

Still, we can console ourselves with a bottle of the lovely 2009. That vintage just gets better. 

The night before harvesting I'd done an evening with customers at our Locksbottom shop – near Orpington. We asked customers to vote on whether they preferred the Wyfold or the superb Paul Goerg Champagne; a Premier Cru. The champagne won. But only by 2 votes. If anyone still has doubts about English sparkling wine's ability to rival world class fizz … they are probably French.