Natural beauty

Rugged landscape and breathtaking views are just some of the wonders at Whinyard Rocks, a vineyard located on the edge of the Radnor Forest in Powys, Wales. Situated on a farm with a diverse landscape including 125 acres designated as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) Whinyard Rocks is a surprising fi nd.

The story behind Whinyard Rocks is as beautiful as its location and perhaps just as diverse.

“It began one night in our flat in London near the Elephant and Castle, James asked ‘how would you feel about us moving to Wales and starting a vineyard?’” Susan Kinsey-Jones explained. This seems a very quiet beginning for such an adventure. James Kinsey-Jones had grown up on his family sheep farm in Wales but moved to London to study. After receiving his PhD James continued to develop his career as a medical research scientist lecturing and presenting at conferences around the globe. “We were able to visit many wine growing regions around the world,” said Susan who at the time worked for a food and drink start-up. Susan is not from a farming background and is from the south east of England and yet has a spirit for adventure and an optimism that is extremely rare. With their combined skills and armed with the fantastic combination of determination and a can-do attitude the couple decided to uproot their lives and the first vines were planted in 2017, which also happened to be the same year that they got married and started a family. Susan and James both work exceptionally hard. James works at the university of Cardiff and Susan still works as a freelance writer in the food and drinks sector, alongside caring for their young family they also undertake all the tasks in the vineyard themselves everything from fencing to photography.

Since James is a research scientist the couple thoroughly investigated the vines that they considered suitable for the land they had. This led to a decision that took Whinyard Rocks away from planting many of the varieties that are common elsewhere. Solaris, Phoenix, Regent and Rondo were all planted as these hybrid varieties are better suited to the location on the west side of the UK. The site with a loamy soil type is quite exposed “allowing for the leaves of the vines to dry out,” explained Susan. There are a few rows of Ortega in this initial block of vines named The Plock. “A happy accident,” Susan said laughing but this has turned out rather well as these grapes have added to the blend “a flavour of passionfruit and peach that is unexpected.”

“At 250m above sea level, we knew that if we had discussed our plans with a viticultural consultant they would have told us not to do it,” said Susan candidly. Although in the wider area it is obvious to see that this is a region that has long been associated with fruit growing and established orchards can be seen all around. The initial set up cost for the vineyard averaged about £10,000 for the first acre planted in 2017. They planted more vines in another block in 2021.

"Although the expansion of the vineyard is curtailed by the availability of resources there are still plans to double the size of the vineyard in the next two seasons. Currently with 2,500 vines the plan is to plant a further 1,500 vines in May 2023. A field that is currently home to a flock of sheep will be planted with the varieties Bacchus and Muscaris. “We really wanted to plant Caberet Noir this year but we could not source the vines,” said Susan.

“We have more plantings planned for 2024 which will be Pinot Noir Précoce/ Frühburgunder and also the Caberet Noir,” she added. James and Susan are aware that with this increase in plantings will come extra work “with money you can be resourceful but time is finite,” she said. Despite this comment there are plenty of future plans at Whinyard Rocks. Food and Drink Wales have provided some funding that allowed the couple to upskill such as taking the WSET level 2 course. “We are also taking an introductory course into biodynamics,” said Susan. I am left bewildered as to how this couple seem to have a knack for stretching the hours in a day.

“Alongside integrating cover crops into our vineyard this year, in an effort to incorporate some biodynamic principles into our work we're also planning to develop a spray system that uses natural products for nutrition and protection such as herbal teas, milk/whey and essential oils, alongside some ideas for compost – we have made a Johnson-Su bioreactor to develop fungal rich compost, we want to develop a vermicompost system and plan to produce compost at scale for mulching vines,” James explained.

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