Vineyard July 2023

INSIDE

Tackling Spotted Wing Drosophila

Planting day at Biddenden Vineyard

Demystifying wine labels

Artistically made

While there is undoubtedly an art to making wine, Artelium has gone further by putting art at the centre of its entire operation.

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CONTENTS

Features

Vineyard visit

We visit Biddenden

Vineyard in Kent to take part in a planting day hosted by owners the Barnes family, who have been growing vines and making wine since 1969.

Tackling Spotted Wing Drosophila

If uncontrolled, this pesky fly can cause entire crops to be lost.

Art of wine

While there is undoubtedly an art to making wine, one Sussex vineyard has gone further by putting art at the centre of its entire operation.

Demystifying wine labels

Your wine labels need to do a lot of the heavy lifting in marketing your product. It may well be the only thing a customer sees before choosing to try your product.

The leading Vineyard specialists

Offering specialist Viticultural agronomy advice nationwide

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I remember a scene from the sitcom Friends in which one of the characters explains why he won’t enjoy a certain meal because of the circumstances that surrounded the event.

In fact who hasn’t suffered the joys of indigestion because of tension at the dinner table.

Recently there have been many discussions surrounding the pairing of food with wine. On a visit to Provence a winemaker echoed the words in Matthew Jukes’ column (page 16) that they make wine for a chef with multi Michelin stars who wanted a Rosé sophisticated enough to travel through the courses.

This month we also talk about a recently released book that will make even the most reticent (here I am thinking of my own culinary incompetence) try their hand at pairing local fare with local wines.

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Yet through all this I think of that fictional Friends character and his very relatable experience. I feel that the first, most important and ideal pairing for wine is the mood with which it is accompanied.

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As we move into the summer months I hope every bottle of English and Welsh wine that is opened shares the benefits of good food but most importantly good company.

“Wine and friends are a great blend” – Ernest Hemingway.

Balfour Winery, one of the UK’s most innovative and fastest-growing producers of English wine, has revealed its brand new still wine range for English Wine Week.

Inspired by the producer’s home in the south of England, the collection, which will number six wines in total released throughout 2023, features a new label designed to echo the award-winning architecture of the producer’s winery. There is also the promise of some new grapes and blends, all made with a uniquely English twist.

As one of the biggest producers of still English Wine, Balfour believes that the growing demand for the style marks a shift in perception towards the category. The 21 year old company is expecting record sales of still wines in 2023 – with Nannette's Rosé (a pale pink blend of the three main champagne grapes) and Liberty’s Bacchus (a slightly oaked, more sophisticated style of this English staple) predicted to be key sellers.

2023 will also see Balfour open the doors on a brand new £1m extension to their state-of-the-art winery, which will help meet demand for the new still wines, alongside offering new corporate hospitality packages to try to bring London’s boardrooms to Kent’s tranquil vineyards.

The move is all part of a wider focus on showcasing just how great the

potential for English Wine’s still category remains – something which winemaker, Fergus Elias, has a particular focus on:

“Our new still wine range really shows how far the category has come. These are some of the most rewarding and difficult wines we make – and there’s a tangible growing appreciation and demand for them. We feel a growing confidence that we have all the tools here in England to really fly the flag for our own still wines. Stylistically, they’re unique - taking inspiration both from our own landscape and harvesting the incredible technical expertise we have in the UK.”

On what to look out for in the new Balfour range, Fergus Elias added: “Some of the launches we have this year are incredibly exciting, with some firsts for Balfour from some exciting varieties – we can’t wait to see customer’s reactions. There’s a huge amount of technical detail which goes into their production, which we feel is important for the future of English Wine. The Bacchus alone, for instance, has seen over 10 individual yeast strains, alongside micro-winemaking techniques with lees ageing and selected use of oak. We know we’re far from alone in the industry putting in this level of detail – and that can only be hugely exciting for the English Wine category as a whole.”

Balfour launch new still wine Reader survey

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Nanette’s Rosé 2022, Liberty’s Bacchus 2022 and Luke’s Pinot Noir 2022

Sussex Wine Tourism: A Plan for Growth was launched at the Houses of Parliament during a well-received reception hosted by Sir Peter Bottomley MP.

This ambitious plan aims to grow Sussex's wine tourism sector from its current value of £25 million to an impressive £283 million by 2040, generating 3,633 new jobs and securing Sussex’s position as the UK’s premier wine tourism destination.

The winelands of Sussex currently boast 138 vineyards, representing a quarter of Great Britain under vine. Many are award-winning and open to the public, offering cellar door sales, tours, tastings, food and drink, shopping, accommodation as well as a variety of events and activities.

Eleven Sussex wine estates were present at the launch, showcasing their world-class wines and outstanding tourism experiences that complement the region’s rich and distinctive landscape, heritage and cultural offerings. The event was well attended by MPs from across the Sussex region, as well as Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt, Minister for Media, Tourism and Creative Industries, Sir John Whittingdale OBE, and CEO VisitBritain/ VisitEngland Patricia Yates.

Ambitious growth plan launched in Parliament

Sussex Wine Tourism: A Plan for Growth has been overseen by Sussex Modern and the Sussex Visitor Economy Initiative.

Since 2017, Sussex Modern has been working collaboratively with regional partners, spanning not just wine, but also art and landscape, to change the perceptions of Sussex and raise its profile as a premier national and international visitor destination. In a year which sees Towner Eastbourne host the Turner Prize, this ambition is now more pertinent than ever.

The Sussex Visitor Economy Initiative is a strategic partnership led by East Sussex County Council, West Sussex County Council and Brighton & Hove City Council, collaborating with a wide range of public and private sector partners and local destination management organisations. Its aim is to harness the opportunities that cross-county collaboration brings, grow the value of the visitor economy and raise the profile of Sussex as a national and international visitor destination.

VisitBritain/VisitEngland CEO Patricia Yates said: “We welcome the launch of Sussex Wine Tourism: A Plan for Growth, bringing together businesses and stakeholders from across the region to harness the significant opportunities to promote Sussex’s wine tourism internationally, including to the valuable United States market.”

To access the full report, please visit www.sussexmodern.org.uk/sussexwinetourism

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Taste the Mastery

The Institute of Masters of Wine (IMW) has announced an incredible roster of 36 Master of Wine Winemakers who will be heading to Wiesbaden, Germany, for the 10th International Symposium to present their estates’ wines at a unique tasting session this summer. The walkaround event, named ‘Taste the Mastery’, will be the first tasting to kick off the symposium on 29 June – 2 July 2023, which will be attended by 500 wine professionals and enthusiasts from around the world.

With a global community of 415 MWs, only 76 consider themselves winemakers, making the ‘Taste the Mastery’ session a rare occasion, providing symposium guests with an opportunity to explore the exceptional talent of MW winemakers from around the world, all in one room. This tasting is a unique opportunity for MWs to share their craft and passion with other Masters of and avid wine experts, and showcase how their extensive knowledge in wine translates into winemaking.

Alison Flemming MW, who is overseeing all tastings at the event, said “At the 10th IMW symposium in Wiesbaden a cherished tradition will be continued: the tasting of wines made by Masters of Wine. A selection of MW winemakers from around the world will be present to demonstrate their skills and expertise with their wines on the first day of the event.”

Visitors can expect to taste MW made wines from nations spanning France, Spain, Australia, United States, Austria, South Africa, Israel, Germany, England, and Canada.

Many of these regions have grappled with the effects of climate emergencies in recent years, from wildfires in the U.S. and the recent flooding of the Ahr valley in Germany.

The IMW’s international symposium is regarded as the marque event in the global wine calendar, launching in Oxford in 1982 and last hosted in Logroño, Spain in 2018. Returning for 2023, the 10th international symposium will run over four stimulating days, focusing on trends currently defining the industry and how the industry will evolve in the future. Attendees can expect world-class tastings, thought-provoking presentations and controversial debate touching on themes from the impact of climate change to diversity in the wine industry.

Watercress, Willow and Wine

From the picturesque vineyards of Cornwall and Dorset to the beautiful downlands of Hampshire, Sussex and Surrey, Watercress, Willow and Wine by Cindy-Marie Harvey celebrates some of England’s finest wine producers and local ingredients from land and sea. The book is a journey through a selection of the author’s favourite estates and recipes, illustrated by South Downs based artist Chloe Robertson.

Cindy-Marie Harvey is a wine expert and owner of Love Wine Food Ltd, a private wine tour company. Starting in the wine trade as a wine importer, she has travelled continually for almost 25 years, visiting iconic wine estates across Italy, New Zealand, South America, Portugal and many more. In this book, she turns her attention to English wine and artisan produce on her very own doorstep in the South Downs in Hampshire and across Southern England.

“ While still a relatively young member of the global wine family, our small island is already starting to conquer the hearts and minds of wine lovers, earning

international awards and plaudits.” said Cindy-Marie. Each featured estate in the book, enjoys a write up of background, philosophy, overview on their wines, quotes from owners or winemakers as well as food pairings.

Broken down chapter by chapter into some of England’s finest wine regions, the book also shines a light on these homegrown delicacies. Wine from each vineyard is paired with recipes that complement one another. Cindy-Marie explains how “For me food and wine are intrinsically linked, each having the capacity to make the other even better when matched well… this is the golden age of discovery for wine lovers and foodies alike.”

Cindy-Marie explores both boutique and larger scale wineries, from intergenerational family-run agricultural businesses to producers who have moved into wine from other spheres. She also points readers in the direction of online resources with more information on how to visit and where to buy English wine. Charmingly illustrated throughout, this

Vines in a cold climate

The story of how a small group of determined people transformed English wine from the butt of jokes to world class in 30 years.

Nobody could have predicted in the 1980s that not only would English wine become a multi-billion pound industry, exporting wines across the world, but that it would beat the French at their own game by making sparkling wine to rival the best of Champagne. This is the story of the people who made it happen.

Based on interviews with dozens of the most influential people in English wine, past and present, Vines in a Cold Climate charts how the industry was transformed from an amateur affair made by retirees to the slick professional business we know today. In this illuminating and accessible account, award-winning drinks writer Henry Jeffreys looks at how so much was achieved in such a short space of time, the major issues facing the modern industry, and where English wine might be going in the next 30 years.

It's a story about changing climate and technology but most of all it's about men and women with vision, determination and more than a little bloody-mindedness. From secretive billionaires to the single mother farming a couple of hectares in Kent, these are the people making wine in a cold climate.

Henry Jeffreys worked in the wine trade and publishing before becoming a freelance writer and broadcaster.

He was wine critic for The Lady, and his work has appeared in Spectator magazine, The Guardian, the Oldie and BBC Good Food magazine. He has been on BBC Radio 4, Radio 5 and Monocle Radio, and featured on BBC 2's Inside the Factory (2020). He is the author of the award-winning Empire of Booze: British History through the Bottom of a Glass (2017), The Home Bar (2018) and The Cocktail Dictionary (2020), and in 2022 was awarded Fortnum & Mason drink writer of the year. He is currently features editor for the Master of Malt drinks blog and drink writer for The Critic Magazine. He lives in Faversham, Kent with

is a book to attract wine lovers, foodies and anyone with a passion for locally and sustainably sourced produce

Shortlisted for the Fortnum & Mason’s Awards 2023 the book is available for order on the website – www.lovewinefood.com –or through all Waterstones and other major booksellers – plus a host of independent bookshops.

his wife and two children.

Russell Norman said: “Captivating, impeccably researched and endlessly entertaining. Henry Jeffreys embraces his subject like a scholar but with wry humour and a novelist’s knack for storytelling. It’s the best book on wine I have read.”

It is available as a hardback (£16.99) and eBook.

The White Pinots: Future UK signature grapes?

Marasby, a platform for high quality English and Welsh wine, held a tasting in London to explore the question. In one of the most extensive tastings of its kind, 15 wines from pioneering UK producers were tasted by a panel of 10 professional buyers and industry experts

On Marasby’s visits to UK producers making a wide range of still wines, they’re often told that Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc have become

the fastest-selling wines. Some have speculated that, unlike Bacchus, which can have a divisive flavour profile, or Chardonnay, which can come with heavy expectations, the typical consumer comes to wines made from the white Pinots with a comparatively open mind. As a result, some suggest the white Pinots might have a future as signature grapes for the UK wine industry.

To understand the potential of the white Pinots, Marasby gathered

what they understand to be the most extensive selection of English Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc ever assembled at one tasting. The 15 wines included examples from Hampshire, West & East Sussex, Kent, Essex and Oxfordshire, vintages from 2016 – 2022, and the latest awardwinners such as Oastbrook’s IEWA Gold 2022 Pinot Blanc.

The tasting panel of 10 represented a wide cross-section of industry expertise, from sommeliers at leading London restaurants, to wine trade leaders, UK wine influencers, and published UK food and wine authors.

With this level of diversity, the panel had many different opinions on the wines – yet all were excited by their overall quality. As Davide Renna of Hide Bar & Restaurant put it, “it is clear they have great potential.”

Where the panel was more divided was in comparing the flights of Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc. Matt Tipping of Jeroboams was typical of those who preferred the consistency and commercial accessibility of the Pinot Gris. Here were many wines that any drinker “could order in a restaurant, enjoy, and think that it is a good bottle of dry white wine that compares favourably to other crisp, dry whites from around the world.”

Other panel members preferred the diversity of styles and flavours that could be found in the flight of Pinot Blanc. Natural wine champion Doug Wregg of Les Caves de Pyrene “looks for terroir,” and found this

“particularly in the Pinot Blanc.” English winemaker Chris Wilson of Gutter & Stars said, “it is nice to see so much experimentation.”

The Marasby verdict was that there are now reliably delicious, complex, and well-priced UK white wines made both from Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc grapes. Based on the wines tasted by the panel, Pinot Gris currently appears to offer more consistency from a commercial viewpoint, while Pinot Blanc offers more opportunity for winemakers to experiment and stamp their own signature on the wines.

Either way, it is clear that the white Pinots have great potential to be quality-leading grapes for the UK still wine industry and should be given serious consideration in plans for future plantings.

Wines tasted:

PINOT GRIS: Artelium Pinot Gris 2021, Freedom of the Press Pinot Gris 2021, Heppington Pinot Gris 2021, Martins Lane Vineyard Pinot Grigio 2018, Martins Lane Vineyard Pinot Gris 2016, Oastbrook Pinot Gris 2022, Stopham Pinot Gris 2022, Yotes Court Pinot Gris 2021

PINOT BLANC: BSixTwelve Pinot Blanc 2020, BSixTwelve Orange

Pinot Blanc 2020, Missing Gate Pinot Blanc 2020, Oastbrook Pinot Blanc 2022, Stopham Pinot Blanc 2022, Tillingham Pinot Blanc NV (2020/21), Yotes Court Pinot Blanc 2021

For individual tasting notes on each of the wines, visit www.marasby.com/wt/white-pinot-pioneers-tasting-notes

Vinescapes continues to expand

Vinescapes are delighted to announce the appointment of Graham Fisher as senior viticulturist to their expanding team.

Graham holds a BSc in Viticulture & Oenology and brings a wealth of knowledge and experience from his many vintages from around the globe, including New Zealand, South Africa and England. Graham has a background in IT but quickly caught the passion for viticulture and wine when travelling in New Zealand, which prompted a change in career in 2004. Now based in Dorset, Graham is well placed to manage the

fast-growing number of vineyards for clients across south west England.

Dr Alistair Nesbitt, CEO, commented: “We are delighted to welcome Graham to our team and feel very fortunate to have his experience, skills and expertise as we further grow the services and support that Vinescapes offer to new and established vineyards.”

Graham commented: “I have known Vinescapes and the team for a while. I have watched Vinescapes grow and recognise their excellent reputation and outstanding client focus.”

Four urban wineries in London came together on 19 June for the inaugaural Urban Wineries United event. Held at the home of Ldn Cru Winery it was timed to coincide with the start of English Wine Week and enabled members of the trade and press to engage with the urban wineries: Blackbook, Ldn Cru, Renegade and Vagabond.

The Urban location in London connects these wineries together but their individuality is clear. Winemaker and co-founder of Blackbook Winery Sergio Verrillo said: “Strong relationships exist between the Urban wineries and it is a natural progression to be proactive collectively.” Blackbook were able to showcase their impressive magnum bottles of the Essex grown Night Jar Pinot Noir 2021 to all those who had signed up to this first of its kind event.

The event proved so popular that the ticket sales capacity had to be

Expanding on Urban success Trade tasting

English Wine Week is a fantastic opportunity for trade buyers, journalists and tour operators to interact with English wine and speak with winemakers.

On 20 June at the stunning venue of The Cavalry and Guards Club, Piccadilly, Defined Wine held a Trade Tasting that included 19 of their winemaking clients.

"Defined work very hard to offer support to their clients and help them sell their wines and all those in attendance remarked on the quality of the winemaking and the range of different styles that were showcased at the event,” said Henry Sugden Defined Wine, CEO.

increased to accommodate all the interest that was shown. Warwick Smith founded Renegade winery and he explained: “I looked at the emergence of urban wineries in the USA and thought why does London not have 10 wineries by now? In 2016 I founded Renegade and people have proved really curious.” That curiosity was certainly evident as members of the trade took the opportunity to chat to winemakers throughout the day.

As the name suggests Renegade is a place with imaginative winemaking. Winemaker Andrea Bontempo explained how he enjoys the process of making wines from grapes in a style that is not classical for that variety. “It is about finding the right winemaking process that allows the grapes to express themselves,” said Andrea. Bethnal Bubbles 2021 is made from Pinot Noir vines in Herefordshire but is dry hopped with

Warwick Smith, Sergio Verrillo, Jose Quintana and Alex Hurley

Photo: Ldn Cru

three varieties of hops: Sabro, Sitra and Mosaic before being bottled prior to secondary fermentation. It was not an understatement when Andrea said he has “fun with experimenting.” Renegade now have the capacity to produce 100,000 bottles from the new winery in Walthamstow which opened its doors in 2021 and it is clear there will be exciting new things from this winery in the future.

Ldn Cru, the hosts of Urban Wineries United have really embraced their urban location and this is evident from the design of their bottle labels. The design really brings together all the elements of their brand. The urban nature of the winery is celebrated in a map that is simultaneously in the shape of a leaf that is specific to the variety in the bottle, so for example, the still Chardonnay 2022 has a map location of the winery encompassed in the shape of a Chardonnay leaf. This attention to detail is found running throughout the wines made by Alex Hurley at Ldn Cru. Using grapes only grown in England, Ldn Cru produces a fantastic selection of both sparkling and still wines.

“We are a community and not competition,” said Aaron Jolley, Sales and Marketing Executive at Ldn Cru and this thought was also expressed by Jose Quintana Winemaker at Vagabond when he explained that the urban wineries were “similar but individual.” “We can sometimes be outliers in the English wine scene because we don’t have our own vineyards,” Jose added. This lack of a vineyard though enables some amazing wines to be produced. The Pet Not – a 100% sparkling Pinot Noir with 0g dosage – is made in the Col Fondo method. This sensational sparkler utilises fruit from Oxfordshire, Essex and Sussex. Jose was able to explain, to the large group that had gathered round, that Germanic Clones from Oxfordshire bring berry and fruit flavours whist the Essex fruit adds savoury characteristics “it is really lovely to make wine from different parts of the UK to play with (fruit from) different soils,” he concluded. The event was the perfect showcase of what Urban Wineries can bring to the landscape of English Wine and was a great way to start English wine week.

Bulk wine for sale

Aaron Jolley

Party time

Par﬚ wines, too, must be incredible value for money.

It’s summer party time, and those English and Welsh wineries with keenly priced, refreshing styles of wine should be banging a booming drum.

I know that the sparkling specialists are trying to drum up (intentional pun) party business all year round, given this is a celebratory style of wine, but still wine specialists need to pounce when the seasons demand.

It has been glorious weather since mid-May, and I put my garden parasol out

and wire-brushed the Weber weeks ago, so party summer season seemingly started a month early this year.

Party wines, by definition, need to be crowd-pleasers, so esoterica can be left in the cellar for more suitable occasions when your wine nerd pals pay a visit. Party wines, too, must be incredible value for money. This goes without question, and as most of the wines made in our country cost well over £20, this counts out vast swathes of

our home-grown produce. Party wines must also cover the bases when it comes to food pairing. They need not be specialists in any one style of cuisine, but glib globetrotters, dousing spicy marinades, cradling elegant crustacea and seafood, spearing innocent canapés with their keen-edged acidity and able to be drunk solo, too.

We have a decent selection of wines that fit these criteria, but not as many as I would like. I suspect I am not alone in thinking that dry, tasty, food-friendly, great value, welcoming wines ought to be the largest category of all, but it isn’t in the UK, and so we must celebrate those wines that are prescient enough to embrace these tenets while encouraging others to join the throng. Your customers are waiting.

2018 Pebblebed, Devon White

£14.99

www.dartsfarm.co.uk

I first discovered Pebblebed when I travelled to Darts Farm to host an event. Before kicking off, I charged through a couple of their terrific Sandford ciders but did not manage to taste the wine range, so I called them in for inspection.

There is no doubt in my mind that 2018 Pebblebed White is the ace in the pack. Made from Madeleine Angevine, Seyval Blanc and Phoenix and weighing in at a slender 11% alc., this is a bright, zesty fellow with admirable bounce on the palate, but that is not all.

Alongside the flirty, hedgerow nose and icicle-shaped palate, the finish is remarkable. All three grapes join forces, each bringing its unique set of skills, and they drive the high tensile acid as hard and far as they can, resulting in a crackle of mouth-watering acidity and freshness (it gets its name for a reason) that last for minutes.

While there are plenty of white wines that I could easily drink a glass of at a summer party when the mercury rises, I would like one that I can drink a bottle of – and Pebblebed is just the ticket.

2022 Sharpham, Pinot Rosé

£18.00

www.sandridgebarton.com

It’s the summer, so rather than finding a ‘chillable red’ to fill this spot, I went for another terrific rosé, and this time it sticks to the Pinot family for its ingredients, with 75% Noir and 25% Meunier on board.

Unlike the Ha’penny rosé, Sharpham keeps its recipe as simple and direct as possible – Pinots, steel, bottle. This allows the calibre of the fruit to shine through, and it does this with drive and persistence.

The nose is rhubarb, cranberry and red cherry-tinged, setting you up for a taut style of wine. This is indeed the case, and yet there are moments of tenderness on the mid-palate, bringing a hint more depth and fruit succulence before it lines up again. The cleansing finish gently scours your taste buds, leaving you feeling invigorated. This is a foody wine with enough intent and length to tackle virtually any summer menu you care to dream up. Iced down, it performs like a super-sophisticated white, at normal rosé temperature, it plays a straight ball, and with a little augmentation of temperature (only 15 minutes out of the fridge), it shape-shifts into light red behaviour. This is an epic party wine and one that will amaze all-comers with its repertoire.

2022 Halfpenny Green Wine Estate, English Rose

£11.50 www.halfpennygreen.co.uk

While the other two bottles reviewed stay this side of a twenty quid, you can rely on Halfpenny Green to enable you to save cash, not spend it, when you load up with their wines.

This Robin Hood of wineries sources a heady cocktail of 30% Solaris, 18% Madeleine Angevine, 18% Rondo, 10% Huxelrebe and 24% Regent/Pinot Noir/ Siegerrebe from their estate and a couple of local partner vineyards in and around Staffordshire and Worcestershire.

A couple of clever winemaking tricks are employed, including cunning use of oak staves, and then the reason for this wine’s success is intuitive blending from the winemaking team. The result is the finest value, blushingly beautiful, immensely satisfying English rosé of the year.

While you can buy English Rose from the winery website, it is also sold in at least 20 farm shops and delis all over the Midlands and trade customers can pick the wines up at The Merchant Vintners, The Craft Drink Co., and LWC. This means there is no excuse for you to miss out on ordering the perfect party wine this summer.

A big hit with customers

This month Nigel Akehurst visits Biddenden Vineyard in Kent to take part in a planting day hosted by owners the Barnes family, who have been growing vines and making wine on their 65-acre family farm since 1969.

Arriving at the end of a country lane just outside the picturesque Wealden village of Biddenden, I park up and make my way to a cluster of traditional farm buildings, where a group of journalists and other guests has gathered for the planting day organised by third generation vintner Tom Barnes.

With everyone supplied with a glass of Biddenden sparkling wine, Tom’s father Julian gave a short welcome speech, explaining how the family came to start a vineyard on the farm at Little Whatmans.

With the farm originally home to a 40-acre apple orchard, Julian’s parents Richard and Joyce Barnes began diversifying in the late 1960s as apple prices began to decline. After

listening to a feature on the BBC’s Woman’s Hour programme about English vineyards being replanted in Hampshire, Joyce was inspired to turn to viticulture. In 1969, one third of an acre of vines was planted and Biddenden Vineyards was born.

Julian admitted: “There wasn’t an awful lot of thought process that went into it other than they grew and over the next few years we had some crops and planted some more.”

It wasn’t until they planted a trial block of vines that included the variety Ortega, which remains Biddenden’s flagship variety to this day, that things really took off. During tastings in the shop it quickly became apparent that Ortega was a hit with customers.

In addition to the vines, the family also diversified into processing fruit on the farm to make their own branded Biddenden cider and apple juice, Julian said. The business buys in apples from local growers with whom they have worked for generations and processes over a million litres every year, supplying many independent restaurants, farm shops, cafés and delis across the south east, through their retail site at Biddenden and online.

Finishing his introduction, he handed over to Tom to explain more about the plan for the afternoon; a short tour of the vineyard, followed by some vine planting (carried out by middle brother Sam Barnes on his GPS-guided tractor and planter) and then a

food and wine pairing.

We were divided up into individual groups, each led by an expert guide (in my case a knowledgeable chap called Colin) to answer our questions and explain more about the different varieties during our tour.

Vineyard tour

We set off along the vineyard trail walking past row after row of green vines. In all there are 12 different grape varieties planted across the 26 acres of gentle south facing slopes, on sandy loam over clay in a shallow sheltered valley. Together this creates the perfect conditions for Germanic and French grape varieties. Biddenden has its own microclimate, explained our guide.

Ortega, a German grape developed from crossbreeding Muller-Thurgau and Siegerrebe, is Biddenden’s signature variety and covers just over half the vineyard, explained Colin. Other varieties which go into making award-winning wines include Bacchus, Dornfelder, Gamay, Pinot Noir, Reichensteiner and Scheurebe. There are also plantings of Schönburger, Riesling, Huxelrebe and Gewürztraminer.

The family’s wines are produced using only grapes grown on the estate. They are hand picked, pressed and bottled on site to produce around 80,000 bottles every year. These include a mixture of still (white and red), sparkling and dessert wines. <<

Vineyard facts

◆ 26 acres of vines - by the end of the day this had become 28

◆ 12 grape varieties including Ortega

◆ Fiercely independent

◆ On-site vineyard shop and tasting room selling wine and other local produce

◆ Tours (a mixture of self-guided and guided) and tastings on site

◆ Employs 14 people full time and up to 40 casual staff and pickers at peak times

◆ Makes Biddenden Cider and apple juice (over one million litres per year)

Sam Barnes

Tom Barnes

Julian Barnes

Retail prices range from £14 for a bottle of Biddenden still to £30 for a bottle of sparkling, which, according to our guide, is competitive compared to other local brands. Around 65% are sold to the trade to a network of restaurants, pubs and wine shops in the UK and the remaining 35% is sold from the vineyard shop or website.

We stop to look at some Dornfelder vines, a red German grape that our guide said Julian Barnes described as “the bank manager’s grape,” on account of its prolific growth (some of the bunches can weigh as much as a kilo).

These great big berries have tough skins, which is helpful in more challenging climates but ideally they need to be out in the sun a bit longer to soften up the tannins, he added.

Growing market

Curious to learn more about the market for English wine, I looked up a few stats online. According to a report by WineGB, the official

body for wine production in the UK, there are now well over 4,000 hectares of vines in England and Wales, with predictions of that figure hitting 9,500 hectares by 2030. The three classic Champagne varieties dominate, with Bacchus (almost all for still wines) in support.

The figures show sales are keeping up with production. The split is two-thirds sparking, one third still. In 2021, sales rose 31% over the previous year to 9.3 million bottles. Direct to consumer sales have been growing and these now account for over 50% of sales, which is important because it’s more profitable for producers. Wine tourism is becoming a big thing too.

Despite the rapid growth, the UK is still one of the smaller wine producers in Europe and one of the largest wine importers in the world.

With traditional commodity crop prices falling and BPS being phased out, farmers are being forced to look for new business opportunities. Many with suitable land are planting vines to supply the big English wine brands, a proven business model (Champagne) that works well as it allows the farmer to focus on growing and not worry about processing, building a brand or finding a market. Crucially it provides the grower with an annual cash crop after the first few years of establishment.

We stop to look at some Dornfelder vines, a red German grape that our guide said Julian Barnes described as “the bank manager’s grape,” on account of its prolific growth

Vine planting demonstration

Arriving at the freshly cultivated planting field, we gathered round the JCB tractor and planting machine. Tom explained a little bit about the three varieties they were planting that morning – Riesling, Pinot Noir and Schonburger.

He highlighted the use of a taller trellising system that is designed to provide more airflow

and help reduce frost risk. At 3.2 metres wide it allows sunlight into the rows for longer periods across the day, which gives great benefits closer to harvest by allowing the fruit to dry quicker in the mornings with the aim of longer ‘hangtime’ for still wine making.

It also gives the business the option of mechanical harvesting in the future – though the plan is to continue picking by hand unless

labour becomes more of a problem. “We need to keep our options open,” Tom said.

Tom handed over to his middle brother Sam, who runs his own vineyard contracting business S J Barnes Ltd, which he started in 2018. He and his team specialise in establishment, management and mechanical harvesting only, and on average they import and plant about half a million vines across the UK.

A member of the audience asked how many vines they could plant in one day? Sam replied that the limit was around 25,000 on a good day –about five hectares or 12 acres.

They were two thirds of their way through their planting tour, he said, which had included Norfolk, Essex, Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Oxfordshire, The Cotswolds, Wales, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Sussex. The following week they were off to the Isle of Wight for a day and then several days in Hampshire.

Holding out a vine, he explained that nearly 90% of it is rootstock and just the top part of it is the variety. The company imports vines from two nurseries in Europe (one in Germany and one in France).

Sam pointed out that the rootstock is resistant to phylloxera (a nematode in the soil that can be detrimental to the plant health), and the variety is grafted on the top and chosen to suit soil type and vigour.

Adding some technical context, he explained: “If you’re planting on sandy loam over clay, we’re using an S04, if you’re on the North Kent downs chalk you plant on FERCAL or 41B – something that’s got a high tolerance to high active calcium.

"It is also possible to use a restrictive rootstock, if you’re on strong ground, to reduce yield and improve quality and swap that around," he added.

Continuing, he said: “This vine is nearly 18 months old and we’ll plant it with GPS – the tractor is fully automated – meaning it will drive itself,” (though still requires a driver in the cab for safety).

“The planter on the back is controlled by a separate network from a sim card and it plots from an A and B point taken from the last row to perfectly match the row width and vine spacing (within 2cm).”

Sam explained this was the first time (apart from his trial rows) that they had used GPS planting at Biddenden. “Everything else you’ve seen today is planted by hand,” he said.

A member of the audience asked how many vines they could plant in one day? Sam replied that the limit was around 25,000 on a good day – about five hectares or 12 acres.

"Planting costs £30,000 to £32,000 a hectare for a green site (i.e. bare ground that has been cultivated ready for planting) including planting costs, trellising installation and all the materials," Sam said. It’s a significant investment and a decision that requires careful consideration, advised Julian when I got chatting to him later in the day. He said it was important to figure out who your market is and then work backwards. He also warned that labour is becoming difficult to find, another reason why future proofing trellising for mechanical harvesting is good idea.

Tasting and food pairing

We then moved on to a marquee for the final part of the day – the tasting and food pairing. For the food and wine pairing Tom was joined by Steve Parker, a cheese and wine expert (and author of the book Cheese on Toast).

We tasted some delicious wines including their recently released Gamay Noir from the 2022 vintage, a wine that has only been made six times since the vineyards were planted back in the 1960s. It requires the perfect weather and luckily 2022 was just that. The wines were accompanied by some excellent Kent crisps, local charcuterie from Moons Green and cheese from Hinxden Dairy.

The future

Chatting to family members over the course of the event, I was struck by their passion and enthusiasm for what they do. With over 50 years of experience, they have been at the vanguard of a movement that is going from strength to strength.

“It’s not a job, it’s a lifestyle,” said Tom, adding that you need to be fully immersed to achieve your goals, as nothing in agriculture is a given.

Starting a vineyard is a long-term commitment, but as Tom said, it really is a great thing to take a crop from a field, create a wine and talk to your customers about that journey.

UK consumers are also prepared to pay a premium for English wine, meaning there is a greater profit margin than with many other food staples. The icing on the cake, of course, is tourism and direct sales. With the rise of staycations, the weak pound and the warmer climate attracting more foreign tourists, those upfront planting costs don’t seem so bad.

First Fermentis Academy Oenology UK for professional winemakers

Vigo are delighted to invite readers of Vineyard to the very first Fermentis Academy Oenology UK, a one day event brought to you in conjunction with Fermentis (Lesaffre), key global players in yeasts and fermentation solutions. As a result of professional winemakers wanting to understand more of the process of fermentation and the subtleties involved on both a technical and practical level, Fermentis will be sharing their knowledge and expertise through a range of specially tailored seminars, which include:

◆ What is active dried yeast?

◆ Sparkling wine production

◆ Improving production with fermentation aids, yeast derivatives and functional products

◆ Optimal nutrition for healthy fermentation

◆ Strategies for SO2 reduction

The speakers include oenologists, scientists and engineers from Fermentis: Maryam Ehsani PhD Oenology & B.Sc. Biochemistry, Food Microbiology & Fermentation Engineering; Dr Gino Baart, PhD Nutrition, Food Technology & Biotechnology & M.Sc. Biotechnology, winner

of the Science Communication Award; and David Carriba Alonso: R&D and production specialist, higher degree Oenology.

The Academy will be held at the brand new Agri-Food Centre at Plumpton College, East Sussex.

Tackling Spotted Wing Drosophila

Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD) is an invasive fruit fly first reported in the UK in 2012. It was identified at the NIAB’s East Malling site in Kent and has been a thorn in vineyard managers’ sides ever since. This winged pest hails from Japan and has gradually spread worldwide, targeting soft fruit crops.

Unlike Drosophila melanogaster, the common fruit fly found in the UK, Drosophila suzukii is attracted to underripe fruits as well as the ripe and overripe, so it can attack crops both before and during harvest. It has been found across habitats and in a wide range of plant species, including wild blackberries, which helps to explain why it has spread so easily.

If uncontrolled, this pesky fly can cause entire crops to be lost. Aware of the dangers, scientists had already been mapping SWD’s spread into mainline Europe. The UK fruit industry formed a pre-emptive SWD working group in 2011 to consider how the threat could be managed when it inevitably arrived.

The Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board has spent more than £1.6m over the last decade on research projects to monitor SWD, examine its habitats, look at effective crop management strategies and develop controls.

Getting to know Spotted Wing Drosophila

Although different species of Drosophila larvae cannot be identified on sight, the adults have characteristics that can be seen with the naked eye or with a magnifying glass. It is worth keeping an eye open for SWD when walking the vineyard, paying particular attention to the fruit where they land to mate or lay eggs.

Males have a large spot along the front of each wing, which is bold and distinctive. Females can be recognised by their unusual serrated ovipositor, which may need to be identified through the use of a lens. Located at the base of the abdomen, the saw-like teeth on this appendage allow them to penetrate the skin of the fruit to deposit their eggs. Other species of the Drosophila family do not have this and must lay their eggs in overripe or rotten fruit, where the skin has already been breached.

Red wine grapes are most often attacked when veraison begins, but white grape crops are at risk too, when their sugar levels are high enough. As well as damaging the fruit through piercing the skin and the action of the larvae feeding, SWD attack increases the risk of secondary infections like botrytis and sour rot.

If uncontrolled, this pesky fly can cause entire crops to be lost.

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A highly effective preventive biofungicide against Sour Rot and Botrytis in vines.

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✚ Particularly effective where crops are affected by Spotted-winged drosophila (SWD)

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✚ Pre-harvest interval of 0 to 3 days depending on crop

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BENEFITS:

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APPLICATION RATE:

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✚ Disease: Botrytis

✚ Application timing: BBCH 68-89

✚ Spray volume: 400-1000 L/ha

For more information on Botector, please speak to your agronomist

Population size can increase rapidly. Depending on the temperature, SWD takes a week or two to mature into adulthood, and a single SWD female can lay up to 900 eggs in her adult life. For this reason early identification and swift action are paramount. This occasional pest may become more of a feature in our vineyards as the climate slowly warms.

Spotting the Spotted Wings

SWD numbers will naturally be at their highest in the autumn when their food is at its most plentiful. However, there is a case for monitoring populations year-round. The attractants used will be more effective when there is less food naturally available, highlighting a potential problem in the making for next season.

Professional traps with purpose-built attractants are available and highly effective. The AHDB currently recommends products like Dros’Attract from Biobest. At a pinch, something as simple as jam or cider vinegar can be used, but this will be more timeconsuming as the trapped insects will need to be identified.

The AHDB offer practical advice for monitoring and trapping SWD:

◆ In the early part of the season use traps at the edge of the vineyard; in hedgerows for example.

◆ Hang traps a metre above the ground, clear of tall vegetation and out of direct sunlight.

◆ Once traps in wild areas catch large populations and the fruit is swelling, commence monitoring in crops.

◆ Samples can be sent to the entomology team at NIAB EMR for confirmation if you are unsure of the identification.

◆ Fruit can be inspected for signs of infestation using a sugar flotation test or emergence test.

Dealing with SWD

Early treatment is key to keeping an SWD infestation under control. Chemical options are available, but only effective on adult populations. Your integrated pest management strategy can incorporate other approaches that do not require chemical intervention.

Vineyard hygiene is extremely important to

prevent the spread of SWD. Damaged and fallen fruits should be removed from the area. Infected grapes should not be discarded into compost heaps as the flies will be able to feed and reproduce there. It’s worth knowing too that the females can overwinter.

The current guidance is to completely enclose waste fruit for at least 48 hours at 14°C, longer at lower temperatures, to kill the larvae. Even after this, care needs to be given to how that waste is finally incorporated into the soil as it will still be attractive to adult flies. Where possible, crops should be harvested promptly to minimise the risk of secondary infections like botrytis after an SWD population is identified. The longer a crop is left to ripen, the bigger the risk you take. Higher temperatures contribute to the vigorous spread of SWD. As they favour warm, humid conditions good canopy management that encourages air flow can reduce the SWD risk as well as aiding ripening.

Kaolin, a white clay mineral, can be applied to the fruit to deter the insects from laying their eggs there. Kaolin is inert and toxicologically harmless as well as having no effect on the later vinification of the grapes. However, this would be a resource-heavy

Larvae of Drosophila suzukii

approach. A good coating is needed and it can be a partial barrier to sunlight too, potentially delaying ripening.

An insect exclusion mesh is a practical solution for crops grown in polytunnels but is less pragmatic in a commercial vineyard. A simpler approach may be to manage wild host plants around the vines, trimming back blackberries for example.

Research continues to find a way to deal decisively with SWD. A NIAB led research project recently found that the presence of common fruit fly larvae in laboratory media deterred SWD from laying eggs. Work is now underway to identify the compound causing this effect to use in future IPM strategies.

Hope is also being placed in the Sterile Insect Technique, developed by BigSis in collaboration with NIAB, which has been offered as a commercial service to fruit growers for the first time this season. Sterile males are introduced to the crop to mate with wild females, who therefore fail to produce viable eggs. Trials on strawberries in open polytunnels have been encouraging, with SWD levels remaining much lower than in comparative sites treated with chemical products.

READ MORE: https://horticulture.ahdb.org.uk/knowledge-library/spotted-wing-drosophila-swd-spotting-monitoring-and-trapping

Vivaflor Biostimulant for use in Viticulture

• Activates plant hormones for improved reproductive health

• Reduces issues with fruit set caused by environmental stress

• Improves homogeneity of berries, evens cluster weight and increases overall yield

What makes a wine 'Fine Wine?

Recently whilst on a long drive I had plenty of time to ponder, "What makes a wine 'Fine Wine?' Which also led to the question, "How do you grow the grapes for this, and then follow through with suitable wine making?"

My considerations for this were tempered by the question of whether or not new varieties had appropriate characteristics which a 'Fine Wine' could be based on.

There is a lot of respect for the history that has allowed an extraordinary amount of knowledge to be amassed around many presently considered 'Fine Wines', and rightly so.

It is not my belief, however, that only adherents of traditionalist thinking hold the title of makers of 'Fine Wine'.

Simple terms

In simple terms there are excellent wines that come from a couple of hundred years of winemaking, by many good and well focused wine making families, who have had time to seek out preferred soils, or perhaps work through clonal selections; that is a lot of accumulated science all of which can be concluded in 'Fine Wines'.

Many of these wines can age beautifully, but that is but a reflection on the wine making methods and as such can be learnt and applied to some other varieties.

Supposing a viticultural person has every reason to believe that the wine making will produce a highly regarded wine that is destined to fetch a high price, then they know that extra care and attention in the vineyard is probably required.

Naturally a 'Fine Wine' has to hold a position of being a good wine, and this is agreed by many, and well informed people.

Quite probably it also benefits from many years of considerable effort from the combined team of contributors that make that wine. Will all of this only be, and only ever be, from the confines of V. vinifera, and possibly people with deep pockets?

I don't think so.

I have worked with enough new and quite large companies in NZ to see two things emerge.

The first being that a reserve wine might simply be from whichever block of vines that they liked best, in that year.

Or, occasionally, it could be seen that there were one or two blocks that fairly consistently produced grapes of good note.

Once this is recognised then it becomes possible to fine tune the vineyard management, and thus improve the odds of better and better grapes.

When I was there it was quite unusual for people to seek out preferred sites, and layouts, with the intent of growing the grapes that make the better wines.

True intention

The true intention of seeking out these sites would be to produce grapes that are better ripened, ie they could be used in the making of possibly better wine, and probably in a more natural and un-manipulated way.

There was plenty of focused supermarket style wine making; contained costs, larger yields, bags of sugar and regular chemical de-acidification going on etc, but that is not my interest.

More recently I have been looking into new varieties of wine grape vines, ones holding a mix of genetics.

From a historical sense, and whilst working in the margins of the climate, some of these are unusually early ripening.

I don't believe that up to now it has been possible to produce 'Fine Wine' in the UK, still table wines and particularly the reds that is, but very soon that is all going to be allowed to change.

It is here that new grape varieties are possibly misjudged a little bit by their association with holding a genetic mix that offers a degree of resistance to fungal infection. There are examples that allow a

depth of ripeness the like of which has not been experienced previously. It is in this level of ripeness that improved structure, and flavour, can be found.

Obviously that minimising of the need to apply chemical protection on the vines is a good thing, but the more consistent, and arguably better quality of grapes opens up a whole new direction of possibility to produce different wines.

When I have been working in the dispatch of vines from a German vine nursery, I became very aware of the quantity of new variety vines that go out to highly regarded people in the industry. People who arguably are in the upper tiers of 'Fine Wine' making. The VDP holders and similar.

Die hard traditionalists these people are not! Well at least there are some, and indeed an increasing number of such companies who keep a very open mind to the future.

One such estate manager told me that they feel that they must not stop experimenting, and learning.

In many peoples eyes these particular people already make some of the best Rieslings to be found, yet they plant up trial blocks of other, and new variety vines, they will then go on to apply their considerable depth of talent in the wine making.

Maybe not hundreds of years from now, and possibly as soon as UK growers really engage and focus on working with earlier ripening vines, we too can hope to live with the pleasures of home grown excellence in this fashion.

I do not doubt that the wine making skill to do this will be picked up, and very quickly, so it is my hope to find that people become a little more confident in their creative decisions around suitable grape growing.

And I'm lucky enough to be well placed on occasions, whilst working in Germany, to try some aging wines from some of these varieties; yes, they can, in the right hands, deliver. Very 'fine' they are too.

Centre of excellence

At Plumpton College, we are proud to be the UK’s centre of excellence in wine education, training & research, and we deliver undergraduate and postgraduate degrees validated by the University of Greenwich.

There are many routes into wine at Plumpton College, be it studying an undergraduate degree, a postgraduate degree, a viticulture crop technician apprenticeship, or a range of leisure and part-time courses.

75% of the wine produced in UK vineyards is located in the South East region, with over 500 vineyards and 165 wineries. Our Rock Lodge Vineyard produces 40,000 bottles of our award-winning still and sparkling wine each year, which our students are instrumental in developing.

90% of graduates are employed after 15 months of completion and work for companies including Berry Bros & Rudd, Aldi, Liv-Ex Wine, Dehlinger Winery, Rathfinny Wine Estate, Chapel Down and Gusbourne Estate. (Discover Uni, Office for Students, 2022)

Natalie Agyapong BSc Viticulture & Oenology

How did you become interested in wine?

My mother told me a story about my Sierra Leonean great-grandfather making wine out of various fruits alongside grapes, and something just clicked one day after seeing this course being advertised online. To actually learn how to make wine and almost follow in his footsteps would be awesome!

Why did you choose Plumpton?

After finishing A Levels, I wanted to do something different for university and this was definitely something different. I’m very interested in making things from scratch, so researching about this course at Plumpton, I was very intrigued. Being the only college in the UK that does a bachelor’s degree in Wine Production, I was determined to give it a try!

What have been your highlights?

I feel that I have met so many different people of different ages and with varied amounts of knowledge about wine, who I can share my university experience with. Meeting people that know so much about wine inspires me to continue so that one day, I will have as much knowledge as them.

How will you apply what you’ve learnt to your future career?

What’s next?

My aim after university is to travel to different countries and explore the different wine styles and vineyard methods that I see in my textbook. I want to eventually use what Plumpton College is teaching me such as, pruning, in my future career in the wine industry.

Natalie Agyapong

Art of wine

While there is undoubtedly an art to making wine, one Sussex vineyard has gone further by putting art at the centre of its entire operation.

Artelium Wine Estate, based in glorious countryside at Malthouse Farm, Streat, not far from Ditchling, collaborates with renowned artists to create unique labels for its bottles, hosts regular exhibitions

in the tasting room and is planning a sculpture trail through the estate’s 45 acres of vines.

In fact, as hospitality manager Hannah Simpson-Banks pointed out, at one stage the

gently sloping south-facing area of former pasture was considered as the venue for a sculpture park.

Fortunately for lovers of fine English wine, the two entrepreneurs behind the venture,

husband and wife team Mark Collins and Julie Bretland, decided that they could find plenty of space to celebrate their interest in art amongst the vines while using most of the land to pursue their passion for producing fine wine.

And while ‘good’ art can be a very subjective decision, good wine is judged by experts, and those that have put Artelium to the test have already found it to be a winner. The 2017 Nature Series Cuvée, which features a series of three labels designed by

artist Judith Alder, won Gold at this year’s Independent English Wine Awards.

The Nature Series was released as a collaboration with London-based wine bar Vagabond, with the three labels representing light, soil and water, the three vital elements needed to sustain life in the vineyard.

Collaboration – with artists, winemakers and the local community – is central to the Artelium philosophy and has helped the relatively young business establish itself successfully at what was previously a dairy

farm and equestrian centre.

Remarkably, perhaps, the Covid-19 pandemic played its part, too, with the increased numbers of walkers on a footpath from Ditchling to the South Downs that runs through the site watching with interest as vines were planted and farm buildings took on a new life. Once restrictions were lifted, Mark and Julie were able to turn interested observers into potential customers with the aid of signs and new paths.

While Artelium seeks to marry wine and art, it was another wedding – Mark and Julie’s own – that proved to be the launchpad for the business.

Both successful entrepreneurs, they wanted to serve an English wine at their wedding in 2013 and embarked on a comprehensive tour of vineyards to find the right choice.

After an in-depth search, their wedding guests were served an English wine made by Owen Elias, one of the most respected winemakers in the business with decades of experience at the likes of Balfour and Chapel Down, so it’s no surprise to find that he is now Artelium’s consultant winemaker.

Artelium has been conceived as a long-term investment and based on a collaborative approach to winemaking.

Hannah pointed out: “Mark and Julie want to create something that will last, and they also want to take the opportunity to showcase the work of craftspeople of all kinds, from expert winemakers to the artists designing our labels.”

It’s an ambition that is supported by the vineyard’s location, in the heart of the Sussex countryside and close to Charleston House, famed for its connections to the Bloomsbury group and formerly home to Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant. The typeface for the London Underground was designed in Ditchling by Edward Johnston.

The complex of converted farm buildings at Streat now includes the Skelton Workshops, founded by the late John Skelton, letter carver and sculptor, who lived nearby and spent 50 years working in the county. It offers a range of courses, events and exhibitions.

Mark and Julie want to create something that will last, and they also want to take the opportunity to showcase the work of British artists

Photos: © Martin Apps, Countrywide Photographic

Artelium’s focus on long-term investment and quality craftsmanship is highlighted by the fact that the first wines they released at the tail end of 2020 were a Curator’s Cuvée 2014 and a Maker’s Rosé 2015. “The wines were made by Dermot Sugrue in collaboration with partner vineyards,” Hannah explained.

“The aim was to make wines with generous time on lees while creating the brand and developing a niche for the wine ahead of Artelium’s own grapes being available.”

Mark and Julie are active in every aspect of the business but also know the value of surrounding themselves with the right people.

While they had already been sourcing fruit, making wine and setting up partnerships

for the future, Mark and Julie didn’t discover Malthouse Farm until 2017. They had been looking at, amongst other options, buying an established vineyard, but the former dairy farm and equestrian venture, with its spectacular views of the South Downs, seemed too good an opportunity to miss.

Although wine tourism was then in its infancy, they could see that the buildings would lend themselves to welcoming visitors and there was space to display artworks, both indoors and outdoors amongst the yet-to-be-planted vines. The first outdoor sculpture, Futures Past, by Will Nash, was unveiled just a few weeks ago.

Artelium currently welcomes locals and tourists to its tasting room, wine bar and terrace, all open from Thursday through to

Sunday. It offers vineyard tours and wine tastings alongside ‘small plates’ of locally sourced produce.

The first vines were planted in November 2017, and as lockdown began, Mark and Julie moved to the site permanently and, like many other couples during this time, bought Poppy, a friendly black ‘springador’ who has quickly become one of the vineyard’s top attractions.

The ambition had been to launch the Artelium brand in the summer of 2020, selling directly into the trade, but that plan had to be pushed back to Christmas. Meanwhile the team realised that people walking the footpath that runs through the site were watching the changes and were keen to find out exactly what was going on.

<<

With scope for growth, Artelium currently offers a tasting room, wine bar and terrace

ARTELIUM WINE ESTATE

As soon as things opened up, Artelium began offering tastings and tours and selling wine from the site, as well as online. “We also benefited from established wine tour operators who could no longer travel overseas and instead sought out experiences at UK vineyards,” Hannah explained.

Artelium now has established vineyards at two locations, with 40,000 vines at Artelium East, Streat, and a further 65,000 at Artelium West in nearby Madehurst, where the couple has a long lease on another former dairy farm and planted vines in 2020 and 2021.

The majority of the grapes are Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Meunier and Pinot

Gris, but Mark and Julie have also planted a number of PIWI International varieties which are designed to be more disease resistant and require significantly less pesticides than traditional vines. It’s part of a broader move towards sustainability.

The small parcels of PIWI vines planted at Artelium include Cabaret Noir, Pinotin, Sauvignac and Voltis. They may be used in Artelium’s single varietal Artefact range, but the team is keeping an open mind.

“We are confident that they will grow well here and produce a good crop, but we are keeping an open mind as to their use within the range,” explained Hannah, who joined Artelium in 2021 with a background in retail

and hospitality businesses.

The Artefact range consists of small volume wines which fall into the ‘premium boutique’ category, made by Owen Elias and illustrated by British artists like Nash, whose Futures (Past) release of 250 bottles of a blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Meunier and Gris features an intriguing geometric design on the label.

With artistic descriptions often rivalling those of wine aficionados, the Artelium website describes the label: “Here multiple grids of simple triangles and curves are superimposed to create prismatic patterns; orderly sequences decay into chaos then combine to find new order.”

Artelium now grows grapes at two locations, with 55,000 vines at Malthouse Farm and a further 80,000 at nearby Madehurst

In a further bid to support art, the label has been used as the inspiration for 100 one-off framed prints in different colourways that are on sale in the tasting room. Meanwhile the aisles within the vineyard are deliberately wide to allow more sculptures to be placed there in the future.

Artelium’s sparkling wines spend a minimum of four years on the lees, while their Blanc de Blancs 2015, named Supreme Champion at the Wine GB Awards 2022, spent six years in the cellar. On the way to

the top award, the wine was named Best Blanc de Blancs and Best Sparkling, while the team was named as Best Newcomer. Again with a view to the future, Mark and Julie commissioned their own winery and climate controlled storage, built for them by G J Elgar Construction, based in Ashford, Kent. In a further reflection of the collaborative theme that runs through the business, the winery space is shared with another producer and there is an opportunity for more to join in the future.

The winery was commissioned in October of last year and was designed to be expandable as the business grows. Still and sparkling wines will in future be made on site, although Artelium will continue to collaborate with guest winemakers.

While Artelium’s initial throughput is set to be around 100,000 bottles a year, the winery will have capacity for half a million, and as the ‘best newcomer’ continues to win new customers, even that may soon not be enough.

Satisfaction for customers

Building specialist G J Elgar Construction is beginning to be well known in the world of viticulture after building the winery for Artelium.

The Kent-based construction company, with over 30 years’ experience in the agricultural and industrial sectors, began work on the project in 2021, stripping the old asbestos fibre cement roofing material using trained and certified staff.

“We then removed the existing single skin sheets from the walls and stacked them for the clients to re-sell after pointing out that the sheets were valuable and could offset the cost of the project,” explained director Neil Elliott.

“We then supplied and installed 120mm thick composite roof sheets and 80mm thick wall sheets that gave our client the U-values they needed to keep the wine at the correct temperature.”

G J Elgar Construction then supplied and fitted concrete wall panelling and installed the high-spec stainless steel drainage needed for the wine-making equipment. “This was a bit of a challenge because of the geography of the building so we needed to alter a number of levels to meet the customer’s requirement 100%,” Neil went on.

Since completing the winery for Artelium, G J Elgar Construction has built another winery in Hamstreet near Ashford for “another satisfied customer”.

“We now have another order for a winery in East Sussex thanks to a word-of-mouth

recommendation and the satisfaction we have given our customers,” Neil added. “We are committed to delivering quality buildings for wine makers throughout the South East and making the most of the upsurge in viticulture in this part of the world.”

Know your enemy

Fungal disease remains a common cause of reduced yield and profitability in wine production. Prevention is better than a cure; therefore, avoiding disease in the first place is ideal.

A comprehensive strategy is needed to prevent the initiation and spread of fungal diseases throughout a vineyard. Once a contagion has set in, the cost of remedial chemicals can be high and potential returns can be greatly diminished. Preventive measures, such as adhering to the spray intervals of a coherent fungicide programme and implementing cultural practices, should be taken to minimise the occurrence of fungal diseases.

Some vineyard owners are wary of chemical interventions, and delay treating their vines until there are visual signs of an infection – often sometime just after flowering. They are then faced with using expensive systemic curative pesticides to prevent the devastation of their crop. Unfortunately, they have already created a ‘spore Wonderland’ throughout the vineyard.

It is always best to avoid diseases in the first place. Regular monitoring of the vines and recording instances of disease is crucial to acting in a timely fashion and understanding how disease starts or moves around the site. Low-impact prophylactic fungicides, such as those used more prominently by those practising biodynamic or organic viticulture, should be applied regularly from the beginning of the season to prevent potential fungal emergence. Generally, this works well. However, more sophisticated protection may be necessary when the vines reach their seasonal adolescence during flowering.

Cultural management also plays an understated but vital role in creating a favourable environment for a healthy vineyard with minimal fungal risk. Good bud rubbing, and crown and cane clearing can improve air circulation, reduce leaf shading of the vine, and increase the incidence of direct sun exposure to some shoots. Furthermore, balancing crop load is key for optimal production. Overloading the vines is a source of great stress that can have various consequences, including an increased risk of fungal outbreaks.

Downy mildew is a major devastator of all things green in the right weather conditions, which include temperatures over 12°C for more than 24 hours and rainfall greater than 5mm.

Primary infection

Oospores, over winter, can survive long periods in the soil and on vine wood. As soon as the topsoil is saturated with water in the spring after a long rainy period, zoospores can move up onto the leaves in water droplets carried by the wind and then make their way into the stomata to enter the plant tissue.

Once optimal infection conditions have been reached, the clock starts ticking. Depending on the temperature, it can take anywhere from 5 to 17 days for the infection to take hold and for oil spots to become visible symptoms. A large secondary infection will likely follow when 1 or 2 oil spots are observed for every 50 metres of the canopy.

When the oil spots mature, they can sporulate and produce sporangia,

leading to a potentially explosive secondary infection. These nocturnal spores don't like sunlight or dry heat over 29°C, but with high relative humidity and night time temperatures of around 24°C, the sporangia will germinate and release further zoospores. After the second incubation period, 20 oil spots can produce up to 100,000 new oil spots.

Secondary infections

Powdery mildew (Uncinula necator) requires a green host to survive and will spend winters encapsulated as mycelium in dormant buds. The ideal temperature for powdery mildew to thrive is between 21°C and 32°C, so it generally appears later in the summer than downy mildew. The longer the thermometer remains at these temperatures, the greater the risk of an infection. This disease does not need free water or high relative humidity to infect. It requires free moisture to transform the pycnidia and grow hyphae on leaves, causing the ash-grey spore symptoms that we recognise as powdery mildew. It can grow on both the upper and lower sides of the leaf, whereas downy mildew only produces spores on the lower surface of the leaves. As the season progresses, the lesions can turn dark brown or even black if the infection is severe. The clusters of berries are initially covered with a powdery ash-grey, and then the diseased berries become scarred, split, rotten, and shrivel.

The management team at VineWorks utilise the most up-to-date disease modelling tools to use prophylactic treatments for as long as possible during the season. This is accomplished using Metos weather stations, equipped with leaf-wetness sensors, which feed into a cloud-based platform and mobile app.

Downy and powdery mildew are two of the most common fungal diseases, and their development is dependent on temperature, rainfall, and relative humidity. To manage these diseases effectively, preventive management and exemplary cultural practices must be employed in conjunction with a cohesive fungicide programme, including adhering to spray intervals. Cultural practices, such as bud rubbing, crown and cane clearing, and balancing crop load, can help maintain a harmonious vineyard and achieve desired outcomes.

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Canopy care ensures vines meet their potential

Canopy management at this time of year is all about achieving the optimum leaf-tofruit ratio. While there are general rules of thumb, such as allowing 10-12 leaves per bunch, determining the ‘correct’ canopy structure is very much down to individual situations, and is a judgement call based on variety, vigour and yield potential.

It can be tempting to try and take as much crop as possible through to harvest, but doing so is often false economy. When vines put all their energy into producing fruit – that may or may not ripen in what is a relatively late season – fewer resources go into laying down good quality buds and canes for next season.

It is worth critically appraising vines to assess what crop load they can realistically carry through to harvest, and monitor growth to ensure there is sufficient vigour to support this, as well as setting foundations for next year. This is especially important in younger, less well established vines.

Where crops, such as some Seyval blanc inspected recently, have produced far more inflorescences than the vine can support, bunch thinning will be required. In most situations, growers can usually wait until fruit is set before deciding how much to thin out, with research suggesting it can be done up until August and still leave time for berries to bulk up. However, where crop load is excessive, earlier action will be necessary.

Tipping not topping

With canopies growing rapidly during early summer, crop load should be balanced against vigour - generally, the more vigorous the vine, the bigger crop it can carry, and vice versa.

Trimming excessive growth and stripping

leaves to expose bunches helps optimise light capture, improves airflow, and enhances fruit set by exposing berries to more light. Floral initiation for the following season requires buds to be exposed to sunlight, otherwise there is a risk they will be less fruitful.

Generally, a “little and often” approach is favoured, removing small amounts of extension growth once vines reach the top wire. Two or sometimes three small trims are better than leaving it later and removing a large amount in one go. This often means there are over-thick canopies, which are more difficult to control disease in, and removing larger amounts of material increases the tendency of vines to respond by producing lateral growth.

There are logistical and cost pressures associated with more frequent trimming, but just removing the tips means buds are more likely to remain as potential fruiting buds for next year.

Balancing nutrition

Nitrogen availability is an important driver of canopy growth, but can be tricky to manage, as too much encourages excessive, soft, fleshy growth, and may compromise juice composition, whereas too little can leave vines struggling to lay down sufficient reserves.

On deeper, richer soils, with good moisture availability, there is usually little need for additional nitrogen, whereas on thinner soils in drier areas, it can be worthwhile. Generally, in drier soils, foliar applications are utilised more efficiently by plants than ground-applied nitrogen.

Two other key nutrients at this time of year are calcium and potassium. Calcium increases

cell wall rigidity, potentially reducing botrytis risk, and products such as Wuxal Calcium, or CalMax Ultra, which come with additional trace elements, are good options. Potassium supports Brix accumulation and is generally applied once berries are formed.

Nutrient applications should be tailored to crop requirements, and the results of any leaf petiole analysis done at flowering.

Watch for pests

Light brown apple moth has been found in low numbers at vineyards near the south coast, so should be monitored closely. There are two generations each year; one at flowering, which can reduce yield, but the second is often more impactful, as caterpillars feed within bunches, rupturing skins and predisposing bunches to botrytis.

With no published treatment thresholds, deciding when to treat must be on a caseby-case basis. Explicit (indoxacarb), or the biological insecticide Delfin WG, are the main options, as products such as Tracer (spinosad) and Hallmark (lambda-cyhalothrin) are usually reserved for Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD) control later in the season.

Finally, more vine leaf blister mite damage has been seen this year, favoured by warm, dry, conditions this spring, and last year, which increased carryover. Symptoms can look worse than the damage caused, unless pressure builds to levels that stop vines growing, or affect bunch architecture.

Applying sulphur pre-flowering and postflowering is normally the main strategy, however in very high-risk situations there may be a need for stronger control in the form of Batavia (spirotetramat).

Relatively kind spring weather, fortunately without any late frosts, has boosted prospects for this harvest. Hutchinsons agronomists Rob Saunders and Chris Cooper examine how to manage vine canopies to fulfil this promise.

Demysti﬌ing wine labels

In an ideal world, you want to make sure that every potential new customer is introduced to your wine with a tasting, gently guided by your own in-house expertise. Nothing beats that face-to-face interaction and the opportunity to ‘sample the goods.’ But since you are unlikely to fancy conquering the British wine-drinking public on an individual basis – armed with a small river of free samples – your wine labels need to do a lot of the heavy lifting in marketing your product. It may well be the only thing a customer sees before choosing to try your product.

Have you ever stopped to think about the number of jobs your wine labels are doing? So much more than simply identifying the contents of the bottle, they are fulfilling your legal obligations, showcasing your brand values, capturing attention and hopefully, regardless of how they are treated or how long they are kept, staying put on the bottle. Let’s take a deep dive into the world of the wine label.

Allergens and ingredients

The Food Standards Agency sets out the labelling requirements that wine must meet to be sold in the UK. This includes the category of the product – usually simply ‘wine’ for still wines. The correct provenance for wines without a geographical designation or the appropriate terminology where the liquid meets the UK Quality Wine Scheme criteria is also specified. The nominal volume, alcoholic strength, bottler details and a lot number are of course necessary.

Another legal requirement is appropriate allergen labelling. Allergenic ingredients must be specifically emphasised every time they appear on the label using the format:

“Contains [name of allergen]”

Many producers choose to list allergens as part of an ingredients list in a bold font, an alternate colour or underlined. There are 14 allergens designated by food law, but most likely wine producers will only need to

READ MORE: www.food.gov.uk/business-guidance/wine-labelling

consider sulphur dioxide and finings. There has not previously been a requirement to provide an ingredient list on wine labels. This is set to change under a new EU regulation from 8 December 2023. Ingredients, allergens, energy and nutrition information on wine produced after that date must be disclosed. The regulation states:

“In order to provide a higher level of information to consumers, the compulsory particulars … should include a nutrition declaration and a list of ingredients,” although some of this information can be provided via an electronic label via a link or QR code on the bottle. Take note if you distribute your wine in the EU. Some producers have already decided to volunteer information about the contents of their bottles despite not being obligated to do so. The first was Randall Grahm at Bonny Doon in California in 2008. He felt that it was important to give consumers full disclosure of any additions to the wine so they could make an informed purchasing decision. Here in the UK, the same practice is followed by Rothley Wine Estate in Leicestershire, who have included a full ingredients list on their back labels since 2013.

READ MORE:

http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2021/2117/oj

"I follow the former Bordeaux tradition of fining red wine with egg white to give a soft finish,” says director Liz Robson. “Bordeaux had used dried egg white, but after some official rumpus stopped because they could not product trace to an individual hen.

“I am an artisan winemaker with hens who lay different coloured eggs, so I can product trace. I even put the hen's name on the King Henry red wine label. Customers love the tale of the hens, especially when they can meet the chosen one. Some even buy a bottle of our King Henry based purely on the story."

The hen Nicolette, as named on the Rothley Wine label

Crafting an impression

As Liz has shown, wine labels are an important vehicle for capturing consumers' attention and conveying your brand identity. Whether you choose a traditional or more contemporary format, they should all fall into line with your brand voice to help tell the story of your vineyard. Getting this right will have an impact on the type of customer you attract.

If you haven’t found your brand’s voice yet, try to think about what your core values as a company are. Why did you choose this business in the first place, and what excites you about the wine you are making? Perhaps most importantly, what makes your wine unique? This might be tied up with the people behind the wine or the place where it is grown and made. These are the chapters of your brand story.

It can be helpful to try and identify a brand personality that you can use consistently across platforms – from logos to labels, online and in real life. Do you want to come across as serious, funny or something in

between, for example? It may seem strange, but an easy way of visualising this can be to think of your business as a person and decide what language they would use to address a potential customer.

Once you have decided on the key elements of your business’ story and voice, all of the design elements should fall into place. Typography, colour and imagery will flow from the message you are trying to convey.

“Our brand, tone of voice and labels are all based around elements of our family and farm,” says Charlotte Self of Whitehall Vineyard in Wiltshire. “It was important for us to stick with a brand that meant something to us, that represents who we are as a family and where we are from.

The brickwork on the front on the labels is based on the bricks from our family house, and the gold leaf is inspired by the wisteria that grows up the house. The names of the wines are inspired by local landmarks and members of our family, creating a strong personal touch from every bottle.

“I think that this has worked well for us

as customers like to connect the product to the origins and when I’ve been speaking to customers they like the idea that the Charlotte May Rosé is named after me and the Madeline May Chardonnay is named after my sister. Being a family business creates a really strong brand voice.”

Practical considerations

There are an incredible number of decisions to be taken when designing a label. The material might have a gloss, matt or woven finish, for example. There are different adhesives that can be used and different methods to actually apply the label.

This choice should be led in the first instance by practical considerations. If a wine is likely to spend time in the fridge, it needs to be able to withstand those temperatures, and the drop down from ambient when it arrives there. The label and its glue may need to survive a spell in an ice bucket or simply resist peeling off when it comes into contact with condensation. Finally, how long is this label going to stay on the bottle? Will

the whole vintage be consumed within a year or two, or does that glue need to hold fast while a bottle is cellared over a number of years?

As in all things, aspiration needs to be balanced against budget. All the little extras like embossing or hot stamped foil print soon mount up, but there is anecdotal evidence that customers associate these features with a higher quality product. A higher level of finish might make all the difference to sales of a limited edition bottle and justify the additional cost.

If your brand story is deeply entwined with

themes of sustainability and environmental sensitivity, this needs to be reflected in the materials that you choose for labelling. Biodegradable, compostable or recycled labels are all widely available, giving a new palette of texture and finish to play with.

Size, shape and placement of the label will all impact on consumer perceptions of your product. Since most wine bottles tend to be a similar silhouette some makers have taken to commissioning bold designs to catch the eye. Recent trends in label design have included typography-led styles, minimalist design and a more contemporary,

freeform approach to the use of images and illustration.

The latter picks up on a labelling trend in the brewing world, where artists and illustrators are routinely being commissioned to develop a house style for a consistent and impactful aesthetic. Burning Sky in East Sussex, for example, have a longstanding relationship with the artist Simon Gane. His popular illustrations reflect the natural ingredients and countryside with a punky cut-and-paste aesthetic. The brewery have even offered Gane’s prints for sale on their website.

Building a wine brand

Kent branding agency Oak Creative have been working with food and drinks brands for over 30 years. Their heritage and experience in this industry means they have been on many journeys with their clients to create award winning wine designs that stand out.

Laura Bevan, Studio director at Oak Creative, said: ‘With so many incredible wines entering the UK market, creating a label which quickly communicates your product and your brand is essential to catch your audience's attention.’

Biddenden Vineyard have worked with Oak Creative over the last 20 years to establish and develop their label design. Most recently, they have unified their labels into a classic, simple and high-end design across their range of wines. As the oldest commercial vineyard in Kent, Biddenden Vineyard has forged a path for UK vineyards and their brand needed to represent this.

Marketing manager Jessica Banks said: ‘It’s important that all brand touch points tell a consistent story about your brand, whether that be a label or website. Customers want to know who they are buying from and why. They want to see and feel authenticity in order to relate to you and choose your brand over others.’

Ensuring people recognise your brand and products online is as important as it is in a retail environment. The online experience needs to instil confidence, consistency and provide customers with a great experience, just as in a physical store.

As well as offering branding services, Oak Creative has built an

ecommerce platform for food and drink businesses called FoodE. Combining their creative know-how and online sales expertise, FoodE offers businesses a professional website as well as a whole host of additional features designed to boost online sales.

Biddenden Vineyard has a FoodE powered website and they have been impressed with the results it has given their business. ‘”Our new site gives our customers a much better shopping experience. As consumers ourselves, we know how small attention spans can be when shopping online, so we’ve added features to really help our customers find what they need fast. Plus, everything now links together internally and we’re really confident in its capabilities which is so reassuring for the future,” said Anne Jennings, Biddenden Vineyard, Marketing Manager.

Sticking points: UK wine bottle labels

Allergens that need to be included

◆ Fish gelatine or Isinglass if used as a fining agent.

◆ Milk or egg products if used as a fining agent (if detectable limits in the finished product is above 0.25mg/litre)

◆ Sulphur Dioxide exceeding 10mg/litre (always on the label)

As UK wine law is evolving so is the information required on wine bottle labels and it can be confusing to know what is needed. Below is a summary of the current position and the consequences of making a mistake.

What needs to be included on the label?

The UK Wine Regulations, which are enforced by the Food Standards Agency (FSA), sets out what information needs to be included on a UK wine bottle label. This is split into:

1. The standard information that every bottle will have; and

2. The information that is specific to the wine classification.

The standard information that needs to appear on a still wine bottle is the bottle measure, ABV, bottling location, the term ‘Wine of England’, that it contains sulphites and the lot number. With a sparkling wine bottle it is the above as well as whether it is a ‘quality sparkling wine’ or a ‘sparkling wine’ and the level of sweetness.

The specific information that is required depends on the wine’s classification as either PDO, PGI, Varietal or Wine. The FSA (together with WineGB) has produced a handy Wine Standards Guide which neatly provides examples of labels for still and sparkling bottles of different classifications. You can find them by searching for ‘FSA wine labels’.

Will I get in trouble if I don’t include these things?

The main objective of the FSA’s Wine Standards Inspection Team is to promote compliance by providing guidance and advice. They only use

formal enforcement action where it is necessary to protect consumers. There is no recent case law for proceedings by the FSA relating to bottle labels which indicates these issues are being resolved through co-operation. The FSA has a guidance list to decide how serious an offence is, for example whether it can affect consumer safety (such as missing allergens information), if it was done deliberately or if it is a repeated offence. Having a good track record and acting co-operatively will work in your favour.

If there is an issue with my label what is the likely first step that will happen

Assuming the error on the wine bottle label is not seen as a serious offence and can be corrected by simply changing the labels, the FSA Inspector will usually offer advice and then follow up with another visit or email.

If the Inspector thinks it is unlikely the advice will be followed then they can escalate action which starts with sending a warning letter, then a formal warning notice and, finally, enforcement action which can end in the wine being destroyed for some offences. However, the chance of this occurring for an incorrect bottle label is extremely unlikely and this escalation is for more serious offences.

Can I get any further help if I’m not sure?

Yes, you can email winestandards@food.gov.uk or your Regional Wine Inspector. I contacted the FSA Wine Standards Team when writing this article and they replied quickly.

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Is wine made on the vine or does the winemaker make it?

I suppose we all agree that a good wine cannot exist without quality grapes and a knowledgable winemaker with good taste. We also know that the above statement would be very simplistic if we don’t try to analyse the factors that count the most in winemaking. This is not to emphasise one over another, as both make critical contributions in a quality wine; this is just an incentive to think through your current status and try to identify, aspects or priorities, that might require improvements in your present situation or future aspiration.

Here are some easy and at the same time complex points that I’d like to consider:

◆ Control the controllable

◆ High impact actions

◆ Use your toolbox

Control the controllable

We can’t control the climate or the terroir we can only influence them very marginally, although, we can decide (almost) everything else.

In some cases we can actually decide where to buy land to establish a vineyard. We’re currently living through a very exciting period in our young wine industry where we all have the chance to shape it in a constant search of growth and style. Being a young industry also means that there is not much data available, and answers found elsewhere will not necessarily be the correct answers in our country: we need to do our studies, which comes with risk and long term results. Wine is very complex, still not very much understood

and this is part of the beauty of it. This means that choosing the “right terroir”, without actually tasting that terroir in a glass of wine, across a few vintages and making techniques, is nearly an impossible task. When the very basic parameters like temperature, rainfall, moisture, sun exposure, soil texture, nutrients etc. meet the requirement to grown vines, we’re still very far from understanding if those vines can produce a specific wine consistently and with a certain quality level.

Let’s imagine two extreme examples. The first is when the climate is perfect to make a certain wine, the winemaker and the viticulturist have easy lives because not many interventions or decisions are required.

The other extreme example, is when in difficult conditions the winemaker and the viticulturist need to express all knowledges and experiences to apply techniques that might still make a quality wine. Of course a winemaker is not a magician and if the grapes don’t meet some basic requirements there is nothing that can be done to achieve the wanted quality.

Even in the ideal situation, the winemaking team still need to make the decisions surrounding what is not required or what can be done. It’s a kind of triangle between: science, art and experience.

High impact actions

We need to study, trial, apply and adapt to the terroir where we operate; obviously the terroir will not do the same to allow us to make better wine.

My initial advice is to focus on high impact actions that can really make the difference in the glass. For example, within different blocks of pinot noir grape, there can be the choice of which one to use to make a red wine, a white, a rosé still or a sparkling. Can the same batch be used in very different styles of wines from the same harvest? The answer is often “yes” (in a balanced year).

Other impacting actions come with the decision of technique like skin management and extraction, de-acidification (chemical, by yeast, by bacteria or all of them…), oak, creation of blending components and so on.

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On the vineyard management side, there is still a long way to go; very few people are actually studying how to influence and improve phenols, acidity, flavours and the mechanisms behind them to actually make better wine or choose where to plant. Too many times a viticulturist acts like a simple grower keeping the focus on diseases and the grapes are still commercialised based on sugar and acidity like 100 years ago… With regard to these factors, winemaking is more advanced than viticulture and currently provides higher impact actions.

Once we’ve successfully put in place and tested the high impact actions, then we can start the job of refining them focusing on further details for the next steps.

Use your toolbox

Our toolbox contains more or less the same tools, however, they can be used in different ways according to a specific terroir, purpose and experience.

We need to stay humble with an open mindset for constant learning. Sometimes, in order to be able to go to the next step, we need to stop a moment, go back to the basic principles, investigate and resume the process.

Here I have had a very general discussion about if the wine is made on the vine or in the winery; although, winemaking is always a process of team work and the real point is what we can do to control the controllable using and developing our tools. In September, I will talk about who actually decides which specific wine to make: is it the vineyard or the winemaker?

Contract Winemaking

Following last year’s completion of our purpose-built winery, The Grange now has production capacity available for premium, traditional-method contract winemaking. We can deliver a fully traceable service from grape-reception through to packaged bottles and are looking to build long-term relationships with clients from across the UK with a minimum of 2ha of vineyard planted or planned.

New sustainable aluminium bottle

Mallard Point Vineyard and distillery have launched a new sustainable aluminium bottle. Their bottle is used for their semisparkling and still wines as well as their award winning gins. The bottle merges sustainability, practicality and durability by using aluminium, whilst still maintaining an elegant and striking design of a traditional bottle.

Not only are they the first UK wine producer to use an aluminium bottle, they are also the worlds first producer to get rid of the disposable cork or cap closures and replace it with a swing top. If this wasn’t enough they are also pioneering an innovative returns system where customers return the bottle to be cleaned and reused.

The reason that they chose aluminium is not only for it’s recycling properties but

also due to it being significantly lighter to any glass bottle on the market, thus requiring less energy to transport and store. Aluminium’s unique thermal properties mean that it requires less energy to chill and once chilled it will stay cooler for longer. It is also very durable leading to less breakages making it perfect for picnics or festivals.

The swing top also plays a significant part. It negates the need for single use cork but also means that you can reseal the bottle, thus prolonging the life of your wine.

Their ethos of reuse means that all components of their packaging are designed to have multiple uses. Once a consumer has finished their wine or gin, the bottle goes back into the original packaging and is sent back to the vineyard free of charge to be cleaned and reused. This process

significantly reduces the amount of waste the vineyard produces.

However there is still one dark cloud that looms over these pioneering producers. Current EU legislation does not allow them call their wine “English Sparkling”. Archaic legislation states that in order for a wine to use the term sparkling it has to be in a glass bottle. So regardless of all the sustainable benefits of aluminium, you can’t currently use if for a sparkling wine!

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At Vogelsang, we never lose sight of what matters to you: economy and ease of use.

As innovators in the field of pumping techniques, we have developed a pump especially for the winemaking industry to help move liquids and solids without losing any vital flavour and quality of the wine.

The compact, intelligently designed rotary lobe wine pump is created specifically to reduce wine oxygenation through its quiet and gentle operation, and is ideal for recirculation or pumping to and from the cellar, and use in transportation, storage and bottling.

Grapes, seeds, must and wine, everything remains unchanged during the transport process, for the highest quality of the final product.

VOGELSANG – LEADING IN TECHNOLOGY

Contact person: Richard Love

Mobile: +44 7765 902140 | richard.love@vogelsang.info

vogelsang.info

2023 WINEGB AWARDS

346 wines entered

WineGB is delighted to announce the winners of the WineGB Awards 2023. The wines were judged at Exton Park Vineyard, Hampshire from 5-8 June by judges Susie Barrie MW, Oz Clarke OBE, Rebecca Palmer, Luke Harbor, Simon Field MW, Nik Darlington, Matt Hodgson, and Imogen Bowen-Davies. Each wine goes through a rigorous judging process.

A record number of wines were entered this year with the highest ever number of producers entering from all over the country, including more of first time entrants than ever before alongside many regular competitors.

There were 346 wines entered with 48 Gold medals, 145 Silver medals and 120 Bronze medals awarded.

The WineGB Awards 2023 are sponsored by Rankin.

You can download a PDF of all the winners at www.winegb.co.uk

◆ ALBOURNE ESTATE

Blanc de Noirs 2016

◆ ALL ANGELS

Classic Cuvée 2015

◆ ASHLING PARK ESTATE

Rosé NV

◆ BALFOUR WINERY

Cinque Ports 2019

◆ BEWL WATER VINEYARD

Reserve Cuvée 2018

◆ BLACKBOOK WINERY

Crouch Valley Vineyard, “Pygmalion”

Chardonnay 2020

◆ BLUEBELL VINEYARD ESTATES

Barrel Aged Blanc de Blancs 2017

Classic Cuvée Multi Vintage

Hindleap Rosé 2016

The judges

Gold medals

◆ BREAKY BOTTOM VINEYARD

Cuvée Marraine Pooks 2016

◆ BRIDE VALLEY VINEYARD

Blanc de Blancs 2018

Brut Reserve 2018

◆ CANDOVER BROOK

Brut NV

Photos: Tom Gold Photography

◆ CASTLE BROOK VINEYARD

Classic Cuvée 2015

Rosé 2016

◆ CHAPEL DOWN

Kit’s Coty Bacchus 2020

Kit’s Coty Chardonnay 2020

Kit’s Coty Coeur de Cuvée 2016

◆ DENBIES WINE ESTATE

Chardonnay 2020

◆ DIGBY FINE ENGLISH

◆

2013 Vintage Reserve Brut

DOMAINE HUGO

Hugo 2019

◆ EXTON PARK VINEYARD

Blanc de Blancs 2014

◆ FENNY CASTLE VINEYARD

Sparkling Rosé 2019

◆ GREYFRIARS VINEYARD

Non Vintage Cuvée

◆ GUSBOURNE ESTATE

Blanc de Blancs 2017, Commanders Vineyard

Blanc de Blancs 2017, Selhurst Park Vineyard

Exclusive Release 2019

Chardonnay Guinevere 2021

Brut Reserve Late Disgorged 2015

◆ HARROW & HOPE

Blanc de Noirs 2018

◆ LANGHAM WINE ESTATE

Blanc de Blancs NV

Corallian Classic Cuvée NV

Pinot Noir 2019

◆ OASTBROOK ESTATE

Chardonnay 2022

◆ RIDGEVIEW

Blanc de Noirs 2015

Sparkling Red Reserve NV

◆ SANDRIDGE BARTON WINES

Pinot Noir 2020

◆ SOUTHCOTT VINEYARD 2018 Classic

◆ SUGRUE SOUTH DOWNS

Cuvée Dr Brendan O’Regan MV

Cuvée Boz Coldharbour Single Vineyard 2015

◆ TERLINGHAM VINEYARD

Blanc de Blancs 2017

◆ THREE CHOIRS VINEYARDS

Blanc de Noirs 2016

◆ TREVIBBAN MILL

Blanc de Noirs 2018

◆ TUFFON HALL VINEYARD

Pinot Noir Rosé, Beatrice 2022

◆ WHITE CASTLE VINEYARD

Pinot Noir Reserve 2021

◆ WHITEHALL VINEYARD

Sparkling Rosé 2019

◆ WOODCHESTER VALLEY

Rosé Brut 2020

◆ WYFOLD VINEYARD Brut 2017

Oz Clarke OBE

Representing you

Working in partnership with Vineyard magazine for a developing UK wine industry.

WineGB is the national trade body representing the vine growers and winemakers of Great Britain from the largest producers to small hobbyists. Our members work together with the organisation to develop strategy, expertise and marketing opportunities for long-term, sustainable success.

WineGB Awards Ceremony and Lunch

Following the success of last years’ event, the WineGB Awards Ceremony and Lunch is returning to Drapers’ Hall on Friday 7 July.

A tasting of the award-winning wines will start at 10:30am, followed by a sumptuous three-course lunch from 12.30pm to 3.30pm where you can continue to enjoy the wines from the tasting.

Our Master of Ceremonies will be Peter Richards MW and our Co-Chairs of Judges, Susie Barrie MW and Oz Clarke OBE, will be presenting the awards.

The awards ceremony will include the announcement of the regional trophy winners along with the unveiling of the

category trophies, concluding with the top award: The Supreme Champion 2023.

We will be capturing the event with our fantastic photographer Tom Gold on hand, who will produce photos of all the winners to use after the ceremony. There will also be plenty of social media activity surrounding the day – #WineGBAwards

Tickets are £85+VAT per person which includes the tasting and a three-course lunch with award-winning wines.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Bevica for co-sponsoring the WineGB Awards Ceremony and Lunch, along with the continued support of our headline competition sponsor Rankin.

To buy tickets, please visit: www.winegb.co.uk/events/winegb-awards-ceremony-and-lunch

Proud co-sponsor of the 2023 WineGB Awards

This year the WineGB Awards Trophy Ceremony & Lunch is being co-sponsored by Bevica, one of the leading business management technology and software solutions available in the wine industry.

Bevica is a powerful best practice cloudbased ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) solution that has been developed over the last 20 years to help businesses in the drinks industry to manage and gain insight from every part of their business.

Powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, Bevica is a modern and user-friendly solution that offers innovative and dynamic wine businesses complete control over their finance and accounting processes, seamless supply chain management, as well as effective management of their duty and VAT responsibilities.

Bevica is designed, delivered and supported by UK-based Microsoft Partner, TVision Technology. TVision’s dedicated and experienced Bevica team is led by Bevica Product Director, Claudio Martell who has over 30 years’ experience of working in and with wine companies. The Bevica team have extensive experience of the sector, and therefore understand the ever-changing technology needs of the modern wine industry.

Speaking about the WineGB Awards and Bevica’s co-sponsorship of the event, Claudio commented: “Congratulations to all winners of this year’s WineGB Awards. It is wonderful to see that the wine industry in Great Britain is continuing to grow and flourish. We look forward to celebrating with the winners at the Awards Trophy Ceremony and Lunch on 7 July.”

Register for your ticket: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/winegb-trade-press-tasting-2023-tickets-618898039697

WineGB Trade & Press Tasting

Join us on 5 September for our annual Trade & Press Tasting, the key event for the English and Welsh wine industry, bringing together producers from across the country. This year, the tasting is being held at a new location: the stunning Battersea Arts Centre in London.

Key features include:

◆ Individual exhibitor stands

UPCOMING EVENTS & WORKSHOPS

7 July 2023

WineGB Awards Lunch, Drapers’ Hall, London

17-21 July 2023

Plumpton College Principles of Vinegrowing Intensive Course

23 July 2023

Vineyards of Hampshire Fizz Fest, Hambledon Vineyard

23 July 2023

Vinescapes training: Estimating crop yield

◆ Stands representing regional vineyard associations, featuring smaller commercial producers

◆ Focus tables to highlight some of the styles now produced in Britain

◆ Focus tasting table featuring the Trophy winners in the WineGB Awards 2023 Registrations are now open for bonafide members of the wine trade and press.

WineGB membership entitles you to a free trial production (20-50 samples) of the development of a personalised bottle from WineGB Silver Patron Vetreria Etrusca. For more information email phoebe@winegb.co.uk

9 August 2023

Vinescapes training: Preparing for harvest in the vineyard

5 September 2023

WineGB Trade & Press Tasting

14 September 2023

NIAB Vine & Wine Discovery Day

2023

22 November 2023

Vineyard & Winery Show

Sustainable spraying is a piece of cake

Founded in 1895 with the aim of helping the Beaujolais winegrowers protect their vines, Berthoud has built an exceptional legacy as one of the best vineyard sprayer manufacturers.

Its champion sprayer the trailed over the row Win’Air is an easy-to-handle and compact sprayer which is available in four capacities of 600, 800 1,000 and 1,500 litre.

The Speedair and Supair evolution fan systems include a front intake to prevent the spray mixture from being sucked back in. While the fully hydraulic AB Most drop leg boom sections can cover up to two and a half rows and will easily adjust to varying row widths.

NP Seymour, the UK’s leading specialist machinery dealership, caught up with Albury Organic Vineyard’s estate manager Alex Valsecchi and vineyard manager Dominic Travers, to find out more about the Berthoud Win’Air supplied to them in 2022.

Located in the Surrey Hills, just outside Guildford, Albury’s home vineyard comprises 5ha of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, as well as some Seyval and Pinot Gris. There is also an additional 3.5ha of vines

planted on another site next door.

Committed to growing organically, and biodynamically, Alex and Dominic need to remain on the ball when it comes to spraying and keeping disease pressure at bay.

As an accredited member of the Sustainable Wines of Great Britain scheme, the team also carefully considers the environmental impact of everything they do.

“We have a lot of ground to cover and were looking for a sprayer which would help us reduce the number of passes we needed to do,” said Alex.

“The Win’Air can spray two and a half rows at once. From a sustainability point of view, that’s significantly less fuel required, fewer labour costs and also less compaction because we alternate the rows we do drive on. From a time point of view too, it will help us to cover our large area even in the short spray windows we often get.”

Being limited in the products they are able to use, when organic growers do spray they need to know that what they are applying will be as effective as possible, so, reliable and uniform coverage is key.

“You can visibly see straight away how well

the Win’Air blasts through both sides and penetrates the canopy,” said Dominic. “The Albuz nozzles are more effective too as they’re at a slight angle so that the spray is directed in when you drive forward meaning there’s less drift and better application.”

The team also still has the use of their original Berthoud single tower sprayer, also supplied, serviced and NSTS-tested by NP Seymour, which not only allows them to have two sprayers going at the same time, it also helps them to keep their biodynamic and organic preparations separate.

“When it comes to spraying, this year is going to be a piece of cake,” said Alex. “Steve delivered the sprayer and helped us to set everything up. He explained things very well and I learnt a lot from him on how the machine works and what we need to do to keep it well maintained. Plus I know we can always pick up the phone if we have any other questions. I have known Nick Seymour for over 20 years and NP Seymour are not just machinery dealers, they are engineers, they know how everything works, they’re trustworthy and will never send out a machine that’s not in good working order.” For more information on the Berthoud

JCB’s smallest telescopic handler – a diminutive machine that can be transported between working locations on a modest road trailer.

Measuring just 1.56m wide and only 1.8m high, the JCB Loadall 514-40 is capable of lifting 1,450kg and will take 1,300kg to a lift height of 4.0m, and pick up more than half a tonne (525kg) at full forward reach.

Combined with four-wheel steer manoeuvrability and the all-round visibility operators enjoy from the largest cab in this class, those performance figures make the 514-40 a highly capable materials handling and loading machine that can access the most confined working spaces and be quickly taken to remote work sites by a 3.5t towing capacity pick-up or SUV.

JCB’s smallest telescopic handler Duo of demonstration days

NP Seymour, the UK’s leading specialist in orchard and vineyard machinery, is excited to announce its upcoming machinery demonstration days.

The two-day event will take place at Amsbury Farm, East St, Hunton, Maidstone, ME15 0QY, by kind permission of Clive Baxter.

The orchard day will be held on Thursday 20 July, followed by the vineyard day on Friday 21 July. Both events will run from 10am to 3pm.

Director Claire Seymour expressed her enthusiasm for the event, saying, "We're thrilled to showcase our latest and most innovative machinery. These demonstration days are a fantastic opportunity for growers to see our equipment in action and learn how these tools can enhance their operations. Whether you're a seasoned fruit grower or a new vineyard owner, we look forward to welcoming you and helping you find the right solutions for your needs."

On the orchard day (Thursday 20 July), attendees will witness demonstrations of a range of machinery, including the latest Gen3 Fendt 200 v/f/p Vario tractors,

mechanical weeding solutions from Clemens and Perfect, mowers from Braun and Fischer, Fruit-Tec's Redpulse Duo, trimmers from BMV, sprayers from OCLL, plus the Munckhof Pluk-O-Trak picking platforms and Tecnoagri tractor-mounted forklifts.

On the vineyard day (Friday 21 July) the focus will shift to specialist vineyard equipment. Demonstrations will include the latest Gen3 Fendt 200 v/f/p Vario tractors, Braun and Clemens' under vine weeding solutions, defoliators and trimmers from ERO

and BMV, sprayers from Berthoud and OCLL, Fischer mowers, and handheld tools from ARS and Felco.

The event will also provide growers with an opportunity to speak to NP Seymour's knowledgeable team members and representatives from the manufacturers and get answers to any questions they may have about the machines and their applications. For more information contact the office on 01580 712200, email hello@npseymour. co.uk or visit www.npseymour.co.uk

LEADING SPECIALISTS IN NEW AND USED FENDT 200 V/F/P

'

re invited

NP SEYMOUR'S VINE MACHINERY DEMO DAY

VINEYARD DAY - FRIDAY 21 JULY - 10AM - 3PM Amsbury Farm, East St, Hunton, Maidstone, ME15 0QY by kind permission of Clive Baxter

demo A v o n W o r k s , C r a n b r o o k , T N 1 7 2 P T • 0 1 5 8 0 7 1 2 2 0 0 • s a l e s @ n p s e y m o u r . c o . u k • w w w . n p s e y m o u r . c o . u k

your vineyard!

Performs

Strimming between the vines

VITIFRUIT EQUIPMENT

Rotofil one side at the Grange Estate

Removing vegetation between the vine stems is a tricky task and needs some special equipment to do it well and without damaging the vines.

The choice of tool depends on how high the vegetation has grown and how dense it is. Low growing grass or clovers can be dealt with using the Boisselet Filmatic strimmer which acts like a hand held strimmer but mounted onto a tractor and is able to neatly strim in and out of the vines without damage to trunk or tube thanks to either Boisselet's unique Servo Motor hydraulic sensing system with antenna or the simpler

mechanical retraction system with spring sensing.

However if the weeds have grown higher than about 300mm e.g. mature nettles and thistles then a more drastic method needs to be employed. Step up the Mini Rotofil! This remarkable tool from Boisselet is able to deal with even the fiercest nettles, including those up to shoulder height. With a horizontal rotor fitted with 32 cords spinning at 9000rpm the weeds are swiftly removed. To protect the vine trunk or protective tube it is fitted with a bar which pushes the tool away from the vines thanks to a spring

Before and after using the Mini Rotofil

mounted parallelogram which then pulls the head back between the vines.

Vitifruit Equipment have many years experience with both these tools and also include them in their hire portfolio. For larger vineyards they also offer the double headed Provitis machine option. The Provitis is just another tool which can be fitted to their mast using their unique quick attachment system. It also acts as a bud rubber when set at a lower rotational speed and the push bar set accordingly.

Videos of all these tools can be seen on the Vitifruit Equipment Facebook page.