As always we’re in the sprint finish phase before harvest when the To Do list seems endless but the grapes ripening is creating a rather hard deadline for getting it all done.
The Italian wines from the 2019 vintage are heading for bottle after a very restful time spent of the lees in tank. I’ll post a full update once they are safely ensconced in glass but they are looking fantastic and I’m in excited about releasing them. Right now we are looking at the last of the 2018 wines coming over from Italy so they should see us through until the new wines are ready for release. The new labels are awaiting final rubbing stamping by the legal departments, and once again I am indebted to Vanessa Stone for her artwork https://vanessastoneartist.com/ There are 3 wines/labels from 2019 in Italy, the Orange Moscato and the Barbera (aka The Italian Red) now joined by a Field Blend of indigenous Piedmontese varietals with a commissioned label (still under wraps, so big reveal later).
The English vineyard is looking terrific. It is the major project for 2020 and beyond. The Leicestershire Wolds are not perhaps the obvious place to plant vines, but there are good and compelling reasons why it works, and there are several vineyards to prove it.
We are looking after 12 year old vines (a mix of Pinots and the usual English suspects) over 2 hectares. The site is a long South facing slope with a bedrock of 200 million year old Jurassic limestone mud whose fine grained structure is mainly carbonates of coral and shell. This is overlain with 2 million year old glacial deposits featuring lumps of flint and ironstone. All in all an amazing patch, that despite the perils of English Summers has the potential to produce amazing grapes even as far North as it is. The winery is one of those jobs on the To Do list and is coming along but there are a couple or three things to get in place before we’re ready to start fermenting: nothing like a deadline. 5 weeks or so and counting!
