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Month: September 2022

Posted on 8th September 2022

English Wine Harvest!

Would you like to come and help pick grapes this autumn? If so get in touch.

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mattgregorywines

Low intervention site specific wines. Orange Dry Moscato, Barbera and Field Blend from Piemonte, Italy. Ancestral Method Pinot blends from England.

With harvest done and the wines now all safely in

With harvest done and the wines now all safely in tank and barrel for the Winter there is a moment to take stock.
2024 was a challenging growing season to say the least. There were just 139 frost free days between the last frost (24th April) and the first of the new season (12th of September!). The vineyard averages 1300 hours of sunshine a year, but we managed just 700 this year. And then there was the rain, 350% of our average annual rainfall did not help the cause at all.
It was quite a small harvest with no room for doing anything fancy, so there will be a small volume of just a couple of tasty wines.
Lots to do and plans to make: There are a couple of new still wines from 2023 to bottle yet, which will be available next year. I will be out and about a bit over the Winter to say hello to people, but otherwise I'll be back in the vineyard from January to start pruning.
Talking of the vineyard, there will be a hedge to plant (the Hedge Fund has done well, and there is some news coming about that soon), quite a few posts to replace and a load of other little jobs to sort out. If you fancy coming out to help over the Winter you are most welcome 😁
📷 @jojocooperphotography

2024 was a year of rather not very good weather, b

2024 was a year of rather not very good weather, but I grew some grapes and I'll make some wine.
Huge thanks to everyone who helped over harvest and especially to Rob at Wold's Wine Estate where I now make the wine.
Fortunately 2023 was quite generous, so I won't run out of wine, and there will even be new wines yet to be released from last year. In the meantime there is a still rosé bubbling away ready for what is obviously going to be the glorious Summer of 2025!

1 year whole bunch maceration. Pressing whole bun

1 year whole bunch maceration.

Pressing whole bunch Pinot Noir and Gris from 2023 that has spent one year in barrel.

I was inspired by @mythopia_hp
to do this rather extreme long maceration, and in 2023 I had enough grapes to do a little experiment. I filled a 120 litre barrel with roughly 70% Pinot Noir and 30% Pinot Gris as whole bunches, properly as full as it would go and packed in. Popped the lid on with an airlock and left it to its own devices for a year. How's that for low intervention wine making?!

One year later and the wine is quite extraordinary.
There's the aromatic signature of my fruit, a big whack of tannin (mostly from the stems), and an intense savoury core. It is now in a 54 litre demigiana getting to know itself as juice without grapes. I'll bottle it at some point and let it rest again before probably drinking it all myself over several years 😁

In the absence of anything good to say about the 2024 vintage this lifted my spirits today.

Thanks to @tsukinuketa for her help today, and indeed all this last week!

There are spaces to help pick grapes on all the da

There are spaces to help pick grapes on all the dates currently, but Wednesday the 23rd could definitely do with a few more people. Drop me a line for more details.
Picking dates are:
Thursday 17th
Saturday 19th
Monday 21st
Wednesday 23rd
Saturday 26th

Just a reminder that I am in Leicestershire, which is not London, or Kent 😁. There are more details on my pinned post too. I do a decent lunch #kenspiccalilli and you get a bottle of wine to take home. It's a pretty place to spend the day too.

The thing that is the essence of a wine, when it s

The thing that is the essence of a wine, when it speaks of its place but also of those that made it.
Here is wine made by @wrightjoel
And @smhencher from fruit I grew in 2023. A mixed bag of Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Bacchus and Seyval, picked after hours and de-stemmed into demijohns on site and left on skins for something like 10 weeks. Bottled without additions in August 2024 ish.
It still manages to smell, and to an extent taste, like my wine, even though it isn't: The sloe and hibiscus from the Pinots, aromatics from the Bacchus and a vein of acidity from the Seyval, all held together in a savoury salty textural web on the palate. Also just damn tasty and drinkable.
My point, as much as I have one, is that looking down the barrel of what is going to be a low yielding 2024 vintage, one that has been enormously hard work, the fruit is what it's all about. All the efforts I put into the vineyard over the 10 month growing season are ultimately worth it. Here's to making some tasty wine in 2024!
Please do not purchase this wine "very expensive to those that can't afford it, free to those that can". Really, you can't buy this wine, don't ask. Buy my wine instead.

Picking from Saturday the 5th! Dates following tha

Picking from Saturday the 5th!
Dates following that are the 17th, 19th, 21st, 23rd and 26th of October. Drop me a line to register to volunteer.
Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir Will be my saviours this year. The Bacchus is a little bit poorly, what is good is very good, but not that much of it. Solaris might have all been bird food by the time we get to it, so the Regent might be quite useful this year!

Picking dates 2024! Here we go, vintage 2024 is u

Picking dates 2024!

Here we go, vintage 2024 is upon us and I'd love you to come and help me pick my grapes.

Book in via email or WhatsApp and I will send you full details (mostly in the first pic tbh). Dates are all in October:

Saturday 5th
Thursday 17th
Saturday 19th
Monday 21st
Wednesday 23rd
Saturday 26th

We do a good lunch and there will be a bottle of wine to take home.

Exciting times! 🍾🍇🍷

Last week of August and everything is looking quit

Last week of August and everything is looking quite good in the vineyard. Issues with the weather as ever, so if you could all wish for an Indian Summer that would be marvelous thank you.
#royalwe #vineyardmaintenance #harvest2024

Soil, geology, dirt and biodiversity. A rainy ban

Soil, geology, dirt and biodiversity.

A rainy bank holiday weekend so I'm in my office, which has a little selection of rocks, and a bit of vine from the vineyard as a reminder how the two things are inextricably linked.
The second image/map shows just how rich and complicated the underlying geology is around the vineyard, well the whole of the UK in reality.

My bit just North of Leicester has underlying 200 million year old Jurassic fine grained limestone mud made up from carbonates of coral and shell, overlain with 2-million-year-old glacial deposits featuring limestone, flint, ironstone and quartz. All of which you can see in that little pile of rocks.
You will also notice the volume of lichen on the vine. As a bryophyte feeding directly from the air it is a great bio indicator of clean air, they are a keystone species in the ecosystem and also help protect the vine from extremes of temperature.

The vineyard brings all that together and is expressed in the wines. I don't think we talk enough about that elusive notion of terroir as it applies to English and Welsh wines. It is early days in some ways with so few grower producers and grapes being transported all over the country, but it's a conversation that I think will be increasingly important.

#bankholiday #rain #soil #dirt #geology #terroir #lichen #moss #biodiversity #bioindicator #ecosystem #charnwood

Into August and despite the grey and wet the vines

Into August and despite the grey and wet the vines are looking really happy. The fruit is set and although it is a bit late and a touch patchy, overall it looks very promising.

There are 2 more sets of volunteer days before the big push for harvest in October. If you would like to get involved, dates are:
Friday/Saturday 9th and 10th of August
Friday/Saturday 6th and 7th of September
Drop me a message for more details.

White 2023 The rain was just about to pile in from

White 2023
The rain was just about to pile in from the South West, as per usual and with frightening regularity this year, and I realised it was sort of the label inspiration albeit it is not May any more.
Bacchus with a bit of skin contact. Super fresh, aromatic and with a presence through the palate that makes it really food friendly.
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Labels by @jojocooperphotography
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#winelabel #englishcountryside #englishwine #bacchus

Volunteer sign up call. I am trying to get more o

Volunteer sign up call.

I am trying to get more organised with all you lovely folk who come and help out in the vineyard. To that end I'm asking anyone that would like to be involved with the occasional day in the vineyard and/or to help pick over harvest to drop me an email. That way I get your address and can add you to the list, simple right?!

Drop me a line to:
matt@theenglishwinemaker.co.uk

I'm planning on a few days doing hands on vine management over the Summer, then the usual big push in mid to late October to get the grapes picked. There is also the opportunity to help out in the winery the day after picking if that's the kind of thing you are interested in.
Cheers!
Matt.

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Matt Gregory | The English Winemaker 2021

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