Pruning Season

Winter is the pruning season and the vineyard team have the mammoth task of pruning 80,000 vines over the next  two months. With around 15,000 vines pruned since mid January, we are on track, weather permitting to finish pruning by the end of March. Dry (and preferably sunny) weather are on the wish list, although the ground is still very wet after the deluge of rain in the last few months despite our free draining soils. It is the first and longest task in the vineyard year and one of the most important. The wrong snip and the vine might not produce any fruit the next year.

Pruning Experience Day

If you would like to take part and learn a bit more about the pruning process please register your interest in our February Pruning Experience day. If there is sufficient interest we will contact you with details and dates. The workshop will include a brief introduction to the pruning process over a cup of coffee and biscuits followed by practical experience in the vineyard and a locally sourced lunch hamper and wine flight in our lovely tasting room with the log fire burning. Please note this will be an outside activity and a degree of fitness is required as you will be pulling out the dead wood from the vine trellis. If you are interested in taking part  please register your interest HERE. 

At this time of the year the winery is gearing up for the first round of bottling which will be at the beginning of April. The first step is to allocate the differing tanks of wines to their appropriate bottles of wine. This process is first done by varietal, starting with Bacchus which gets split between the Bacchus, Orpheus and Culver Hill. The decision for the two rosé wines we make is straightforward this year, as one will be be 100% Pinot Noir Précoce and the other 100% Regent. The other wines are decided over the next couple of months where they are tasted, in some cases blended (an example being the very popular Culver Hill) and in others like the Sauvignon Blanc, left as a single varietal.  
Logistically we are currently securing the order of screw capped bottles for the still wines.

This year we are looking to be bottling a record quantity, this is due to several factors – the high yielding and decent harvest we had in 2023; our newer plantings are also more mature so we are now harvesting from more acres; and finally, we made quite a bit of red wine in the exceptionally ripe vintage of 2022. The Pinot Précoce and Pinot Noir have been maturing in barrels for a year and now show very well and are ready for bottling. 

Some of you may have noticed via our social media platforms that we’ve also been doing quite a lot of disgorging of the sparkling wines. This is an ongoing process, the majority of which we try and get done in the first half of the year to keep up with the demand over the summer and through the rest of the year.