What a challenge 2023 had in stall for us over this years growing season. With a very warm and dry start to the year it had all the potential for an outstanding vintage.
Unfortunately things took a turn with a very wet July and August which slowed down ripening. The damp weather also introduced some mildew into the vineyard which made its way across the site and slowed down veraison.
After the blessing of a late season heatwave in September things fortunately improved and we could look forward to harvest. The laborious task of netting the site was essential as we couldn’t risk a repeat of our first harvest in 2021.
We split the harvest over two days this year to concentrate on picking only the cleanest grapes destined for the winery.
The first day we harvested was the 7th October. The aim of the day was to pick the grapes for our still white wine so the Reichensteiner, Schönburger and Phoenix were the first to come in. As the baskets of grapes were returning back to us for sorting it dawned on us that we had potential for a record breaking harvest.
We filled every last available space on the truck and trailer and feared we’d run out of room. Luckily we managed to get it all roped up and safely delivered to Three Choirs where we found out we’d picked a bumper 2.3 tonnes of lovely clean fruit.
The second and final harvest was the following Saturday. Autumn was definitely in the air as a touch of frost lingered and we made the early start to picking. The first order of the day was to pick the debut crop from our new vineyard planted last year.
We purposefully only left a select amount of the new vines to ripen fruit this year as we didn’t want them to suffer at such a young age. In total we picked 250kg of beautifully clean Pinot Noir which gave us great excitement for the site in years to come.
We then drove in convoy up to Pen-y-Clawdd to harvest the rest of our grapes for our rosé. This was was our Pinot Noir and Seyval Blanc. Again the baskets filled quickly and the volunteers made their way through the rows.
Again the truck was filled to the brim and we arrived at the winery anxiously awaiting the final total. In total we had nurtured and harvested a further 2.2 tonnes of fruit making it a surprising 4.5 tonnes in total. We can’t wait to reveal what we’ve got planned for the new year with our next releases.
A big thanks goes out to all our hardy and industrious volunteers for helping us bring in this years harvest. We certainly enjoyed sharing our wine out alongside some hearty stews to warm up after a hard days graft.
