The Established Vineyard

Six grape varieties are producing at present:

 

	Ortega Müller-Thurgau x Siegerrebe An early ripening variety which can produce rich and zesty wines. In most years we blend this with Optima.
	Bacchus Müller-Thurgau
	Perle of Alzey Gewürztraminer x Müller-Thurgau A little planted early-ripening variety. The Gewürztraminer in its parentage gives its pink colour when ripe and its flowery character.
	Findling Müller-Thurgau mutation A neutral variety with high sugar levels which we use in blending, usually with Perle.
	Huxelrube Chasselas x Courtillier Musqué Slightly later ripening, but capable of producing excellent wines from large bunches of grapes. The wines can have sauvingnon blanc characteristics.
	Albalonga Rieslaner x Silvaner We believe that we may be the only UK vineyard to retain this variety! It is a heavy yielder, but ripens late and retains high acid levels. Why keep it? Many of our grapes can have low acid levels in a good year and the Alba can usefully correct this. It is also an important component in our intermittently produced sparkling wine.
The established vineyard is planted with the vines cane-pruned in the double guyot system. This is very labour intensive but does seem to produce high quality grapes.  Essentially this gives us four kilometres of a six-foot high hedge to tend!
black = permanent wood red = last year's wood blue = this year's canes to be used to replace last year's (red) wood green = this year's fruiting canes
New Plantings In 2004 a further two acres were planted increasing the plantings of Ortega, introducing Bacchus ((Silvaner x Riesling) x Muller-Thurgau) and experimental plots of the red varieties: Regent ((Silvaner x Muller-Thurgau) x Chambourin) Rondo (Saperavi Servernyi x St Laurent) Dornfelder (Helfensteiner x Heroldrebe) and Dunkenfelder (parentage unknown). These are trained on a single, high-wire system and we hope will come into production in 2008.