Our 2022 Vintage, such as it was

 

June 26th. The last rain before picking in September.

 

Vineyard owners must be used to people assuming global warming must be good for them but this year we discovered that heat and lack of rain can be no good at all. 

We were adopted by wallabies. We're not sure the dry grass suited them any better than the grapes.

 

Before the hosepipe ban in our area (Thames Valley) we were having to water our youngest vines more than once a week. 

Looks dead doesn't it?

 

The ban came just as we were giving up anyway due to the demise of so many baby plants.

Tiny sign of life. at bottom.

When the drought broke we were pleasantly surprised at how many vines came back to life. Unfortunately we had pulled up quite a few in the belief they were dead. 

Before

After

 

Of the established vines the Solaris still managed profuse leaf growth. We had decided to leave the canopy as it was to protect the grapes from the sun and heat. Later on we just had to remove the suckers and let the grapes get some sun.

The whites fared better than the reds

The drought was not good for the more established vines either. 

Many grapes, especially the red ones remained small and hard. 

Bunches stripped of grapes can be seen if you take a close look.

 

This didn't stop the birds getting them yet again. In the past, it was the pheasants who ate them. This year we saw with joy that there were no pheasants around at all so we didn't notice their place was taken by pigeons. 

 We bought some extremely cheap Chinese netting which was effective but took an inordinate amount of time to cover the vines. W didn't realise while we were doing this the pigeons were gorging themselves at the other end.

3 year old Cabaret Noir

Our Cabaret (originally Cabernet) noir is finally showing some growth.. There were even a couple of tiny bunches of grapes to be seen. We found out a reason why we have poor growth is because we are over 400 ft above sea level. This is not advised by Stephen Skelton MW in his authoratative 'Wine Growing in Great Britain.' Like 75% of British vineyards, ours is in the wrong place. Find the right place first and then plant a vineyard. Until relatively recently, people have planted where they already lived or farmed.

That's all folks.

Whites from Solaris (left) and 'Gli Altri' field blend (right).

Out of our entire vineyard we only made 25 litres of white wine and 15 litres of red. Why do we do it? It reminds us what a struggle it is for growers all over the world to produce a good harvest.

Oh well, 2023 is another year.

In fact we decided to act early in preparation for the replanting of vines we had lost this year. It needed a digger to prepare holes, so hard was the clay soil. Planting will be in March or April if we manage to get 75 Cabaret Noir and 100 Soreli or Fleurtai vines.

It was a good year for chestnuts though.