Filling the gaps, 2025
Vine-Works 12.5 31 x Divico (Gamaret and Bronner)
25 x Pinot Iskra (Pinot Blanc)
21.5 25 x Souvignier Gris (from Rebschule Freytag)
Ryedale Vineyard 29.5 31 x Divico
13 x Muscaris
Rebschule Freytag 8.6 2 x Cabaret Noir
10 x Souvignier Gris
15 x Calardis Blanc
16 x Cabernet Jura
The Gardening Club. 2 x Regent
Toad Hall Garden Centre 1 x Black Hamburgh
Total 171 vines.
We presume every vineyard has 'casualties' year upon year. Vines don't live for ever and when the vineyard comes to life in the spring, casualties become apparent. By then many vine nurseries are sold out so ordering small quantities to fill the gaps is tricky to say the least.
As in previous years Will Mower of Vine-Works/The Vinehouse UK has come to the rescue. Being an 'experimental vineyard' we chose two new varieties to plant. At the Vineyard and Winery Show in November last year we were very impressed by the many English wines now made from the Divico grape. We had tried Divico before with 6 vines procured at great expense from Switzerland. They all died. Now Divico is being propagated by vine nurseries elsewhere. Our 31vines from The Vine-House UK came from a French 'pepiniere.'
Another standout at the Vineyard and Winery Show was VCR's Pinot Iskra - a hybrid of Pinot Blanc with a resistance partner.
We were especially delighted that Will managed to secure a bundle of 25 Pinot Iskra from VCR France. VCR is 'Vivai Cooperativi Rauscedo,' the world's biggest vine nursery.
Will was able to offer us 13 Muscaris vines as well, so we were well on our way to getting a full house, or so we thought.
While planting these 71 beauties, we discovered further gaps so the hunt was on to seek out more vines. After some intense googling we came across the most unlikely supply source: a vineyard in Yorkshire.
At Ryedale Vineyard just outside York, there is a wonderful man called Jon Fletcher who has set up his own extensive vineyard as well as helping others to do so in his area and as far north as Scotland. Jon doesn't seem bothered with what goes on down South such is his independence in concentrating on northerly opportunities.
He has become an official importer with his own EORI import license and was happy to sell us more Divico and some Souvignier Gris. Souvignier Gris and Muscaris have become a recognised blending partnership so we were very happy indeed to add more of this to the vineyard
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Rather than have Jon send us the vines by Parcel Force, we decided to go and fetch them from him personally and take a peek at his Yorkshire vineyard and maybe buy some of his wine.
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| Pinot Meunier |
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| Madeleine Angevine |
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| Fruehburgunder |
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| Pinot Noir |
York is only 2 hours from London these days and hiring a car from York Station for the day could be done for as little as £40.
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| We bought Jon's Rose and two reds |
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| The labels say 'From God's own country' |
Originally we planned to visit two other vineyards while up there but massive traffic jams in the York area put a stop to that. Yorkshire Heart Vineyard at Nun Monkton (very near York) and Dunesforde Vineyard at Upper Dunsforth just a bit further out from the city.
Now we had the bit firmly between our teeth as it were. There's nothing like close contact with the ground to reveal yet further planting opportunities and indeed, we spotted further gaps and spots to the unexpected total of 31. Where to get this final batch of vines?
Sourcing from Yorkshire gave us confidence nothing was impossible so spreading our net further we found a further 10 Souvignier Gris remaining in the bins of a German 'Rebschule' plus 15 Calardis Blanc to supplement our existing stock of 25 vines and 2 Cabernet Noir which went neatly to filling remaining gaps in our planting of that grape.
Furthermore, we were offered 16 Cabernet Jura. There were one or two Cabernet Jura vines in our vineyard planted after our visit to Valentin Blattner, the private Swiss grape breeder who had also bred Cabernet Noir and others we had from him (see our post of 20.5.17). Of course we accepted these despite the fact our experience of wine made from Cabernet Jura had not been very promising.
Getting these German vines to us was tricky but we finagled a hand-over at Toddington service station on the M1 while some other vines were out for distribution elsewhere in the UK. This was becoming fun.
The many of the holes for these vines had been dug previously but many had not. Our soil is heavy clay with some shingle so help was sought. Unfortunately we were let down at the last moment so a great deal of frenetic digging had to be done.
Less fun. At first it seemed maybe an Auger would help dig the holes. We had used this method in the past when a team from Romania had come to do planting. That was earlier when the ground was friable but now in June the earth was hard as nails. It didn't matter that we couldn't even get the Auger we had hires to fire up it wouldn't have helped anyway.
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| Faithfull Pole Axe with spike and chisel ends |
Taking it back to the hire company we saw some pole axes for sale. Remembering someone had used one previously on our land we bought one and it turned out to be just what we needed. Fun restored.
So with all the new vines put to bed we had to start placing rabbit guards on the first vines which were already starting to sprout. Again getting down and dirty, we spotted some yet further planting opportunities but only very few. In a fit of ultimate madness we bought a handsome Black Hamburgh vine from the local garden centre. That was an impulse buy to be sure but we had had a Black Hamburgh, aka Trollinger, aka Schiava before and had observed how the wasps went crazy for it. It will be interesting to see if they are still interested. It might keep them off the other vines. We also spotted little Regent vines for £7,99 at another garden centre and bought 2 of those. Very reasonable.
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