They say small is beautiful, that the best things come in small packages (is that the right word?). Having read the article above about the man in France who has 20 hectares (about 50 acres) of top class Chablis producing Chardonnay vines, I’m doubly relieved our 500 vine, half an acre of non-commercial North Yorkshire vineyard is not just small but tiny. Thank God or whoever we not only fly below the radar, we wouldn’t be seen on the radar if we were smack in the middle of the screen. That’s how small we are.
Any thoughts about what might be happening in our half acre are from a distance of about 30 miles. We’re locked down in Leeds and our vineyard is in Nidderdale. We have very little idea of what’s happening from a nature point of view and, even if we did, we could do very little to remedy any problems.
I say very little, rather than nothing at all, because we have two neighbours who live there who have been helping out. Before all this business kicked off I had ordered 50 replacement vines. These had been picked up by my neighbour along with his 1,000 vines. for his brand new vineyard across the dale. They have been sat in his cold store for the last three weeks and needed planting. After planting his 1,000 he has now very kindly planted my 50.
He did this in the holes dug by my other neighbour, the chap who does for us up there. He will also be needed to water the new plants. As luck would have it it’s been very dry during the last few weeks and our well-drained soil (usually an asset) loses moisture very quickly. As a result I need our man to water these new vines. Just had a text, as I write this, informing me he watered them last night.
Meanwhile in the wider world of English and Welsh vineyards, the association I belong to, WineGB, has been working over-time to publish information about the concerns, in this new world, of fellow growers. Initially there was a flurry of emails about the police prohibiting workers from travelling to the vineyard/s. The National Farmers Union (NFU), to whom WineGB is affiliated, provided us with an exemplar letter explaining to the coppers that agricultural workers were allowed to drive to their place of business.
There was some debate about whether this applied only to those working with livestock rather than crops (of which vines are surely an example). But this issue seems to have died down so I assume the matter has been satisfactorily resolved. If not I dare say it will pop up again on the airwaves.
Somebody in New Zealand sent a message saying they were having the same problem. One vineyard solved it by moving all its workers on to the site of the vineyard. Whether that solved one problem by creating another (no social isolating) I do not know. Mrs Summerhouse and I have our own version of this, living as we do in the same house, but not up at the vineyard unfortunately.
Following on from this, the issue predictably, came loss of income from cellar-door sales. Understandably much gnashing of teeth about the huge damage to the sales side of the industry but then the government, in their infinite wisdom, decided that off-licences were essential and could stay open. Hey presto, vineyard owners declared themselves to be off-licences and job’s a good un.
This apart we had a rather surprising on-line kerfuffle about whether the English Wines marketing department should be promoting the industry at a fair held on Good Friday just gone. Seems like many members thought this was disrespectful or irreligious or some such. Quite surprised me at the level of concern around the issue. Still fair cop, when times are bad the last thing you want to do is piss off the big guy upstairs. Grape growing and wine-making is difficult enough at the best of times and this definitely isn’t the best of times.
More recently an air of normality has returned to the site, and possibly the industry, with reports of, and even photos of, bud bursting. Knowing that it’s happening and when it’s happening is again an understandably big deal. Sadly we cannot contribute because, as I’ve said, we have no idea what’s happening in our little vineyard.
I know it’s been fashionable in recent blogs to look back with nostalgia so I make no apologies for doing so again. In this case to the 2018 Trapping Hill vintage. You may remember we made some very decent white wine (Solaris) but to our mind, unimpressive red (Rondo). As irony would have it we had 10 times as much red as white and it has languished in the garage in its 35 (I think) ten litre boxes. Until, that is, last week, when Mrs SH did a little tinkering. She added about 10% of cheap sherry and we chilled it in the freezer. Then we tasted it and what do you know, it tasted great.
So any concerns we might have had about running out of wine in the lock-down are removed at a stroke. We have about 500 bottles of it in the garage. Funny old world.
I thought it would be very difficult to write this blog given the circumstances. It’s a slightly short one but given the situation I’m sure I can be forgiven.