I don’t want to get ahead of myself but… We’ve been here before and we’ve even been further than this, as far as making wine in fact. OK the wine wasn’t great although by the time I’d finished blending two or three varieties it was drinkable. The problem we had then was that although we…
Category: Vineyard
Vineyard 43: All quite confusing
After a seemingly endless string of good news stories about English and Wales vineyards and sparkling wine particularly, it’s rather a shock to come across a somewhat less positive one. Entitled ‘Sobering Outlook for English Fizz’, in something called Wine Searcher, it starts very bluntly indeed, ‘Despite all the hype surrounding English wine’ (no mention…
Vineyard 42 : We’re having a heat wave
At least we were and then we weren’t, instead we were having the mother and father or all thunderstorms with hail, remember that, as a bonus. But I’m getting ahead of myself. We haven’t been up to the vineyard* since the last vineyard blog, on account of us having been on holiday in Ireland. So…
Vineyard 41: Plenty happening
So yes, lots going on locally and nationally. Let’s take the local, little old us, first. It’s always a relief at this time of year when the first buds appear on the vines (not to mention our newly planted fruit trees) particularly as we didn’t do the pruning this year. We sub-contracted the job out…
Vineyard 40 : How many pheasants can a pheasant plucker pluck, etc.
Vineyard retirement blog number 40 and well, who’d have thought it? I’ve written so many times about the bloody birds that stole our crop a couple of vintages ago (alongside sheep, hailstones and wabbits) but I never imagined that others had suffered the same fate. That is until I started receiving group emails from members…
Vineyard 39 : It all starts again
It’s probably going to be difficult to believe if you have no experience of such things but it’s true. Work in the vineyard is starting this month and there’s quite a lot to do. Thing is it’s not us that are doing the work. Now this is a first, well apart from the strimming that…
Vineyard 38 : Taking comfort from the written word
I remember a time when the winter was the season to hunker down by a roaring fire and read about your favourite warm weather hobby / pastime / obsession. You couldn’t actually do ‘it’ as it was too cold, but at least you could take pleasure in reading about it. For example, before the days…
Vineyard 37 : A little cheating
Is there anything more dispiriting than watching your grapes bud and mature and then to have them snatched away by some unseen hand, make that unseen hoof? Well let me tell you, yes, there is. It’s admitting to the group of fellow vineyard owners, at one of our occasional meetings, that once again you have…
Vineyard 36 : The curse of the phantom sheep
I have already written about my ambition to publish a book, specifically in the last blog, about our vineyard. Maybe it would help to make a case for the viability of the project if I injected a little drama into the potential manuscript as in the title above. It, the title, was, in part, inspired…
Vineyard 35 : A new arrival
It’s over a month since the last vineyard blog and plenty has been happening in our vineyard. Not least the on-going battle with the elements up in Yorkshire. No hail so far but plenty of what I would call unseasonal wind. This has meant a great deal of tying up of those ever-increasing shoots, the…