We are passionate about soil
It has been a dream of ours to plant vines and nurture them,
to not only grow exceptional grapes, but also to maintain healthy stable soil in our vineyard.
Whilst we are living in a time of great uncertainty, with an economic crisis looming, volatile
weather patterns and war, it is sometimes impossible not to feel hopeless.
With so much in the world out of our control, we took the
decision to restructure our business following the pandemic in 2020. This involved closing the former garden centre and shop down and reducing our conifer nursery growing area, to make space to plant the vines.
Improving each year
Our goal is to each year, improve the soil of our vineyard through employing
good soil management, involving; testing for nutrient imbalances in the soil
and using low impact methods to help stabilise the soil. As a nutritionally
balanced soil, reduces the chance
of disease in the vines and therefore reduces the need for chemical intervention.
We have begun to look at our whole site holistically and have plans to
experiment with different methods such as grazing our sheep in the vineyards to
suppress weeds and naturally fertilise the soil. Coppice our ancient woodland
to rejuvenate the diversity of plant, tree, flower, and wildlife living there.
Also providing us with wood to chip and use as mulch under the vines. This is
one of the many techniques that we plan to try.
The future
We plan to do everything we can, with the resources that we
have, to make our soil as healthy and stable as possible for the future. So
that our soil will capture more carbon a and retain more moisture, nutrients
and biodiversity.
