Short Back and Sides for our Vines

The same vine before and after pruning

This is the time of the year for pruning. Alex's instructions are to "prune hard and keep it simple". It's important to cut out any diseased wood and to focus on the long term health and efficiency of the vine, which essentially means "less is more". We're therefore being fairly aggressive with our pruning this year, which will hopefully result in better quality fruit, if a little less volume.

Nearly three quarters of the vines have been pruned which means we only have about 5000 left to go! Earlier this week Albury Wine Club Premier Cru members helped by pruning their own vines.

Albury Wine Club Premier Cru members

Once the vines are pruned we spray all the major cuts with VineVax, which is a Trichoderma that helps the wounds heal quicker and prevents the spread of any disease.

Must get to the hairdresser's myself this week for a short back and sides!

Please pray for a cold snap!

We vineyard owners are probably in the minority hoping for some colder weather in February. The rain isn't a big problem because all we are doing at this time of year is pruning. But if the unusually high temperatures persist the vines will bud early and will be very susceptible to spring frosts.

Alex (with a little help from me) is well over halfway through pruning the vines. We will leave pruning those in the areas most prone to frost until last, with the hope that it will delay them budding. We will also tie down the fruiting canes as late as possible, which may give them a bit more protection at the bud swell stage.

Come April we will no doubt be out in the vineyard in the middle of the night trying to raise the temperature with our boujies. I've just ordered some more, as well as some Valerian (biodynamic preparation 507) which we will spray on the vines before a frost. Valerian is a liquid made from the flowers of the herb valerian which stimulates the plant's metabolism, effectively warming it up from the inside.

I'm definitely a proper farmer now....always complaining about the weather!

Albury Wine Club membership for 2014 now open

Following the tremendous success of our new Albury Wine Club, which sold out soon after it's launch, we are pleased to be able to offer some additional memberships for 2014*.

The Albury Wine Club is for wine and food lovers who are interested in English wines, especially those produced by our vineyard!

The club provides an insight into UK viticulture, as well as the inside story on what’s going on at the vineyard. Members will have an early opportunity to buy the wine at discounted prices and be the first to receive invitations to wine and food events being held at the vineyard.

Membership for 2014 is priced at just £60 per person** and includes:

• Two complimentary bottles of the award winning Silent Pool Rosé, as served on the Royal Barge as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations.
• Priority allocation of our first Albury Estate bubbly, expected to be released for Christmas 2014.
• 10% discount on all wines purchased direct from the vineyard. 
• A free of charge members event at the vineyard and a first tasting of the years vintage, prior to its release in June.
• The opportunity to get involved in the harvest in October/November.
• An invitation to the harvest party in November (free for all those involved in the harvest). 
• Regular email updates giving you the inside track on what's happening at the vineyard.

* The membership year runs from 1st May to 30th April (the vineyard year)

**A couple can join for £75 but will only receive one bottle of Silent Pool Rosé each.

Premier Cru Membership

This year we are introducing an exclusive Premier Cru Membership, priced at £480/year, for those of you who would like to get more involved with the vineyard. The following additional benefits are included:

• The lease of 20 vines, with the option of looking after and harvesting them yourself (with our supervision).
• A personalised tour of the vineyard, including a tasting of English wines, for up to 6 people.
• 12 bottles of Silent Pool Rosé and 6 bottles of Albury Estate Sparkling, all signed by the winemaker.
• A visit to the winery during the production process.
• A complimentary invitation (for two people) to an exclusive wine and food tasting evening, hosted by a Master of Wine, featuring a range of English wines and delicious artisan food from local producers.

Membership is strictly limited. If you would like to join, please visit our website www.alburyvineyard.com

Biodynamics - My madness is contagious!

Stained glass window in Firle Church

For some, biodynamics is complete madness but I don't care. Just because many of the principles of biodynamics cannot be explained by science it doesn't mean that they are meaningless... and I'm in good company!

Last week Alex and I buried cow horns, filled with manure from a lactating cow, which over winter will harmonise with the sub-molecular energies of the vineyard. In the Spring we will dig these up and dynamise the contents in water, which will be sprayed on the vineyard to encourage growth and strengthen the vines against disease.

During the next few weeks we will add some herb based biodynamic preparations to our compost pile including Dandelion, Stinging Nettle, Chamomile, Horsetail, Valerian and Yarrow. In December we will start pruning, but not before we consult the Biodynamic calendar to make sure that the moon is in the right phase.

In the winery our biodynamic wine is fermenting happily with only the natural wild yeasts from the vineyard, giving it flavour characteristics with a sense of place or terroir. Even Ulrich, our Silent Pool Rosé winemaker, produced his own Pied de Cuve with our grapes! Benoît, a french student who has been working with us on the vineyard  says "my madness is contagious".

For me, I'm just happy to be in the company of great biodynamic vineyards including Romanée-Conti, Domaine Leflaive and Leroy in Burgundy, Maison Chapoutier in the Rhone, Coulee de Serrant in the Loire, Beaux Freres in Oregon, Reyneke in Stellenbosch, Hensche in Australia and Jean Pierre Fleurie in Champagne.

The 2013 harvest is a great success

With the help of family, friends and the Albury Wine Club, we completed this years harvest on Saturday. It was a great effort all round but particular thanks must go to Alex, JB, Peter and Benoît, who worked tirelessly throughout the harvest.

Overall this year's harvest was a great success, with a yield of nearly 25 tonnes of clean top quality fruit (compared to only 3 tonnes last year!).

As a result of the growing season being late, sugars were a bit low so we decided to leave any unripe grapes on the vines.  Quality sparkling wine is made from fairly acidic grape juice anyway, so we have every confidence that the Albury Estate sparkling 2013 will be a great bubbly. The flavour of the juice is excellent and full of phenolic ripeness. Sadly we will have to wait until 2016 to find out just how good it will be; once the wine is made it will be bottled early next year for secondary fermentation and left for at least two years to give it fizz and character.

We picked only the ripest bunches of pinots for our Silent Pool Rosé which should be released towards the end of May next year.

We will have a bit of a break during the rest of November but in December pruning starts for all 21,000 vines and the whole process will start again! Fortunately Alex loves pruning!

The 2013 Harvest Begins

Paul, me, Alex, Benoît and JB

The 2013 harvest started yesterday, with a first picking of the Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes for our Silent Pool Rosé. Sugars are a bit low this year, partly because the whole season is a few weeks behind, but also because the grapes have absorbed a lot of the recent rain which has diluted the grape juice a bit. We need fairly high sugars for still wine so we decided to selectively pick some of the very ripest grapes for our still rosé.

This week we are planning to pick the remainder of the pinots which will be used as part of a blend for our quality bubbly. Subject to the weather, the Chardonnay will be picked by the Albury Wine Club, family and friend on the 2nd November.

Overall its looking pretty good this year. Yields are fairly high and quality should good, although we would have liked sugars to have been a bit higher. After the storm tonight we will hopefully get a few rays of sunshine before we pick the remaining crop.

Harvest date set for Saturday 2nd November

It's been another difficult year on the vineyard, with the recent rain playing havoc with the sugar levels in the grapes. However, subject to the weather (!), Saturday 2nd November is now set to be the harvest day for Albury Wine Club members, family and friends. We probably won't pick if its raining heavily so it might be necessary to move it to the Sunday or Friday.

The day will start at 8.00am for a bit of training and a health and safety briefing. We will break for a sandwich lunch at around 12.30pm and aim to finish by 4.00pm. We can only cater for around 60 people and we already have around 40 registered (priority has been given to Albury Wine Club members). If you would like to be involved, and haven't already registered, please email me at nick@wenmans.com Pickers will be invited to a harvest party later in November.

We could still do with the fruit ripening a bit more, so let's hope we get some sun by the end of next week.