Our Vines are Weeping

It seems that Spring has finally arrived. We know this, not just because it warmer, but because our vines are weeping.

During the winter vines go into a deep state of dormancy and can withstand temperatures of -15C. But as the soil begins to warm up, and temperatures get above 10C, the vines start to wake up. The roots begin to absorb nutrients and water and osmosis pushes the sap up from the root system which is expelled from the pruning cuts made during the winter. This looks like the vines are weeping. It only lasts a few days but in some countries a single vine can expel up to 5 litres of water!

The sap provides energy to the vine which initiates bud break. This is late this year as a result of the cold weather in March and early April. That's good news for us as we are therefore there is less risk of damage to the buds from late frosts.

Silent Pool Rosé to be Served at the Royal Opera House

Our Silent Pool Rosé 2012 will be available at Royal Opera House Restaurants this summer.

Silent Pool Rosé was one of only three English wines served on the Royal Barge last year as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Made from a blend of Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier grapes it is a refreshing still dry wine and is ideal as an accompaniment to light meals or al-fresco dining.

Ben Fielder, who is beverage manager for Royal Opera House Restaurants, said “The English wine industry is doing great things and with provenance an important part of our ethos, Albury Vineyard was of great interest. Following our tasting we are proud to have Silent Pool Rosé on our list.”

We are delighted that Silent Pool Rosé has been chosen to be served at another Royal establishment. We hope our quality sparkling wine will also be served at the Royal Opera House when it becomes available in 2015.

Silent Pool Rosé 2012

Earlier today I tasted our Silent Pool Rosé 2012, with Ulrich Hoffmann (the winemaker) and Stephen Skelton MW. In my opinion it's even better than the 2011 which, given the appalling weather last year, is a fantastic result. More importantly Stephen, who is an expert on English wines commented:

"Good fruit, nice balance with good acidity but not too agressive. A worthy successor to the 2011. Amazing considering what the year was like."

It seems that our decision to pick only the ripest fruit has really paid off and as a result we will be releasing a top quality wine that we can really be proud of. It will also be one of the first wines in Europe to be certified organic under the new EU regulations. Unfortunately, as we only used the very best grapes, supply will once again be very limited. We hope to release the wine in early May - details of stockists will be on the web site.

The Albury Wine Club

The Albury Wine Club is for local wine and food lovers who are interested in English wines, particularly those produced by Albury Organic Vineyard.

The club aims to provide 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 is priced at just £50/year 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. 

• 10% discount on all wines purchased direct from the vineyard.

• A free of charge members tour of the vineyard and a first tasting of the years vintage, prior to its release in May/June.

• The opportunity to get involved in the harvest in October.

• An invitation to the harvest party in November (free for all those involved in the harvest). 

• A quarterly newsletter and regular email updates. 

We will formally launch the club in April. Our first event will be a pre-release tasting of Silent Pool Rosé 2012 at the vineyard in early May; invites will be sent out to Founder Members only.

To register your interest click here.

We look forward to showing you around the vineyard and sharing some great local wine and food experiences with you.

The Vineyard in Winter

A snowy Albury Vineyard - photograph by John Powell

There's only one job that has to be done during the winter months and that's pruning, pruning and more pruning.

We use the "double Guyot"training method which means that the two fruiting arms from last year have to be cut back and two new fruiting arms have to be carefully selected for the coming year. We also try and leave two stubs near the crown, which should produce the fruiting arms for the following year. All the old wood has to be pulled out of the trellis and burnt so that any disease is destroyed. The pruning wounds are sprayed with trichoderma which helps to prevent disease and heal the wound.

We have 21,000 vines in the vineyard so that's a lot of work! Fortunately Alex is always ahead of the game. Having started well before Christmas she didn't stop for the snow and pruning should be pretty well finished by the end of this week. We will leave pruning some of the Chardonnay that are in the frost prone areas until March, in the hope that it will delay bud burst until after the risk of frost.

The next job will be to tie the fruiting arms to the trellis. This year we are going to try biodegradable ties.

Yeast - the X-Factor for Biodynamic Wine?

Recent studies at Stellenbosch University have suggested that variations in the aromatic properties of wine, from identical grapes harvested in the same vineyard, may be due to differences in the yeast composition within the vineyard. This is because the microbial species present on the berry may contribute to the fermentation process.

Whilst the same yeast-like fungus, Aureobasidium pullunans, known as black yeast, was dominant in all vineyards, the research supported results from other studies that biodynamic farming leads to greater richness of microbial diversity. In a conventional vineyard 11 species of yeast were found while 17 species were identified in a biodynamic vineyard.

Interestingly, “many yeasts with biocontrol potential” were found exclusively in a biodynamic vineyard, some of which are the natural enemy of botrytis. The authors speculated that this unique diversity could be as a result of the establishment of the natural enemies of different pests given the absence of pesticides and synthetic fungicides.

You can view the full study here.

2012 Round Up

It is often said that you learn most from difficult years - if this is the case then I'm now the fountain of all viticulture knowledge! 2012 wasn't a complete disaster for us but we will hope and pray that we don't get another year as bad for a long time.

The season started with a warm period which resulted in early bud break and we were woken by frost alarms no fewer than eight times in March and April. Fortunately the Boujies did their trick and we were able to prevent any significant frost damage. The weather was then cold and wet in May, June and early July, resulting in late flowering and very poor fruit set ... and some downey mildew to boot. The lack of summer sun meant that a lot of the fruit then didn't ripen fully and we ended up having to selectively hand pick the ripe bunches. Overall we harvested about 3.5 tonnes of fruit compared to the 15 tonnes we might have hoped for.

The good news is that we seem to have fared no worse than non-organic vineyards and the juice from the grapes we did pick is really good. As a result we are hopeful of releasing about 1200 bottles of Silent Pool Rose 2012 next May, less than we had planned but more than last year. We have decided to blend the sparkling base wines from 2011 and 2012 to produce a high quality fizz, which should be available for the summer of 2015.

We are now busy pruning 21,000 vines in preparation for a fabulous and sunny 2013.