Oct 13 2009: Roger's First Gazette Column

With the grapes pouring in, it's nice to take time out for a bit of a chat. Starting out in this lark fifteen years ago I never realised how much time would be spent shovelling ton after ton of grape pulp onto the compost in a cloud of wasps and hornets. Then again Juliet probably had no idea she'd be required to man-handle 3000 litre tank lids on and off several times a week (a tall order for a short woman!). With 50 tons due in the winery thank God for the tipping trailer! This is no life for the unfit - to anyone who has ever visited Yearlstone you know just how steep a slope it is to trudge up & down year-round!

The vintage is amazingly turning out well. One of the very first crops to arrive in, the early Pinot Noir, measured a natural alcohol level of over 11.5% - and with decent ripeness and acidities on all the varieties so far we're hopeful that what seemed such a mediocre midsummer was rescued by the glorious September sunshine.

It's hard to credit it, but this is our fifteenth harvest. I can still remember the first, probably because we were living in a caravan at the time - pitched just where our terrace view cafe is now. We made a few hundred bottles that year I recall - now our annual production is 20,000.

Here in Devon we are in fact in the middle of a continuing wine boom, which started about eight or nine years ago. I can count 40 vineyards in the country (of all sizes ) without stopping to think. How many survive is another question.

The wine trade magazine Decanter just rang up. I'd left some comments on a piece from Times Online discussing a pot of EU training money for English wine producers. There is a desperate need for more training, as some new entrants still plunge in without enough research, planting the wrong varieties for our climate, and often having no business plan to speak of. We began vinegrowing & winemaking courses of our own this year. Yes we can make lovely light fruity roses, refreshing zingy whites, and of course great fizz in England and in Devon - and yes we can even impress the top wine tasters and win awards at big wine competitions, but the fact remains we're on the margin of vinegrowing commercially. Our yields will be low and it's vital to learn from the experience of others what grows well and what doesn't.

I used to be asked all the time - what is English wine most like? The wine of New Zealand? The Loire? The answer is of course - like wine from England! Once you get a taste for the light, aromatic sometimes delicate flavours that our own climate excels at, those overblown crude oil offerings from hot climates will lose their allure! If you don't believe me, log on to the English Wine Producers site, pick out a competition award-winner, and sip with a bowl of something ever so slightly salty.....

That's it, break over - another three weeks of heaving the grape baskets into the crusher ahead!