Freedom of the Press

I hosted a great tasting with Suzy and her team from the ever excellent last week, they currently list the Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Pinot Gris. One of their team, took a few photos - he is also a photographer- and clearly an excellent one.
The photo of a man with his nose in the glass- needing emergency services to extract it - is me.

Come and join us for a glass or two to celebrate English Wine Week. All my wines available by the glass and bottle. Cafe de la Post, Chadlington (near Chiipping Norton) Thursday 20th June 6-8pm. It’s a small venue, so hopefully standing room only!

Special Air is the secret

I am frequently asked a sensible question: why do you make wine in the Cotswolds when you bang on about using fruit from the fabled Crouch Valley and elsewhere in in Essex. Why not just move there?

Cotswold Air is the answer. Air is a major component of winemaking, most of my wine is made in oak barrels which breathe, and even the stone and concrete eggs encourage an amount of aspiration: air exchange develops flavours and texture in the wine. So air is the second most important ingredient after the grapes - the wrong air is not going to develop such exquisite notes, and could even spoil the wine. So, what’s so special about my Cotswold air?

1) I’m at altitude, about 135m, so there’s just less of it. This simply means I can can control the effect more easily, it is more gentle, more subtle, a delicate touch. Air at near sea level (SL) is just a bit of a blunt instrument leading to clumsy wines

2). It’s lighter - as a consequence of the altitude the wine is slightly less dense when it goes in to bottle, hence it is a bit more elegant than SL wine.

3) We’re quite some way from motorways, conurbations, even towns of any size, and the population is low density So the air is clean - no whiff of diesel with my wines.

4) The limestone in the soil round here imparts a slightly minerally quality to the atmosphere and thus the wine. It’s what we call airroire.

5) It’s damp. It rains all the bloody time - so the humidity is high, meaning the barrels are happy. And you know what they say: happy barrel, happy wine.

6) The views. The views are gorgeous, and views are 96.3% air, so it stands to reason that this gorgeosity imparts itself into the wine.

So - that’s why.

NB. It is possible that most of the above is somewhat hot air.

Is it Pinot Noirs or Pinots Noir?

Either way I’m boxing-up a lot of them for to distribute to some fine feasting establishments.

Pinot Noir 2022, now in bottle. A beautiful wine from fruit and a smidge of . Cherry and strawberry and spice, a bit of smoke and leather. Lovely texture and great length. Focussed, very young and will age well.

Bottling the Pinot Noir.
Over the past 2 days we have had two bottling run of the pinot noir, the first with a light filtration which will be sold via the winery and website, and the second with a full filtration, primarily for our restaurants and wine merchants, but also offer directly from the winery. There are many, many, many theories about the ideal level of filtration for pinot noir, many believing that a light filtration, if any at all is preferable to keep the delicacy. One the other hand there is very little if any proper experimental (double blind, peer reviewed) evidence of any difference, and at this point they taste very similar. Their argument for a full filtration is simple - I want all drinker to have an equal (as in similar) taste experience not marred by the incursion of any undesirable little bugs such as Brett or Acetobacter. Thus filtering is the other approach to respecting the purity of the wine. I bottled the two version to offer choice, and out of personal interest.

None of the Pinot Noir was fined - that is to say neither version had anything added to clarify them, a process can also remove body and colour, they were simply clarified by long settling in a tank after 13 months in old French oak.

To my mind it is a fabulous wine - revealing the splendour of 2022 for this red variety.

It will be released in about 6 weeks, but I made a very small amount of wholly unfiltered wine, taken directly from the tank tasting tap (not even a boiling machine). This unfiltered version is available now and is drinking well now. Contact me if you want a bottle or two.

By the way, in the photo is Cat, one of our regular and indispensable, fabulous volunteers, for some reason giving up a day-off from her proper job to stand in the cold and bottle some red wine. Though she did walk away with a few bottles. If you want to join the fun, contact me.

This can only mean one thing!

The Pinot Noir 2022 had been moved from the barrels where it has spent the last 14 months to a steel tank in preparation for bottling. The photo shows a barrel having the lees and other ‘dregs’ rinsed out after being emptied. This my first red wine; and what a wine - 2022 was excellent for still, red, Pinot Noir. In ’21 I made a white PN, in ’23 a pink, but ’22 was red all the way. It has great texture, both lifted red suit and deeper darker notes, some spice and to***co, great colour. Can you tell I’m really pleased with it? And very excited to get it out there for sharing and drinking. It will be bottled in a few weeks and released sometime around early March.

Barrels used for the Pinot Noir were from

Bottling the Chardonnay 2022.
It’s serious work for serious people.

First light of day for the rosé 2023, just finished fermentation.

In the glass is intact a blend of 4 wines, all Pinot noir, which will probably make the final blend, subject to trials. The core is a ‘proper’ rosé, destemmed and kept on skins for 18 hours before light pressing - this was fermented in stoneware amphora. In addition there is a portion that was very lightly whole-bunch pressed with no soaking and fermented in old oak barrels - essentially a white wine. A third portion was the harder press of the same fruit with no soaking - a genuine press-rosé. Finally there was a light red, fermented on skins. The blend of these make a layered complex wine - a serious pink - it’s already hinting at its quality. It will now spend 6 months in old ( mellow) oak before a spring bottling.
This wine makes the very best of the growing conditions in 2023.

Just chilling in the barrel room.

I’m fairly fastidious about fermentation temperatures ( I guess most wine makers are). This means keeping an ambient temperatures that suits most of the ferments and then tweaking each vessel up or down a degree, or even half a degree. For my style of wine, alcoholic fermentation doesn’t generally want to stray much above 15.5 for any length of time or below 14.5, and malolactic doesn’t like it below 15. Fermentations in the middle of the cycle need keeping cool, those near the end often need keeping warm - or at least not allowed to cool too much, which in English winter can be a challenge.

I pump chilled water through flexible steel pipes (called snakes) submerged in the barrels or stoneware jars for cooling, and greenhouse heaters under barrels for warming. I can also pump warm water through the flexible pipes if necessary. The room itself is insulated with a degree of temperature control ( sadly not underground) It can be a long and tedious process , but it contributes to the quality of the wine.

Me and the press officer loading the newly fermented Pinot noir into the press. In fact we hardly pressed at all- it’s was just a high-tech sieve
It’s was a tricky year for PN, flavours were great (thanks ) but the conditions have meant that sugars, body and colour are lighter than last year. So I made 3 wines: a white, a pink and a (light) red, it’s this that we’re pressing here. This will give me all sorts of options down the line. Different blends between them are possible, even a couple of different pink cuvées, lighter and richer.

Racking the settled Chardonnay from into barrel for fermentation. And (fanfare) here is one of my lovely new barrels from - even branded - very excited to taste the result.

Storm Cerise

Rosé de presse.
It’s no secret this summer has been wet and cool for the most part - so, one adapts. The Pinot noir is a little lighter in body than the amazing 2022 - though it was in perfect condition (thanks )- so I decided it would perfectly suit a pink wine. A portion was directly pressed off the skins when it arrived, and a portion was destemmed and kept (maceration) overnight and then pressed - adding more colour and texture. It will ferment in stoneware and be released in spring - just in time for the perfect summer of 2024.

Cleaning the destemmer.

I hope Norwegians like a Paradox. I’m sending them 200 - in the form of my white Pinot noir. Plus a few hundred Chardonnay!

English and Welsh wine makers do not export much of our modest output, but when we do there’s a good chance it is to Norway, now one of the largest markets for our wine. Although the majority of exports are sparkling, I’m thrilled to be making a contribution to the range of still wines on offer in restaurants. Thanks to for choosing to represent me.

Seriously- how cool is this?
I’ve got 2 new barrels coming from Burgundian tonnelier (cooper) . I love their barrels which I’ve used for Chardonnay and Pinot noir - but these are the first I’ve had branded. They add a lovely subtle spice to the wine. Beautiful.

Essex Fruit
I paid a visit to to walk the vines and look at the fruit that will make our vintage 2023. In order of the photos: Pinot Gris, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir. All looking, and tasting fabulous and healthy with about 5 or 6 weeks to go until harvest. There are plenty of large bunches, some of which will be ‘dropped’ to maximise ripeness in the remainder. Very exciting.

Blending trials for the 2022 Chardonnay and Pinot Gris. Here we were checking the balance and composition of the 4 barrels of Chardonnay, and whether we were going to blend the Pinot Gris fermented and matured in our ‘egg’ with Pinot Gris made in barrel. Excitingly the answer is that the barrel is going to get its own very limited edition release in Autumn.

Here , as so often, I’m being helped out by the marvellous of - she makes small batches of natural wines, often with organic fruit at my winery.

Paradox.
A statement that contradicts itself.
A lovely warm summer evening on Glastonbury weekend
A white wine made from Pinot Noir

This photo shows two of those things. Paradox - a beautiful, beguiling, elusive still white wine made with (red) Pinot Noir. We drank it with cauliflower cheese, smoked duck breast and a sage, parsley and sorrel dressing from the garden. Perfect.

Available from my website - the wine, not the evening or the contradiction. See link in bio.

Does that make me Goldilocks?
The big one, a concrete egg from has been home to both the 21 and, currently, 22 Pinot Gris. The other two stoneware ‘jars’ by were used for the 22 Bacchus. This was the first time we ventured away from steel for the Bacchus and the results are beautiful. Both the egg and the jars produce wines with full fruit and a lovely rounded texture.

We’ll be this weekend (17 & 18 June) so come and taste the results.

Winery open Sat May 26.
12 -4pm
Taste and Tour at 4 pm

Drop in between noon and 4 this Saturday ( no appointment needed) for a glass to enjoy on site or bottles to take away.

At 4pm we have places left on the ‘taste and tour’ £10 a head, (3 wines, 1 hour) please book in advance on the website ‘Events’ page.

Have a great weekend.

Join me on Saturday 20th May, in Charlbury Deli. All my white wines, made locally in Minster Lovell, will be available by the glass and bottle plus some guest English sparkling and a couple of reds ( foreign and domestic). A few nibbles will be available too. Open 6-9pm. If this works it may become a regular event.

A white Pinot Noir day.

English vermouth. Colab with the fantastic . A fantastic drink- perfect, as here, as an aperitif with a spot of ice - though pretty awesome without. Think tapas. Aromatic, complex, stylish and a hint of sweetness. The pressings of the Chardonnay 2020 make the base. It will be listed on my website soon, £25.

Small wineries innovate!

In the lead-up to bottling the chardonnay 2021 it’s been very cold in the winery; this has been extremely useful for aiding cold stabilisation (the process of removing the crystal salts of tartaric acid, or wine diamonds) but it works against good bottling practice. Why?
The colder the wine, the more the uptake of O2 during the bottling process, warming it up to near 20C reduces the risk of excess dissolved Oxygen.
Thanks to the same physics, a cold wine may hold on to too much dissolved CO2 - a hint off effervescence. This is ok for a wine such as bacchus where a little frisson of CO2 can work well with the style of the wine, it is not so good with a ‘classic’ chardonnay. At a higher temp excess CO2 will come out of solution before bottling.
Bottles tend to be regularised for bottling at 20C, hence it is just slightly easier to ensure accurate fill levels at, or near, that temperature.

How does a simple small scale winery warm-up 1000 lites of wine from -2 degrees (for cold stabilisation) to 20 degrees when the winery is at 5 degrees?
Take a 30L container, fill it with water, put in a fishtanks heater set to about 22 C. Get a small pond pump, one end in the water bath, the other attached to water jackets around the outside of the tank, feeding back to the reservoir. Wrap the whole lot in bubble wrap and tank insulation. Somewhat to my surprise I got the wine up to 18 degrees in 24 hours, a bit quicker than I expected, so now I need to hold it at that until bottling on Monday.

Preview - Pinot Noir 2022.

2022 was awesome for Pinot Noir: amazing fruit from and : ripe, healthy and flavourful. The quantities were small though so get it while you can,
Ours has now finished all its fermentations, so it can be put quietly back in barrel () for another year or so. The colour and aroma is wonderful, classic cool climate Pinot, great structure, wild autumn aromas and bags of silk soft fruit- I really can’t wait to bottle it.

Paradox - white Pinot noir 2021
This unusual wine is made by pressing (red) Pinot noir grapes very gently so the skins contribute almost no colour to the juice extracted from the white / green flesh. It’s then fermented and aged in old oak barrels for a subtle contribution of spice and nuttiness. The resulting copper coloured wine has notes of ripe apple and pear, some red fruit, spice and a hint of earthiness. A rounded mouthfeel and balanced acidity. It will age well - if you can keep your hands off it. A lovely, fascinating wine: in France it’s a blanc de noir, here it’s a paradox.
Fruit from the ever wonderful and

You can buy if from my website - link in bio - and shortly to arrive

Chardonnay - hooray.
We’ve been really busy recently so I’ve not posted much however we’ve had the most beautiful fruit come in from our wonderful growers and . The quality, flavours and ripeness are exceptional. The chardonnay, pictured here in all its grapes glory (from ) was perfect, and is now in barrel moving from ‘must’ to ‘wine’. Tomorrow our last fruit arrives, some Pinot Noir for what will be our first red.

chardonnay

What’s left of 2021? As we’re preparing for vintage 2022 there are a few vessels left with a few litres of various wines: an experiment with a wild ferment, a bit of pressings left over, some excess that didn’t fit in the cold stab tank. So what do you do? Blend them in to a house wine of course. In this case it’s Pinot Gris, white Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, unfined and unfiltered and rather lovely. Not going on general release, but may be out at a tasting or two next year.