The Vineyards

At Hazel Street Farm, Horsmonden, Kent

The first vines were planted in 1991 and have been productive since the 1993 harvest. The site is south facing, on a gentle slope. Soils are clay with a sandy loam top soil. This vineyard is very sheltered and retains the heat from even a cool summer day. Despite the shelter of windbreaks and woodland, the vines have never been affected by late spring frosts, making it possibly the only vineyard in the south east to completely escape the very late 1997 frost that affected the area so badly.

Grape varieties concentrate on the aromatic types. These include:

• Ortega - An early ripening white grape which can be susceptible to botrytis. It produces full bodied white wines with a flavour of mango and melon. It ripens fully in almost any year and requires no sugar or acid adjustment in the winery. This variety makes the backbone of our "Horsmonden" dry white every year.
• Faber - A cross between Muller-Thurgau x Pinot blanc which ripens late (normally picked at the end of October). It attains good sugar levels while still keeping highacid levels. The main quality of the wine is in its fine delicate aromas of rose petals, with flavours of apples and citrus fruit. This is probably the closest to a Riesling style that can be easily grown in the UK. Our 1999 example is made very crisp and dry for those who like dry wines, or are prepared to put it in their cellar for a treat in 2 to 3 years time.
• Bacchus - Among the better known of UK grape varieties, this one probably wins more medals in wine competitions than any other variety. Aromatic wines are made, which vary from grassy to fruit-salad style, depending on the ripeness of the fruit. Very up-front, often with typical elderflower character. The 2000 Bacchus (newly released) is a classic example.
• Huxelrebe - The bunches on a Huxelrebe must be some of the largest of any variety. It can get botrytis in wet conditions, but in good years will produce a wine capable of ageing for several years in the bottle. As the wine ages it develops a more Muscat style aroma.
• Siegerrebe - These grapes ripen before the rest, by at least two weeks. The berries are bronze in colour and the wines are highly scented, like a light fragrant Muscat wine. It is normally used in blending to balance the higher acidity of other varieties.
• Pinot Noir - After successfully growing this variety at Rotherfield, we decided to plant a further 2 acres at our Horsmonden site in the spring of 2000. It will be 3 years before we will see any crop from this planting, but we hope to use these grapes to produce a red wine.

At Limney Farm, Rotherfield, East Sussex

This 4 acre vineyard was planted in 1993 and has been brought up with largely organic management techniques - no chemical fertilizers, no herbicides since 1997 and mainly organic fungicides. The site is planted on a steep west facing slope, with good hedges and windbreaks to give shelter from the winds. Soil is a sandy/clay loam with a well-drained sandstone subsoil. The area is very rich in iron, and this was exploited by the Romans who extracted and smelted the iron ore at Limney Farm. The vineyard was hit by frost in 1997 which set back the cropping date by a year. As a result our first commercial crop was harvested in 1999. The vineyard has been planned specifically for the production of sparkling wines. Grape varieties are:

• Pinot Noir - This is one of the classic Champagne grape varieties, and it will ripen in most English summers sufficiently for sparkling wine production. Five different clones were chosen to produce a variation in flavours.
• Auxerrois - A grape variety related to Pinot Blanc and Chardonnay, commonly grown in Alsace. It was chosen because it ripens earlier than Chardonnay and our winemaker had previous experience of making English Auxerrois with excellent results. This wine is used to make our sparkling wine (starting with the 1999 vintage) and also shows great potential in the newly released 2000 "Limney" Fumé.