Holtwood

Nine years after we planted our first vineyard, almost to the day, the VineWorks team were back again, planting Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier, Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc in our latest vineyard. Their German subcontractors arrived and started planting on 13th May, the day after one of the latest air frosts we have seen devastated many of the vineyards across England. Luckily these young vines won't yet be affected by frost.

By the end of the week, the vineyard was planted, and rods and rabbit guards in place around each of the thousands of vines - next will come the trellising and the deer fencing.

The vines in the picture are coated in wax to protect the graft: this will gradually break off as the vines grow and we expect to see some growth quite quickly, reaching the top of the rabbit guards in a matter of 2 or 3 months. Traditionally red variety vines (such as these Pinot Noir) are dipped in red wax to protect the graft and white variety in green wax - but that doesn't always hold true: if they run out of red wax, red varieties might get dipped in green wax and vice versa!! These vines are well travelled, having come from France and Germany, and like all travellers they have their own passports, now carefully filed at Church Farm to prove their provenance to the UK FSA.

A new vineyard is always exciting and you can expect to see lots of posts as to how it is getting on over the next months.