The bottling commences!

Who would have believed that we would get this far! The good news is that the wine looks fantastic, and there was very little sediment left. The bad news - it tastes even worst than it did in February. However, Paul the builder, who knows everything, said " it is very well rounded and smooth, I think the acidity taste will mature away in the bottle".

Can't say fairer than that then!




Bottling it was easier said than done - needs two people to get the flows right, and strong boy's arms to get the corks in!

...and using her serious photoshopping skills - my sister drafted a wine label for us!

I am promised a new winery for next September, Dave Brown was feeding the power to it a few weeks ago, and guess what I'm going to do - yep - the Winemaking Intensive course at Plumpton in September - you never know maybe I will get a merit (again!). And hopefully will learn what on earth we did (wrong?) this year.




Meanwhile back in the.....yikes the roof is all finished!!!!!

New vines!

How fantastic is this!

We decided since we had no idea what the grapes in the vineyard are, apart from one of the locals suggesting there were some Noah grapes. Whenever we mentioned this to anyone, including my tutor at Plumpton, there were sharp intakes of breath! Something to do with ethanol??

Anyway we researched and made friends with some suppliers who helped out these strange Anglais who have no idea really what they are doing! Sent off a soil sample and lo and behold the answer was Cabernet Sauvignon. (Which is Steve's favourite wine? (answers on a postcard...) and which grape is a major constituent of that wine?).

The science bit - we have phylloxera in the vineyard so needed a rootstock which was resistant, so the baby vines are Cabernet Sauvignon, grafted onto SO2 rootstock, the red you can see is the dip into wax they do to protect the graft.

As I write a week after I planted them, I am reliably informed that the buds are growing on all of them and bursting out of the wax and bud burst looks imminent! Now which chapter is "Looking after Vines in Their First Year"?

Meanwhile back at the other barn (gite)....