Laying the groundwork for a bumper harvest
Once harvest is over, you would imagine that the pace of life slows down a bit at the vineyard.
However, while we do not have to carefully tend and nurture our grapes, Autumn and Winter are in fact when we do some of our most important work to ensure that the vines produce the best possible fruit the following year.
The vines themselves are a little sorry looking. The beautiful leaf canopy has fallen exposing the bare vine. This will be left alone until the pruning starts in the new year.
What we do focus on is getting the right nutrition into the soil. This year we are going to kill off all the weeds and grass that grow between the vines and rotavate the ground. Then, in Spring, we lay down fresh mixed seed for plants that will put back some goodness into the soil, for example radish plants. This will also help with drainage.
We check the ground and the soil every couple of years to make sure it is at its best, which means maintaining a PH balance of between 6 and 6.5.
This year, we are also nurturing the new vines that we planted last year and we are preparing the soil in a new area of the vineyard to increase our rows of vines.
Back at the Cellar Door we still have plenty of work to do. Not only do we have to take and deliver orders to clients, but we are very busy working at Christmas markets and other promotional events. Christmas and New Year are big times for sparkling wine and we need to keep up with demand.
At this time of year, we must also look ahead to next Spring when we will bottle our new wines. Although the blending and tasting will not begin until March to May, we regularly visit the winery and we must also think about ordering labels, bottles and tasting cards for our new wines.
If you would like to come to visit us to learn more about the vineyard, we run Tours and Tastings in the Spring, Summer and early Autumn, or why not pop along to our Cellar Door to buy some of our fabulous wines? For more details visit: https://www.poultonhillestate.co.uk/cellar-door/
