Vineyard and grape varieties
Vineyard name: Great Barn Close
Size: 1 hectare (3,200 vines)
Soils: Clay loam over limestone
Varieties: Pinot Gris, Auxerrois, Bacchus, Ortega, Siegerrebe and Huxelrebe
You might not have heard of some of these varieties, so let us introduce you. The Pinot Gris and Auxerrois are classic grape varieties from Alsace. We’ll mainly use these to make a Cremant d’Alsace styled sparker.
The others (Ziga-who? Huxel-what?) are German hybrids that ripen well and early in our marginal climate, bringing fruity and floral notes. They’ll be used for still white wine. At least, that’s the plan at the moment but hold us to it. We’re always looking for ways to experiment.
Winemaking approach
Organic
Not only ecologically sound, but advantageous for the winemaking too. We don’t use synthetic fertilisers or pesticides and aspire for as much of a polycultural vineyard as possible - all of this increases the diversity of microorganisms in the vineyard, which transfer to the grapes and add complexity in winemaking;
Harvest
The advantage of being small scale and having sole responsibility for winemaking is that we can carefully monitor the grapes and make a judgement on optimum picking date. We pick grapes when they’re absolutely ready for the style of wine we want to make. It also means that we can meticulously pick through the harvest - nothing diseased goes in the crusher.
Indigenous yeasts
We don’t add active dried yeasts. We rely on the yeasts which are naturally present on the grapes and the vines; the winery floor; the buttercups; our hands and wherever else on the farm. Instead of importing yeasts from French, Australian or Chilean wineries, we find out what yeasts are kicking around our own neighbourhood. C’est more natural, quoi.
Minimum additions
Wherever possible, we don’t add sulphites. When we need to, we stick to the lowest amount possible to preserve the wine - and we’ll always tell you the sulphite levels in our finished wines.
No filtering or fining
We don’t filter or fine our wines. We cold-stabilise and cold settle where necessary, we might leave a little sediment in some wines if it suits the intended style.
Just fruit
Grapes have the perfect sugar-acidity balance They’re practically born to be fermented. Why add anything else? Instead we turn towards the fruit - we macerate all of our wines, even the whites, to extract the phenolics and nutrients from the skins. Our rule of thumb is: work with what’s there.