January 2024

Back in the saddle after a few weeks in Mallorca.

It has been blowing a hooley for the last few days together with driving rain. I have dressed up like a spaceman to face the elements to start the long process of winter pruning. This we will do in stages. All over Europe you will see vignerons tending their vines, secateurs in hands, bent into the wind. You need to be hardy… and have a hip flask at the ready for a restorative nip. I also have Radio 3 to keep me company.

I get togged up in the following garments: boots, long johns under my jeans, a ski top, a heated belt, 2 layers of jumpers, gloves, and a woolly hat with ear flaps. I can then waddle down the rows with my secateurs looking like a Michelin man.

Dave Morris, my biodynamic consultant, is dropping in next week from Monmouth to plan for the season coming. We will walk the vines and exchange views on the best way to winter prune some of the difficult vines where cane and spur are not quite where one would want them. It seems that we have suffered very little damage from Phomopsis (the cane goes a silvery colour from damp conditions) over winter which is good news.

An AGM for Thames & Chilterns Vineyards Association this Wednesday to be held at Oaken Grove Vineyard. This will be my last meeting as Chairman for I will be handing over the reins to Ian Beecher Jones. Denise Santilli will be retiring as Hon Secretary after 13 years sterling service. She will be sorely missed.

In the dead period between Christmas and New Year, HMG issued a rather lame press release which got up the hackles of various UK wine producers on our forum who fumed online. Here is the link but the main tenor of the release was to celebrate all the amazing freedoms to be enjoyed by the UK wine industry now that we have left the EU. A bit of a joke.

Leading producers in the industry have retorted that the government should be concentrating on the key issues such as reducing tax on alcohol (recently increased), cellar door relief for small producers ( as with micro beer and cider producers), helping the struggling UK hospitality industry, improving labour market for seasonal workers rather than boasting about being able — a ‘Brexit Freedom’ —now to produce sparkling wine in pint bottles. Who cares about the size of bottles?