SPRAYING THE VINES

Penultimate spraying was applied on the 2nd August in fine dry hot conditions. A small amount of mildew was present in the back field of Cabernet Franc, otherwise, the grapes look good and are starting to change colour, in french "veraison ".

The cannons , the spray nozzles on the back of the tractor, are operated from the tractor cab and thus reduce the time stopping to change the direction and mean no spray is wasted or miss directed.

1995 Vintage

A funny thing happened at market on Sunday, Sarah had a French customer come and asked her if she had any 1995 for sale ,she hadn’t, the 1995 had sold out very quickly in less than 8 months! The French man had just had a bottle and said it was absolutely fantastic!
So not having tried a bottle for many years mainly because I’d lost the key to our wine cage!!! Anyway I found the key and with some partners in wine who happened to be here for dinner had the pleasure of trying it! What a surprise it was absolutely fantastic some judged it better than the renowned 2001!

So if by chance you have some can I buy it back??

No, drink it! Decant first one to two hours then enjoy!!

Can you spot david working in the Vines??

See how you can now see the stem of the vine after all the extra growth was taken off.

Grape set looking good

This is what the vines look like now, 1st July 2008.

Our job now is to take off all unwanted growth, so to allow all the goodness to go into the grape.

I like this job as you see instant results

Look at the next picture - Sarah

Weeding!! The Natural Way!!

you can see we are green,we do it not just talk about it!!!

Many vineyards are now talking about their green credentials and a common quote is "we use chemicals wisely and have adopted the lutte raisonee approach" .Well we should all use chemicals wisely because they cost a lot of money and miss use could harm the vines or other crops close by! With our weeding taking place by using a pellenc weeding machine when conditions allow and when not ,weeding is done by hand!!! This attention to detail means the soil below our vines doesn't look like an arid desert .

These beautiful wild orchids prove a point!!