In The Vineyard – February

Shrewsbury and the surrounding areas of Shropshire have suffered over the last few weeks with torrential rain sparking rising floodwaters.

The River Severn has not been this high in 20-years and has already forced some local businesses to close and homes to be flooded.

This week for the team in the vineyard it’s business as normal as the vines are still dormant and are expected to suffer no ill-effects from the floods.

They have continued to work through the deluge of bad weather tending to the young Chardonnay vines that were planted in 2018.

The process involves pruning and tying in order to establish them for their final year before production in 2021. Next week the pruning and tying begins for the mature vines and will take around six weeks in the run-up to Spring.

Inside the winery, Gavin has been disgorging the sparkling wine which begins with the neck of the bottle plunged into a refrigerating solution at – 27°C.

The sediment is then ejected under pressure when the bottle is opened, then recorked along with the muselet (wire hood), with minimum loss of wine and pressure.

The bottles are then cleaned in warm water and stacked ready to be stored, Gavin and his team are disgorging one day a week at 1,010 bottles per day for the next 8 weeks.

We are looking forward to Spring and hopefully a change in the weather bringing with it a little bit of sunshine which, will hopefully put a smile back on the faces of Shropshire residents.

If you would like to know more about the vineyard and to take a tour of the winery with a tasting to finish please get in touch with one of the Hencote team on [email protected] or call 01743 298 444.