On 24 June 2019, winery owners, winemakers, students and industry professionals gathered at Denbies Wine Estate in Surrey for the first Wines of Great Britain (WineGB) Winemaking Technical Conference 2019.  

Avid supporters of the UK’s viticulture industry, Glosrose over the last four decades has steadily grown from a small Maidstone-based materials handling equipment supplier to a nationwide company providing growers and winemakers with everything from powered pallet movers to all-terrain forklifts.

Timing is critical when managing your vine’s canopy. There are myriad tasks and procedures which can sculpt your vine at its various phenological stages through the season, all of which help to achieve a uniform crop load and ripeness. Everything you do, (or don’t do!) to your vine has an influence – positive or negative.

The Standard Terms are potentially the most important document in your business. They should create a contractual and legally binding relationship between you and the other party and set out the terms on which you do business. The Standard Terms normally sets out a number of key contractual rights and obligations which must be adhered to by both parties, as well as the consequences if the provisions are broken.  The Standard Terms therefore give increased clarity and understanding between the parties such that there are, hopefully, no or few disputes.

So far this season, my comments about spring weather conditions in the April issue are ringing true. It has certainly been one of those ‘stop – start’ years so far and this is showing in the vineyard. Shoot growth is uneven; at the time of writing about 50% of shoots are almost at the top wire, while the others are lagging way behind. I do recall the term ‘seasonality’ being used to describe how consistent or inconsistent the weather is during a growing season. Another observation is how well the rachises have developed, with well separated branches and I am hopeful that the bunches will develop with more room for movement i.e. less compaction and lower Botrytis risk. 

I love the old ‘The Frost Report’ sketch, ‘I know my place’. If you are familiar with it, then this month’s article will make perfect sense. If you are not, I urge you to search for it and marvel at the minimalist script and the perfect delivery of their lines from John Cleese, Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett. It is unnervingly similar, in an equally light-hearted manner, to the state of play in the English wine world. 

Screwcaps, Stelcaps, 30×60’s, Vinotwist, however you refer to the screwcap closure used widely across the wine industry they may appear simple and easy to use for the end consumer but hide a technically precise engineering process and require great skill and attention to detail to apply to the bottle. Cap and metal quality/thickness, liner type and the bottle are important in the bottling process but most importantly it is the capping process itself so using a good quality machine is imperative. Calibrating the capping head before each bottling run is imperative to ensure consistency and quality and being able to check performance is critical to ensure a successful bottling.

How has English wine changed as a category since you started working in the shop?

When my parents first started the business the wine selection was based around the then classics, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Hungarian sweet wines and ports. I can’t say I remember a lot of English wines when I was small, but there must have been because I remember being dragged round vineyards; Breaky Bottom was great because it had pigs. 

When the financial crisis hit in 2008, James Dodson decided it was time to take his trellising business in a new direction. Convinced that the economic crisis was going to sound the death knell for the planting of new vineyards, the Canadian Plumpton College graduate turned his focus to helping already established estates manage their existing acres.  

Dear Editor,

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon in May, 11 intrepid members of the Welsh Vineyards Association (WVA) boarded a nineteen-seater coach and headed to Portsmouth to catch the overnight ferry to Caen in Normandy for the first leg of their study tour to the Loire region of France.