Going sustainable – our rhyme and reason, writes Tim Ferris of Vine-Works Ltd.

Great Britain is an island of weather with many different and competing patterns – and to top that we are now dealing with climate change.  Dr Alistair Nesbitt is a Viticulture Climatologist with significant expertise in how weather and climate interface with wine production. He is based in the UK but advises globally and holds the UK’s first PhD in Viticulture and Climate Science. Vineyard asks Alistair what the likely changes to our growing conditions will be, which opportunities and threats face our industry – and how producers can become more resilient to the changes of the future. 

Unreliable yield forecasts cost money, waste resources and depress profitably. Poor forecasts are one of the largest causes of tension, stress and conflict between vineyard managers and winemakers. Vineyard finds out why it’s important to improve accuracy and which forecasting methods work. 

Quietly getting on with producing some of the country’s top award-winning wines is Oxney, the UK’s largest single organic estate, tucked away near Rye in rural East Sussex. The focus is on organic production, low intervention winemaking, preserving the soils and treading lightly on the environment. Many may see organic production as an impossible challenge – but Vineyard finds out how Oxney’s resourceful and imaginative approach is resetting the expectations of organic wine production in England – with soils, sheep and silence.