The UK has “almost certainly” had its hottest summer on record, according to provisional statistics from the Met Office released this week. This will not come as a surprise to Three Choirs Vineyards’ winemaker Martin Fowke who is overseeing the start of the harvest – picking has started earlier this year than he has ever experienced in over 35 years of winemaking.
Work started on 26th August to bring in the first batch of grapes, Siegerrebe. This year the fully ripe grapes, with high sugars and low acids, will make some very interesting wine. The vineyard grows several different varieties which ripen at different times. A team of 16 will handpick two to three acres a day on average throughout the harvest.
According to Martin, “The weather this season is well documented, with high temperatures and levels of sunlight that have not been seen before. The earliest we have started picking prior to this year was 2018, when we started to harvest on 31st August. We have started work five days earlier this year – the earliest harvest in the vineyard’s history.
“We expect to continue to harvest approximately two weeks earlier than normal. Sugars are high across the board and acids are dropping slowly which is precisely what we want to see at this stage.
“This year we have managed to keep the grapes clean throughout the season and so we are not under pressure to pick before we have optimum analysis. This is a very different situation to last year.
“The yield also looks good. So we will have a fairly full winery by the time we reach the end of harvest”.
Three Choirs Vineyards currently produces around 200,000 bottles of award-winning wine a year. Best sellers include Classic Cuvée, Coleridge Hill, Rose and Bacchus. Jeremy Clarkson has recently selected Three Choirs Vineyards Rose wine for his new pub The Farmer’s Dog, and demand for Three Choirs’ wines in general continues to grow.
