Happenings at the winery mid to late March

The filtering is done for the Bacchus and we’ve racked off the lees for the red Rondo. The Bacchus is looking really good, very happy with it. The Rondo is coming on – it’s still very young, so we’ve left it on Noble American oak and it will most likely stay there for another 6 months. It will have 18 months in total before bottling, most likely. We hope to bottle the Bacchus in May, but there’s no hurry with it.

 At Burnt Foot Vineyard, we’ve started tying down the canes. We’ve done about 800 to 900 and there’s still at least 2 to 3 days left. There was a real cold wind across the vineyard and I came home wet and cold. It’s not all fun and games as a winemaker!

 The weather did improve and on my tour of Suffolk to make the East of England Co-op store deliveries it was nice to see lovely blue skies, lots of bloom appearing on blackthorn and cherry trees, plenty of daffodils and primroses. I also spent an afternoon training the new owners of Crowfield vineyard on tying down and checking their pruning, which they completed last week.

 Other things I’m working on include the next batch of Agora Vermouth, alongside Arthur, as well as a tank of raspberry wine, which I’m testing for alcohol, sugars and TA. I’m trying to balance the wine somehow, as the raspberries came in with exceptionally high acidity TA (over 23%, which is the worst I’ve ever had – it’s nearly redcurrant in nature. I also have to look at the damson wine tank to fortify and sugar. As well as all this, I've been training for the PA3 air assisted boom sprayer operator’s certificate (it’s a legal requirement for people who are spraying commercial crops). I need it to take over this activity from the owner of Burnt Foot Vineyard in the future.