The Vineyard
Planted in 2019 on 2 hectares with ortega, chardonnay, bacchus, and pinot noir. The vineyard benefits from being south-facing with a clay loam soil. The bedrock geology changes across the vineyard, from Tunbridge Wells Sand into the Wadhurst Clay Formation which has left our soils with just enough sand to drain well. There are Roman iron ore workings in the woods and the iron rich soil gives us red clay. Our vines are certified organic with the Soil Association.
The vineyard is 'no till', meaning I don't cultivate or plough. I don't use any herbicides so there is a lot of strimming, hand weeding and sheep grazing. The vines are close to the sea, a little over 4 miles to Covehurst Bay giving us greater light exposure, a lower frost risk but more wind and coastal weather. The vineyard shelters from this behind thick old hedges of oak, willow, and hawthorn plus we've planted a windbreak of apples, pears, poplar, quinces, and maple. We are committed to increasing biodiversity and we've identified 60+ types of plants growing in and around the vineyard. We benefit from a thriving ecosystem which we constantly try to improve. All the work is done by Phil Harris and his 3 children with help from our friends and neighbours at harvest time.
Wine Making & Art
We make our wine at Davenport Vineyards under the supervision of Will Davenport, Britain's leading organic winemaker. His skills and experience are invaluable to us.
I allow natural/wild yeasts to ferment the wines, normally keeping them on gross lees until bottling them. I avoid filtering the wines unless the residual sugar is too high and never use fining agents. I have a mixture of concrete eggs and stainless steel tanks for fermentation and ageing.
We have planted ortega and bacchus to produce a still wine every year. Our other two grapes, chardonnay and pinot noir, need more sunshine hours to be considered good enough to be turned into our still wines. In cooler years these will be used for our traditional method sparkling wine.
Sir Quentin Blake kindly provided the beautiful artwork on our labels and we donate a percentage of our profits to Survival International. Please consider supporting one of his charities.