Tuesday 12 February 2013

Silent Pool Rosé 2012


Earlier today I tasted our Silent Pool Rosé 2012, with Ulrich Hoffmann (the winemaker) and Stephen Skelton MW. In my opinion it's even better than the 2011 which, given the appalling weather last year, is a fantastic result. More importantly Stephen, who is an expert on English wines commented:

"Good fruit, nice balance with good acidity but not too agressive. A worthy successor to the 2011. Amazing considering what the year was like."

It seems that our decision to pick only the ripest fruit has really paid off and as a result we will be releasing a top quality wine that we can really be proud of. It will also be one of the first wines in Europe to be certified organic under the new EU regulations. Unfortunately, as we only used the very best grapes, supply will once again be very limited. We hope to release the wine in early May - details of stockists will be on the web site.


Saturday 9 February 2013

The Albury Wine Club



The Albury Wine Club is for local wine and food lovers who are interested in English wines, particularly those produced by Albury Organic Vineyard.

The club aims to provide an insight into UK viticulture, as well as the inside story on what’s going on at the vineyard. Members will have an early opportunity to buy the wine at discounted prices and be the first to receive invitations to wine and food events being held at the vineyard.

Membership is priced at just £50/year per person and includes:
  • Two complimentary bottles of the award winning Silent Pool Rosé, as served on the Royal Barge as part of the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. 
  • 10% discount on all wines purchased direct from the vineyard.
  • A free of charge members tour of the vineyard and a first tasting of the years vintage, prior to its release in May/June.
  • The opportunity to get involved in the harvest in October.
  • An invitation to the harvest party in November (free for all those involved in the harvest). 
  • A quarterly newsletter and regular email updates. 
We will formally launch the club in April. Our first event will be a pre-release tasting of Silent Pool Rosé 2012 at the vineyard in early May; invites will be sent out to Founder Members only.

To register your interest click here.

We look forward to showing you around the vineyard and sharing some great local wine and food experiences with you.

Wednesday 6 February 2013

The Vineyard in Winter



A snowy Albury Vineyard - photograph by John Powell

There's only one job that has to be done during the winter months and that's pruning, pruning and more pruning.

We use the "double Guyot"training method which means that the two fruiting arms from last year have to be cut back and two new fruiting arms have to be carefully selected for the coming year. We also try and leave two stubs near the crown, which should produce the fruiting arms for the following year. All the old wood has to be pulled out of the trellis and burnt so that any disease is destroyed. The pruning wounds are sprayed with trichoderma which helps to prevent disease and heal the wound.

We have 21,000 vines in the vineyard so that's a lot of work! Fortunately Alex is always ahead of the game. Having started well before Christmas she didn't stop for the snow and pruning should be pretty well finished by the end of this week. We will leave pruning some of the Chardonnay that are in the frost prone areas until March, in the hope that it will delay bud burst until after the risk of frost.

The next job will be to tie the fruiting arms to the trellis. This year we are going to try biodegradable ties.