Harvest report 2020 08, Nov 2020

The vineyard and the vines enjoyed a good growing season during 2020. While the global pandemic has had a huge impact on the business and the number of visitors to the vineyard, nature carries on regardless and the vines have continued to thrive – and continue to require their usual level of care and attention!

Late spring frosts hit many parts of the south in May but thankfully in Woodchurch the temperature stayed above freezing and the young vine shoots remained unharmed. Early summer saw some dry warm weather which led to even flowering and fruit set across the vineyard. Throughout the summer months we had warm spells (temperatures reaching a high of 34 degrees in July and August) and cooler spells. The vines enjoyed another burst of heat in September which really pushed up the sugar levels in the fruit and ripened the grapes earlier than usual. This year we started picking at the end of September and finished mid-October - roughly two weeks ahead of the average year!

In total Woodchurch picked around 20 tonnes of grapes over 6 days with the help of both contract and volunteer pickers following strict COVID precautions and social distancing. We are extremely grateful for everyone’s hard work during harvest, it’s such an exciting time of the year and always a pleasure to work together to bring in the year’s crop.

The fruit quality and ripeness in 2020 has been exceptional. We will be making 3 sparkling wines – a Classic Cuvée, a Rosé and a Blanc de Blancs. We are also very excited to be able to produce 3 still wines – a red Pinot Noir, a Rosé and a white Bacchus. We only make our still wine in small batches and it’s extremely popular (our current red and rosé are almost sold out) so we’re thrilled to be able to have more wine available which will be ready to purchase next year.

Please visit the shop to purchase our current releases.

Our volunteer picking days were hugely over-subscribed this year and we were sorry to have to disappoint several people who were hoping to help out. If you’d like to join the volunteer picking days on next year’s harvest, join the club to secure your place.