Plumpton College Winery

        The UK’s centre of excellence in wine education, training and research. For more information see www.plumptonwine.co.uk      

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Discover Australia - RAG day masterclass

This year’s RAG day the wine division is raising money for Chestnut Tree House children's hospice. We are going with an Australian theme and with the help of Fine Wine Partners presenting a wine tasting masterclass of the best regional wines from Australia 

You can find out more information here.

Some of the great wines you can expect to taste include the following.

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Plumpton College Naked wines Bursary

https://www.plumpton.ac.uk/courses/wine/naked-wines-bursary/ 

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#MakeWineYourCareer talk with Ed Carr

On Wednesday 16th January, Plumpton College hosted Australian sparkling royalty: Mr Ed Carr, group sparkling winemaker at House of Arras. With over 300 international awards, Winemaker of the Year (twice), and a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2018 Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships, it's safe to say he knows a thing or two about sparkling wines!

Originally a winery microbiologist, destiny called when Ed was asked to fix a fermentation. Today, he oversees all of the Accolade Wine group's sparkling wine production. In his quietly spoken and down-to-earth manner, he revealed the joys and challenges of his job. His is a crafting process that needs to be continuously fought for, especially as part of a more extensive commercial business. But getting good feedback on his wines makes it worthwhile. He confessed that he's not great at numbers, so it's important to surround yourself with a good team who is passionate about the product. 

He brought with him the Arras Rosé and the Grand Vintage 2006. Both made by the traditional method, they offer bright, fresh, rich and complex flavours, with maritime and savoury notes to accompany a long finish. The '06 was fresh and vibrant for its age, with an almost extra brut dosage; Chardonnay dominance provided citrus, red apple, and creamy brioche. The rosé had aromas of strawberry, bread and savouriness, with enough sweetness to round off the tannins. The eight years on lees and two in the bottle had turned it a noble copper colour. 

To finish, he offered us two pieces of advice: When making wine, know where it sits on the global wine stage, and keep the oak well away from Brettanomyces!

by Daniel Ma, MSc Viticulture & oenology student

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Simonit & Sirch - The Pruning guys @Plumpton College

On the afternoon of Monday 10th December, Plumpton College welcomed Marco Simonit and Tommaso Martignon, who delivered a pruning seminar for vineyard managers and workers. Simonit heads Simnot & Sirch consultancy company consisting of 20 technicians, training a new generation of vineyard workers across Europe. ‘The Pruning Guys’ present new ideas on pruning, with observational studies in the field at prestigious estates including Chateaux Ausone, Latour and Ornellaia. They have published two books, which will soon be translated into English, pioneering new theories for viticulturists.  

Simonit & Sirch propose a winter pruning technique without causing serious wounds, thus conserving the health of the vines and long-term sustainability of the vineyard. They believe in encouraging vine development to improve structure, while respecting natural growth patterns. Simonit suggests growing the vine outwards to avoid the detrimental effects of pruning cuts on the top part of the trunk’s crown, thus making the vine stronger. He achieves this while respecting local experience, cultures and practices, and offers suggestions on how to train vines from planting all the way to maturity. Simonit’s Gentle Pruning method encourages uninterrupted sap flow throughout the vine, with canes and spurs chosen with respect to the passage of water and minerals from the roots to the buds. The basal buds of shoots on the primary structure are maintained, as these may be removed by hand later in the season if not needed. This protection from wound damage also reduces trunk disease incidence, an essential consideration in our humid, cold climates.

The following morning, vineyard managers and workers arrived at Rock Lodge vineyard to take part in practical demonstrations led by Marco and Tommaso. Simonit demonstrated his techniques for respecting the growth of the vine and cutting in the correct places to avoid dieback and internal damage. We were then invited to prune some vines under the close supervision of the experts, with guidance offered on the cutting and removal of wood. Marco and Tommaso provided an enjoyable and worthwhile interactive experience, and all the delegates learned a great deal. Pruning is the second most important and costly manual job in the vineyard after harvest, so improving pruning techniques should increase the quality and productivity of English vineyards.

by Rob Poyser, 2nd year BSc (Hons) Viticulture & oenology

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Plumpton College hosts Professor Anthony Saliba

0n Thursday 25th October, we had guest speaker presentation from Prof. Anthony Saliba from Charles Sturt University in Australia, a leading sensory scientist in the Australian wine industry. His presentation was on why aged Hunter Valley Semillon (an iconic Australian with a distinct taste) is widely lauded by critics and experienced wine lovers, but largely ignored by mainstream consumers. 

Through consumer preference mapping and rejection threshold testing, the study found that “novice” consumers prefer more fresh fruit-led and sweeter flavours, while “experienced” consumers enjoyed drier, bottle-aged (petrol, honey, nutty) characteristics. His research also challenged Hunter Valley winemakers’ perception of the consumers of their Semillon. This led to major changes in how the iconic drop is produced, stored and sold, and enabled them to strategically plan their stocks. 

No discussion would be complete without a taste of a wonderful McGuigan 2007 Hunter Valley Semillon! Its age completely fooled the class with its fresh lemon-lime aromas still holding strong after all these years but backed with the iconic aromas of honey, toast, petrol and nuttiness. If only we had a buffet of fresh seafood in the lecture theatre!

By Daniel Ma, MSc Viticulure & oenology student 

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Plumpton College, best English NV Rosé hat trick

Plumpton College had a very successful evening at last night’s Champagne and Sparkling Wine World Championships Awards Dinner, with the Plumpton Estate NV Brut Rosé retaining its title of the Best in Class English Rosé NV.

A ‘who’s who’ gathering of over 150 international winemakers, producers and journalists gathered together at Merchant Taylor’s Hall, London for the awards ceremony.

Founder and head judge Tom Stevenson said: “We have been really impressed by the standard of Champagne’s and sparkling wines that have entered this year, the bar was set high from day one and the medal count certainly reflects this. More than 116 Gold & 128 Silver medals were awarded in the 2018 competition to 18 different countries with the judges all commenting that this has been the toughest judging yet as the quality and diversity of sparkling wine improves year on year.

Principal at Plumpton College, Jeremy Kerswell, commented “To be up against some of greatest English sparkling wine producers across the country at a time when English sparkling wine standards are exceptionally high and the world watching closely where the industry is going,  this really  is a huge achievement for our winemaker Sarah Midgely and the team.”

Tom continued “Whilst other wine schools around the globe make and sell their own wines as part of the hands-on teaching process, few manage to win gold medals with their efforts, let alone ‘Best in Class’. English sparkling wines are world class, and Plumpton is one of the best producers. It makes me proud to be British, proud of English wine and very proud of Plumpton.”

The Plumpton Estate NV Brut Rosé is a traditional method sparkling wine made by College students from 100% Pinot Noir grapes grown entirely at Plumpton College in East Sussex.  The international competition in which they did so well pitted them against not only the very best of the UK wine producers, such as Ridgeview, Camel Valley and Hattingley Valley, but also the best Champagnes, Franciacortas and Cavas.

2018 was a ground-breaking year for the Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships in terms of the increase of entries from USA, UK, Austria, Brazil, Chile, Eastern Europe, Hungary and South Africa which averaged in excess of 75% of the entries. A total of 25 trophies were awarded from 68 Best in Class winners, including 9 National Champions, 7 World Champions by Style, the Chairman’s Trophy and Lifetime Achievement awards.

The CSWWC is the most respected, comprehensive and rigorous international sparkling wine competition in the world, judged exclusively by renowned fizz experts Tom Stevenson, Essi Avellan MW and Dr Tony Jordan. More details of the Trophy, Best in Class and Medal winning wines are available from www.champagnesparklingwwc.com.

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Plumpton Wine Talks 2018/19

Plumpton to welcome John Seccombe, Brad Greatrix, Charles Metcalfe and Professor Tom Gilbert as part of their next series of Wine Talks.

Back by popular demand, Plumpton College will once again be hosting a series of ‘Plumpton Wine Talks’ –informal, but highly informative, evening presentations on fundamental issues concerning the wine industry.

This year’s ‘Wine Talks’ will kick off with John Seccombe from Thorne & Daughters Wines with a discussion on “Old Vines and New Wines” on Wednesday 31st October.

A Plumpton alumnus, John completed his BSc in Viticulture and Oenology in 2007. His wine production experience at started at Newton-Johnson in South Africa in 2002 and he has since gone on to complete 19 vintages in five countries.

2012 saw the beginning of Thorne and Daughters Wines, where John, together with his wife Tasha, focuses on unique expressions of South African vineyards. Their style is natural, pure and uncluttered, preferring wines that speak quietly about their sense of place.

John’s talk will take a look at some of the old vineyards and personalities (young and old) that are defining the exciting wines being produced in the South African New Wave.

Brad Greatrix, winemaker for Nyetimber is also part of the series and will be talking on Tuesday 20th November. Guests will have the opportunity to listen to Brad as he presents the “Past, Present and Future of Nyetimber”, the leading sparkling wine producer in the UK. Brad will explore the history of Nyetimber, its current wine philosophies, and what he believes the future holds for English sparkling wine. 

This will shortly be followed by Charles Metcalfe, one of the most respected figures in the UK wine trade who will be at Plumpton on 31st January 2019. During his talk he will be exploring his life in wine and sharing his unique take on wines fashions, fads and future. 

Finally, the Plumpton wine team are delighted to welcome Professor Tom Gilbert on 28th February 2019. Tom is the Professor of Palaenogenomics at the Natural History Museum in Denmark. His ‘Plumpton Wine Talk’ topic will be entitled; “What can Ancient Roman privies tell us about the wines of today?”. 

Gilbert commented: “The growing of grapes and making of wine is one of man’s oldest technological achievements. Whilst archaeological evidence suggests that this process first stated in the region today encompassed by Armenia and Georgia, how the techniques and the grapes themselves spread and evolved through time is little understood. Resolving such questions is typically the focus of archaeobotanists, but, in the dawn of the current ‘Palaeogenomic era’, other approaches are becoming available to complement this study, one of which is the use of DNA. In particular, thanks to very recent technological developments, researchers today are able to extract DNA from preserved historic and archaeological specimens, and through comparison of this information against reference databases, draw remarkable insights into the past. In this talk, I introduces how this works, and what this is teaching us about the domestication of wine.”

Tickets for each talk are priced at £10 and are held at the Plumpton Centre in Sussex. Tickets are available via www.eventbrite.co.uk.

31st October 2018     17:30-19:00 John Seccombe – “Old vines and new wines”

20th November 2018 17:30-19:00 Brad Greatrix – “Past, present and future of Nyetimber”

31st January 2019     17:30-19:00 Charles Metcalfe – “A life in wine” 

28th February 2019    17:30-19:00 Professor Tom Gilbert – “A palaeogenomic window into the history of wine”

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Are you a Super Taster?

Tony Milanowski of Plumpton College’s wine department talks to Nick Mosley about the forthcoming Super Tasters wine event during the Brighton & Hove Food and Drink Festival’s Autumn Harvest. Pl…

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The team at Boho Gelato are making Plumpton Estate Bacchus Sorbet this weekend

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VitiNord 2018

VitiNord in an international conference on wine production in cool and cold climates. This year it was jointly held by Sweden and Denmark, with the conference split between Malmö and København.

I was lucky enough to present at the conference and join the winemaking sessions in Denmark.

After arriving in København, I had the chance to stop off at the Carlsberg visitors centre. The Carlsberg brewery played an important role in the early development of microbiology and food science. The Carlsberg labs where home to Emil Christian Hansen who worked with Louis Pasteur in the emerging field of microbiology. He was the first to isolate yeast cells, and identified many yeasts including  Saccharomyces carlsbergensis. Carlsberg was also the home of Søren Peder Lauritz Sørensen whose work on acidity led to the development of the pH scale, which lays at the heart of so much chemistry and winemaking.

Carlsberg visitors centre

After this, I joined the rest of the VitiNord delegates at the University of Copenhagen fruit and wine research centre: the Pometet. This is the heart of the Danish wine industry, delivering trials and research to Danish growers.  We learnt a lot about viticulture in Denmark, and had the opportunity to visit their experimental vineyards. After this brief tour, we had the chance to taste some local wines, including some of the Pometets trials.

The University of Copenhagen Pometet.

The next day, the Fredricksburg campus of the University of Copenhagen hosted the winemaking topics of the conference; it was interesting to hear some new information about cool climate winemaking. There were several interesting presentations about the use of non-Saccharomyces yeasts being used to improve fermentation or provide bioprotection. There was the equally interesting presentation on the use of non-Oenococcus bacteria for carrying out malolactic fermentation in harsh wine conditions.  Other presentations included the sensory science of astringency and the latest ideas on phenolic compounds. It was during this session that I presented the recent work of Plumpton students on Bacchus wine “Management of cool-climate Bacchus winemaking to modify chemical and organoleptic properties”. 

Vitinord presentations and tasting 

There were some presentations about Nordic wine, and it was interesting to hear from wine producer Zach Brierly and wine writer Mikael Mölstad about the unique elements of this area of the world of winemaking. Mikeal even went as far as proposing a Nordic wine manifesto, inspired by their famous counterparts in Nordic food movement such as Noma. He suggested that local vineyards and wineries produce wine that will “express the purity, freshness, simplicity and ethics we wish to associate with our region”.

The day ended up with a networking event, with a tasting of delegate wines from around the globe.

The last day of the conference involved a visit to some Danish wineries, including Denmark’s largest vineyard Dyrehøj Vingård, and Ørnberg Vin, which has PIWI vines and, unusually for Denmark, Vitis vinifera such as Sauvignon blanc.

Dyrehøj Vingård

Ørnberg Vin

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Is too much sunshine ruining your picnics and barbeques?

Make 21st June Light Strike Awareness Day!

Summer solstice is the longest day of the year, but is all this sunshine ruining the wines, ciders and beers that we enjoy at picnics, barbeques and other outdoor events?  

The famous Italian scientist Galileo Galilei is famously quoted as saying “Wine is sunlight, held together by water”, but, once the grapes are picked, light becomes the enemy of wine. In the winery, winemakers keep it in the dark: inside tanks, barrels and underground cellars.  Only once the wine is bottled does it come back into the light, and this can ruin wine in less than an hour.

Light strike taint or Goût de Lumière occurs when ultraviolet and visible light react with the amino acids in the wine to transform them into unpleasant sulphide compounds.  Wine can quickly develop a taste reminiscent of dishwater, old potatoes, cardboard and cabbage when exposed to sunshine. At Plumpton College, the UK centre of excellence in wine education, training and research, the topic of light strike has been on the syllabus for many years, and all wine graduates have a clear understanding of the risks involved. However, the broader wine trade and general public remain oblivious to this problem.  So, this summer solstice, Plumpton College, in conjunction with the Champagne and Sparkling Wine World Championship (CSWWC) and leading UK Winery Nyetimber, are launching the inaugural “light strike awareness day”. The aim of the day is to bring the problem of light strike to everyone’s attention, and to outline the simple steps that can be taken to prevent wine from being irreversibly damaged.  

Light strike taints can start to develop as soon as the wine bottle is removed from its cardboard box. Tom Stevenson, the UK sparkling wine expert and founder of the CSWWC, conducted the world’s first practical demonstration of growing light-struck aromas against unaffected samples of the same wine at the International Sparkling Wine Symposium in 2013. He states  “Clear glass is most commonly used for Rosé and Blanc de Blancs styles. Producers always blame the marketing people for demanding clear glass bottles and whereas this might be true, it is a fundamentally a quality control issue, and for the sake of longterm reputation, no self-respecting producer should allow marketing to overrule quality control. They should switch to dark glass bottles, tick the box and move on. English sparkling wine is ahead of the game, as is Trentodoc, but Champagne lags behind. All the clear glass bottles in my cellar have always been double-bagged in black plastic and since I introduced this safeguard at the CSWWC in 2015, the instance of faulty bottles has dropped by 94%. Why other competitions have not followed suit when the science of light struck aromas is known and the remedy is so cheap and easy to deploy, I cannot imagine. Perhaps they don’t care?”

Tom Stevenson, leading a tasting with light strike wines

UK winemakers are also helping, by moving away from colourless and light coloured glass to darker green and brown bottles. Brad Greatrix, winemaker for Nyetimber is passionate about the topic of light strike.

“We do as much as we can to raise awareness of light strike.  Every year a lot of perfectly good wine is spoiled because it is stored in clear bottles and exposed to sunlight or the wrong type of indoor lighting.  At Nyetimber we’ve been filling our wines into dark amber bottles since the 2009 vintage to protect against these exposures. Once one learns to recognise the sulphury smell of a light affected bottle, you’ll be amazed at how prevalent it is in wines filled into transparent packaging!”

Nyetimber rosé , packaged in dark amber bottles since 2009

Tony Milanowski, Lecturer in Oenology at Plumpton College concluded  “Education about light strike is the key defence to this wine problem.  There are many opportunities for wineries, retailers and customers can take to reduce the damage to wine, it’s important to educate winemakers and those wanting to make a career in the wine industry about the issue. I hope on the longest day of the year we can get this important message out”

Experiments at Plumpton College with light strike 

Still and sparkling rosé wines are the most commonly affected, as many winemakers still choose to showcase the pink colour of their wines through colourless glass.

As part of light strike awareness day, Plumpton College, Nyetimber and the CSWCC are urging the following groups to take action:

Winemakers

Should package their wines in dark glass bottles, or use coloured wrap or individual cardboard containers.

Ensure bottles are kept covered at all times in the winery, by using opaque shrink wrap on bins and stillages, or by placing wine immediately into cardboard boxes.

Installing lighting that minimises damage to wine in the winery, bottling and storage areas.

Wine merchants, bars and restaurants

Keep stock at risk of light strike away from direct light, including window displays.

Change damaging lighting such as fluorescents tubes to more wine-friendly low energy bulbs.

Stock wines from wineries who package their wine in dark glass.

Customers

Keep wine at home in cardboard boxes and in cool dark locations.

When enjoying wine outside, keep the wine away from direct light, or even better, wrap the bottle in aluminium foil.

Choose wines packaged in dark glass.

 Light strike: the facts

Most susceptible wine styles:      

Sparkling white and rosé, due to extended lees ageing

Still white and rosé wine

Most damaging light                      

Wavelengths below 510 nm, particularly between 370nm (UV) and 442nm (blue).

Direct sunlight

Fluorescent tubes, xenon and metal halide lamps in close proximity to wine

Most susceptible glass bottles:

Colourless or flint glass bottles

Blue coloured bottles

Light green coloured bottles

Glass bottles providing greater protections

Bottles with opaque coverings

Dark brown bottles

Amber bottles

Dark green bottles

Key reactions                                

Light reacts with riboflavin (vitamin B2), naturally present in wine, which oxidises methionine (a sulphur-containing amino acid also present in wine) to form undesirable sulphur compounds such as dimethyl disulphide (aroma of rotting food, sewage) and methanethiol (smell of drains). Light may also react to form aldehydes (cooked vegetable odour) and degrade esters (fruit aromas).

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“On the wire”, Plumpton College vineyard newsletter - May and June, part 5

5. Statistics and other events

Temperature & rain for Rock Lodge RH17 7NG:

May 2018

Just as you would expect May to be.

http://www.soilmoisturesense.com

This month, I have been mostly drinking, Domaine des Trinites l'imaginaire Roussanne

Plumpton Alumni Simon Coulshaw’s excellent unfiltered & organically grown Roussanne from his vineyards in the hills just to the West of Montpellier, Southern France.

Almonds, honey & pears, full bodied with bold acidity. Beautiful on a cool but sunny spring day. 

EUROPEA 2018 ; a Europe wide competition in Viticulture & Oenology involving 2 students per school, from over 30 European wine schools.

Thanks to Abbie Hoskins (2nd yr Wine Prod.) & Mary Bridges (1st yr Wine Prod.) for their effort & determination at the European wine schools 2018 championship held this year in Novo Mesto, Slovenia.

Well done both!                               Winemaking 1st prize! Congratulations Abbie!

Team GB, GRM school, Novo Mesto, Slovenia

Thanks to the Slovenians for a very enjoyable and successful trip!

Lindsay and Sarah also ran a very successful all student trip to Georgia..

Fush n’ chups in the vineyard

Check out those diamond studded safety glasses!

 ‘If Bacchus is the god of wine, then Pinot noir is the Devil..’

Interns Baptiste, Valentin, Lucas & Anthony from Avize viti-campus in Champagne who came to join us out in the vineyard and at the LIWF during May. Merci de votre aide monsieurs! (& Lucy).

Thank you all for your help over the last year, as I have said before, the weather has been rubbish, but the company has been excellent!

Written by Tom Newham,

Vineyard Instructor, Wine Division, Plumpton College, 2018

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“On the wire”, Plumpton College vineyard newsletter - May and June, part 4

4 Oh!, and I nearly forgot, we planted Ditchling too..

Wednesday the 23rd May, warm & hazy sunshine. Apprentice Lucy & I worked absolutely flat out chasing the German planting team & their kit with the planting of 6500 vines at the Wine Division’s Ditchling site.

Wow. What a day!

Well done Lucy!

But we managed to successfully plant all 6502 vines (Chardonnay, P. noir & P. meunier), 103 rows, of 27 different rootstock / clone combinations. More info on rootstock / clone selection next time.

Many thanks to Paul from Vine Care www.vinecareuk.com for sharing his comprehensive knowledge of relevant rootstock / clone combinations, sourcing and supplying the vines, and organising the planting team.

Read part 5 here

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“On the wire”, Plumpton College vineyard newsletter - May and June, part 3

3. Shoot removal (bud-rubbing)

1st yr production bud-rubbing the young Pinot Meunier

The arduous task of bud-rubbing. I like to see this as the culmination of the winter pruning. During pruning, you select the desired cane to lay down with the appropriate number of buds. However come budburst, buds will appear from every nook & cranny of the vine, these need to be removed, or you will end up with far more growth coming from the trunk and crown as was anticipated during pruning. Sadly many vineyards neglect this task. These mainly vegetative watershoots , will grow and not only cause canopy management issues, but will need to be cut off during the next winter’s pruning, increasing the work load & risk of trunk disease infection. Simple really, I just need someone to help me to do it! (Help!)

Read part 4 here

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“On the wire”, Plumpton College vineyard newsletter - May and June, part 2

2. Weeds

“A plant growing where we don’t want it to”

This year’s spring weather with a combination of sunshine & April showers worked wonders for the budburst, but also gave us a rapidly growing problem of how to deal with the weeds under row. Weeds growing inter-row can be easily controlled by either mowing or cultivating back to bare earth, however there is only one surely effective way of completely dealing with the weeds under-vine – Glyphosate, chemical formula‎: ‎C3H8NO5P. This effective systemic chemical, sold under various  brand names, has been approved for use since the early 1980’s, and despite many controversial claims about the environmental & health concerns, no other chemical has proved as effective, maybe why it is still licenced for use in vineyards across most of the EU, but with restrictions, for instance you are only allowed to apply one application a year in the UK (despite this, several EU winegrowing regions, for example Bordeaux, & the Prosecco regions of Italy have taken a voluntary approach and have stopped using Glyphosate completely). Usually this single application would be applied during early spring, reducing the risk of foliar damage and weed competition to the vines pre-budburst. Applied by using a single nozzle (per row) boom sprayer, aimed at the under-vine zone, or by CDA or Micron sprayer (1×10−6, 2000rpm – 250 micron, 5000rpm – 75 micron droplet size) for a more effective ground coverage.

The drive to move away from any kind of chemical weed-killer in the vineyard (not permitted under Organic certification) has led to various other methods of under-vine weed management. From using flame-throwers and water mist under extreme pressure, to grazing livestock, under-vine mowers and cultivators, none of these are as effective as glyphosate, except of course, the well-managed use of cover crops – a fascinating subject, but one for another day..

We have applied one glyphosate application to Deerfield, and the plan is to rely on mechanical methods for Pond, however, this has been somewhat thwarted by tractor break-down issues! However, we have at our disposal, The Braun Rollhacke, under-vine mower & under-vine hoe, we just haven’t been able to use them yet!

Side mounted Braun Rollhacke in action – struggling with the thick grass, several passes will be needed. Ideally we would have done this sooner but it had been too wet..

St Marks fly, the odd creature that just hangs in the air, not a problem, but I found a lot in my teeth early May.

Read part 3 here

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“On the wire”, Plumpton College vineyard newsletter - May and June, part 1

1. Budburst

The air temperature rapidly increased mid-April, peaking at 27C on the 20th, (month average approx. 1.5C lower than last year) accompanied by some nice sunshine, this encouraged the sap to rise and by about the 25th of April we had budburst across 50% of the vineyard (oops, 7 days after my prediction!), a touch later than usual. Starting as usual with the Rondo, and finishing with the Riesling, within less than two weeks we had 100% of the vines with green shoots. A mild panic set in on the morning of the 2nd May when temperatures fell to -1C, a few leaves showed signs of blackening around the edges but at best we were only at E-L stages 4-7, so damage was minimal. The drier, sunny weather continued into May, although temperatures took a while to catch up, and by the end of May, we were at E-L stages 12-14, with no signs of diseases.

Budburst on the Pendelbogen Chardonnay showing even development along the cane.

 Read part 2 here

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“On the wire”, Plumpton College vineyard newsletter - May and June, introduction

Welcome to the latest edition of On the Wire! Bi-monthly Viti notes on the goings on at the Plumpton College Wine Division, 9 ha vineyard sites in Sussex.

So, what is going on this month?

1. Budburst

2. Weeds

3. Shoot removal (bud-rubbing)

4. Planting Ditchling

5. Statistics and other events

Despite the poor ground conditions we managed to get most of the trellis repairs completed on time, however on an older vineyard like Rock lodge, this is an ongoing task. We also managed to get the foliage wires tensioned, and the middle set dropped to below the fruiting wire ready for tucking-in, completed (almost!) before bud-burst – well done everyone!

1st year Production students wire tensioning in Deer field