Since the last week of May, and up until today, the weather has at least remained dry. Temperatures, however, were still struggling at around the 20°C mark (68°F), and it wasn’t until the second week of June that the thermometer finally hit the mid-to-high 20’s C (75-85°F). The good news is that these conditions proved to be almost perfect for flowering, and by the time that today’s rain arrived, the bunches had already started to take shape, with the small berries starting to grow almost to the size of peas (actually more like ‘petit pois’ at this stage!). Of course, this recent combination of rain and sun has meant that the vine plants themselves are extremely vigorous and the canopies are thick with vegetation. There will clearly need to be some thinning of leaves over the coming month or two.

On the business front things are also looking much brighter, as a few important markets slowly emerge from this disastrous pandemic. New orders have been arriving thick and fast, and to be honest we have almost been struggling to keep up. No sooner do we bottle a new tank, than the whole lot is out of the door! I think it’s pretty fair to say that we are not complaining….