After a week of hard graft the end of our 2026 harvest is finally on the horizon as we head towards our final couple of vineyards. Overall, we believe that this vintage will be slightly better than we had anticipated just a couple of weeks ago, After a fairly hot, but acutely dry summer, the berries on our vines were quite small, and at that stage had a very high sugar content. This sugar content would inevitably equate to high alcohol. It was the week of rain leading up to our harvest that really changed the quality of our harvest. There was just enough rain to swell the berries a little without breaking the skins (if the berries swell too much and the skins do break then this will immediately provoke rot).

In today’s photo we are racking the must to clean tanks (you can see the special glass section that we join to the hose, as described a day or two ago). Angela has drawn off a small sample from a special tap on the side of the tank, and inspects the must. Of course, at this point it is simply grape juice without any alcohol at all. It is really delicious, but more importantly, from experience you can get at least get an idea of what the final quality of the wine might be.