Dear Friends,
A summer update and photo of the Vines Its been a difficult year - just so wet.
This affects the vines in 2 ways - firstly the wet weather during flowering June / July affects the flower blossom - the vines self pollinate and heavy rain can easily wash away the pollen - and secondly the wet and warm weather create ideal conditions for disease, particularly downy mildew. This gets into the canopy and damages the grapes which have set.
But it's not all doom and gloom because we do grow a number of disease resistant varieties at Pebblebed such as our Seyval Blanc (see photos) and Rondo Grapes. So although we have a small crop - not the 40,000 bottles we had hoped for but perhaps closer to last year's 7,000 bottles.
The other good news we have to share is the new winery and tasting room is coming along (photo below)- we tested all the equipment such as the grape press, grape destemmer and pumps yesterday - all went well.
Our harvest will be late this year, probably end of September for Rondo andend of October for Seyval but we will email again with details. We would love to see you there so please come along if you can.
On Sunday 9th September 11am till 5pm we have an Open Day at our Clyst St George Vineyard with all proceeds to Hospiscare - vineyard tours and wine tastings on the hour all day - hog roast and cake stall!
We would love to see you there so please come if you can and spread the word.
Here's hoping you have a great end of Summer!
Best wishes Geoff
