Kerry Vale Vineyard, Churchstoke, Shropshire - 25th October, 2015

With autumn rich in colour now, our days of touring vineyards are numbered as a lot of them close for the grape picking and subsequent winter months. And we had spotted that the very last day for a tour at very probably our nearest vineyard was TODAY! Even better, the weather was perfect for a spin in Sassy. Sadly I was unable to drive her today due to falling down on Friday so causing a painful arm. Nonetheless it was a lovely drive and the autumn colours are so much better when you feel part of the landscape ..

Kerry Vale is situated about 30 miles from us and is literally alongside Offa's Dyke, just down the road from Brompton Crossroads for those of you who have read my Offa's Dyke blog! And as such is only just in England ... and steeped in much history. A perfect day out for us - wine and history!

The vineyard is very new, started in 2010 again as a family run business, Geoff and June Ferguson and family who having bought an old farm here and knocked it down, decided over a glass of wine one evening that it was worth finding out if the ground was good for vines - and it was! Think they have been on a steep learning and hard working curve ever since - but boy have they learned! 

 Both Chris and Sassy were quite at home amidst the vines...

 They planted 6,000 vines in 2010 - 33% of them were Rondo, the red grape and the 2 white are Phoenix and Solaris. Phoenix grapes are used for their sparkling wine. All of their wines are produced and bottled at the winery at Halfpenny Green Vineyard near Wolverhampton, a 30 year old vineyard which will be a winter visit. It only offers a few public tours but its shop is open all year with many tempting local delicacies as well as its wines!

The Rondo harvest is already over here - only a few withering grapes remain which had been left as of not good enough quality.

 The whites however are waiting their harvest.... (and are actually much more sweet tasting than I expected - sshhh!). Geoff thought they may well be picked this next weekend.

There are lots of volunteers who come along and help at harvest time so maybe next year with a stronger picking arm, I may be tempted!

 The vineyard is in a beautiful place. Not only alongside the Dyke but with the lovely Shropshire hills as a backdrop..

This part of the vineyard was also on what was a Roman fort here - Pentreheyling fort and 2 Roman marching camps! As part of the new build here, there had to be an archaeological dig which uncovered a lot of Roman artefacts now displayed... a really interesting story...

..and one piece of Roman samian ware, below has a picture of a hare which the Fergusons have developed into a bit of a "brand" - strangely they had done that before they found the pot as they had seen hares playing in their fields!

Once we had looked around the vines we went upstairs to a state of the art presentation room and heard more about the history and experiences - with the view over the vineyard to the hills beyond.

 The tasting took place here and was very professional. Not only did we learn about the vines and how to grow them in a very fun way......they do take a lot of pruning... and would reach the sun if not stopped it seems!

But we also had suggestions of how best to taste - really impressed. We tasted 4 wines:  Summer Days 2014 - a medium dry white,  Seren Star 2014 - a medium white, Rare Hare 2013 - a medium dry rose and Red Denarii 2013 - a dry red.

Of those my favourite on the day was Summer Days - a really crisp and refreshing white. The red was fruity and tasty but not full bodied. However, in December, they are releasing a new red which has been oaked - Red Kite so we are now excited to go back in December and get a couple of bottles!!

All in all this was a really exceptional tour - Geoff also had the odd quote of note, for example: You have to let red wine breath but if there are any problems with it, just give it mouth-to-mouth.....Bit silly but fun!

We returned home armed with further "samples": Red Denarii, Summer Days and a bottle of sparkling Offa's Choice - a must for Christmas we thought having walked the Path this year - as good a reason as any!

It was a wonderful drive home through the autumn countryside..

 ..and hoping we can fit in a few more Sassy trips like this before the year is over!

 Watch this space..

Polgoon Vineyard, Penzance, Cornwall - 10th October, 2015

Having spent a couple of lovely days visiting the beach and seeing quite a bit of, and being in awe of, the industrial history of Cornwall, we had told our friends we would like to see another vineyard if we had time and so on the way to Mousehole, we stopped off at Polgoon Vineyard. It is literally just alongside the main road running out of Penzance - although we didn't know that until we'd had a little search around!

Polgoon started its vine planting in 2006, again another family run business.

In addition to the vines and winery, they also produce their own ciders and fruit juices and in the shop, which is open all year, they offer a great selection of locally produced foods too - the dried seaweed selections are great! Although they only have tours March-October and so we couldn't have a tour today, we could sample their wares. And they have a red! (Their "lampshades" are also very clever, made from bottles)

It wasn't completely to our friend, Hikmet's, taste but we thought it was the best so far (not that we are far into the tastings!) with hints of tannins which we like. So we now have another red to add to our collection..

This red is a mix of the Red Rondo and Pinot Noir grapes and we liked it. We also bought a bottle of their rosé as they were winners of Best Rosé category in 2006.

The harvesting was in full swing and the grapes were being "tread" as we watched...quite exciting, and the grapes were very sweet.

Se we left Cornwall later that day as we sped off to meet our new granddaughter (who is very beautiful I might add), with more British wines - maybe the tours will be next year but in the meantime much more planning to be done to get round our Brtish vineyards!

Camel Valley Vineyard, Bodmin, Cornwall - 7th October, 2015

So it was that the plan adapted a little in that we were visiting our old friends in Cornwall and decided that it was a bit far with unpredictable weather to take Sassy on this trip - I have told her all about it though!

It did seem too good an opportunity to miss out on vineyard visits since we don't get to visit Cornwall very often - we promise our friends we will be there again soon though, we had such a good time with lots of catching up to do. It is a beautiful and interesting part of Britain with such a wonderful coastline...South West coast path?....

We had found the Camel Valley vineyard on our listings and it was also en route so off we went. What a lovely valley it is too!

 It is apparently the largest vineyard in Cornwall. It started in 1989 when the owners, the Lindo family, decided to try vines on their sloping fields and planted 8,000 vines! And they have gone from strength to strength, winning many prizes, both nationally and international ones.

We didn't have time for a tour today but they do have a shop as well as online sales so we sampled a couple of the whites - the red has sold out so we await the red to taste hopefully next spring... Tours here are only available April to October. We tried the Atlantic Dry, a blend of grapes and the Daribole (an old Cornish word for a field) Bacchus, a single grape variety and preferred the latter which was really good.

We took some bottles of the Daribole with us along with a rosé too, the rosé is made from the Pinot Noir grape. The winery was opened in 1999 I seem to remember by Rick Stein.

The vineyard has a lovely seating area looking over the vines and there are cottages to rent so you can have a holiday there too!

And there were the red grapes waiting to be picked, soaking the last of the Autumn sunshine - should be a good red! Here's hoping!