Lovells Vineyard, near Malvern - 5th July, 2016

Well - how lucky was I with my surprise birthday treat on Sunday last??......Carole King singing Tapestry in Hyde Park! 65,000 were there on a sunny evening in a lovely atmosphere and it was super to spend an evening with my middle daughter at such a special performance. Loved it - thank you, Carole..and Jane!

So it came to Monday and we were heading home.....but not quite yet. First we spent the night at Bosham near Chichester enjoying a tour along the south coast en route. (Maybe prefer the Wales coast.....). We had looked for vineyards close to this area and again were disappointed that some are not open to the public, others at restricted times, but then it's understandable. One of these was Titchfield, established in 1991 which just has 1 open day each year -but with 3 reds it was tempting to visit its shop outlet close to Southampton. However, the morning wasn't that brilliant and the route not that straightforward on the busy A27 and Chris wasn't feeling too good with a bad cold so we decided to leave it for another day (and maybe call to see if they do direct mail...). The journey wasn't really as intended as we ended up going north on the very busy A34 which wasn't a good driving experience being very stop-start. Once we found the A44 it was much more enjoyable again and we wound our way through some Cotswold towns then via Pershore to Upton-on-Severn. This is a really pretty little town - made famous in recent times for the bad flooding which today seemed hard to understand with the river far beneath its bridge. It also has 4 good festivals a year - a folk weekend followed by a jazz weekend and next up is a blues weekend before the final one in August with lots of '80's music - sounds fun!
It was then only a very short ride to Welland, the village where Lovells vineyard lies. And very impressive it is too.

The visitor centre is new and very nicely kitted out and Cathy was very helpful and gave us information about how they are developing. Established in 2010, this site occupies 10 acres - we enjoyed a pleasant walk in the vineyard with Pinot Noir in abundance...

....and strong wind breaks of alder to protect the vines. In addition, the family decided to take over the nearby Tiltridge vineyard in 2013  which had been established for 25 years and had the Elgar wines brand which Lovells have now adopted.

There is also additional vineyard that Lovells take care of at Coddington vineyard so now they have 10 different grape varieties on 15 acres. And the results are all looking, and more to the point, tasting very good and with well deserved awards. We tasted the Promenades, a light and dry white using a blend of Phoenix and Orion .....

...and we also tried the very tasty rosé, Sonatina with its Elgar moustache!

Their wines are currently made and bottled at Halfpenny Lane vineyards - like Kerry Vale and Llaethlliw.

Also produced are 2 other whites, Elgar - a blend and a single variety of Siegerrebe, tasted also at Three Choirs, along with the sparkling rosé, Ysobel, named after one of Elgar's Enigma variations.

Today we took home the Ysobel - a similar name to our youngest granddaughter....and a Promenades and a Sonatina.

A lot of Pinot Noir vine has been planted recently and they are hoping the red will soon follow - exciting! Most importantly, Cathy told us the vines have also recently been blessed so it is sure to be a good year! We'll be back!

And waiting for us at home will be some replacement Solaris from Walton Brook vineyard...much tasting to be done!

Chapel Down Vineyard, Tenterden, Kent - 2nd July, 2016

After a lovely time with our daughter and her family on the Friday evening and a relaxing morning, we set off in search of more vines! This time my co-driver on the way was our eldest granddaughter with hood down and in the sun and our middle granddaughter accompanied me on the return journey, hood up in the rain but we didn't mind!
Kent is probably the county with the most and possibly oldest vineyards in the country. Many of them though only produce sparkling wines. Which of course is fine but not completely in our remit of searching for the best red...and anyway it means we can immediately discount some visits which is as well with so very many to go!

Chapel Down however has not 1 but 2 or more reds so we were looking forward to this very much. Again, Chapel Down has a very fine and new visitor centre and winery and very good restaurant. We were happy to find that we could easily put a picnic together in their shop with lots of local cheeses and so on.

We enjoyed a super family picnic in the herb garden next to the vines.

Chapel Down began its successful journey 13 years ago to now have become the largest English wine producer with 100 acres of vineyards, increased to 326 acres by other sites growing for them under lease. Their wines are sold in many top restaurants and at Marks and Spencer and Waitrose for instance.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, hen parties are really enjoying wine tastings as part of their celebrations and there were 2 such parties here today!

The main grapes grown are Bacchus, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay; the sparkling wines figure quite a lot as is usual especially in this south east corner with the perfect "terroir".

I left Chris and our son-in-law to tasting today, I was having too much fun with my daughter and little girls. We even saw a flock, is it a flock or a herd?, of alpacas...

The boys made the decision to take home Union Red (a blend of Pinot Noir, Pinot Noir Precoce, Rondo and Dornfelder) and Wickham Estate red having decided the Pinot Noir alone was more like the usual English fruity red and may need laying down a little.
The dark clouds began to gather over the vines...

.....so we decided at the right time to head for home - all the girls wanted to go in Sassy I think...

It was with much interest that we sampled the reds later and wow, the Union red is the absolute best so far!

It really is a good red with a smooth taste and sufficient tannins to make it not taste English - if you know what I mean. I know in the end it is a matter of taste.....it's going to be fun to see if we can beat it....

Bolney Wine Estate, near Crawley, Sussex - 1st July, 2016

Having spent a wonderful afternoon and evening in and around Avebury and had a good night's sleep at a super B & B at Beckhampton, off we set. This morning with Sassy's hood up - it had been a wet evening yesterday and not looking too promising this morning and we had a long way to go! It was a good and interesting journey through Marlborough, around Andover and via Farnham and Guildford. Some old steps retraced and new ones found. We don't do motorways in Sassy. It's also interesting to inspect the state of the roads in little Sassy - some of them are really little more that tracks in truth, especially through towns where drains are often very poorly set in the roads!
And so we found our way to the Bolney estate!

A very impressive driveway led to a very new winery and visitor centre which has a balcony overlooking the vines. The vineyard has been here since 1976 (and possibly much longer according to some historical evidence) making it one of the oldest in the UK. The original 3 acres of vines were all white grapes and the main interest was to produce white and sparkling wines - many of which have won awards, more again this year. The Blanc de Blancs won a silver I believe...

The most popular white is the Bacchus, we have now heard at many of our visits that Bacchus is the leading English grape in popularity of sales. However, the Pinot Noir grape has also been introduced so red wines are now produced with much credit. The original 3 acres has grown into 39 acres! They also produce a red sparkling - might be worth a try?
One of the problems with our visits is that we don't always have time to take the tours and guided tastings as these tend to be an hour or more but we do seem to be beginning to recognise the grapes now. After a coffee in the very pleasant café overlooking the vines, some of which were quite young ones,

....we decided which to buy...I believe they grow 6 white varieties and 4 red. Today we took with us a bottle of Bacchus, a sparkling Blanc de Blancs and a couple of Pinot Noir,

some of which would be gifts for our hosts, leaving room for further purchases on this roadtrip! I'm afraid to date we haven't yet tasted the red so I will give you our thoughts after that.
And so onwards and eastwards into Kent....

Mumfords Vineyard, Bath - 30th June, 2016

This was an exciting few days ahead of us now as we set off on our first real roadtrip in Sassy.....our little red 4/4 Morgan....

We were headed to our daughter and family in Kent for a surprise early birthday on Sunday so had decided to build a little holiday around it.....and of course Sassy and vineyards had to be included!

Several vineyards on the route weren't open at times we were passing so we had to be selective and our first stop was at Mumfords. This is a small but very well established vineyard just outside Bath and you do have to book a time. Apparently visiting vineyards for hen parties has become more and more popular - and we saw others over the course of the next few days. Tony Cox at Mumfords told us that they very often have hen party requests.

The vineyard here covers around 4 acres with about 5,500 vines and with 3 varieties: Madeline Angevine, Reichensteiner and Triomphe. It's good to see vines in their full Spring growth after several months of bare winter vines.

The name of the vineyard comes from the historical name of the field and it's thought it may have derived from Montfort as Simon de Montfort owned land here in the 13th century. The picture on the label is based on a Roman coin found in the field as they were preparing the vineyard. The vineyard is very close to 2 Roman roads heading into, and out of, Bath.

Tony made the tasting really interesting. As an ex-chemist for a major pharmaceutical company, his real interest is actually the wine making which he loves! And the winery which he and his wife acquired and established is very impressive - and has been used now since the late '90's. The vines were planted in 1985 so the vineyard is very well-established. Its wines have been enjoyed by the Queen on a visit to Bath in 2002 and aboard HMS Trafalgar at a dinner to celebrate the ship's centenary in 2005.

Tony has been involved with English wine making for some time and has interesting information about harvest yields over the years which directly conform to the weather patterns - it's maybe looking like 2014 will be a good wine. Tony prefers to keep the wine in vats for 2 years before bottling and it seems to work!

We tried the Madeline Angevine which was very smooth and refreshing and then sampled the 2010 Triomphe red - and even enjoyed a sneak preview/taste from the vat of the 2014, it tasted like it will be a good one too!
We bought a few bottles to take with us, a bit of a problem when roadtripping in Sassy in that we have to limit what we take with us - or maybe that is really just as well! Tony does provide wine by direct mail - and his helper in the vineyards may be taking a trip to mid Wales soon so it may help with a future order!

Thank you for your time and such good information, Tony and hope your hip continues to improve.