The Hop Pocket - Bishops Frome, Ledbury - 24th August, 2016

A little update on wine searching.....not quite a vineyard. I read last week about quite a lot of small vineyards in our area and some of them aren't open to the public but interestingly, a wine shop at the Hop Pocket Retail Centre does stock various local wines....and so a trip in Sassy was needed!

One of the wines I had read about was 16 Ridges, at Putley close to Ledbury but which isn't open to the public...but it has a Pinot Noir red and a really good story with lots of expertise based there...

Sadly today there was none for sale at the Hop Pocket but we'll be back...

In the meantime we purchased a trio of whites from small vineyards:

.....Beeches Vineyard at Upton Bishop, Hereford which produces a dry white blend - and which is a light, refreshing drink (quite like Liebfraumilch Chris thought....)

.....Hop Kilns Vineyard near Bromyard which produces a single variety white - Solaris. I will find that tasting interesting as the Solaris at Walton Brook is my favourite white so far....

.....Astley Vineyards near Stourport-on-Severn which produces several wines from its 5 acres - and has been doing so since the 1970's...today we took home a Madeline Angevine which we will enjoy I'm sure!

As far as I understand, each of the above are bottled at Three Choirs....open to debate on the latter 2 but the first one is definitely.

Another of the local suppliers which is doing really well with its sparkling wine is Castlebrook. The family here has been famous for 4 generations as asparagus growers but since 2006 have been producing award winning sparkling wines! Their vines were planted in 2004 - on a former Roman vineyard!!

White Castle Vineyard, Llanvetherine, Abergavenny - 12th August, 2016

It's been a while since we made our last vineyard trip so we were excited today to try out another Welsh one - not too far from home, and an excuse to have a drive in Sassy again! We have had a busy summer so far - lots of fun and not too bad weather. And we have revisited Kerry Vale in the meantime - and tried out some of our wine stash at home! Bolney and Chapel Down are still popular with us..

Robb and Nicola Merchant are the owners of White Castle vineyard and what a great job they are doing. They followed their dream and planted their first vines in 2008 and now have 5,000 vines in their 5 acre vineyard.

They have 6 grape varieties, 3 each of red and white - and I got the feeling that might not be the last......Currently their wine is made and bottled at Three Choirs, Newent, with its great experience it is the chosen winery by a lot of the new vineyards.

We arrived unannounced at the cellar door, open Friday-Sunday, on what ended up being a really busy day for them. We tasted 2 reds and the rosé. They also make a white wine and a Regent red, Robb's favourite! Rosé was our first tasting and it is a really good flavour and colour, perfect for a lunch drink, tasty. Then we tried the Rondo and that too is very impressive and not unlike the Rondo we have tasted at Llaethlliw and Kerry Vale. Then the Pinot Noir - and that is really good, slightly oaked which is to our taste -we found it a really good wine.

Nicola provides an excellent lunch platter of Welsh cheeses and salad which we enjoyed on the balcony of the lovely visitors' centre overlooking the vines sloping down towards us before choosing which wines to take home with us - Pinot Noir was top of the list!

Robb is now Chairman of the Welsh vineyards association so is very busy - but obviously really enjoying himself. He is well placed for vine advice as the national vine collection with over 450 grape varieties on offer, is just down the road from him! He was telling us that there are now over 700 vineyards in the UK - the number just keeps growing - a bit like our medal count at the Rio Olympics! Brilliant all round - looking unlikely that we will get round all of them any time soon!!! An enjoyable challenge though...