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!

Three Choirs Vineyard, Newent - 17th September, 2015

So it was that on the 17th September the sun was shining and we had nothing else much to do than to search for wine! We had decided that the nearest to us really is Three Choirs near Newent so off we set... We had done our homework a little and knew that they do produce a red - I am a little of the opinion that it may be worth sampling the whites too - why not, there will definitely be more of them....

We have passed this vineyard so often so it was great to have the time to stop and get acquainted. It does not disappoint, the situation is lovely and it has a first class restaurant where we enjoyed a light lunch before the tour at 2.30. They also offer accommodation so there is everything you need and beautifully presented. The vines cover 75 acres in total.

This vineyard is the 2nd oldest in the country - the oldest being Denbie's in Surrey near Box Hill. We did visit there a long time ago so it is high on the list for sure.

The tour was made very interesting and entailed 4 wine samplings. We started as we heard about the history of the estate with the sparkling Classic Cuvée - not to be called champagne although that is what it is, as the French are protective of their name, whereas in fact English sparkling wines were recently voted better than champagne. This was a pleasant, quite dry but fresh wine although we are not overly fond of sparkling wines.

The vineyard here was started in 1971 when it was rented from a local landowner, Mr Oldacre. It has steadily grown in size to the 75 acres it is today and is owned by 8 shareholders who still rent the land. The business has also grown by the owners acquiring a new vineyard in Hampshire, in Wickham - a bit confusing as there is another vineyard nearby too I think - to be explored....

The yield here at Newent has also steadily climbed giving now over 350,00 bottle per year! The most used white grape is the Seyval Blanc and also Reichensteiner and Siegerrebe. Vines are chosen which are able to cope with our climate....here are some Reichensteiner vines.

Vines are cropped for a maximum of 30 years before being replaced. This area is particularly suitable for vines as it has free draining soil and is in a valley protected from the worst weather. Although the floods in 2007 had a severe effect on the harvest, a lot of the vines succumbing to mildew that year. Our second tasting was the single grape white variety, Siegerrebe and it was indeed very tasty. Quite dry but not too much.

In addition to bottling their own wines, three Choirs also bottles for other vineyards in the area which increases their bottling to over 500,000 per year. Sparkling accounts for 30% and red wine only 10%. To produce the red they use American or French oak barrels as English oak is too tightly packed a wood to allow tannins to escape satisfactorily. The barrels are used for only 3 years and then passed on to be used for French vintage wines which require the extra tannin flavours.

As we were shown the bottling plant and the sparkling wine procedure, we sampled a white blended wine, Coleridge Hill. This was to us quite bland though I heard some others in the group saying they liked it.

They have also produced wines here that have been used to produce brandy - the wine being distilled first in Jersey and then in Hereford (will they use Ludlow soon?). The brandy was quite expensive so that will go on my Christmas list!

At the end of the tour, we sampled the Red!! It is Ravens Hill which is a blend of 3 grapes, Rondo, Regent and Triomphe and it is a fruity wine so very palatable. The wines will not improve with age as the continental wines can do if of good enough quality - so they just have to be enjoyed!

We also heard about their own microbrewery here - Whittingtons beers (Dick Whittington lived in a nearby village so all their brews are named after cats!) As they have got busier with their wine, the brewing has had to be moved off site.

We made our purchases in the very nice shop - red of course, a couple of the Siegerrebe and also a bottle of the rosé to try. The rosé is a blend of Seyval Blanc, Triomphe and Regent.

It was a super drive home in our trusty Moggy. A wonderful start to what promises to be much fun and with much to learn!

Where next??

Introduction....

Well having finished long distance paths - at least for the time being, we needed a new project! And having recently acquired our little red Morgan 4/4, it seemed that she should be involved too. So it was that Chris decided that Sassy - our car - would enable us to travel the countryside in search of good British red wine! We think we should be patriotic again and buy British.

With such a brilliant plan afoot - we had started to collect our list of vineyards - and there are very many - and increasing all the time it seems, a little like all the microbreweries that have been on the increase.

We had recently sampled red German wine brought to us by our friends and that is quite a fruity wine - none of the tannins we associate - and love - like the Bordeaux wines. We have been until now very francophile in our taste for wines.. And then more recently we visited the Ludlow Food Fair weekend which was fantastic. So many local producers in the same place offering everything from fruit and veg to chocolates - the cheeses were terrific, the hams and smoked sausages amazing, the peanut butter in so many flavours, the honey and jams prolific! It made us feel very proud! And determined to find what we are looking for....

There were indeed plenty of cider producers represented and indeed one of them is distilling now in Ludlow so brandy and whisky are in the making....again on the increase

There were also one of two vineyards at the Food Fair, one of which was Wroxeter Roman vineyard. Very northerly we thought to be able to produce red grapes for red wine...but not so! They even had 2 different types which we had to sample...Roman Red which Chris preferred but I found it a bit dry so we bought the Shropshire Red, very light and fruity..

So - let the little red English car visiting vineyards in search of the best British Red (a little subjective I agree...) begin!