14 SOMERVILLE MAGAZINE
Jane and Iain Awty after receiving two medals for two entries in the 2018 WineGB Awards
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A Glass Half-Full Story Jane and Iain Awty met studying Chemistry at Oxford. Tiring of London, they upped sticks in 1985 for a fresh start as wine growers in Somerset, when British wine was still struggling for recognition. Jane Awty (née Wreford, 1964, Chemistry) joins us to tell the story of following her and Iain’s dream to become an award-winning, environmentally responsible family business.
iary entry – 10th June 1986: “Iain and Mike finished the canes and rabbit nets today. The planting has taken two days short of two months, occupying every daylight moment that could be spared from children and work and with lots of help from friends. The vine shoots are 2-3 inches long yet the mayweed that sprang up from the bare earth is up to the children’s waists. We’re exhausted.” But we were done. Only nine months before, in September 1985, we had loaded the family Volvo to the gunwhales with our three small children, a collie dog, 2 cats, 2 rabbits and a tortoise, heading for the Somerset field where we’d decided to start our vineyard. At that point, most of what we knew about wine came from drinking it. But as chemists, we did at least know to get the soil analysed before planting. We also had reams of good advice from the government Vine Adviser, who confirmed that Wilhayes Field was ideal: a sloping southeast field of red sandy loam sheltered by hills and a large wood. Fast forward to 1988 and the vines we planted had matured enough to gather our first small crop. Two years later, we sent the fruits of our labour – a dry white from the same Kernling vines we use today – to the International Wine Awards, where it won a bronze medal. Since then, our wines have won 35 awards in 26 years at the International Wine Challenge Awards, and 15 awards in 9 years at the Decanter World Wine Awards. But, really, while winning things is lovely, it’s never been about the awards or getting big and making lots of money. The real pleasure of this life has been our ability to keep living it – producing wines that we love while getting to live and raise our family on this amazing piece of land. At the heart of our philosophy is the idea of balance. In the early days, that mostly meant balancing the books: we decided to keep things simple by producing
