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Gr ape Expectations Toby Bu ck lan d joined Dan Farrell-Wright to visit two Devon vineyards and learn more about the grape harvest.
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ach time I go to a vineyard, I learn something new. At Huxbear Vineyard in Devon, growing at the feet of the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir there's a small yellow daisy that owner 's Ben and Lucy have cleverly used as part of their pest management program. Known as Common Fleabane (pictured), the plants spreading roots help keep down the grass while the golden blooms draw in hoverflies - the larvae of which are voracious predators of thrips and aphids. Not only that, bees love it too, encouraging biodiversity amongst the vines.
harvest, conveying the grapes into a destemming machine, then through pipes to various shiny holding tanks and pressing, bottling, riddling, and corking machines. The thing that struck me was that at every stage the flavour of the wine can be modified (or ruined). There were dozens of barrels, each with a different age and history, offering the wine inside a different flavour. So profound is the effect of the barrels, each one has its own certificate of provenance who knew! And that's the thing...
What Ben and Lucy have created at Huxbear is extraordinary. What it is and where it is are so unexpected, but then, they are incredibly practical people that can turn their hand to anything, from construction, to fitting solar-panels. In fact, they're the people you'd want on the passenger roster of a plane that ditches onto a desert island. They'd have you living in comfort in no time and drinking such excellent wine you'd hide the keys of the plane before they fixed it. Going behind the scenes at Sandridge Barton, the new home of Sharpham Wine, was mesWe'll refund or replace if you're not 100% happy! merising. Assistant Winemaker Paddy Gaunt showed us the process of sorting through the
with so many variables, it's not just the abundance of grapes harvested from the surrounding hillsides that make Sharpham wines so good, it's the hard-won and long experience that's integral to their making. As Dan pointed out, "a good wine is like a story. A place, a harvest, and a sum mer. Each is unique." Dan explains the twists and turns of that story so well.
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