This is another tale of 2020 misery, but with a very very happy ending! Well…what a year it was. Late frosts in November flattened the vineyard, with almost 100% loss of primary growth., but we pushed on. These dry grown and resilient vines dug deep and grew again yielding a tiny volume of wonderfully bright, fragrant secondary fruit packed with wild levels of natural acid. A pick that took most the day yielding just over 1 tonne of fruit when we’d usually pick closer to 6! Ahh well… this is farming…..when life gives you high acid, turbo flavoured grapes you make very delicious pet nat. And this wine is just that!

Farmed regeneratively since 2018, the vineyard is heaving with biodiversity and whilst the yields were awful this year i don’t think I’ve ever been as excited with the quality of fruit! In the cellar, the fruit was direct pressed as whole bunches to a small tank, chilled and left to ferment with available native yeasts. Fermentation continued in stainless steel over 16 days till the desired density was achieved, with the wine bottled under crown seal and the last moments of primary ferment to finish in glass. Towards the end of June, the bottles were placed onto riddling racks and prepared for disgorgement over the coming weeks. We rustically disgorged in early August on a cold day at 5am. Nothing added, nothing taken away….aside from some lees/tartrates/sanity.

This is easily the most labour intensive wine I’ve released and offered up the most learning of any wine i’ve made. So much mowing undervine, the worst frost to date, complicated shoot thinning of secondary growth, a pick that took way too long and bugger all grapes at the end.

….BUT, this wine is pure electricity!! Some really ripe fruit flavour here, the colour gives that away….poached rhubarb and quince. The acid though is truly amazing, given the level of flavour it comes with. Perhaps this is the one bit of good news to come out of a frost year if you persist….an otherworldly fruit/acid balance? – Minim Wine