Vineyards

The exciting advent of vineyards on the White Heron Estate has been enabled by the slightly warming climate.  Although we don’t live on a chalk seam, our terroir is good for vines and we have now planted around 30 acres.  Following extensive land and soil surveys we were excited to discover that our elevation and our soils are perfect. The south/south east facing slopes maximise the light and drainage; and with the panoramic views from the Clee Hills to the Black Mountains this is the perfect setting for our vineyard table.  For other parts of the farm go to whole farm, environment, blackcurrants, apples, vineyards, other enterprises and White Heron Drinks.

Planting

We have three grape varieties here which are planted for their suitability to colder climes. Seyval Blanc, Madeline Angevine and Reichensteiner are habituated to the cooler and more upland climates of northern Europe and don’t require the heat and sunshine more prevalent in the mediterranean. They are naturally sweeter and yield well with the Madeline Angevine also being a table variety. We have planted these varieties under contract to Fitz wine – so their wine is made from our grapes and we can also label our own sparkling wine with our own label (hence White Heron Estate Sparkling Wine). If you look carefully you will see that every vine and every metal stake is planted accurately to the nth degree so whichever direction you look the lines are completely straight and symmetrical – the joys of GPS automatic planting. We have around 1155 plants per acre and the establishment cost of a vineyard is very high compared to any other fruit. As you will see here, the vine planting machine is similar to the blackcurrant one and these guys can plant up to 10 acres per day.

Growing

Our vines were planted in 2021 and 2022 and we had our first harvest in 2023. Vines are extremely labour intensive and whilst we have automated every task that we can there are still winter pruning jobs and bud rubbing in the spring that require teams of people to go through 35000 plants. We spray them according to need and mow all the inter-rows on a regular basis. The equipment needed is technical but because of the huge amount of acreage across Europe it is relatively well developed and we are purchasing as we can afford. It’s all about the canopy management to promote good airflow to reduce mildew pressure and allow the light to get to the bunches which maximises the sugar.

Flowering

These grapes are just post flower and early growth. Important that the flowers come out in full - they can suffer from sticky bud when the weather is too wet and the flowers don’t open and then they don’t fruit!

Harvesting

The Madeline Angevine and the Reichensteiner are harvested late September and the Seyval Blanc into October. It’s a tricky job ensuring that the sugar in the grapes is high enough to make good wine. Usually just a case of hoping for sunshine (not always reliable in Herefordshire) as the crop can go downhill very quickly under gloomy skies and rain. All our grapes are picked by machine and sent straight to Ledbury where they are juiced and from there down to Fitz, our winemaker, Sussex. Much like the blackcurrants and apples the fruit is shaken from the plant and goes over a riddle to get rid of extraneous material, before being dropped into large vats on each side of the harvester. At the end of the rows when fill the grapes are tipped into bins and transported away. The yield can be unpredictable and variable – if we don’t make a certain sugar level it can’t be processed.