England Winery

Today we went to Three Choirs Winery in Newent, Gloucestershire England. It is the second largest winery in Britain, and as you can see from this photo, it is in a truly beautiful spot.

They grown primarily German grapes because, so they claim, Germany has a similar climate to England (though I would imagine Germany must get more sun and less rain than England does, though I could be wrong).

I admit that I had never heard of any of the varietals: Bacchus; Siegerrebe; Phoenix; Reichensteiner; Madeleine Angevine; Huxelrebe. Bless you.

I cannot emphasize enough what a monumental task it is for them to grow grapes in such a wet and cool climate. From 75 acres under vine, in 2006 (their best year) they harvested 400 tons of grapes. In 2007, a wet year, they were only able to harvest 70 tons. In 2008, another wet year, 80 tons.

They were unable to even offer us a tasting of a red wine, because they just couldn’t harvest enough of those grapes to make one.

They make a nice non-vintage sparkling wine which my friends served at their wedding and it was perfect for a warm summer day; bright and crisp and apple-citrusy.

I was so impressed by the vineyards and the overall production of the place that I was really rooting for the wines before I tasted them. But here is the problem: the wines had almost no nose and almost no taste.

They tasted a bit like white wine which had been watered down. A hint of herbal grassiness and lychee on the nose, but not much else. And I realized that what we were tasting was what this climate is able to produce: waterlogged fruit that has not been able to ripen enough to really produce any real depth or complexity.

It could be that the particular varietals they have chosen produce very light-tasting wines, I don’t know. It will be interesting to get to Germany and try those same varietals and compare.

On the tour she also mentioned that when the vines reach 30 years of age, they get rid of them and re-plant with baby vines. The tour guide stated that the vines when they hit 30 years produce incredible fruit, but that the yields go way down.

In my opinion, herein may lie another of their problems: they are worrying too much about yield and less about quality. Right now, they make one sparkling wine, nine whites, one rose and two reds.

Maybe that's just too many. It seems like if they focused on fewer varietals and kept more of the older vines which are producing superior fruit and then made just one or two whites and reds and really got the best fruit they could, they would be able to make much better wines.

I don’t know anything about winemaking so I might be talking completely out of my ass.

Thoughts????