It's been another wet start to the season, and you can almost see the vines shoots getting longer every day! We chose this year to replace some Tempranillo vines which have been missing in our vineyard for years. We'd been putting it off because hand watering 100 odd vines spread over a few rows of vineyard is a big task. Well, we definitely don't have to hand water anything this year! We're more worried about rot and mildew and getting bogged.

All this rain and humidity is creating an extremely high disease pressure year. We have been doing everything we can to mitigate this disease risk by not only spraying as necessary, but also helping to decrease the risk by aiding airflow within the vineyard by mowing and de-suckering to stop long grass and overgrown vines trapping the humidity in the vineyard. People comment on how neat and tidy our vineyard looks, and it does look good, but really it's all about growing the best grapes!

With the cool weather we are having, if we can keep the disease out it should be a ripper year for our sparkling whites in 2023. The reds will all depend on how much rain we get in February & March. If you want to hope / wish / pray for one thing for us, make it be to stop the rain!!