Winemaker is Steve Brooksbank, with a small scale but professional purpose-build winery at Bagborough, near Shepton Mallet, Somerset (pictured above with Iain and our son Ned). Steve has been making our wines for close on 20 years. We take our hand-harvested grapes to him after harvest for de-stemming, crushing and pressing, decide jointly on the winemaking.
We aim for as little intervention as possible, allowing the wines to express the vintage, the variety and the terroir. Fermentation is in stainless steel tanks. From 2010 we have matured 225 litres of one of the wines in our French oak barrique. Since 2016 this has been a "Fraicheur" barrique from Seguin Moreau of Cognac, a barrel specifically engineered for light, white varietals with fine-grained oak staves, a very light toast and acacia wood barrel heads. In both 2019 and 2020 we imported another "Fraîcheur barrel, retiring the original in 2020, so we now have 2 of these barrels.
We transport our wines back to Oatley the following spring in plain, lighter-weight bottles that we capsule and label by hand. Our wines are stored in a converted 17C stone-built stable, with foot-thick walls, an insulated roof, a cobble-and-earth floor and no electricity, which some people believe helpful for maturing wine.
Our labels are FSC certified “Tintoretto” paper. We use lighter weight, (400g) bottles to keep our wines’ carbon footprint down, and have then sealed with top-quality traditional corks, because we’re romantic and like the traditional pop, and because their production supports valuable cork oak habitat in Portugal.
Quality Status
Our wines have all been submitted for and passed the official UK wine quality scheme, which involves independent analysis and professional tasting. They are all English Wine PDO (PDO - Protected Designation of Origin).
English Wine PDO is the highest quality standard for English wines. English Regional Wine PGI is of similar technical standard but can include wine from hybrid vines and wines with no, or little, added sulphites. An official list of English PDO and PGI wines is on the UK Vineyards Association website here>>
Information Sheets for Oatley wines - including full analysis and vintage notes
Click on the wine name to go to its information sheet
Jane's 2019
Jane's 2018
Leonora's 2018
Jane's 2017
Leonora's 2017
Fraîcheur Barrel Matured 2017
Leonora's 2016
Fraîcheur Barrel Matured 2016
Elizabeth's 2015
Oatley Barrel Matured 2015
Leonora's 2014