OATLEY VINEBLOG
An occasional diary of the vineyard year at Oatley
Jane has been blogging about life at our small, west country vineyard since 2006 when she designed our first website on what now looks a very clunky laptop.
Older blogposts here>>
JEWEL-LIKE
Kernling safely in! Our largest Kernling harvest EVER! Beautiful rosy-red clean jewel-like grapes.
But, oh alas, it rained on harvest day....
THE IN-BETWEEN TIME
A fave time of year, especially in this unusually golden autumn. The Madeleine is safely in and we can focus on the pretty pink Kernling. It feels like...
MADELEINE HARVEST IN AND IT'S A CRACKER OF A VINTAGE
Well what an amazing Madeleine harvest we had on 16th September!
There’d been record warm and sunny weather from May to September, with the...
HAPPY VINES, DOG DAYS
Sorry about the gap. All go here!
Sun today, after rain, a relief after the long heatwave turned everything but the vines and trees brown....
ALL KICKING OFF
What a rollercoaster of a spring! Soggy, muddy, cold winter to blazing blossomy summer in one easy week. After a start that was late by recent standards...
HOORAY! EASTER MEDALS
It was the Independent English Wine Awards (IEWA) second ever competition this year and we put a couple of wines into it for the first time. Wanted to...
IT'S ALL ABOUT THE WINES: TASTING THE 2017s
A big milestone in the vineyard year, on Tuesday we packed the dogs in the truck (vineyard dogs have to share the big moments) and drove the hour up...
CAME IN LIKE A LION!
You’ll be sorry to hear we passed up the chance to snowboard down the vineyard on nearly a foot of snow, video-ing as we went. Well, actually we don’t...
DARLING BUDS OF .... FEBRUARY?
The snowdrops are well up and the daffs hard on their heels; hazel catkins are shaking their tails, the vine buds are showing white silky points. That’s...
DARK JANUARY! TIME TO LOOK BOTH WAYS
The low sun is rising on 2018 and as we start with the major winter task of pruning the vines it’s time to reflect on Vintage 2017.
It was...