Grape variety: Kernling (100%)
Quality status: English Wine - Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) (Ref: STPDO 20352)
Bottled: 28 Mar 2018 in lighter weight (410g) “autumn leaf” 400g 75cl Burgundy bottles sealed with high quality traditional cork. 1470 bottles made. Labelled with FSC certified Tintoretto paper.
Release Date: 1 August 2019
Awards/mentions:
Featured by Susy Atkins in her Top 20 English wines, Sunday Telegraph June 2020: "Well-priced, food-friendly white made with Kernling grapes and offering plenty of peach and light pineapple with a hint of smoke at the end. Perfect picnic wine with ham, chicken and salads".
Bronze Decanter World Wine Awards 2019. Citation: "Attractive nose of white peach, blossom and pear. Fresh and lively palate with crunchy orchard fruit and refreshing lemon..”
Bronze medal Wine-GB West Awards 2019. Citation, "Pale lemon-green colour; light, delicate nose with hints of grapefruit and lemon; lively, pretty palate, English flower garden notes, fair length. Nice wine"
Grape source: Oatley Vineyard, Cannington, Somerset. Kernling upper block, vines planted 1986, cane-pruned on 90cm-high wires, vertical-shoot-positioned. and Kernling lower block, also planted 1986, cane-pruned on 150 cm wires, hanging canes.
Viticulture
Grown on sustainable principles, no herbicides or insecticides, only our own farmyard manure or hay mulch fertiliser, highly biodiverse environment, hand tended and picked, with minimal soil compaction, minimum intervention winemaking.
Growing Season:
2017 was our earliest vintage ever (until 2018) thanks to a very early spring. We were lucky to avoid the damaging spring frost that afflicted many vineyards.
Despite an unremarkable summer and autumn, average temperatures for the growing season remained high, giving a harvest for our early grape, Madeleine Angevine a week earlier than usual on September 17th. We hung on for the late-ripening Kernling until 22 October, for maximum ripeness. In the last week, with the grapes ripe and soft, there were two big storms, Ophelia and Brian. The grapes started to look fragile. Had we waited too long? But actually the chilly breezy showers and sunny spells blew away the botrytis starting down in the bottom block. And the grapes were fine. Very handsome, in fact. Sugars still rising over that last week.
Harvest:
Picture above left. 22nd October, a day of sunny spells, blustery showers and a stiff NW wind. 12C. The grapes were clean and well-ripened.
Vinifcation:
Winemaker: Steve Brooksbank, near Shepton Mallet, Som BA4 6SX.
Crushing/pressing 23rd Oct 2017. Free-run juice: sugar 83 Oechsle, acid 12 g/l. Vinified to full dryness in stainless steel tanks. The must was de-acidified before fermentation but no enrichment or sweetening.
Not fined. Filtered with mineral filter at bottling.
