With the grapes safely gathered, the juices safely tanked, he has also hung up his barbecuing tools.  There is palpable relief from the team at a respite from venison burgers and pigeon breasts.  Perhaps the meat feasts even got to him because he spent last weekend making soup from a pumpkin the size and shape of a canoe.   “What are the chewy bits?” I ask nervously (he never cooks anything normal and we all remember the pork and marshmallow with sauerkraut that appeared during lockdown).  “The Parmesan rind I found at the back of the fridge” he announced happily.  This would be the Parmesan I bought on impulse at Costco a couple of years ago, also the size of a canoe.  I remember telling him that Nigella (I think) puts dried out Parmesan lumps in soup to add umami.  I thought I told him she then removes it.

There is no doubt that every hour of sunshine is ever more gratefully received as the tanks and presses are washed and polished in preparation for harvest. Everything gleams, excitement is building, the atmosphere is fantastic. From time to time some idiot repeats a weather rumour: “apparently there might be a frost on Thursday” or similar which makes Zam stare at me in disbelief because a) I have no idea where I heard this and b) it is beyond the realms of consideration given everything else that needs to be considered right now.

“I just don’t understand” I begin “how I’ve put our home postcode on these.” I trail off. “You must email the customers and explain that you’ve taken on someone with limited experience…” Zam doesn’t look up from his computer but says in a low voice “Don’t worry. I already have.” I suspect he worded it more succinctly.

Then he says he is going to task three friends to carry magnums to a 60th birthday party in Seville the following weekend. That will never work I tell him. The bottles will explode. Nobody will want to take them. It’s a ludicrous idea.

But they do arrive. They are much enjoyed. No problemo. Which for some reason, I find rather annoying.

Join us at the Winery on 30th November from 9am – 3pm for A Makers’ Sale of Work.

There will be cushions, cards, blankets, baskets, rings, books, waistcoats, wrapping paper, flowers, chocolates, decorations, mugs, magnums and more...

With food by Becka Cooper

Entry is free, with donations on the door for Allegra's Ambition

I am anxious about the sweet peas (about to hit full throttle) and Zam is anxious about the vines (heatwave followed by rain = potential trouble) but we are committed to a holiday in Spain. The day before we go I wake up deaf in one ear.  This is not unusual.  I ring the ear clinic who tell me the audiologist is also going on holiday tomorrow and there are no appointments.  A text pings in from our daughter: Can you talk?  As she has just arrived in Greece this cannot be good news. In fact I know, as soon as I read it, that she has lost her passport.

The sun is shining – it’s time to take a trip to wine country, England-style.

Karen Krizanovich came to visit us and wrote about it for Civilian

One of my favourite vineyards is The Grange. (Gusbourne and The Grange are not unknown to each other – and yes, Gusbourne has purchased vineyard acreage in West Sussex too, yes I know.) You can accuse me of being obsessed. I accuse me of being obsessed, but this vineyard sings to me in ways I can’t quite grasp. It’s not just the enthusiasm, professionalism, sleek functionality and a wine vehicle that is a beautiful Series One Defender. I love the smell of the place, the look of it, the countryside stretching without interruption, the trees and the rolling hills. It’s a place of serenity, for me as a visitor at least.

I swear opening a bottle of The Grange brings the windswept sweetness of the Hampshire breeze smack into the bottle itself. My favourite – the favourite of many – is the rare vintage White From Black 2018, a Meunier-only white sparkler from that year’s extraordinary crop. This tastes of white stone and orchard fruit, condensed but fresh. Made from four different Meunier cuvées, with just a touch of oak, this is an exceptional bottle. And if you drive out to the vineyard, you may still be able to get one of their still rosés, available solely on site. While I prefer sparkling – as PeeWee Herman once said, “All my friends have big buts” – The Grange’s Still Pink 2022 is my big but. But it’s a still I like – and it is just like that south of France rosé that tells your mouth you’re on holiday. This one is English, just as summery and uplifting and you’ll drink it all at once. Both of these wines have won Silver medals at 2023’s WINEGB Awards, just two more in bulging trophy case at The Grange.

Simon Mason, Head of Wine Sustainability at The Wine Society, wrote the following on regenerative viticulture at The Grange

Change can be slow in the world of wine, with tradition a major selling point for many. The annual cycle around the one precious crop of grapes understandably means a reluctance to throw caution to the wind with dramatic experiments.

For all that, new ideas do come around, and last year I wrote about the beginnings of a new movement focusing on regenerative viticulture – improving soil health and biodiversity to produce healthy, more disease-resistant grapes – and potentially, better wine.

Zam Baring, managing partner of The Grange and its vineyard Burges Field, and vineyard manager Samuel Philippot were at several of the same conferences I attended on this subject, and I was delighted to visit them to see their work for myself.

The Grange is situated on a chalky slope above the River Itchen in Hampshire, planted in 2011 to classic sparkling-wine grapes – chardonnay and pinots noir and meunier. The gravelly clay soil is incredibly shallow and the vine roots dig down deep into a thick layer of pure white chalk.

When I visited in April, on a cold, blustery day, it was hard to believe that Samuel was expecting budburst to begin the following week. That said, the bougies (candles) already laid out as a precaution against damaging frost were a reminder of the still marginal nature of winemaking in many areas of the UK.

Originating in Montpellier in the south of France and arriving at The Grange five years ago after managing a Bordeaux domaine, Samuel gamely says he greatly enjoys the English way of life. Starting in 2014, Zam and the rest of the small team trialled several different cover crops throughout the vineyard. A cornerstone of regenerative agriculture, cover crops can be used to improve soil texture and water retention through breaking up compaction, improving nitrogen content in the soil without adding fertilisers and potentially, by helping the soil store carbon.

A question of trial and error

As those in regenerative agriculture are at pains to point out, there is no recipe book for success in taking this approach – lots of trial and error will be necessary. Over the years, the team at The Grange have experimented with clover, various species of grass, phacelia, buckwheat and oxeye daisy – one of the ongoing issues being that as you mow so the wildflowers die down and the perennial grasses assert their dominance. As they themselves admit, there was a great deal of experimentation with this and, so far, they have yet to find the perfect mix.

Another principle of regenerative agriculture is to minimise the disturbance of the soil and thereby the communities of bugs, fungi and microbes that make it all work. The Grange’s next trial was to stop any cultivation underneath 20 rows of pinot noir down the centre of the vineyard. After four years the yields from the trial plot had dropped significantly with current vines only able to produce one cane from which new grapes can grow – as opposed to the two canes in the rest of the vineyard. While some drop in yield would have been acceptable to the team, in exchange for healthier vines and more consistent volumes, this was too much and so the trial plot has been reduced in size and the rest of the vines are being cultivated back to health.

Zam and Samuel believe the thin chalk soils are going to need a lot more activation before zero-disturbance will work here. That said, Zam was quite happy with some aspects of the trial plot. In the very difficult, wet 2021 vintage, the reduced vigour of the canopy leaves meant that there was more airflow through the vines and therefore no mildew, which was a big problem on the conventionally farmed plots. The quality of fruit was also excellent.

To build on the work so far, Zam and Samuel are putting together a more structured programme both in the trial plot and across the vineyard. From this year, a cover crop mix of vetches, oats, radish, buckwheat, clover, sunflower, linseed and native wild flowers will be applied. Intended to be self-seeding, this should only need resowing every three or four years, with the cover crop mown or crimped to help return the nutrients to the soil. With plants of differing heights growing at different rates, there is definitely a concern about airflow reduction.

Fauna and flora

Alongside cover crops, the team hopes to make more use of sheep in the vineyard. Winter grazing adds valuable nutrients back to the soil via manure and they can also help with ‘bud rubbing’ – the removal of unwanted buds on the lower parts of vines, sending all the energy into the shoots. This is already practised in other English vineyards, but the low height of The Grange’s vines means that the Ouessant sheep used elsewhere might do more harm than good. Samuel also plans to use fleeces on the ground to help with weed prevention.

Around the back of their brand-new winery, Samuel is developing another vital but less glamorous piece of the regenerative jigsaw – the compost heap. Horse manure and marc, the grape skins leftover after pressing, will be supplemented with mulched cuttings. The aim is to create a high-potency super compost that can be applied more thinly, resulting in fewer tractor passes through the vineyard and helping reduce both carbon emissions and soil compaction.

Does it work?

We try to warn overnight guests about the crows but the invariable opener at breakfast is “Oh my god, the CROWS” as though the guests didn’t hear/believe us. They’ve been woken by a pair of birds who attack a particular set of windows, pecking at the glass with such ferocity it sounds exactly like someone knocking loudly at the door.  It’s impossible to sleep through and usually begins around dawn.   

Many studies have been made of corvids and their intelligence:  In one, seven birds were captured and then released by researchers. The following year the same birds “scolded and harassed” the researchers – picking them out in a crowd. The study is in its 14th year and the birds still spot the original team, with 30 birds now joining in.  Corvids, in other words,  have long memories, hold a grudge and spread the word. 

This, I think, affects my options.

Turns out he was recording birdsong on his favourite app and I have disturbed it before it could add Eurasian Treecreeper (recorded later) to the impressively long list.  A couple of days later I find myself home alone listening to birdsong and the next thing I know I’m downloading the same app and transfixed by the sounds around me.

We are woken by the crows again and I can’t help wondering if they’re all THAT intelligent given that they seem to be either attacking or trying to mate with their own reflections.  But what do I know.  I sit on a bench watching the app tell me what is singing around me.    Minutes later I can’t tell a blackbird from a wren, having a much shorter memory than a Corvid.

Birds recorded at the winery on 13th June: Linnet, yellowhammer, goldfinch, swallow, blackcap, dunnock, great tit, robin, greenfinch, chaffinch, bullfinch, magpie, white throat, wren, blackbird, song thrush, collared dove, wood pigeon and garden warbler.

Paul Richardson’s book Hidden Valley is an account of his last decade spent cultivating a small plot in Spain, trying to be self-sufficient and working out what makes a life. He was given two rules by neighbours when he attempted to make wine: the stronger the better and always harvest in the third week in September.  Oh for such certainties.  Here, potential mildew has ousted potential late frosts into the top spot of vineyard worries.  For now.   

The winery team are busy bottling last year’s harvest - 16,000 bottles today despite a temporary breakdown of the machine.  And 20,000 tomorrow. 

I get home to an email from Paul in Spain. Not a drop of rain this year.  He ends it with:

“nunca llueve a gusto de todos”   (It never rains to everyone’s taste.)

Now that’s someone who’s learnt to roll with the punches.

There is a pool of water in the footwell of the passenger seat and another in the footwell behind that.   They have been there for so long that mould is growing up the back of the seat and when driving it, one has a sense an unhealthy level of spores invading the respiratory system.  The garage diagnosed a leaking windscreen, which is in fact a newish windscreen. I have received this information and done precisely nothing with it although when the sun came out last week I opened the car doors in a vague attempt to dry it out.  I am not, as is often pointed out, a practical person.

Who got what is still a mystery and the last time I said “But I still don’t understand why you sent….” He looked up and said “Please go away.”  I think it’s to do with two-finger scrolling but then I’m not a practical person.

A few days later he gave a talk in our local pub.  Historically, Zam loathes public speaking, partly because of anxiety and partly because he always cries.  His anxiety stems from a traumatic schoolboy event when he had to recite a poem to his peers which he hadn’t learnt.  On drying up somewhere in the second verse of The Wild Swans at Coole, he was hauled off stage and still shudders at the memory.  The crying… well things just set him off.  He can’t watch an ice skater performing a triple axel or The Repair Shop without tears rolling down his cheeks.

But he returned from the pub very buoyed up and jubilant.  “It’s the oddest thing” he said, “but ever since I’ve been talking about the vineyard in public I find I can do it quite easily, without notes or fear… in fact I love it.  I can do it for hours.”

And on this, I can truly say,  we have no disagreement whatsoever.