The Blog
General interest and news, of course, interspersed with the Wine Widow’s perspective on the goings on at The Grange and at home…
The Wine Widow on tech
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 Wine Widow in Japan
A friend sends me a WhatsApp that says “Good Luck for tomorrow” which is when we leave for Japan to attend an international trade fair. The Widow has been promoted to Assistant for the next week. “It feels like the opposite of Christmas Eve” I message back. That evening we go to the launch of […]
The Wine Widow and the corking machine
Not being one of the world’s natural travellers, I am eyeing up the impending trip to Japan with a mixture of feelings. Zam is joining a number of English vineyards, invited by the Department for International Trade, to promote English sparking wine at a trade fair in Tokyo. He gets to take an assistant. I […]
The Wine Widow on photography
Gratifyingly, the panorama I have managed to film on my camera draws an awestruck reaction on the family whatsapp group. JEEEESUS being the general tone. I am quite proud of this little film, especially as I find the phone button counter-intuitive and tend to find I have filmed the ground. Actually the ground is, in […]
The Wine Widow and the landrover
Not everybody loves the newly pimped landrover that our old neighbour Robert has transformed from a beaten up lightweight, short-wheelbase, Series III into an idiosyncratic mobile bar. But Zam does. When his sister Rose asked to borrow it, freshly painted and ready to go he was delighted to share the joy. She rang 20 minutes […]
The Wine Widow does marketing
Zam tries to round up people to take part in two photo shoots… he wants young people but not too young and older people who are not too old. I am too old but he’s desperate. The photographer, Tom, has been photographing the vineyard since this adventure began ten years ago and is now so […]
The Wine Widow and the summer
I am sitting under a grey sky outside a bookshop talking to a friend. “And it’s June,” I say morosely, waving in disgust at the opposite of a late Spring sky. “Is it?” There is a note of panic in her voice, a flash in her eyes I wasn’t expecting, “Well no, not quite… but […]
Coming soon to a vineyard near Itchen Stoke!
Some January cheer…
We are very happy to announce the arrival of Harry Pickering as our first in-house Winemaker. Harry’s appointment follows a six-month global search with over a hundred applicants from eleven countries – but he’s joining us from Gusbourne, just up the road in East Sussex. There he has worked with Charlie Holland since 2015, helping […]
The Vineyard year is over now…
With the grapes through the presses and the juices fermenting, the days are shortening and the damp and the chill starting to dominate, so it is something of a relief to be able to spend less time in the vineyard and put one’s feet up and look back on this bizarre year – there has […]