The Blog

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 […]

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 […]

While the virus has been raging around the world (and doesn’t look like easing up any time soon) perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that it has also been a strange year in Burge’s Field Vineyard. Harsh spring frosts in late-April and, three weeks later, in mid-May really hammered the vines, reducing our expected yield for […]

The Corona virus is bringing human life to something of a standstill around the globe but the natural world is not paying any attention and in the vineyard at Burge’s Field the vines are emerging from winter dormancy. We make sure the sheep, grass mowers for the last six weeks, are moved elsewhere before bud […]

The quote is from Woody Allen’s magnificent “Love and Death” and, while I don’t particularly share brother Ivan’s mania for them, the whole team were nevertheless pleased that our very first wine, the 2014 PINK , was awarded 91 points and a Silver Medal in the 2019  International Wine Challenge and also won Silver in the 2019 Sommelier Wine Awards. […]

We have had almost the perfect storm this year in Burge’s Field. But for the early (and late) frosts, 2018 would have been the ideal growing season. From flowering in mid June, through fruit set in early July, to veraison (when the berries take on their final colour) in September, there was barely a drop […]

The vines are fat with grapes, full and sweet and juicy and just ten days from pickable perfection. But, just as the finishing post is almost touchable, the spectre of early Autumn frosts has appeared. Our plucky Frost Warriors were out in the vineyard at 5.30 on Monday morning and again until 2 on Tuesday […]

If ever you meet an English grape grower in late April or early May, chances are they will be a little distracted. This is the time of the year when a late frost can decimate the vineyard.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the upper Itchen was at the forefront of the development of water-meadows, an agricultural innovation that made use of the fact that, year-round, the water that emerges from chalk springs is an almost constant 10° Centigrade. Using a carefully constructed series of channels, water from the main river was […]