Letters from The Wine Farm

A kick up the bum

Looking out over the vineyard this morning, just under half the nets are still in place. This means we’ve broken the back of harvest and our Pinot noir, Pinot gris, and Pétillant naturel grapes are all safely in the cellar doing their thing. But as we snip each bunch from the vine, I can’t help but fixate on what the world might look like when the bottle of wine these grapes are destined for is ultimately uncorked. Which of the restaurants that have supported us so well to date will still be there to tell our story and pour our wine for a table of friends celebrating together, sitting side by side, perhaps even sharing their glass.

Since we started our tenure on The Wine Farm five years ago the vast majority of our time and energy has gone into nurturing our family and our farm. From day one we set about farming our land organically and are now months away from being certified Biodynamic. But farming this way comes at a cost. It is physically harder and takes more of our time than farming conventionally with chemicals. This means we haven’t had much capacity to actually market the product we create.