Vineyard
All the grapes for these wines come from a vineyard in Leicestershire which is farmed by Matt Gregory. It is a 3 hectare (7.5 acre) vineyard, South facing and 100metres above sea level: one of the highest points on the Leicestershire Wolds. Comprising of 200 million year old Jurassic fine grained limestone mud made up of carbonates of coral and shell, overlain with 2-million-year-old glacial deposits featuring limestone, flint, ironstone and quartz.
Planted in 2009/2010 with 6,000 vines of Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Bacchus and with a mixed 2,500 vines of Solaris, Seyval Blanc, Regent and Madeleine
Angevine.Set in the middle of a 500 acre conventional arable farm, the aim is to farm the vineyard organically, but certification will not be sought due to its location.
Winemaking
Matt is in the classical grower/producer mould in that he makes wine from grapes he grows.
The winemaking is done a very hands off sort of way with the emphasis on careful grape handling, bearing in mind it takes 10 months to grow them. The wines made are always dictated by the grapes and there are few hard and fast rules in winery apart from:
The ferments will always be spontaneous by wild indigenous yeasts (no packet yeast ever). The wines will not be fined or filtered, so nothing taken away. Sulphur is used very judiciously in low quantities only when deemed necessary, this will usually be in the form of a 10 to 20ppm addition at bottling if used.
The clear intention is for the wines to be expressive of the time and place they were made, to not just be English wines but to be somehow Leicestershire wines.