Early years
The early days
Inspiration for the vineyard came from our children digging in the small quarry by the house and stumbling across fossils, which they were keen to show their dad. Already having an interest in viticulture it didn't take him long to join up the dots and realise Southwood rise was very old limestone and capable to growing vines. Early test sites proved particularly productive and what started as a few hundred bottles of garage wines at home has grown to produce over 5000 bottles per year for commercial sale.
Pig News!
Each year we offer a limited availability of either half or whole pigs, for collection requiring being butchered or butchered to order. We typically grow local middle white's from weaners to porkers and slaughter them humanely on the farm in January. The pigs arrive in August and are fed on locally sourced apples, pumpkins and acorns in the fields around the vineyard. For butchered pigs, each half pig typically comes with 4 joints, chops, belly pork, trotters and 6 pounds of traditional pork sausages. This year we are also teaming up with Reynolds Farm in Abberley to help spread the Pig News brand, with a focus on locally sourced, high-welfare and sustainable livestock farming.
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2023 Harvest
After a frosty, snowy Spring there was good bud set and no late frosts thereafter, combined with exceptional weather around the Summer solstice for flowering resulted in a bumper first year commercial crop. Despite some wet weather in August we were able to late harvest grapes perfect for sparkling wine! Our classic cuvee (40% pinot noir, 40% pinot meunier, 20% chardonnay) will be ready this Christmas, and a Grande cuvee (60% pinot noir, 40% chardonnay) will be ready later next year after 18 months in the bottle.
