Our field blend is the first still wine we have made from our own Turnastone Vineyard in beautiful Herefordshire. Featuring Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Cortis and a little dash of Solaris.
So, to start with, what is a field blend?? Well, a field blend is created when the grapes of different varieties are picked and fermented together to try and make a harmonious wine.It offers a really good expression of the vineyard site and the growing season that has just been experienced.
Sounds simple right?? In some ways yes, it means that your committing to a blend early and you are able to process (Crushed, pressed, fermented and aged) several different varieties as one, which has advantages in the cellar.
The key to a good field blend (the tricky bit!) is having grapes that will ripen together and an understanding of which varieties will work well together. I love working like this and have often paired certain varieties together. Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier are an obvious one, we also like Solaris and Siegerrebe.
That brings us to 2022. It was a beautiful growing season for us, a cool start to the year but we managed to avoid the dreaded spring frost. As the summer warmed up, flowering was a success and things looked promising! A beautiful July and a memorable August (we were able to swim in the sea in Wales!) meant we were able to grow some lovely clean grapes and pick at the start of October.
The grapes had lovely flavours, good acidity (high enough to allow the wine to age gracefully) and zero disease! The sugar level allowed us to produce a wine that would naturally be around 9.5 - 10%.
We handpicked all the grapes, they were then crushed and left to macerate on the skins for five days. The aim was to produce a light, elegant chillable red with gentle tannin and secondary characteristics from a long ageing period. After this period pressing then racking straight into barrel to finish natural fermentation.
The wine remained in barrel for a further 2 and a half years. This gave it the time to complete malolatic fermentation (where the acids soften) and take on some secondary characteristics (dried fruit and spice) and pick up a little more structure from the barrels. The final part of the journey was racking out of barrel in spring 2025 and bottling by gravity under natural cork.
The phrase Zero/Zero is sometimes used at the moment to describe some wines. It simply means the grapes are organically grown and no addtions are used in the winemaking process. A very pure and truely natural wine. That sums this wine up well! After 6 months plus in bottle it's really shining and we're super happy!
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