So much planning and dreaming has gone into this idea …. professional soil tests and consultations have been done …. it just needs investment …. £35K?  The hope is to plant one hectare of vines to produce approx 4 tonnes of organic grapes. These would be used, blended or single estate, (off site) to make a a few thousand (900 bottles per tonne) bottles of wine, to be enjoyed by community garden members, wider community, friends and family. We are thinking of doing it differently to most English wine growers, with planting vines as bushes rather than vines on trellis.

Why Bush Vines? Free-standing grape-growing is a traditional technique commonly seen in the warm areas of southern Europe, and now in Australia and South Africa. For a community garden or a peasant farmer it makes perfectly good sense as you don’t need to buy stakes to support the vines. Free-standing bush vines also have very good tolerance to drought and disease. The drawback is bush varieties of vines suit a warmer climate and you can’t machine-harvest. But we have a membership of 60, plus a wider community to help pick the grapes and we sense that with climate change will come longer periods of hot, dry weather which could make a bush variety like a grenache viable In England. More research to be done before we take the plunge.