Raise a glass to our wonderful English Wine

June is one of our favourite months in the vineyard. The weather is normally good and the vineyard is full of life. It is also a bumper month for celebrations, with the biggest for us being English Wine Week.

This year, it runs from June 15^th to 23^rd and we would love you to come along to the Cellar Door to celebrate English wine with us. We are running four Tours and Tastings during English Wine Week, on the 15^th, 18^th, 20^th and 22^nd of June.

During the tour you get a rare opportunity to not only taste our unique wines and spirits, but also to enjoy the countryside they were grown in. We take you through our history and the growing of grapes before you head to our Cellar Door for a guided tasting of a selection of our wines. You will also learn about our medal-winning spirits. The tasting will include one sparkling wine and three still wines.

Our Summer Tours and Tastings officially start on June 1^st and they are held two or three-times a week throughout June, July, August and the start of September. Some of the early tours have already sold out but we have some availability on most other dates.

Shortly after the end of English Wine Week, we are yet again raising a glass to the vineyard as June 25^th is National Wine Day. Although there are no official tours on that day, why not pop up to see us at the Cellar Door for a chat and to enjoy a glass of wine? We sell wine by the glass and have seating inside and outside the Cellar Door so you can enjoy the vineyard’s ambience whatever the weather is like

Our Cellar Door is open Tuesday to Friday from 9am to 4pm, and Saturday from 11am to 3pm. For dates and times, or to book a tour, go to https://www.poultonhillestate.co.uk/events/ or call us on 01285 850257 or drop us an email at info@poultonhillestate.co.uk

 

Add some sparkle to National Bubbly Day 

June really is quite the month for celebrating wine and it starts on June 1^st with National Bubbly Day. We will certainly be enjoying a glass of Bulari 2019 sparkling wine and toasting our British bubbly.

Poulton Hill Estate’s Bulari is beautiful pale gold in appearance and has a vibrant nose of freshly cut green apple and pear with citrusy notes of orange peel, lemon and hints of lime zest. The palate is filled with mouth-watering fruits of juicy apple at the forefront, hints of grapefruit and lemon (sherbet) together with a fine mousse. It has a wonderfully well-rounded mouthfeel and a crisp, clean finish. It is made from a blend of Seyval Blanc and Pinot Noir grapes.

 

Don’t forget to thank your Father

Finally, let’s raise a glass to all the dads out there on Father’s Day on June 16^th. We have plenty of gift ideas for you, with our range of wines and spirits, tickets to a Tour and Tasting or even gift vouchers so he can choose which wine he would like himself. We also have a range of gift boxes and wine accessories at the Cellar Door, so come to see us and make your gift extra special. All wines and spirits bought at the Cellar Door are sold at special Cellar Door prices.

If you want to take Father out for a nice lunch, a number of local eateries stock Poulton Hill Estate wines and spirits. If you visit our website, our Cellar Door page also lists all our stockists. https://www.poultonhillestate.co.uk/the-cellar-door/.

Climate change could lead to a Mayday on May Day

After what seems like an endless wet winter the vineyard is green again! The growth of our Regent and Rondo vines (pictured) are still ahead of where they were in 2023, due to the milder weather this year.

Other varieties, such as our Pinot Noir vines, are also growing well and we will have to start bud rubbing soon. This is meticulous but very important work and is all done by hand. Any growth that is hand-space down from the crown of each vine (the bulbous area at the top) needs to be rubbed off. We have 91 rows of vines in the vineyard, with approximately 10,000 vines, and bud rubbing is all done by hand. As you can imagine, this is not a quick and easy task.

The warmer climate also has other less-welcome impacts on the vineyard. In May, we start to see our vines’ flowers unfurl ready to be pollinated by bees and other insect pollinators. However, numbers of not-so-friendly insects are increasing due to warmer temperatures as a result of climate change. Parts of southern England have seen Grape berry moths and Grapevine moths, which are significant pests for vineyards in the warmer regions of Europe. Cooler UK temperatures meant they were not previously a risk to English vineyards, but increasingly mild weather means their numbers could soon be on the rise. Their caterpillars feed on flower buds and unripe grapes, and the damage they cause can also allow diseases into the vines. We keep a very close eye on our vines, at all stages of the lifecycle, to ensure that we protect them from any potential harm.

Mixed case special offers

There is not one but two bank holidays in May and we have our fingers crossed for some dry weather so everyone can enjoy time outdoors. If you are planning a barbecue or bank holiday get-together, we have two very special case offers for you this month.

Our May Mixed Six offer contains:

• Two bottles of Poulton Hill’s Arlington White 2022
• Two bottles of Poulton Hill’s Phoenix 2022
• Two bottles of Poulton Hill’s Rosé 2022

The recommended retail price for this case is £109.98, but it will cost just £99.00 if you pick it up from the Cellar Door in Poulton.

Or you can double up with our May Mixed Dozen offer.
This contains:

• Four bottles of Poulton Hill’s Arlington White 2022
• Four bottles of Poulton Hill’s Phoenix 2022
• Four bottles of Poulton Hill’s Rosé 2022

The recommended retail price for this case is £219.96, but it will cost just £190.00 if you pick it up from the Cellar Door in Poulton. You can also buy both cases online and get free delivery for the Mixed Dozen case.

Early wake-up call for our slumbering vines

Our Regent and Rondo vines are bursting into life again. These vines are ahead of the other varieties in the vineyard because of their location within the estate. They have greater protection from the elements, such as wind, rain and even hail over the last few weeks. Different grape varieties will also mature at different rates.

The Regent and Rondo vines are coming to life several weeks earlier than they did in 2023, when the first buds were logged on April 19th. Budburst is affected by the warmth of the soil around the vines’ roots.

Some vineyards on the continent use the date of budburst to help estimate, very roughly, when harvest will take place, as each variety needs a certain number of days at average temperatures over 10 degrees. However, with our unpredictable weather and temperatures in the UK year on year, this is not always possible.

It has been a mild start to the year, although very damp. Our agronomist says that the longest dry spell since October was only for about three days. This has impacted the vineyard in other ways, as our soil is more waterlogged than normal. This has meant that some of our winter vineyard jobs, such as replacement of some end posts and struts, have been put on hold as heavy machinery will churn up the ground and damage the soil structure.

Goodbye and thank you Courtney

We are very sad to announce that Courtney Gillibrand has left the Poulton Hill team. We want to thank her for her incredible efforts, her passion and her dedication. We will miss her.

Natalie and Diogo are looking forward to welcoming a new team member very soon and we will introduce you as soon as we can. In the meantime, any queries or orders should be sent to info@poultonhillestate.co.uk.

Book a summer Tour and Tasting

Tickets for our winter wine tasting events have been selling fast, with only two more sessions left. If you are unable to book onto these, then tickets for our summer tours and tasting sessions are now live to book on the website. It is worth booking early as the most popular dates last year completely sold out.

To find out more information, including dates and times, and to book your tickets, click here.

How the design for our white vermouth took flight

We wanted a unique identity for our new white vermouth, so asked local designer and branding specialist Phil Fryer Ward to create something fitting for us. Here he looks back at the design process, from initial ideas to bottled product.

I was thrilled to be asked to work on another branding and illustration project for Poulton Hill Estate, this time for a limited-edition white vermouth. We had a short turnaround time to meet the bottling and launch deadline for World Vermouth Day and the first thing we did was to sit down to look at the product and how it would sit in the Poulton Hill line up. During the briefing, we reviewed many different labels and styles of artwork and agreed that we needed something more vibrant than the usual style of the wine labels to reflect this special, limited release product.

Early in the design process, I started to play with ideas about the vermouth being born out of something else (it is made from old stock of Poulton Hill wine). I also wanted to continue to use the theme that Poulton Hill products are linked to the local area. Both elements matched very well with some early ideas that I produced, using the local symbol of the Phoenix, which is heraldic symbol for the local town of Cirencester. The primary grape in the vermouth is phoenix, which made the idea too good not to explore, and the team at Poulton Hill agreed with the direction.

My preferred method of illustration is creating preliminary sketches on paper that I photograph and continue to develop on an iPad using vector pens. This means that it is easy to change the colour of the design and to scale it for the intended use without any degradation.

I settled on the style of the Phoenix and the initial design was quite detailed, with line-work on the feathers of the bird. I presented this to Poulton Hill and they loved the concept, so I moved on to the actual label design.

The design needed to be simplified to fit the text and logos that the label required. Removing the lines from the feathers and rotating the bird to a diagonal placement, gave the label a more dynamic and impactful look and also allowed for zonal colouring of the background. I also wanted to tie in the English pennants that we have used in other Poulton Hill branding, and these tied in nicely with the tail feathers of the Phoenix.

Multiple colour combinations were tried, but we all decided that the best match to the colour of the vermouth (which you could see in the transparent bottle) was a combination of blues for the base/background and orange and yellow for the highlights of the bird’s wings and the flames above its head. The same yellow was then used in the product name with a blue outline to make it really pop on the shelf once bottled.

Once we had all agreed on the final label design, we looked at whether we should include any metallic elements. This went as far as the sample stage, but once these were placed on the test bottles it was hard to read the product name in some light conditions. The Poulton Hill team also agreed that the benefits of the clean and illustrative design of the original artwork were best served by a label without reflective elements.

We are all really pleased with the final design and how it looks. The feedback from customers and social media has been brilliant, and it already looks like the vermouth will be another Poulton Hill success story. I very much enjoyed working on this project with Poulton Hill and am looking forward to sampling some of the vermouth myself.
Cheers, I hope you all have Happy World Vermouth Day!

Forget gin, vermouth is the cool spirit for 2024

We have a new product that has launched this month: Poulton Hill Estate’s Phoenix Vermouth. It is our first-ever vermouth and we are so excited to share it with you. It is named after the Phoenix grapes, which are blended with Bacchus and Seyval Blanc to make the vermouth, as well as the mythical bird that is a heraldic symbol associated with nearby Cirencester.

Vermouth as a drink is becoming cool again, with some drinks experts predicting it will overtake gin as a the craft drink of the moment. It is a core ingredient in classic cocktails such as the martini, manhattan and negroni, but it is also good to serve neat over ice as an aperitivo

Poulton Hill Estate’s Phoenix Vermouth lives up to the fresh new image for the spirit, and the bottle and label reflect this trend. This complex and well-rounded semi-sweet vermouth is robust enough to enjoy on its own or as an addition to cocktails. It has notes of orange and vanilla at the forefront with a hint of botanicals, and a gentle warmth with its refreshing and caramelly notes. And like its mythical namesake, we hope that this vermouth will help the spirit to rise again in popularity

Our Phoenix Vermouth £25 from the Cellar Door or £25.99 online.

Special offer on our Mixed Wine Case for your Easter celebrations

Our Easter Mixed Case has wine for every meal over the Easter period. Our Phoenix 2022 has the perfect balance of acidity and fruit that will pair perfectly with your fish on Good Friday. Our Arlington Red is a great match with lamb and beef for your Easter Sunday meal.

Included in the case with the two bottles each of the Phoenix and the Arlington Red, is a bottle of our award-winning off-dry Arlington White and our Rosé, which both make for easy drinking and pair excellently with cheese.

The recommended retail price for this case is £111.47 but you can pick it up for just £99.99 from our website or by visiting us at the Cellar door in Poulton.

Buds and bougies

In the vineyard, we have finished our winter pruning and are keeping an eye out for the first signs of new life in our vines. This time of year is when we also have to keep a close eye on the weather forecast. We need to protect newly emerging buds from any late frosts, which will kill them off. If frosts are predicted, we light our bougies (potted paraffin wax candles) that we place in rows in between the vines to warm the air.

Wine-tasting events

If you want to come to visit us, our Cellar Door is open Tuesday to Saturday, but we also host monthly wine-tasting events. We take you through our history, how we manage the vineyard and the processes involved in growing our grapes. You can then sample our award-winning Bulari English sparkling white wine, and two of our still wines, Arlington White 2022 and our Rosé 2022. Tickets cost £15. For more details of dates and times, click here.

A smooth English red that bursts with berry flavour

English vineyards are perhaps best-known for producing sparkling and still white and rosé wines. However, some vineyards, including Poulton Hill Estate, have had success with producing red wines too, despite our climate!

The first-ever red wine we produced was from our Regent and Rondo grape varietals harvested in 2016, previously only used in our sparkling white and rosé and still rosé wines. Both grapes grow well in a cooler climate and are early to ripen, which makes them perfect for English vineyards.

This Special Reserve Red 2016 is deep ruby red in appearance, with a beautiful nose of cherry and blackberry. The palate is bursting with English red berries, with dark cherry blackberry and damson at the forefront and hints of raspberry. It has subtle oak and smoky notes with soft tannins that make for a wonderfully silky well-balanced finish. The wine pairs really well with steak but, unlike perhaps some stronger red wines, it is a great wine to enjoy on its own as it is only 11.5%ABV.

We were not the only ones to enjoy this wine, it won a Bronze Medal in the Wine GB Awards in 2018 and a Silver Medal in the South West Vineyards Association Awards 2018.

It is a limited edition vintage and we have relatively few bottles left so are not selling it online. But keep an eye out as we hope to produce a very special vintage wine case soon.

If you would like to be among the first to know, sign up to our twice-monthly newsletter (at the bottom of the website) or follow us on social media.

Preparing the ground with the help of our four-legged friends

Stormy weather in January led to flooding around the Cotswolds. At the vineyard we have our own way to deal with drainage issues to protect our soil from erosion – our flock of Babydoll and Black Jacob sheep. The sheep are back in the vineyard and their hooves help to break up compacted soil to improve the drainage. However, they also help the vineyard to be more biodynamic and reduce the need for chemical pesticides, weedkiller and fertiliser. The do a great job of nibbling the grass and weeds that spring up between the vines and they help to fertilise the soil!

The sheep also like to assist our gardening team by nibbling on the roses that we plant at the end of each row of vines, which saves on pruning. Roses are traditionally planted in vineyards as an early warning system as they attract insects such as aphids before the vines, and they also develop fungal diseases such as black rot and mildew before they reach the vines. Once the weather warms up and our vines start to come out of their dormant state, the sheep move to pastureland to protect our precious buds and leaves.

Winter pruning and replacing rotten or damaged posts continues in the vineyard this month. The hard work in the cold and wet now will pay off in the spring and summer when our vines grow, thrive and produce lots of fruit.

Sparkling white is still fizzing with flavour

While Poulton Hill Estate has been growing grapes, producing wine and winning awards for some 14 years now, there is still a very special place in our hearts for our first-ever sparkling white wine.

Our English Sparkling White 2012 was made using the grapes harvested in 2012 from the first vines planted at Poulton Hill in 2010. That first small harvest, of 3.8 tonnes, was all designated for our sparkling wines. You can see how far we have come in 11 years when you consider we picked 17.4 tonnes of grapes in 2023! The wine was disgorged in 2014 (this is when the sediment is removed from sparkling wine after fermentation).

Poulton Hill’s English Sparkling White 2012 is incredibly special and has won many awards, including Bronze awards from the South West Vineyards Association and the UK Vineyards Association’s English and Welsh Wine of the Year Competition in 2015 and 2016. It was commended in the International Wine Challenge of 2017. It featured at the Cotswold Life Food and Drink Awards 2015 and won silver in the international Glass of Bubbly awards in the Sea Breeze category in 2017. Perhaps the most prestigious win was in the sparkling wine over £10 category at the Quality Drinks Awards in 2016. The team went to London to a special ceremony to receive the award.

The Glass of Bubbly judges described the wine as “reminiscent of an English summer, with notes of crisp green apple, elderflower and a touch of lime, with hints of redcurrant and strawberry”.

There was a lot of interest from a supermarket that wanted to stock our sparkling wine after we won the Q Award. However, we kept it for our direct customers and local stockists, which is why we are lucky enough to have a few bottles left. We decided we would taste this 2012 vintage again to see how it has developed and mellowed over the years. We were really thrilled with the result. The wine is deep straw in colour with a fine persistent mousse. It is rich in flavour with notes of brioche and is a dry English sparkling wine.

We are not currently selling our English Sparkling White 2012 online but keep a lookout as we will be producing a very special vintage case in the next few months.

To be one of the first to hear about it, why not sign up to our twice monthly newsletter? The sign up is at the bottom of the webpage.

Happy New Year from the Poulton Hill Estate

January is named after Janus, the Roman God of beginnings and transitions who has one face that looks to the past and one to the future.

Here at Poulton Hill Estate we have been reflecting on the fantastic year we had in 2023, where our harvest was one of the best ever, we won awards for our wine and we developed new partnerships with shops, restaurants and other local food and drink producers. We have also been looking ahead to 2024 and our work to make sure our vineyard is healthy and our harvest plentiful again this year.

This work starts in January, when we tend to start winter pruning. This is a massive undertaking, all done by hand. In essence, we are selecting strong canes and a spur that will be the basis for our growth this year. The other canes are removed. The selected canes will be trimmed down and tied to the fixed fruiting wire with eco-friendly natural cane ties. Any large wounds are treated with garlic paste to prevent disease from entering the vine. We will also plant replacement vines where there has been die back due to disease or environmental conditions.

The plant life in the vineyard is not limited to vines, and these all need our care and attention too. We have roses at the head of some rows, which act as a natural early warning system as they attract insects such as aphids before they get to the vines. The roses are also likely to get fungal diseases, such as black rot and mildew, before the vines, so we can see when we really need to spray.

We have Italian Alder and Poplar trees planted as windbreaks that protect the vines when they are in bud and fruit. These need to be monitored, and in January we replace any that are dying back.

In between the rows of vines, when they are dormant in the winter, we plant a cover crop. This can be radish, which have long tap roots that help to aerate the soil. But we also plant clover and a mixture of other flowing plants. These have a number of functions. They prevent weeds from growing up, meaning we do not have to go up and down the rows with a tractor and spray, which can impact the roots and compact the soil. They attract bees to the pollen and nectar and provide habitats for predatory insects that do not feed on pollen, thus boosting the beneficial insect population.

 

Pop to the Cellar Door to try our new Phoenix 2022 

The Cellar Door is open Thursday and Friday from 9am to 5pm; and on Wednesday from 9am to 4pm. We are also open on Saturdays between 11am and 3pm. We not only sell all our wines and spirits, including our recently released Phoenix 2022 white wine, but we also sell wine by the glass. Why not pop in for a chat and a glass of wine to cheer yourself up in this long, cold month?

 

Take a private wine tasting?

Our Tours and Tastings usually take place in the summer when the vineyard is looking beautiful. We held our first winter tasting in December, which was a great success. We are also looking to offer private wine tastings. Would you like to bring some friends or a group along to the vineyard and have a personalised tasting session with us? Why not drop us an email at info@poultonhillestate.co.uk or pop in to see us to talk about what we can offer?

 

Hold your event at Poulton Hill Estate

Poulton Hill Estate is also set up for events and parties. We have the Long Room, nestled in a wing of Poulton Hill’s magnificent country house, that can accommodate up to 80 guests. Outside is a courtyard and beautiful garens, while inside is equipped with a small kitchen, a bar area and two cosy fireplaces. There is plenty of on-site parking. For more details, please contact claudia@poultonhillestate.co.uk

 

Merry Christmas from the Poulton Hill Estate team

We would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a happy and peaceful new year!

The vineyard is entering its dormant phase, where the vines above the ground appear lifeless while the roots burrow down into the earth to take on and retain nutrients for the year ahead. The trunks are storing carbohydrates ready for new growth in the spring.

We are clearing all remaining foliage from the vineyard after leaf drop, to prevent any pathogens on the leaves from affecting the vines next year. The hard job of winter pruning will begin in early 2024 and we are examining supports and wires and replacing and repairing where necessary.

Get set for Christmas!

We have a couple of festive events in December, starting with a winter wine tasting on December 21st at 1pm at the Cellar Door. Guests will hear all about how we run and manage the vineyard and will get to sample our award-winning Bulari sparkling white, as well as our Rosé 2002 and our Arlington White 2022 still wines. Tickets cost £15 and are available here.

On December 15^th we are hosting a late-night shopping evening at the Cellar Door, where you can come along to shop and maybe enjoy a glass of Poulton Hill wine by the glass. More details to come, so please keep an eye out on social media or sign up to our newsletter.

Would you like a private wine tasting?

Poulton Hill Estate is offering the opportunity to book a private wine tasting at the Cellar Door. For more details contact info@poultonhillestate.co.uk

Cellar Door opening times

Just a reminder that our Cellar Door is now open on Saturdays between 11am and 3pm, with staff on hand to chat about any of our wines and spirits. We are selling wine by the glass to drink on site as well as bottles of all our wines and spirits to take away. The Cellar Door also stocks a range of gifts, including wine gift boxes, branded bottle openers and very special Le Creuset sparkling wine stoppers.

Weekday opening hours at the Cellar Door have also changed. We are open Tuesday to Friday from 9am to 4pm.