The good news - thanks for all the orders! And the bad. Serious frost!

Sunday, 17 May 2020

Every time one of you sends an order we give a little whoop of joy! A big THANK YOU to all of you! It’ s been a lifeline to us while our cellar door at the vineyard, is closed in lockdown. Normally sales from the "cellar door”are more than half our total wine sales. And we so miss having vineyard visitors! But your online orders have kept sales up to normal so we feel very blessed.

We’d REALLY LOVE YOU TO KEEP BUYING OATLEY ONLINE. It’s quick and easy. Delicious dry white wines direct to your doorstep, we’re keeping our fast, free uk delivery going for the mo. And still a 10% DISCOUNT and 7/7 deliveries for our local community in postcodes TA5 and TA6 even though lockdown is starting to ease. What could be better as summer gets going? So please keep buying local!
 
We need a bit of cheer too. In the vineyard sadly we got frosted last week, like so many. It had been forecast at 1C here on the Tuesday morning. We’re only a couple of miles from the coast and that often keeps us frost free. We’d mowed the grass short to maximise cold air drainage and bushwhacked along the stream at the bottom so the colder heavier air wouldn’t pool. But it was -2C with an easterly breeze off the land that first frosty night of 11/12May. Killed 90% of the shoots in our lowest Madeleine Angevine block. A sad sight as the shoots have wilted and died over the last few days.

The good news is that Madeleine is a fast ripener and we think there is still time to ripen the smaller crop from the regrowth. So there may yet be a “Jane’s 2020”, or possibly it will be an “Elizabeth’s” year, when we put our two varietals together.  

The Kernling vines on the upper slope were slightly singed at the lower edges of the blocks but mostly unaffected. And after the massive 2018 harvest we still have plenty of supplies in the cellar. So overall, it’s a blow but not a disaster.


Froala