About.
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Our wines are a record of how each year passes through our farm. The sun, rain and peculiarities of any given year express themselves in the land. And every element of our ecosystem contributes: there are insects and birds among the wildflowers, chickens fertilising the orchard and vineyard, and sheep tending to our meadow grasses and flowers in the old-fashioned way.
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We use ‘ancestral’ natural winemaking techniques to capture the ephemeral qualities of time and place. Minimal intervention is at the heart of this. Time leads the process – we’re simply stewards.
We only use natural methods to make our wines sparkling, the so-called Ancestrale methods such as Pét Nat (Pétillant Naturel / Naturally Sparkling) or Col Fondo.
Our Purpose.
We tread as lightly on this place as we can. It follows, then, that we make our wine as naturally as possible.
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Our mission is restore a biodiverse ecosystem and connect people with nature through wine.
Our farm is certified organic and our vineyard is two years into a three-year conversion process to organic status. We use regenerative agricultural methods such as grazing animals, chickens, wildflower meadows, cover crops and bees to support natural management of the land, thereby improving organic carbon burial in the soil, eliminating herbicides and artificial nutrition, using minimal organic and biodynamic pesticides and no use of heavy machinery.
Prunings, manure and compost are added back to the land to create a circular system within the farm minimising import and export of materials. We reduce reuse and recycle wherever possible, including bottles and upcycling of packaging.
To date, we have never used herbicide, despite guidance to do so. The entire footprint of our farm has been converted to organic, certified by the Soil Association. We use biodynamic compost and spray preparations, including horn silica, equisetum, dandelion, yarrow, organic essential oils (thyme and eucalyptus), organic whey and more.
20% of our vineyard is dedicated to disease-resistant grape varietals (“PIWIs”), that have never been sprayed with any pesticide at all. We have never sprayed copper on our vineyard. And by using biodynamic, whey and bacillus bacteria-derived sprays we have reduced our use of organic sulphur in the remainder of the vineyard to less than 50% of all of our sprays. This aggressive reduction, avoidance and alternative spray programme is not without risks and impact to our yield of grapes and wine, but we believe it is the right thing to do.
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Our aspiration is always to make natural wine, with zero additions of sulphites, yeast, sugar, fining agents or chemicals of any kind.
In fact, the only ingredient in our wine is grapes. Less than 0.1% of wine produced in the world can say this.
We use hand-powered equipment wherever possible, electric where it is not, with the latter running off renewable power supply. We use gravity to gently transfer wine from tank to tank, eliminating consumption of electricity and reducing the risk of oxygenation.
The final product is our best effort to capture the essence of place, weather and grape, with nothing else required.
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It’s all about natural sparkling, and mostly rosé… so far.
We believe it is possible to make the best natural sparkling wine in the world, here in the Chilterns in England. The climate, elevation, geology, soil and aspect are ideal.
This doesn’t mean it’s easy - the vagaries of our marginal grape-growing climate ensure that. But when it works, it really works.
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We also give more than a nod to the heritage of England: its ancient orchards and the iconic, but much forgotten, cider apple.
And so, our goal… well, we make sparkling wine and cider using a variety of organic English grapes and apples. We experiment, we blend, we co-ferment apples and grape skins. All in the effort to produce the best, most interesting, and most surprising sparkling wines and cider. And our aspiration is always to add nothing other than the organic fruit.
And a word on the cider: before the wine drinkers rule it out: the cider is intended as a low alcohol alternative to sparkling wine (c.7%). It carries the colour, summer fruit aromas and flavours of Pinot Noir, and is made sparkling using Champagne yeast. ‘I can’t believe it’s not wine’; so much so it’s served cold in champagne flutes and pairs well with food.
From time to time, we may stray, do different things, take some risks, but sparkling is our core.
Currently, we create sparkling rosé four ways; all are different, natural, exquisite, but with a common thread of connection across them all, in Pinot Noir.
Our Wines.
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With all of our wines, the juice is left to spontaneously ferment using wild/native yeasts. There are zero additions of sulphites, sugar, fining agents, chemicals. All are bottled by hand with zero disgorgement or dosage.
Natural, English, sparkling wine.
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Interconnections Part 1
Cider fermented on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grape skins, part-oaked in barrique
Interconnections Part 2
Classic cuvée of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, oaked in barriques
Interconnections Part 3
A pure expression of Pinot Noir
Interconnections Multi-Vintage
A blend over time and seasons, using Chardonnay and Pinot Noir
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Our intent is to use the heritage of wild and rare varietal English cider apples to act as a base for a low alcohol alternative to sparkling rosé wine. The base is cider but the sensory experience is unmistakably the summer fruit aromas and flavours of Pinot Noir.
There is an ancient organic orchard at our home, Newbarn Farm. The apples are collected by hand and are complemented with apples from our local community in The Chilterns, including wild apples foraged from the surrounding countryside to add greater structure and tannins. We co-ferment the resulting apple juice with our grape skins to create a majestic combination of the best elements of cider and wine. In its homeland of Italy, this experience is called Vin ed Pom.
The combination of rare apple varieties with the distinctive polyphenols characteristic of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay results in an experience that questions what we know of either cider or wine.
Our Art & Labels.
Great wine is created in the entanglement of soil, vine, weather and ecosystem. Interconnections.
Curling and flowing across our labels are mycelium threads, the fungal network in the soil that nourishes our vines and keeps this whole system connected – pulsing, communicating.
Our soil, vine, grape and wine quality are all critically-dependent on these fungal networks, and so we believe we need to nourish our soil to enhance the life, ecosystem and products dependent on our land. Each vine in the vineyard and apple tree in the orchard is connected to each other through the fungal networks around their root systems.
The mycelium artwork also represents the inter-connections between all of the elements on our farm that create the circular and regenerative farming system: manure from the chickens feeds the trees and vines, the bees pollinate the apple blossom, the wildflowers feed the bees, the apples are fermented on grape skins.
The final representation is the interconnections between our farm, vineyard and wine business with our community, and with all of our stakeholders (customers, suppliers, volunteers, outlets, etc); a similarly entangled network that is exploratory, self-supporting, resilient and nourishing for those it connects.
Local artist Charlotte Cooper designs and hand-prints our labels. Each label for our first vintage was unique, with its mycelium threads connected to two others as part of a large single tapestry. We love the idea that these bottles went to different homes, creating invisible connections between our customers. And our handsome logo is designed by another local artist, Ellie Good.
Our Community.
We aim to spend every pound we can in our local community: our artwork, graphic design, social media, printing and farming support all comes from friends within a one mile radius of the farm.
We connect with our local community through our customers, suppliers, outlets and volunteers. We have volunteers from the local community and societies that help with the chickens, fruit/veg, beekeeping, orchard, vineyard and winemaking. We attend local commiunity events such as fairs, school/church group activities and markets.
In addition to our own wine, cider, honey and eggs, we also sell coffee beans supplied by a coffee roaster in our village, tea blended 5 miles away, charcuterie made less than a mile away and cheeses made here in The Chilterns. We take waste organic whey from our cheese supplier and use it as a biodynamic spray preparation for our vines to help us avoid use of inorganic chemicals…interconnecting the land of our two organic farms.
One of our volunteers, Huw, writes poetry in his spare time and penned the below for us after helping for a few months in the orchard, vineyard and with cider-/winemaking. Huw’s poem is a fabulous expression of how our land can connect with, and impact, those that spend time in this place.
Two Orchards
My father planted an orchard.
57 trees, positioned by Pythagoras.
They struggled at first --
The orchard was high and exposed;
Marine winds barrelled through.
He spoke of narrow trunks and weak branches;
Of strengthening stakes and steadying ties.
I nodded politely and asked nothing.
But when the apples arrived
They crowded every branch;
Half-grown trees sagged like willows.
My father meandered a path through the flowered grass
To walk alone amongst his regiment.
And now I pick apples.
Another orchard; another time.
Here too they grow dense as grapes;
Bows bend as if drawn by archers.
There is a tool for this. I set it down. I
want to feel the weighty spheres in my hands
And the vivid strength of stalks before they break.
My hands envelop the smooth green fruit
As his hands, impossibly large and strong
Once wrapped securely around mine.
Every apple picked asks a question.
Why did I not listen? Why did I not meander?
And why, in his army of trees so overwhelmed with life
Huw Jenkin