Harvest weekends

Pick it yourself.

Three weekends in October. You cut, you eat, you stay the night, and eighteen months later six bottles of the vintage you picked arrive at your door.

Take a weekend
02

You are cutting the blend.

Chardonnay comes off first, then the two Pinots into the same crate a week later. Nothing is picked separately and nothing is bottled on its own, so what you cut is the wine.

  • Chardonnay, then the Pinots
  • One crate, one blend
  • The proportions change every year
03

Then lunch in the rows.

A long table set between the vines, food from the farm on the other side of the lane, and the rest of the afternoon to do nothing in particular.

£140a head, the night and the wine included

04

It is work, briefly.

Four hours on the Saturday morning with a pair of secateurs and a crate. Everybody manages it, including the children, and everybody is glad to stop at one.

  • Secateurs and gloves provided
  • Four hours, with breaks
  • Nobody counts your crates
05

Nothing is added.

Wild yeast, no sugar, no acid correction and no oak. What comes off the vine in a given October is what the wine tastes of, which is the reason a vintage is worth having a date on.

Bottled the following spring, disgorged eighteen months after that

06

Six bottles, your name on the case.

Not a token bottle at the end of the day. Six of the vintage you cut, sent when it is ready rather than when it would be convenient, with the date you were in the rows on the label.

18 monthson the lees before any of it is yours

Take a weekend
The weekend

Friday evening to Sunday lunchtime.

There is no programme pinned to a wall. This is what happens, and the only fixed points in it are the Saturday morning and the press.

  1. 01Friday, from six
  2. 02Saturday, eight
  3. 03Saturday, one
  4. 04Saturday, five
  5. 05Sunday, ten
What you will be cutting

Three varieties, one blend.

All three go in together and none of them is bottled on its own. The proportions change every year depending on what the summer did.

ChardonnayTwo thirds of the blend and the reason it ages. Picked first, usually the week before the other two.
Pinot NoirPressed straight off the skins so it runs pale. This is where the weight through the middle comes from.
Pinot MeunierThe one that ripens whatever the summer does. A third of the crop in a bad year and a tenth in a good one.

What a weekend costs.

Enquire

Take a weekend.

Tell us which of the three weekends, how many of you there are and whether you need a room. We reply with what is left, what it comes to, and directions better than the ones your phone will give you.