London vineyard calls for donations to avoid risk of closure

Forty Hall Community Vineyard has said it needs to “urgently” raise £85,000 by the end of the month to avoid a risk of closure.

The vineyard, praised by Jancis Robinson and Oz Clarke, has suffered from three years of bad harvests and it said there is a risk of closure if it doesn’t yield a good crop this year.

Launched in 2009 and run by local volunteers, the Enfield vineyard is the first on a commercial scale in London since the middle ages, a FHV spokesperson said. It produces both still and sparkling wines with income from the sales of certified organic wines put back into maintaining the vineyard and delivering health and wellbeing activities for the benefit of the community.

Cash raised by the fundraising would be used for a tractor to carry out essential disease prevention work and ensure long-term sustainability. It said the poor harvests were due to a “devastating powdery mildew” that the volunteers were “unable to control” with the equipment it currently has.

A statement on the vineyard’s website said: Without urgent funding to improve our equipment and resources, there is a serious and very real risk of there being no harvest in 2023, meaning no more wine to sell – and the end of London’s vineyard.

“We have managed our finances well enough to sustain the project through three disappointing harvests and a pandemic, but we cannot survive another year without monetary support. The biggest investment required is for a reliable vineyard tractor ( £55,000), so that we can spray (organically) exactly when we need to, and prevent the spread of disease.

“We have already raised the funds for a sprayer, but we also need to pay for more supervision of the vineyard, to support the hard work of the volunteers. This will give us the best chance for a healthier yield of grapes that will produce wine for us to sell and secure the future of London’s pioneering vineyard.”

For more information, you can read its full fundraising document here and donate for the tractor here.

When donating £100 or more, the vineyard is inviting donors to a special event in the vineyard to raise a glass of our wine and say a big thank you. For donations of more than £500, it will place the donor or donor company’s name on a board in the vineyard as a sponsor of our project.