Hambledon harvest in pictures

db was recently asked to join English sparkling wine producer Hambledon Wines, for the first day of its harvest. Armed with a camera and notepad, Livia Xin headed down to the south coast to get involved in the grape picking.

Hambledon estate currently has three main vineyards covering 20 hectares on the slopes of Windmill Down (named after an ancient windmill) around the house. Each vineyard is planted with Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier – the three grape varieties most commonly used in the production of Champagne.

Hambledon was originally England’s first commercial vineyard when it was planted in the 1950s by Major General Sir Guy Salisbury Jones. The estate was bought by Ian Kellett, now managing director of Hambledon Vineyard plc, in 1999.

When asked about the harvest this year, Kellett told db the harvest is “infinitely different” compared with last year. “Last year we had 5% to 10% of normal harvest. This year looks more like a normal harvest. We’ve got a good and clean Pinot Noir. There is a small amount of botrytis maybe 1% to 2% but not very much. And the level of maturity in Pinot Noir is pretty good. We are picking about between 9% and 9.5% of natural alcohol.”

Everyone had a smiling face in the vineyard. The perfect weather and the good harvest helped people to enjoy their work. One of the pickers said: “I really enjoy my time here; it is something I like to do. Although I don’t know much about the harvest, the grapes I’ve been picking look lovely. And they taste nice too.”

During her visit to the vineyard, one of the pickers kindly showed Xin how to pick grapes. Although it may look like an easy job, it does involves a lot of patience and concentration.

This year’s Pinot Noir is the best crop Hambldeon has enjoyed since replanting the vineyard with Champagne varieties in 2005. The grapes looked in just the right shape and colour and the taste was powerful combined with a good balance between acidity and sweetness.

The vineyard’s Chardonnay is also looking good and will be ready for picking in next few weeks. Ian Kellett told db, “Chardonnay has a high level of acidity and a very good level of sugar. It’s been a very strange year because normally we found Pinot Meunier will pick first and then Pinot Noir and then two weeks later Chardonnay. Pinot Meunier this year seems to be four weeks late and Chardonnay is one week later.”

After picking grapes in the vineyard, db headed into the winery to see how Hambledon wines are made. This state-of-the-art facility is the only fully gravity-fed winery in the UK, allowing Hambledon to make wines with the minimal possible intervention. There’s no need to pump musts or wines under pressure, but instead Hambledon can move them gently by gravity from one tank or process to the next. They have also installed Coquard PAI presses to achieve the best extraction of juices in the most gentle manner possible.

The Coquard PAI press uses a gentle horizontal pressing motion to extract the best quality juice from the grapes without extracting the compounds from the skins. A split is made according to the characteristics of the juice (Cuvée and Taille) and separated accordingly in a tailor-made container called a belon. All the grapes will be put inside the press which gives a very soft pressure controlled by its pneumatic system. Hambledon has two of these presses.

Time for pressing some grapes.

Hervé Jestin (left) is the head winemaker at Hambledon, having previously been chef de cave at Duval Leroy for 20 years. Jestin oversees all aspects of the winemaking processes at Hambledon. He told db: “I’m convinced that now it is the possible to find very good quality English sparkling wine in the market. Many houses are able to produce very good quality wine. At Hambledon it would be different: I think we can produce outstanding wine. There is a huge step difference between ‘excellent’ and ‘outstanding’, the idea for us is not to produce excellent wine, the idea is to produce outstanding wine, which needs a lot of effort and work to make it succeed.”

When asked what makes English sparkling wine different compared with different sparkling wines in the world, Hervé said: “In France we mainly have Champagne, it is possible to compare different kinds of sparkling wines, but at the end of the day, what is interesting is to be able to bring its own characters to every region. There is a market for every kind of wines. The idea for us is to produce our own style rather than comparison with others. What we are going to do is to produce the best sparkling wine in this region.”

HRH Duchess of Cornwall opened the new state-of-the-art winery at Hambledon Vineyard in July 2013. This ensures that no electrical pumping is required in the winemaking process, in line with Hambledon’s philosophy of minimal-intervention winemaking.

After the tour of the winery, db was invited to enjoy a wine tasting, which helped to lift the post-grape picking tiredness. During the tasting, Sarah Besly, the operations and finance manager told db that the winery will look at making rosé wine next year. It is also interested in expanding its international market to countries like the US, India and China.