A record-breaking February

With temperatures in the high teens climbing up to 20 degrees towards the end of February, you’ would be forgiven for thinking that Spring has come early. This unusually warm and dry weather has given rise to concerns about early bud-break, which some researchers believe happens when the air temperature reaches an average of around 10 degrees. Early bud-break could lead to under-developed growth and the loss of new shoots due to frost damage.

Walking around the vineyard, there were a handful of buds which had developed small shoots that had been damaged by frosts. Vines are always looking to grow outwards, so the outermost buds burst first. Since we prune in late March, these buds that have already burst will be pruned, so this won’t cause us a problem. If we had already pruned, any buds that had burst would be part of what we would have to keep for the coming growing season and any frost damage could have affected the yield for this year. Pruning is our next big job now - we’ll be starting on Monday 18th March. If you’d like to come along to learn how to prune and see what we do here at Dunesforde, send an e-mail to our vineyard manager - james@dunesforde.com

As well as being warm, February was also very dry, which meant we had to get out in the vineyard to cut the grass and weed around the vines - jobs we wouldn’t normally have to do at this time of year. February is a good time to be tasting the wines from the previous vintage and starting to think about blends for the sparkling wines. We’re really excited about the wines from our debut vintage, make sure you sign up for our newsletter to make sure you know when the wines will be available and how you can get hold of them.