"The original farm site possessed some old stables and out buildings which lent themselves perfectly to a conversion into a winery. The buildings are over 100 years old and have a very traditional, rustic feel. The winery itself is kitted out with a 2 tonne pneumatic Willmes press, Seitz filtration unit and approximately 25 fermentation and storage tanks. We also have bottling and labelling machinery so that all aspects of wine production through to dressing the finished product are carried out on site. We keep the handling and movement of the juice and wine down to a minimum to retain the fresh fruit flavours and allow natural clarification through the cold winter months. The new wines are tasted in early spring to determine any further treatment and to evaluate any blending required. The still wines will be bottled by the end of April and the sparkling wines by the end of May as the weather starts to warm up. In between the summer work on the vineyard, the fruit wines are also made and bottled. The sparkling wines that are maturing in bottle are tasted regularly to determine the right time for yeast removal or ‘disgorging’, and the disgorging procedure can take place at any time of the year. All the winemaking processes and procedures are carried out on the vineyard estate which gives us much better control over the quality of the final product."