Dunkery Vineyard is located in the beautiful
Exmoor National Park, near the village of
Wootton Courtenay. It is close to Minehead, Porlock and Dunster.
At Dunkery Vineyard, now the largest
in Somerset, we grow more than twelve different vine varieties,
including five red grape varieties.
Our vineyards share an abundance of wildlife; red deer, roe deer, badgers,
foxes, pheasants, partridges, buzzards, green woodpeckers, long tailed
tits, goldcrests and flocks of goldfinches are regular visitors. It is
a great pleasure to see these and have such magnificent Exmoor views
all around us.
There are few wineries in Europe that have such high
quality winemaking equipment as we have.
We make our wines in the classical way, with the minimum of processing,
so that the natural grape flavours come through in the wine.
The quality of a wine depends primarily on the quality of the grapes
at the time of harvest. A great deal of effort and skill goes to ensuring
that our grapes are harvested in as near perfect condition as possible,
within the limits imposed by our English climate. One advantage of our
climate is that the wines tend to have lower alcohol, which means they
are easy to drink.
Dunkery Vineyard
At Dunkery Vineyard we have 7 acres of vines, planted between 1984 and
1993.
The original 'small' vineyard, of one acre, has an exceptional micro-climate
due to the very sheltered site and the close planting of the vines, only
4 feet apart. The site is one of the steepest in England, there are more
than 1,250 vines and the spraying and vine-topping has to be done with
back-pack equipment. It is one of the few sites in England never to have
suffered spring or autumn frost damage.
The vines are trained on the classic Double-Guyot
system. The varieties are Madeleine Angevine, Senator, Kernling, Reichensteiner,
Schönburger,
and the red grape varieties Pinot Noir and Dornfelder. Individual varietal
wines are made when practical, their character and flavour benefit greatly
from the Devonian red sandstone soil, which is one of the classic European
vineyard soils. Summer and autumn night-time temperatures are relatively
cool in this vineyard (partly because the South-South-East facing slope
loses the evening sun) and this enables the wines to have fine racy acidity.
The 'large' vineyard, of six acres in the lee of Dunkery, is less sheltered
and relatively flat. It's great advantage is that it catches the sunlight
all day long, sunlight on the vine-leaves causes the photosynthesis which
ripens the grapes. To take advantage of the extremely bright light, the
vine hedge rows are set East-West. To increase the leaf-wall even further,
the modified-Silvoz training system has been chosen, with 2.5 metres
between rows and 1.6 metres between vines. The main vine varieties planted
are Kernling, Reichensteiner, Madeleine Angevine, Chardonnay, and the
reds Pinot Noir, Dornfelder, Regent and Rondo.
Harvesting takes place from late September through to early November.
Summer spraying, against botrytis and powdery and downy mildews, is terminated
at least five weeks before harvest, so there is no chance of any spray
residue reaching the wine.
The winery at Dunkery Vineyard is situated at the small
vineyard, and is dug into the hillside.
After harvesting, the bunches of grapes are destalked and crushed with
state-of-the-art equipment, and subsequently pressed very gently in a
rubber-membrane press. Stainless steel tanks are used for fermenting
the grape juice and maturing the wine; in fact almost all of the equipment
is made from stainless steel for ease of cleaning and sterilisation.
For our white wines we often leave the destalked berries overnight in
special sealed stainless steel tanks. This rarely used method of 'skin-contact'
extracts more flavour from the grapes than if they are pressed immediately.
Our red wines are fermented 'on the skins' for 7 to 14 days according
to the variety. We 'rest' our red wines for at least 2 years and we have
ten 225 litre oak barriques in which the wines 'mellow' for at least
6 months.
For our sparkling wines we use 'whole-bunch' pressing (without destalking/crushing),
which extracts a smaller amount of juice but gives a very clear juice
essential for quality sparkling wine.
We produce 'Quality Sparkling Wine' (EU regulations terminology) using
the traditional method of secondary fermentation in individual bottles
- as practiced in Champagne. Trials with the variety Pinot Gris (1987)
produced astonishing results, and our 'Exmoor Brut' is comparable with
fine Champagne. It was this experience that led us to plant one third
of the new vineyard with the principle Champagne vine varieties - Pinot
Noir and Chardonnay; only certain vine varieties can produce the special
character of Champagne, which is a completely different sensation from
other sparkling wines.
More than a third of the new vineyard is dedicated for red wine production.
Out of more than 100 wines submitted for the June 1993 'Decanter' blind-tasting
of 'Pinot Noir from around the world' our 1990 vintage Pinot Noir red
wine was awarded one star, 27 other wines were listed in this category
including some Gevry-Chambertin and Beaune from individual domaines
in Burgundy, Australian wines from Rosemount, Tyrrell and other top
producers, and wines from Carneros, Chalone and other famous vineyards
in the USA. More than 36 of the wines in the tasting were awarded no
stars at all. A remarkable achievement for our first red wine. Our
red wines from the 1995 and 1998 vintages were even better, and those
from 2000 and 2003 should be better still.
If you
are in the area
why not make an appointment to visit us and see
the vineyard.
Or buy our wines by mail order or through various retail
outlets.
The OS Map Grid Reference is SS 941
434. An
aerial photograph (and map) of the vineyard can be viewed on www.multimap.com (find
TA24 8RD and the vineyard/winery is exactly in the centre of the photo).
We have seven acres of vines and one of the finest
wineries in England.
Dunkery Vineyard wine label |
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