Composing the Compost

As Colin, our estate manager, put it recently at the Winter Solstice:

“…Winter is a time for inner reflection, rather than outer movement…”

Very true, but there still are things to be done in the vineyard to prepare for the coming year. Sean and his team have been working hard to create our new compost heap to help sustain and improve the land and vines over the next year.



Sean and the team working hard

It is quite an undertaking: over a week to build, nearly a hundred feet long, eight foot high and five foot wide.

It is not the numbers that are important, as Sean was keen to explain.  By combining by-products from the estate: hay from the headlands, manure from our cows and grape marc from the last vintage we have the raw ingredients to create our own abundant natural fertiliser.


Milly adding the final layers

Utilising all that the land provides us with is key to our heartfelt approach. We are farmers, tending the land, and guardians of its future. Not to make the effort would be churlish and in this act of reclamation we are evoking what we stand for.