Newsletter - September 2000

A SUCCESSFUL ENGLISH WINE FESTIVAL

This year's English Wine Festival was again a huge success. We estimate that about 2500 visitors enjoyed the wide range of wines on tasting in the Sussex sunshine. The show judges, led by Charles Metcalf, obviously enjoyed the Davenport wines. They awarded us 2 of the show's coveted prizes for the best wines available over the weekend. The winning wines were our 1999 Rosé and the 1997 Davenport Brut Sparkling Wine. We were particularly pleased because the Rosé has won a prize at this show every year since we started making this style, while the sparkling wine (in its first year of production) has been a consistent winner in all the wine competitions this year.

ORGANIC PLANS AT BOTH DAVENPORT'S VINEYARDS

At last we are going official about our Organic wine growing methods. This winter we hope to be accepted for organic certification by the Soil Association. Our existing management methods in the vineyard will be complimented by the use of winter cover crops and even more composting and manure spreading. The vines have to go through a 3 year conversion period, so it will be some time before we can put the "organic" word on our bottles. It has been a private ambition of mine for many years, but now I have been convinced that a significant improvement in wine quality and depth of flavour can be achieved by good natural soil management and not using poisonous chemicals in the vineyard. This will be complimented by our minimal chemical interference in the winery, designed to keep all those flavours in the wine.

INVESTING IN THE FUTURE OF PINOT NOIR

We have been busy this year planting more vines. A further 2 acres of early ripening clones of Pinot Noir has been planted at our Horsmonden site. We know this is a superb site because it is next door to our older vineyard which has been producing outstanding quality grapes since 1993. This planting adds to our 2 acres of Pinot Noir planted at the more sandy Rotherfield site, and will hopefully allow us to make 2 different styles of wine from this classic variety. Our total acreage is now up to 12 acres.

SPECIAL OFFERS ON THE WEB

A new feature has been added to our web site. View this page at http://www.davenportvineyards.co.uk/special.html. We are currently giving an offer on the final few cases of our 1996 and 1997 Horsmonden dry whites (the main list shows the 1998 vintage). There is also a special price for a mixed case of our wines, which enables you to try the whole range of wines and save £5 at the same time. This page will be updated each month and will include special offers on any new releases. Our new style 1999 Faber will be launched on this page after Christmas.