Almost harvest time!

Update! 

We are harvesting even earlier than expected, with our first harvest date Friday 19 September, when we picked our Phoenix grapes. We are aiming to start picking Seyval Blanc on Sunday 28 September.

Phoenix Harvest 2025

We are approaching very exciting times at Larkhill Vineyard as we are gearing up towards the harvest.

Season 2025 has been the hottest summer on record and this has had its effect on vineyards all over the world. Across Europe, grape harvests have started earlier than normal, due to the hot and dry weather, and England is no exception.

Spring gave us almost perfect conditions starting the vineyard cycle, and even though we had some risk of frost in mid and end of April, the vines thrived and flowering and fruit set took place earlier than normal.

The warm weather following this meant that, for the first time in three years, we did have to water some of our vines as there was just not enough rain fall - as also evidenced by our brown grass in the paddock! With watering, we mainly focused on the recently planted Solaris (planted in 2019, so not yet used in our wines) and the Pinot Noir vines.

Pinot Noir always needs more attention in the vineyard as it is a bit more challenging grape variety to grow. For us, it is also a very important grape. Partly because of it's versatility, as we use it to produce our sparkling and still rosé wines, but we are also very keen to produce a red wine from it. Hopefully 2025 will be the year that we are able to do so, updates on this will follow!

Meanwhile, we have been very closely monitoring the sugar levels in our grapes, and we are currently looking to start harvesting end of September, so a little bit earlier than than last year.

Harvesting grapes from our 5 acre site usually takes us 3 to 5 days as we harvest all our grapes by hand. We do this to ensure that only the best and ripest grapes are being picked, and used for producing our wines. We are very lucky that we have a lovely team of volunteers, who return year upon year to assist with our harvest, and we always welcome more volunteers. Full instructions are given, so if you (have not yet but) would like to sign up as a harvest volunteer, drop us a message at info@larkhillvineyard.co.uk

What are our expectations about vintage 2025? Well, it is still a bit early to tell, but the fruit is looking clean and healthy, and so far we have had not any issues with any mildew or disease. There are still a few weeks for our grapes to ripen, and we just hope for an Indian summer with some more sunshine and plenty of dry days to pick.