Newsletter 2023

Woodvalley

V I N E Y A R D S

FSA Approved 2024

All enquiries to: info@woodvalleyvineyards.co.uk

Woodvalley Farm, Outwood Common Road, Billericay, Essex CM11 1HN

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L o w E n e r g y B u i l d i n g D e s i g n

On The Grapevine…..

Driving along Outwood Common Road in Billericay you may have seen some activity in the field opposite Norsey Woods. Once a pig farm in the 19th Century, the field has been fallow for over 100 years.

But now? The field has become Billericay’s first vineyard!

Brought to you by local residents, welcome to Woodvalley Vineyards

Issue 1: 2020-2023

The Very Beginnings

It seems such a long time ago, but our journey actually began in 2019. Talking to the landowners one sunny day, he told us about his lifelong dream to convert the fallow field into a vineyard. The family had owned the land since 1950s and it was perfect for growing grapes: south-facing, a good slope for drainage, and sheltered from cold winds by Norsey Woods in the north. With the reduction in agricultural payments from Europe, he wanted to finally make a start but needed funding. We thought he was completely bonkers, but after doing some research we all wanted to be part of it.

At the end of 2021, circumstances had changed and the landowners were now unable to continue. Not to be deterred, we asked if we could still proceed, and so the mad race to meet the 2022 planting season began. At this point we hadn’t realised that orders for rootstocks were normally placed by November the previous year, and it seemed that every supplier throughout Europe had already sold out. A phone call in April 2022 brought the fantastic news that 170 Chardonnay and 170 Pinot Noir were available for immediate delivery from a UK supplier…Panic Stations! We couldn’t miss another year so decided that without our Agricultural Guru to help, we could start with a small test patch, and learn as we went.

The existing access is on the dangerous bend, a local accident hotspot, so a safer access point was needed with a slight increase in traffic. Our resident architectual designer and planning guru offered to handle the planning applications and we set off helping to put the plans in motion.

Unfortunately a global pandemic got in the way and national lockdowns in March 2020 put a stop to the plans. There is only a very short window each year for planting so we submitted the planning applications and waited. Jumping through hoops with the planning department despite Highways full approval, we eventually got planning approval for the new gate and hardstanding but had missed the 2021 planting window.

We had the field ploughed and prepared, fitted the posts and wires, dug the holes and hand-planted the vines on 7th May 2022. Finally….our very own vineyard!

The summer of ‘22 was an exciting time, watching how quickly vines grow, seeing a big change every weekend. Wanting to give them the best nutritional start, we spent every weekend hand weeding. As the grass started to grow back, we kept it trimmed recycling the clippings into the rows. By the end of the growing season, we had a few vines with grapes and it was exciting to see the rewards at the year end.

We hadn’t actually killed any of them, there were a couple of non-starters which is to be expected, but the rest were really healthy. Whilst we wanted to pat ourselves on the back for our new-found farming skills, we concluded that vines are fairly robust plants, they grow in most soils.

Or maybe our fingers were turning green afterall???

Having carried out the pruning in the early months, it felt like the rain was never going to stop. The ground was wet and every vineyard in the UK was delayed with preparations and planting schedules. MVM were contracted to Kent’s Chapel Down for planting their latest edition - a whopping 60ha site with 250,000 vines, and our tiny patch of 2,500 was to follow straight afterwards. The weather delays ruled out the Chardonnay planting, so we made the decision to get the Pinot Noir section put the Chardonnay in next year. The Pinots finally got in the ground on June 6th, a couple of weeks late.

To our amazement our new babies showed signs of life in just 6 days! With only a handful of non-starters we were bud-rubbing quicker than we thought and before the wires and posts were in.

Through the winter we carried out our Winter duties, kept the site clean and tidy, and considered the plans for the next year. We definitely wanted to expand and contacted Duncan McNeill of MVM in Essex. He is local and knows the climate very well, he has an amazing CV with vast experience, and very importantly could arrange everything we needed from start to finish at a very reasonable price. So, we ended ‘22 with the next phase ordered and looked forward to the spring.

Looking after an acre of vines proved to be easier than we thought. Weekly vine training, spraying with natural products and general vineyard management continued through the growing season, and our confidence in our new skills increased. We bought some second hand equipment to help with make our duties easier.

Our main aim for the vineyard is to increase the biodiversity and to create habitats for all wildlife species. We planted two wildflower meadows of 50m, built some more compost bins out of old pallets, and built a raptor post and a barn owl tower.

The wildflower meadow attracted various species of butterflies, bees, moths, bugs and more and were a joy to photograph every weekend. The colours were wonderful. We tried planting giant sunflower seeds at the end of every post but unfortunately only a couple grew, so we saved the seeds and hope to grow these in 2024. We have also planted over 300 spring bulbs along the margins.

So, as the end of our second year draws to a close, what are our thoughts for 2024? We would like to get the additional Chardonnay planted in May, build some mammal shelters, add to the wildflower meadows and generally keep doing what we have done for the last two years - improve the soil, increase the biodiversity and most of all enjoy ourselves!