{"id":7580,"date":"2024-07-19T17:36:58","date_gmt":"2024-07-19T16:36:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grayshottgardeners.net\/?p=7580"},"modified":"2024-07-19T17:39:37","modified_gmt":"2024-07-19T16:39:37","slug":"viticulture-in-the-south-of-england-by-alessandra-valsecchi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grayshottgardeners.net\/?p=7580","title":{"rendered":"Viticulture in the South of England, by Alessandra Valsecchi"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Programme Secretary Sue Wheeler with Alex Valsecchi<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

On 10 July the Grayshott Gardeners were treated to a very interesting talk by Alessandra Valsecchi on viticulture in the South of England.  Alex, an academic, studied at the University of Milan, achieving a doctorate in Horticulture specialising in fruit culture and viticulture.  She has had years of practical experience working on vineyards in Italy and New Zealand and worked at Wisley from 1999 to 2009 where she applied the principles of organic growing.  Alex joined Albury Vineyard as Estate Manager and is one of the few female vineyard managers in England. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Albury Vineyard is situated on the southern slopes of the North Downs and has 40,000 plants. The vines are the traditional Champagne varieties of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, as well as some Seyval and Pinot Gris. The vineyard produces organic fruit and Alex described how they do not use any herbicides and fungicides. Organic growing of vines has minimum intervention, fruit better and produce better wine, it encourages natural biology and microbiology. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saying that England was never known for its wine making, Alex told the audience that there are now 900 commercial vineyards in England, with 12 in Surrey. \u00a0Denbies, near Dorking, is the largest solo vineyard covering 120 hectares and having 300,000 visitors a year.\u00a0 They host weddings and have a very good education building and caf\u00e9.\u00a0 Chilworth Manor is one of the smaller vineyards in Surrey, its history dating back to the Augustinian Monks in the 11th<\/sup> Century.\u00a0 \u00a0The vines at Chilworth are of the Champagne variety.\u00a0 In 1990 Nytimber in West Sussex, won trophies for its sparkling wine which now rivals Champagne<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alex described the best ways to cultivate vines; December to March is pruning and laying down, April to September is the time for weeding pest and disease control.\u00a0 May is when new vines are planted and June to September is for bird protection and October is harvest time.\u00a0 There was a diagram on how to prune vines.\u00a0 The biggest challenges are deer, frost, weeds, birds, mildew and botrytis.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Albury not only produces some of the best wine in England, but it also produces spirits, one being eau de vie de vin, Attila\u2019s Bite (which is named after Alex\u2019s Terrier, who keeps unwanted visitors away (such as pheasants) from the vineyard). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 10 July the Grayshott Gardeners were treated to a very interesting talk by Alessandra Valsecchi on viticulture in the South of England.  Alex, an academic, studied at the University of Milan, achieving a doctorate in Horticulture specialising in fruit culture and viticulture.  She has had years of practical experience working on vineyards in Italy … Continue reading Viticulture in the South of England, by Alessandra Valsecchi<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"two_page_speed":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-club-lectures"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grayshottgardeners.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grayshottgardeners.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grayshottgardeners.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grayshottgardeners.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grayshottgardeners.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7580"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/grayshottgardeners.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7580\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7588,"href":"https:\/\/grayshottgardeners.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7580\/revisions\/7588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grayshottgardeners.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grayshottgardeners.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grayshottgardeners.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}