Fifth Trust News

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Harvest time at the Vineyard

14 October 2020


Students, staff and volunteers at The Fifth Trust charity are celebrating gathering in the harvest at their Elham Valley vineyard.

The enthusiastic team picked 700kg of Seyval Blanc grapes from 400 vines. The grapes will be blended with another locally grown variety by Bridge-based winery Defined Wines and should yield approximately 1,000 bottles of still white wine.

The one hectare vineyard – which was first planted 35 years ago, making it the oldest in the now popular wine-growing area – acts as an attraction for visitors to our garden centre, café and farm shop and also provides horticultural training opportunities for students with learning disabilities using the Trust’s day centre services.

In recent years the vineyard’s Pinot Noir and Bacchus varieties have produced good quality sparkling rosé and white wines but the Covid-19 lockdown, which put a temporary stop to students coming on site, and the prohibitive cost of spraying the vines to protect them from mildew, meant these crops were lost this year.

Fortunately, Seyval Blanc is resistant to mildew and the grapes also weathered several months of unexpected neglect.

It will be next summer before the 2020 Elham Valley Vineyard wine will be ready to drink, but in the meantime last year’s Seyval Blanc blend has just gone on sale at the Vineyard café and farm shop. Retailing at £15, the dry white wine is clean, bright and well-balanced, a good partner to cheese or fish.

Mike Theoff, The Fifth Trust’s Operations and Care Manager, said: “What could be better than enjoying a bottle of wine that is not only locally-grown and produced but supports the students with learning disabilities whose hard work goes into every bottle