A great night last night for the official uncorking of the 2009 Urban Wine. Great fun with sax music by Graeme, vine doctor Gwen providing vine advice, lovely nibbles, a film on the harvest and of course the wine itself. Loads of film crews and media milling around and it was great to see the members all meet up, drink the wine and carry off their custom designed wine labels. We are still buzzing and over a 100 people turned up on the evening. See you all soon
All of the members have their unique labels now designed and off to the printers on Monday. It will be fantastic to get the wine out to members first week of March and cant wait to se their reaction to the bottles, etc. Once this is done it will be all steam ahead sorting out the Gothique event and then we can put our feet up for a while. Next thing it will be planning for the autumn harvest and its hard to imagine anything growing with the current bout of winter showers, rain, locusts, etc.
I have just discovered a great old wine book published in 1976 called Wine and wine making by Keith Hicks. The photos in the book are great and its a really useful guide for the home wine maker. There are some amazing recipes including making wine from tree sap and even coffee! Ugh! Maybe for the brave?
Just before Christmas on a beautiful day with frost sitting on the walls and foliage in South London, I delivered 30 vines to St Georges hospital in Tooting. It will be very exciting to see a hospital vineyard establishing itself for patients and staff to enjoy.
I was surprised to learn that in 1443, Nicolas Rolin, Chancellor to Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy, founded the Hospices de Beaure and endowed the foundation with vineyards to provide it with income. Other charitable burgundians followed his example, and today, more than 500 years later, the hospital costs are still covered by revenue from the wine. Every year, traditionally on the third Sunday in November, the wine is sold at auction. (Source Peter Mayle, Bon Appetit!)
Its incredible that the French have devised this innovative method of supporting charitable foundations and here at the UWC we would love to hear from organisations with socially useful aims, if they would like to set up vineyards and use the wine in future years for auctioning, selling as fundraising, etc. Who nows where this could lead and it would be exciting to give it a go!
Happy New Year and its great to be alive in 2010 and marvelling at the beautiful blue sky on this perfect London day. Time to put another log on the fire. All the best for the New Year.
Hi there. Please read a great piece underneath from one of our lovely members Jane Reed.
Having planted a vine in Tooting nearly 20 years ago to cover a pergola we inherited after buying our house, it seemed obvious to us that, when we bought a house in Burgundy, we should plant a vine there. The Tooting vine we bought for the leaves which, in its early days, were huge and gloriously coloured and the later French vine we bought for dessert grapes (Muscat). In our naivety we imagined we would have nothing to do in our ancient holiday home than play Roman emperors sitting by the swimming pool and picking at the bunches of grapes.
Everyone talks endlessly about ‘terroir’ and how important it is to the growth and quality of the vine. However, in our limited experience, south-facing London clay beats Burgundian extreme temperatures every time. Our vine, known affectionately by the Urban Wine Company (UWC) as ‘the beast of Tooting Bec’, produced over 100 kgs of grapes this year, whereas our rather spindly Muscat in Burgundy produced a fraction in weight compared to its London counterpart. This could be due to the difference in vine specimen or that our London vine may have its roots in the depths of the Victorian drains. Perhaps with Burgundy we have long, hot, dry summers and extremely cold winters whereas in London we don’t really have either.
Over the years we have noticed that our French vine is at least a month behind its English cousin and another major difference between the two vines is the wildlife that tries to steal our ripe grapes. In London we encounter blackbirds and squirrels, quickly followed by pigeons, which all tend to make a mess. In France it seems to be the favourite dish of dormice which are really quite cute and become accustomed to collecting their feast around us.
Before UWC came into our lives we had great fun pickling our harvest or making grape jelly, both incidentally excellent with just about any meat, hot or cold. However, as the vine grew, more and more grapes appeared; it wasn’t long before we ran out of cupboard space and there are only so many grapes you can eat or people you can give them to. That’s why turning them into wine with the Urban Wine Company makes so much more sense.
Luckily, not growing vines commercially requires only pruning and picking, but the benefits are huge and we are looking forward to finally tasting our grapes in an alcoholic form. Who knows, UWC might one day have a Burgundy grown grape to add to the pot.
If anyone wants to compare and contrast the wines of south London and the Côte d’Or, they can visit our website at www.farmhousefrance.co.uk (UWC members get 10% discount, off-season, subject to availability).
Busy weekend! Vines were collected by Alec Selvon- Bruce, a member of the urban Wine Company. The vines have now been moved from the Urban Wine yard and are now living happily in a small street of former cottages that were once used by workers for the old Waddon Waterworks.
Alec moved into the house in 2006 and also inherited two existing vines. In the first year they set to harvesting the grapes for home wine making, with mixed results of mildew, harvesting too early and not enough sugar for fermentation. The resulting liquid was apparently a potent yet to be defined sherry liquor! Next year they will be invested in pulping materials and more advanced wine making materials.
This year they built a pergola and trained the vines to reach out across the house with a healthy crop of grapes. Neighbours have assisted in the caring for the vines while they were away on holiday.
The ten vines gained through the Urban Wine Company have been distributed to all four cottages, some vines for use in the new pergola, and others for use in a communal’ no mans land’ that benefits from lots of sunlight.
Stay tuned for updates on the Croydon vineyard! You never know, it might be possible that some day people will be think of vineyards, rathen than Ikea, when they travel to Croydon.
Have just got back from the vineyard. The wine made from the urban growers ton of grapes collected in October this year tastes fantastic and fruity. The wine is a blush as its made from red and white grapes and is a lovely salmon colour. It has a delicious taste that will go down really well as Spring approaches. I am delighted about the the quality of the wine thanks to the skills of the wine makers at Bolney and in particular Sam Linter. It really is joyous to think that there are parts of North, East, South and West of London in the blend and all the members will be able to celebrate their wine making success when they get their bottles of urban wine in 2010. Stay tuned for more news soon!
A fantastic day on the 3rd October with over a tonne of grapes collected and made into wine. It was great to meet the lovely Urban Wine Co members from all corners of London. Wine will be ready in March next year and the UWC will be sending out information on forthcoming events.
It’s worth checking out this website: http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/10/05/going.green.urban.wine/index.html
which covered this year’s harvest.
Back soon with more news.
Saturday 3rd October is the day for the urban harvest. If you have not contacted us already there is still a chance to sign up to have your urban grapes included in this year’s harvest and made into wine. Give us a call on 07944983286 / 07857848046 for further information.
The Thames Festival was a brilliant day and it was great to see so many familiar, and new, faces turning up on the day. We sold a fair few glasses of wine and Southwark Bridge was a beautiful place to be as the sun set and we watched the nice people on the bridge enjoying a glass of wine.
It was great to have a bar that was designed by the lovely people organising the Thames festival (Clare, Kitty, Kath etc) who all made it a pleasure to work on . All very cool. The bar was also decked out with grapes grown in South London gardens and it was fun that people were able to eat a grape or two as they waited for the speedy and highly efficient Urban Wine Events team to serve them a glass of English or French wine.
Thanks to the Wombles recycling project for providing the chillers and Newham Food Access Project for helping with the grapes for the grape pressing.
Only a quick rest and then it’s on to the harvest on October 3rd and all the madness that this will bring!
Keep your eyes peeled for the Urban Wine film that wil soon be uploaded onto this website!