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Jonathan’s Vineyard Blog 26th March 2024 Winter has been incredibly wet and outdoor work in the vineyard has been anything but fun - however these are a few of the jobs which have been keeping us busy over the past few months: Pruning our vines - the single most important task undertaken in the vineyard and one which will have the greatest influence on potential yields and quality; Pruning our windbreaks - we have to undertake routine maintenance every few years to ensure that they don’t get too tall or wide - it is a difficult task which requires the expertise of a local contractor; Planting new hedges and trees - we do this every winter and the results are beginning to speak for themselves. Our shop and cafe will remain closed throughout 2024 whilst we deal with a myriad of issues following the devastating loss of our mother last November. If you would like to visit us this year then your chance to do so is via our volunteering days - our two early season ones will be held on: Tuesday 7th May Monday 3rd June Approximately 6 hours of gentle work within the vineyard followed by lunch and free flowing Godstone wine - if you would like to join the fun please let me know asap ! Jonathan & Robert 

Jonathan’s Vineyard Blog 22nd January 2024 It might surprise you to know that January is one of the busiest months in the vineyard year. Pruning is in full swing plus we are busy planting new hedges and trees. Pruning is the single most important task in a vineyard because we are choosing the buds that will produce the fruit for harvest. It is a crucial task which helps us to maintain the vine’s formation; regulates the number and positioning of shoots thereby concentrating growth into key areas; improves fruit quality and generally ensures that the vine does not get out of control ! We have some vines which are now 36 years old and if anything the quality of their grapes is improving year on year, however, as you can see from the above image a vine of this maturity also requires some fairly drastic pruning in order to maintain its shape. This winter we have removed as much old bulky wood as possible from the crown of these vines and so far I am very satisfied with the resulting structure. A vine requires a lot of energy to power the sap as it rises up the plant once growth commences in the Spring so we are basically trying to reduce its workload - this happens to the best of us as we get older ! Our shop and cafe are taking a short break whilst we transition the business following the sad passing away of our mother last November; we are very grateful for the many messages of support and kind words you have written to us during this difficult time. We will see you again soon. Jonathan & Robert

Jonathan’s Vineyard Blog 23rd November 2023 It is with a heavy heart that I must inform you that our mother, June Deeley, passed away peacefully at home on 8th November, after a mercifully short battle against cancer. I am sure many of our regular visitors will have become familiar over the years with seeing my mother at her vineyard; it was her “happy place” and it provided her with the serenity and peacefulness which she deserved and craved. Our mother was involved with the vineyard since its inception back in the mid 1980’s and took great pride in running the shop as though it were an extension of her home - ‘Cleanliness is next to Godliness’ would be a very suitable epitaph to her dedication in ensuring that everything was always orderly and well run. Our mother left the cultural aspects of the vineyard to our team of contractors - although once a month she would do a ‘grand tour’ of the vines to ensure that everything was ‘spick and span’, and woe betide if the hedges and verges were not kept neat and tidy ! Our mother’s mantra was always ‘KBO’ (keep buggering on) whatever the situation in which she found herself - she had lived through evacuation during WW2 and the ensuing food rationing, which clearly left an indelible mark and made her the amazing person we will always remember. It was fitting - and gave her immense pride - that her final year saw Godstone win a gold medal for our sparkling wine plus a record harvest in October. Our mother will be sorely missed in so many ways - “To live in hearts we leave behind, is not to die”. (If you would like details of our mother’s funeral, which will take place in early December, please contact me via email and I will provide you with the details.

Jonathan’s Vineyard Blog 30th October 2023 Another year, another harvest! I am glad to report that our harvest was ultimately a very good one, in spite of heavy rainfall at key periods during the Summer and early Autumn. We were blessed with good weather on all three harvest days and, if you were one of those who volunteered your help, may we extend our heartfelt thanks for giving freely your time and dedication. Our Bacchus were picked on 1st October and the Seyval Blanc on 15th & 16th October; acidity and pH were about as perfect as it’s possible to achieve on the Bacchus and also perfectly respectable on the Seyval. In total, we harvested 3,000 kilos of grapes, which is just below our maximum potential of 3,750 kilos. All in all, a good year which promises very good wines for drinking in the years ahead. We have recently introduced a Charcuterie Platter to our menu which features gorgeous cold cuts from Owley Farm in Tenterden, Kent. Why not pop along and try it with a glass of our award winning wine, we are always delighted to see you. We are extremely busy at weekends so I strongly recommend that you book a great place on our terrace and/or garden area here . Kind Regards,  Jonathan & Family

Jonathan’s Vineyard Blog 12th September 2023  September is the month which gives me the most sleepless nights in the year ! I check the Met Office app every few hours hoping to see a long term forecast consisting solely of warm, cloudless blue skies, and no rain. I am writing this blog on the back of an unseasonably hot period which has been an absolute blessing for our ripening grapes. I have been growing grapes in England for almost forty years and have no intention of making harvest predictions which I will then regret but suffice to say, if the weather gods are kind between now and mid October then we have the basis of a decent crop. The very wet weather which we experienced during July and August has allowed some botrytis (grey mould) to develop - especially in our Bacchus - so at this stage the only thing that can arrest the disease is fine weather. Our Seyval Blanc - which are effectively disease resistant - prove, once again, why they are so well suited to cool climate wine areas such as England. In my next blog you will read about our harvest but, in the meantime, please pray for a sustained period of decent weather on our behalf ! We have recently introduced a Charcuterie Platter to our menu which features gorgeous cold cuts from Owley Farm in Tenterden, Kent. Why not pop along and try it with a glass of our award winning wine, we are always delighted to see you. We are extremely busy at weekends so I strongly recommend that you book a great place on our terrace and/or garden area via https://www.godstonevineyards.com/contact Kind Regards , Jonathan & Family

Jonathan’s Vineyard Blog 1st August 2023 July has been an extremely busy month in the vineyard majoring upon the trimming and leaf stripping, especially in our Bacchus vines. The trimming is done by a local contractor who uses a tractor-mounted machine which trims the sides and tops of the vine rows; reducing the vegetation above the top wire is particularly important otherwise the vines from one row would overshadow the next row and prevent sunlight penetrating the fruiting area. Leaf stripping has been done by hand (thank you to those of you who have so kindly volunteered your help) and seems counterintuitive ! After all, why would you want to remove the ‘factory’ of the vine ? In the case of a vine the leaf takes one month before it provides help to the fruit (meanwhile using the plant’s energy) after which it only produces energy for three months and, therefore, by the end of July all that a leaf is doing is creating shade and humidity on the fruit. Leaf removal promotes aeration on the fruit and increases exposure to the sun, which in turn aids ripening. In July we leaf stripped the east side of our rows in the hope that any morning sun will dry the overnight dew off the fruit; in mid August we will leaf strip the west side. The image at the top of the article shows a row of Bacchus after leaf stripping and trimming - note the promising bunches ! I hope that you are enjoying the Summer - it’s been a mixed bag in terms of the weather and we could do with a month of decent sunshine to help the grapes. We have recently introduced a Charcuterie Platter to our menu which features gorgeous cold cuts from Owley Farm in Tenterden, Kent. Why not pop along and try it with a glass of our award winning wine, we are always delighted to see you. Kind Regards , Jonathan & Family

Jonathan’s Vineyard Blog 4th July 2023 We have received some very good news since my last blog was published in May - our Sparkling Wine 2020 was awarded a gold medal at the IEWA Awards; only ten golds were awarded and there are nearly 1000 vineyards in the UK so we are incredibly proud of this achievement. I consider it to be a starting point rather than an end game in our pursuit of excellence - everything we do in the vineyard at Godstone is tailored towards the goal of consistently producing top quality wines. I have long held the view that our soil type and topography are near perfect for growing grapes in England and this award feels like a vindication. “Fantastic aromatics on the nose and great complexity. The mouthfeel and acidity is outstanding. An exciting sparkling wine that really opens up in the glass. Beautiful nose, with such good evolution. Really well balanced wine with depth on the mid-palate and a creamy, round finish. Really enjoyable !” - IEWA 2023 Tasting Note. In other news we are now Summer pruning our vines : tucking in shoots, especially on a vigorous variety such as Bacchus; leaf stripping on one side of each row in order to improve ventilation and access to the sun. Our alfresco garden area is looking particularly lovely this year so if you fancy popping along to enjoy a glass of our award winning wines then we are always delighted to see you any weekend !  Kind Regards Jonathan jcdeeley@godstonevineyards.com

Jonathan’s Vineyard Blog 25th May 2023 Our first volunteering day of the new season was held on Tuesday 16th May and we were blessed with fine weather after what has been a rather cold and wet Spring. A dozen of us spent the morning engaged in bud rubbing, which is a vital task and basically involves removing all the unwanted new growth from the vine trunk. It is a job which has been made far easier thanks to a hand held contraption that looks like the combination of long handled toothbrush cum hairbrush. Anyway, it does a great job. We all then enjoyed a lovely lunch together on our sun drenched terrace - local cheeses complimented by a glass or two of our sparkling wine . We are immensely grateful to those of you who help out on these volunteering days and there are a few more lined up over the course of Summer/Autumn if you wish to get involved in something rather different! The weather has finally turned warm and sunny this week and so, after a slow start, the vines are finally begin to motor through their growth stages. Our Sparkling Rose from the 2021 harvest is being released during the second week of June. I have had several advanced tastings and it is sublime. Kind Regards Jonathan jcdeeley@godstonevineyards.com

Jonathan’s Vineyard Blog 11th April 2023 I apologise for not having provided a blogpost since before Christmas however we have most certainly not been idle in the vineyard ! The main task has been pruning all the vines, which is a massive undertaking and absolutely crucial in the context of the vineyard year. It can be a wonderful job on a crisp, dry winters’ day but more often than not this year it has been pouring with rain, which is absolutely no fun whatsoever. We have also been busy replacing any broken wooden posts in the vine rows and this has become increasingly difficult due to problems on the supply side with timber products, most of which have traditionally been sourced from Ukraine and/or Russia. Luckily our supplier had sufficient quantity to satisfy our order however its another unforeseen consequence of the dreadful ongoing conflict. We have planted more new hedges and trees - they are incredibly useful in the long term for improving our ecosystem and the large resident population of pheasants is living proof that we continue to head in the right direction. As I write these notes the hawthorn hedges are beginning to turn green and Spring is most definitely in the air ! It’s a wonderful time of the year. Kind Regards Jonathan jcdeeley@godstonevineyards.com