News

Our new planting back in May. Photograph by @westwellwines. Our new plantings have embraced June’s wet weather and now that the mature vines are flowering, the heady forecast of sunshine for the foreseeable future is ideal at what is a critical time of year in the vineyard diary. Tentative but definitive growth. Photograph by @westwellwines. Ortega ripening in the June sunshine, photograph by @westwellwines. New shoots grow very fast and require regular 'tucking in'. Photograph by Ady Kerry.  

Westwell at Canterbury Festival. Photograph by @westwellwines. Thanks to all of you who joined us at Canterbury festival - it was a great day and an opportunity for us to share England’s first wine in keg with you. We work with Uncharted Wines to supply bars and restaurants around the UK with our kegged Ortega. Creating a sustainable product is key to our values - we want to be making wines for centuries to come, so kegs tick all the boxes - fresher wine for longer, and a lower carbon footprint in every sip. Westwell Ortega is now available... on...

Along with most of the vineyards in the UK, this year’s harvest at Westwell has been a record one - we picked and processed over 50 tonnes of grapes from our 13 acres with sugars, acids and flavours reaching perfect levels. With such excellent fruit, we'll make still wines from our Burgundy clones - look out for a Pinot Noir red and rosé plus a still Chardonnay next summer.Our worry earlier in the year was that there might be difficulty ripening the crop as there were two separate flowerings, resulting in bunches ripening at different times. The August rain exacerbated...

In viticulture, we’re always dancing a complicated waltz with nature - and never more than at harvest. There is so much to consider when selecting the perfect days on which to harvest our crop. By any measure, this has been an exceptional growing year - fierce heat and sunlight from late spring which accelerated flowering, followed by a long period of lowered but constant heat which has been perfect for slow ripening. At Westwell, we grow four different varieties - all of which ripen at slightly different times. In the weeks leading up to harvest, we monitor each variety closely....