Summermoor Vineyard. North Devon's oldest vineyard

Summermoor Vineyard – so called as it looks towards Summermoor Lane – is a south-facing slope of 6.71 acres based in glorious North Devon.  On a continuation of the hills from Codden Hill through to Hearson, the soil is a well-drained shale and very acid for vines. If climate alone determined where vines grew, life would be so much simpler. You would simply look at the sunshine and temperature, rainfall and frost, consider your site and soil  - plant your vineyard and make great wine! Instead, for over 2000 years, people in Europe have been planting vineyards and sometimes by sheer chance, they have had vineyards that produce good wines and try and work out why! The photo above shows the vineyard back in May 2008 before the hillside was cleared of gorse.

Using this tried and trusted method of the “accidental vineyard” Allan & Julia Petchey began planting Summermoor Vineyard in 1999. Thus, a gorse-covered hillside has been gradually transformed into one of North Devon’s hidden gems.

Research at other vineyards in Devon and Somerset highlighted that Madeleine Angevine and Siegerrebe would be suitable choices for white wine. A new red wine variety called Rondo also caught the team’s attention. The Chardonnay was planted with some wedding gift money as an after thought.  The following four years highlighted that this was not going to be an easy life choice.

Planting the vines with net guards did nothing to deter the rabbits that launched themselves at vines to knock them down and strip the new growth.  The need to get post and wire in was dwarfed by the task of keeping grass and weed control.  By 2002 it became clear that we needed to invest more time and equipment into making the vineyard work.  The following three years allowed the vineyard to start bearing fruit and the first grapes were harvested in 2005 – although a lot of the crop was lost to the birds who seem to know before we did that the red grapes were ripe! After the very poor weather years of 2007 and 2008 the vineyard started to pick up again. We adopted a spray programme of plant nutrients to aid growth and improve disease control and rabbit nets were replaced with more effective tree guards. In 2009 a fifth vine variety was planted, a white grape hybrid called Phoenix.

2009 was a year of steady progress and development with the building of our winery and further work undertaken to improve the vineyard through a clear plant and soil improvement programme. This resulted in a small but improved crop from healthier vines that were showing signs of stronger growth.