Notes from the Vineyard

The Amber Valley Agroforestry Orchard: A Vision for Resilient Viticulture and Biodiversity

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 15:00:26 GMT

A Vision for the Future

At Amber Valley Vineyards, we have always sought to cultivate our land in harmony with nature, recognising that a thriving ecosystem underpins the health of our vines, our wines and cider, and our wider environment. Our latest endeavour - the Amber Valley Agroforestry Orchard - builds upon this ethos, integrating heritage orcharding, viticulture, beekeeping, and wildflower conservation into a dynamic agroforestry system. This is not just about diversification; it is about resilience, sustainability, and deepening our connection to the land.

Set at 200m above sea level, adjacent to our vineyard and the pocket rainforest project, this new orchard-meadow-vineyard system represents a pioneering approach to land management. Inspired by traditional mixed farming systems and contemporary research on agroforestry in viticulture, we are designing a landscape that actively supports biodiversity, enhances soil health, and provides multiple revenue streams - ensuring long-term sustainability for both our farm and our wider landscape.

By integrating fruit trees, vines, wildflower meadows, and seasonal crops and flowers, we aim to create a thriving, multi-layered ecosystem that will deliver benefits far beyond the orchard itself. This project will not only increase local biodiversity but will also enhance the ecosystem services that support our vineyard - from natural pest control from ecosystem services, to improved soil structure and water retention.

The Agroforestry Approach: A Functional Ecosystem

Our approach draws on agroforestry principles - combining trees, crops, and wildlife corridors to create a resilient, productive landscape. The key components of the system include:

Tall pear trees at the highest points to provide structure, wind buffering, and prevent shading of lower crops.
Apple and fruit trees on MM106 rootstocks, including heritage Derbyshire varieties and cider apples, ensuring genetic diversity and a sense of place.
Grapevines trained on selected trees, exploring the potential for vineyard-orchard integration.
A maintained wildflower meadow, supporting pollinators, beneficial insects, and enhancing soil fertility.
Seasonal flower crops such as daffodils and saffron crocus, extending flowering periods for pollinators while providing an additional revenue stream.
Integrated beehives, both to enhance pollination across the vineyard and orchard and to produce locally sourced honey.
Berry shrubs, herbs, and native hedgerows, expanding food sources for both wildlife and our customers.
Sustainable grazing and managed mowing, maintaining the meadow without degrading soil structure.

This approach moves away from monoculture farming towards a resilient, diverse ecosystem - one that can better withstand climatic fluctuations while providing multiple benefits to both wildlife and wine production.

Enhancing Biodiversity & Supporting the Vineyard Ecosystem

The presence of trees, hedgerows, and a species-rich wildflower meadow will significantly increase biodiversity within our landscape. This is not an abstract benefit - it has direct, tangible impacts on the health and productivity of our vineyard.

1. Supporting Pollinators & Natural Pest Control

Wildflower meadows and fruit trees provide a continuous nectar source for pollinators, ensuring healthy bee populations that will benefit both our orchard and vineyard. The introduction of beehives within the orchard will further strengthen local pollination networks, improving fruit set in both apples and grapes.

By encouraging diverse insect populations, we also enhance natural pest control. Research has shown that orchard agroforestry systems attract predatory insects, such as ladybirds, lacewings, and parasitoid wasps, which feed on vineyard pests like aphids and caterpillars. This reduces the need for intervention, making our vineyard more self-sustaining.

2. Soil Health & Water Retention

One of the greatest challenges in viticulture is soil degradation and loss of organic matter. Agroforestry helps to counteract this by improving soil structure, increasing water retention, and reducing erosion.

Deep-rooted fruit trees help to stabilise soils, preventing runoff during heavy rain.
Leaf litter and organic matter from trees increase soil microbial diversity, leading to better nutrient cycling.
Mycorrhizal fungi networks, supported by the presence of diverse root systems, improve plant access to water and nutrients - benefiting both vines and fruit trees.

3. Climate Resilience & Carbon Sequestration

With climate change bringing more erratic weather, vineyards must become more adaptable. Agroforestry provides natural wind buffering, reducing temperature extremes and protecting vines from late frosts and intense heatwaves.

Moreover, by incorporating trees, hedgerows, and perennial crops, the orchard actively sequesters carbon, contributing to climate change mitigation while improving long-term soil fertility.

4. Encouraging Birds & Small Mammals

By maintaining hedgerows, fruit trees, and wildflower margins, we create vital nesting and foraging habitats for birds and small mammals. This is particularly relevant for insectivorous birds, which play a key role in controlling vineyard pests.

Encouraging a balanced predator-prey relationship ensures that our orchard and vineyard remains a self-regulating ecosystem, rather than one reliant on chemical inputs.

A Model for Sustainable Agriculture & Community Engagement

Beyond biodiversity, this project is about people and place. We believe that farms should be multi-functional landscapes - supporting not just production but also education, research, and community involvement.

1. Research & University Collaboration

We are already working with the University of Derby’s Department of Biological Sciences, offering graduate and postgraduate fieldwork opportunities. This project will further strengthen these ties, providing a real-world case study in regenerative agroforestry - bridging the gap between research and practice.

Currently we are working with an MSc student that is helping us with a management plan to eradicate invasive Himalayan Balsam and to help manage bracken and bramble.

2. Volunteer Opportunities & Community Engagement

This orchard will be a space for learning, collaboration, and hands-on experience. From traditional apple grafting workshops to biodiversity monitoring, we want to create opportunities for volunteers, students, and local residents to engage with sustainable farming. The nature of this work, which is largely experimental and on a relatively small scale and budget on a site with topographical challenges will require invaluable volunteer input to ensure financial sustainability in the early years.

3. Economic Resilience & Sustainable Revenue Streams

By combining fruit, vines, beekeeping, and flower production, we ensure that our farm is not reliant on a single income stream. This diversification strengthens our long-term business sustainability, making Amber Valley Vineyards more adaptable to market and climate challenges.

A Living, Breathing Landscape

This agroforestry orchard is more than a commercial project - it is a vision for a future where farming and nature thrive together. By integrating traditional orcharding, viticulture, wildflowers, and conservation, we are crafting a landscape that is productive, beautiful, and ecologically rich.

It will be a place where pollinators will once again thrive and hum, birds forage, and vines flourish in the shade of orchard trees. A place where science, tradition, and innovation meet - ensuring that Amber Valley Vineyards remains at the forefront of sustainable regenerative viticulture for generations to come.

This is the future of farming - and we are proud to be growing it, one tree at a time. Also read the Agroforestry Orchard section on the website here.

A Cave Long-Lees Ageing Project with Heights of Abraham

Fri, 25 Aug 2023 10:21:00 GMT

Amber Valley Vineyards Collaborates with Heights of Abraham to Age Sparkling Pink Wine Underground in Historic Rutland Cavern

DERBYSHIRE, UK — Bridging the realms of history, geology, and viniculture, award-winning Amber Valley Vineyards is thrilled to announce a unique collaboration with the amazing Derbyshire award-winning tourism attraction, Heights of Abraham, located in Matlock Bath. This visionary initiative will place 200 bottles of Amber Valley's sparkling pink wine from the outstanding 2022 vintage deep within the historic Rutland Cavern, a place with a legacy of its own.

The region's fascinating geology and connection with the mineral Galena, an ore of lead and silver, mined since Roman times, provides an evocative backdrop to this venture. The Great Rutland Cavern, earlier known as the Nestus mine, has a history rich in mining activities tracing back to at least the medieval era. This collaboration symbolically unites Derbyshire's mineral-rich past with its promising vinicultural present.

Long lees ageing, a technique where sparkling wine is allowed to mature on its 'lees' (residual yeast particles) for an extended period, will be employed. Historically favoured by prestigious champagne estates, this method offers wines additional complexity and depth of flavour. Underground locations, like Rutland Cavern, provide the consistently cool temperatures, stable humidity levels, and protection from light, all essential for producing exceptional sparkling wines.

Barry Lewis, owner of Amber Valley Vineyard, remarked on this historic partnership,

"Our ambition to produce a limited-release prestige sparkling wine found its perfect setting within the storied depths of Rutland Cavern. Derbyshire's mining history, combined with our innovative spirit, will craft a wine echoing both tradition and modernity.

We are aiming to long-lees age the wine in Rutland Cavern for at least two and a half years and post disgorging the wine will be allowed some quiet bottle time before being released but it should be worth the wait. And when we do, we should hopefully have something quite extraordinary.

We’ve long wanted to work in a partnership of this nature in our home county of Derbyshire, we have a unique county with a unique history and story to tell and this collaboration with the Heights of Abraham really is a perfect example of that. We’re weaving a new story, utilising that unique history and bringing wine, nature and history together to tell it.”

Expressing his enthusiasm, Rupert Pugh, Development Director and member of the Pugh family, custodians of the Heights of Abraham, stated,

"This partnership with Amber Valley Vineyards is a celebration of Derbyshire's rich heritage. The confluence of our historical attraction with the nuanced craft of winemaking promises an unparalleled experience. Over the centuries the Rutland Cavern has been used for many things, from candlelit concerts to spectacular weddings, including one where the bride was lowered down the cavern shaft on a rope to meet her new husband! Soldiers used to store their artillery and dynamite in the caverns, and now a new historic partnership has begun with Amber Valley Vineyard. We look forward to serving this unique sparkling wine in our Vista restaurant in the future.”

This sparkling wine, a masterful blend of around 70% estate grown Seyval Blanc, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier, hails from Amber Valley's Doehole vineyard, situated near Wessington and Ashover, and is being crafted by winemaker Jack Abbott of Three Choirs Vineyards, Gloucestershire, the long-time winemaking partner of Amber Valley Vineyards, who added,

“This Amber Valley Rose from the exciting 2022 vintage is a typical sparkling blend for the region, with 85% Seyval Blanc for the body and Pinot Noir and Meunier adding interest with their classic red fruit and floral characteristics. The gentle pressing of the grapes and aging on fine lees prior to secondary fermentation have created a wine which is textured with bright acidity, ideal for sparkling wine production. Aging in these caves with their stable temperature and dim lighting should provide the ideal environment to allow this wine to age gracefully on lees for years to come; maturing to what we believe will be an exciting and complex wine.”

Amber Valley Vineyards have previously released sparkling wine vintages, which have been small but perfectly formed and highly sought after, have included Lindway Brook 2018, a white sparkling wine made in the méthode traditionnelle or traditional method, of secondary fermentation in the bottle and Lindway Brook Pink 2019. Both these wines have won international awards for their quality, comparing favourably with high quality grower Champagnes.

As history enthusiasts and wine aficionados await this unique sparkling wine, Derbyshire stands poised to mark another significant chapter in its storied legacy.

For more details about Amber Valley Vineyards, their wines, and this collaboration, please contact.

About Amber Valley Vineyards:
Owned by the Lewis family, Amber Valley Vineyards Estate (established in 2011) is a beacon of vine-growing and winemaking excellence in Derbyshire, renowned for its dedication to creating high-quality wines, with a special focus on providing immersive and interesting vineyard tours and tastings at their Wessington site. Proponents of regenerative viticulture, eschewing herbicides, and pesticides, and preferring to work with nature by protecting the soils and enhancing local ecosystems to provide ecosystem services in the vineyard to keep pests and diseases under control; Amber Valley Vineyards has been at the forefront of this type of viticulture since 2017.

Contact Barry Lewis on 07920484207 (please text first). barry@ambervalleywines.co.uk

www.ambervalleyvineyards.co.uk

About Heights of Abraham:
Owned by the Pugh family, Heights of Abraham is Derbyshire's treasured gem, famed for its iconic cable cars and offering visitors an immersive journey into Matlock Bath's limestone hills, caverns, and its rich mining legacy. It remains an unmissable attraction for those exploring Derbyshire.

The Rutland Cavern hosts guided cavern tours every day until November 5th, and a Halloween Grotto will once again be created in the cavern during October half-term. Entrance to the cavern is included with the purchase of a cable car ticket.

This year the 60 acre Estate is celebrating a “year of fantastic happenings”, full details of which can be found on the website.
Email: office@heightsofabraham.com
We b site www.heightsofabraham.com
Press office mobile: 07515 747658 (David Thornton)

Embracing Biodiversity: A Journey towards Regenerative Viticulture at Amber Valley

Sat, 22 Jul 2023 12:23:42 GMT

Embracing Biodiversity: A Journey towards Regenerative Viticulture at Amber Valley

As custodians of ancient hay meadows, woodlands, and hedgerows rich in life and species diversity, we at Amber Valley have embraced the mission to foster biodiversity while producing high-quality, award-winning wines. Over the past decade, we have shifted our management practices to encourage more species across our vineyards, orchard, and registered wildlife sites. We believe the two objectives of conserving biodiversity and cultivating fine wines are not only compatible but, more importantly, complementary. By implementing regenerative viticulture practices, we are striving to strike a balance that encourages healthier crops and improved soil health.

The Importance of Regenerative Viticulture

Regenerative viticulture is an organic farming approach that seeks to increase biodiversity, enrich soils, and enhance the ecosystem. The guiding principle behind this approach is to work in harmony with nature to ensure healthy living soils that sequester more carbon and promote beneficial ecosystems.

For us at Amber Valley, regenerative viticulture resonates profoundly with our values. We have been practising regenerative viticulture principles in our vineyards for years. Despite its challenges in the initial years when we conventionally ploughed and used herbicides, the tide turned when we decided to grow grass under the vines. This seemingly small shift not only improved our soil health but also alleviated the need for copper-based treatments, subsequently making our vineyard more sustainable and healthier.

Regenerative viticulture fosters a healthier soil structure, creating a vibrant rhizosphere where nutrients are efficiently traded between plants and soil, and carbon is effectively sequestered. This ecosystem is crucial for maintaining vineyards in balance with biodiversity, which can subsequently benefit our vines.

Understanding the Traditional Vs. Regenerative Approaches

Traditional viticulture typically involves a monoculture of vines cultivated with disk weeders and tillers or sprayed with herbicides and chemicals to control various harmful bugs and diseases. This combination of practices reduces soil health, weakening the vines' natural defences.

In contrast, regenerative viticulture focuses on maintaining soil health, reducing pesticide use, and enhancing biodiversity. The switch we made to stop spraying and cultivating under the vines has brought rapid benefits for us at Amber Valley. It helped suppress canopy vigour without affecting fruit quality, reduced our worries about fungal disease, and even decreased pest pressures from the close proximity of the vineyards to un-mown wildflower areas, wildflower meadows, and species-rich hedgerows.

Experimenting with Regenerative Viticulture

At Amber Valley, we have experimented with various regenerative viticulture practices, such as using sheep to graze at the end of the season, which we hope to do more of in the future. We also use alpaca manure under the vines as a natural fertilizer, a practice particularly suited to fruit growing whilst also being high in potassium and phosphates.

We are currently trialling unmown aisles. While mowing within our vineyards is necessary to reduce early season frost risk, disease pressure, and to harness the warming of shorter grasses under vines, we aim to balance this with biodiversity by keeping a variety of grasses and wildflowers visible in the vineyards throughout the growing season.

Regenerative viticulture is about the ecological or biodiversity services offered within a farming system. The better we can foster these relationships and provide the right conditions, the greater the potential benefits to our vines, especially in terms of health.

Amber Valley's Steps Towards a Greener Future

Our vision at Amber Valley is to become a net-zero carbon business. We have almost achieved this goal, with our business premises powered by wind and solar energy that we capture and store in batteries. This energy is used to power fridges, lighting, charge our portable generator batteries and our battery-powered power tools.

We're also planning to bring bee hives to our vineyard sites, an initiative in its early stages. As part of our commitment to increasing biodiversity, we will be installing 10 bat boxes by next summer.

Our journey in regenerative viticulture has been exciting so far, and the way ahead promises more discoveries and growth. It is a method that is gaining traction, and we are keen to show that it can work, even in the UK's challenging climate. Over the coming years, we aim to adapt our methods further to improve biodiversity, ensure a healthy soil ecosystem, and experiment with things like particular cover crops, inter-vineyard grazing, and rotating unmown aisles for longer periods.

While the way of regenerative viticulture is a departure from the agricultural intensification of the last century, it represents a vital sea-change in practice. It may not happen overnight, but its promise for a greener, biodiverse, and mutually beneficial ecosystem within our vineyards that can sequester more carbon is compelling and ultimately sustainable.

As we continue to tread this path, we invite you, our community, to join us in our journey. We ask for a voluntary car parking payment to support our work, which wouldn't replace the usual investment we make in running our estate, but ensures we can do a bit more to enhance biodiversity and achieve our aims. Your contributions are a testament to our shared belief in a sustainable, diverse, and vibrant future for our vineyards.

Doehole II: New Planting for 2024?

Mon, 08 May 2023 11:48:09 GMT

A Carefully Planned Expansion to Vineyards

Recently I posted a Reel on Instagram that said we're considering expanding onto Doehole II, the field adjacent to our current main vineyard, which has raised a bit of interest. The reason for this is because it's an English Nature designated a wildlife site, which means it has a locally recognised status designed to make obvious its importance as an ancient hay meadow. It's a site rich in wildflowers, herbs and grasses, and a type of hay meadow that we've lost an awful lot of since WWI, hence it's designation.

It hasn't been a wildlife site since forever, that's a relatively recent thing and arose as a consequence of our inviting Derbyshire Wildlife Trust (DWT) to see the land shortly after we acquired it in 2014. At that time, when Spring came along we realised what amazing flowers there were there, including two types of orchid. We contacted the DWT to come and see it and we gave them our blessing to designate the site after a survey. We worked with them on the initial planting in 2014/15 but we made two mistakes... the first was we planted on a part of the site that was too steep for routine maintenance and second we didn't know enough about the impact of the low nutrient soils that wildflower meadows have, on the vines themselves. Eventually, because the vines didn't thrive the site became abandoned.

This might seem somewhat counterintuitive as there's a general perception that vines like poor soil, which is both true and not true. Yes, in a more clement and drier climate where roots can really dig in to reach water (and vines really do) they can get nutrients and minerals from great depths in clays, sandy soils and even rocky ground and in so doing perhaps work to give great quality wine grapes. But in wetter cooler less clement conditions like ours they don't need to root as deeply, and if they did they would probably find wet subsoil conditions. In our growing conditions they need to get their nutrients in shallow soils. They've all on to grow great g r apes in our stressful, cool damp climate that they don't want or need poor soils to make it harder!

Now, as we look at the high demand for our wines and the need to produce more grapes, and what we have available to us as part of the our estate, we have returned to look at this site again. Key to the sites longer term proper management will be bringing the site back into economic use. This coming summer we'll talk to the DWT about ploughing an area for vines on the more 'level' plateau part of the site, inputting some natural organic fertiliser to the soils, whilst maintaining a decent belt around the edge as a hay meadow.

We're also going to trial new planting plan of narrower rows, closer vine plantings and lower trellising here too. This should enable us to get c.2,500 to 3,000 vines onto the area here. We're choosing Seyval Blanc as it does well on the adjacent site, it isn't a big vine and can cope with a higher density of planting and is generally a good doer. Oh, and it's ideal for sparkling wine, which is something we'd like to make more of!

We'll keep you posted.

Regenerative Viticulture at Amber Valley Vineyard's

183:875168839 (Barry Lewis) — Mon, 06 Jun 2022 13:48:50 GMT

Regenerative Viticulture

The concept of regenerative viticulture is something that’s recently come across my radar and I’m glad it did. We’ve been growing vines in a particular way at Amber Valley Vineyards that I’ve kind of been struggling to describe. Yes we’re organic, no we don’t do biodynamic practices, yes we do zero tilling under the vines, no we don’t use copper based organic sprays, in fact we try not to spray, and so on.

When I read about regenerative viticulture and the Regenerative Viticulture Foundation my interest was piqued. Could this be something that neatly and helpfully describes what we are doing in the vineyard?

So reading on it seems we’ve been inadvertently practicing the principles behind regenerative viticulture in our vineyards for years now. So how did we get there? Initially we conventionally ploughed, rotovated and used herbicides those early years as we grappled with planting, establishing and growing our new and young vines. It always felt like a struggle, the more we battled the weeds, by spraying and chopping at the ground under the vines, because that’s what conventional wisdom told us we should be doing, the more we felt we were losing the battle of maintaining healthy vines and healthy soil.

When I eventually accepted it’d be better and easier to just grow grass under the vines and shifted our methods to that aim everything got better quickly! In tandem we’ve been organic (not registered) for some years now we’ve even moved away from copper based treatments within that regime - we haven’t needed them as much since we switched, which I like to think isn’t coincidental. The vast majority of the varieties we’ve chosen (Piwis and hybrids) don’t need too much intervention anyway and this combined with healthier soils have, I hope, tipped the balance in our favour.

The idea of ensuring that we can maintain our vineyards in balance with better biodiversity, which in turn can benefit our vines is not just appealing but desirable. A healthy soil structure, with its own ecosystem of a healthy rhizosphere where nutrients are effectively and beneficially traded between plants and soil and where carbon is effectively sequestered is at the very heart of regenerative viticulture and regenerative farming generally. Above ground we’ve been rethinking the relationships between vines and the wider wild plant communities to encourage increased biodiversity and, again, increased benefits for our vines.

Traditional or conventional viticulture is more or less a monoculture of vines, cultivated with disk weeders and tillers or sprayed with herbicides; sprayed with chemicals to control downy and powdery mildews or thrips and various other harmful bugs, and chemical fertilisers used to address nutrient deficiencies in the soil. In combination these chemicals effectively reduce the health of the soils, potentially weakening the vines natural defences. Organic and biodynamic techniques are better but still rely on cultivation under the vines, and may still see copper based products sprayed onto vines, which ultimately harms the soil ecosystem. Tilling soil, in any system of agriculture harms the soil structure, releases carbon, harms the soil ecosystem or rhizosphere, its microbe communities and even breaking up the mycorrhizae networks that trades minerals and other nutrients between plants.

In hindsight that switch we made to stopping spraying and cultivating under the vines brought such rapid benefits for us and helped suppress canopy vigour without affecting fruit quality (in our Solaris canopy in particular) meant that we found we needed to worry less about fungal disease. We’ve also seen a reduction in pest pressures from the close proximity of the vineyards to un-mown wildflower areas, wildflower meadows and species rich hedgerows. We’re teeming with ladybirds for example.

We’ve even explored, successfully, using sheep in the vines to graze at the end of the season. Something we’d like to do more of in the future. The idea of turning chickens out also appeals but I’m not sure they’d last long with the healthy fox population we have locally. Thankfully we’ve the odd pheasant that can perform similar services.

Our only ‘artificial’ input, if you can even call it that is using alpaca poo under the vines, which can be applied directly on the soils and breaks down naturally as if by grazing animals and it is particularly suited to fruit growing as it’s lower in nitrogen whilst being high in potassium and phosphates. The added bonus is there are no seeds in alpaca manure.

We’re this year trialling unmown aisles - and yes, we do mow within our vineyards, as it’s still important to reduce early season frost risk, the disease pressure that long damp grass can bring and to harness the warming of shorter grasses under vines. But we’re not too enthusiastic about total undervine management and so there’s always a diversity of grasses and wildflowers still visible in the vineyards throughout the growing season.

The point of regenerative viticulture is about ecological or biodiversity services offered and traded within a farming, or in our case a viticultural system. The better we can make those relationships and provide the right conditions to encourage them, then the better the potential benefits to our vines. Most critically vine and fruit health. It’s sound and based in science but is a far away from the intensification that enabled agriculture to feed a fast growing population in the last century or so and marks a sea-change in practice - as such it isn’t going to happen overnight but it is a method that’s gaining traction. We’re keen to show it can work, even here in the U.K.

Over the coming years we’ll work to adapt our methods to improve biodiversity and ensure a healthy soil ecosystem and to experiment, with things like particular cover crops, inter-vineyard grazing and rotating unmown aisles for longer periods (but not so long they become unmowable). We’ll see if we can improve on those ecosystem services within our vineyards. Hopefully we’ll see improved quality and yields with minimal ‘artificial’ inputs. Our own experience to date has been exciting and shows there’s a way to a much greener, biodiverse and mutually beneficial ecosystem within our vineyards that can sequester more carbon.

Pruning is underway

183:875168839 (Barry Lewis) — Sat, 01 Jan 2022 15:02:22 GMT

Why we prune vines...

Pruning is underway in the vineyard’s and you can’t help but get a bit excited for the new season ahead. Pruning is the most essential job in the vineyard, in many ways the most costly and most necessary work, which can dictate the quantity, and more importantly, the quality of the crop in the following season.

I t sets up the expectation of a hoped for season, of a frost free spring, a dry warm flowering period, a long decent summer with abundant sunshine, warmth and just enough rain and culminating in a long, balmy perfect ripening season. Then a clean, abundant and beautiful harvest is the great prize.

Then we want the most perfect wine we can make as a consequence.

Of course it rarely goes like this but it’s what we work for and pray for. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Every snip of the vine is carefully considered and works towards making a balanced vine to optimise it's potential. As you can imagine we generate huge quantities of vine clippings (they make great kindling) and it's hard and often cold work. We wait till the depths of winter so that the wood is fully ripened and no longer green. Soon will follow the process of tying-down the new seasons canes at a point when we hope the risk of spring frost has passed.

Tour bookings are open on our website if you want to hear more about the trials and tribulations of growing vines in Derbyshire.

What is Wassailing?

183:875168839 (Barry Lewis) — Sat, 01 Jan 2022 14:32:34 GMT

The ancient Celtic tradition of Wassailing has roots as deep and old as even the very oldest apple trees in our most ancient orchards. Whilst today it is seen as a West Country tradition it was also very much a Midlands one, with well documented examples found in Lincolnshire that have been revived in recent years. In fact, anywhere that had orchards tended to have their own variation on the Wassailing theme. Derbyshire is no different and so we’re hoping we are reviving something that has long been forgotten.

In folklore, mythology and religion the humble apple or apple trees have taken centre stage throughout the millennia – think of Adam and Eve for example. The humble apple has symbolised life and rebirth and it is this that has been placed centre stage where Wassailing is concerned. If you’ve ever visited a mature orchard during winter they can be mysterious places in the coiling mists, their often distorted boughs and trunks, encrusted with lichens and mosses and adorned with ethereal mistletoe, can seem otherworldly and special. Their centrality in the lives of the past as an important food source well into the winter months must have made them even more special.

Wassailing, depending where in Britain you were, was often celebrated on what was known as ‘Old Twelvey night,’ 17th January, but in other parts it was celebrated around Christmas or New Year. In more modern times, the geographical spread of where this tradition has clung on perhaps better reflects the importance of apple growing and cider making in those places, with a particular focus on the West Country in the counties of Devon, Somerset, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. The origins of Wassail though are far, far deeper and more rooted in Celtic pagan traditions, now Anglicised (but barely) and done mainly for fun but as with all superstitions like this, it maybe tinged with a sense of covering all bases to ensure a good season.

Wassail is derived from the Anglo-Saxon waes haeil meaning 'to be healthy' and the aspects described below were designed to drive evil spirits from the orchard and to encourage a good and healthy crop in the coming season.

The selection of a tree as the ‘Apple Tree Man’ who is feted as the guardian of the orchard and becomes the focus of the celebration or ceremony is key. We have one in our orchard that for some reason just stands out as the right choice. There then follows some variations on a theme of noisemaking with the clattering of pans, blowing of horns (and shotguns in older times!) and a torchlight or lamp light procession to surround the Apple Tree Man and the singing of a traditional Wassail song. In some orchards a tall, hooded horse skull leads the procession. Then cider is poured on the roots of Apple Tree Man and cider-soaked toast is hung on his branches by the orchard King and Queen, usually two local children are selected for this honour.

A Wassailing cup or bowl is used to dip the toast before hanging in the trees. A wassailing bowl was often specially made from turned ash, maple or chestnut and kept especially for the purpose. We commissioned our own Wessington Wassailing Cup back in 2019 (from Shaun at Natural Earth Woodcrafts) and it is hand carved from a piece of locally grown and felled oak. We’re delighted to be leading the charge in Derbyshire for the revival of this fascinating and ancient rural tradition and making it a community event and hope that with a growing revival of orchards comes a revival of more wassails across the county that can really connect people with their orchard’s and their communities. In January 2022 we had the participation of T'Owd Man Morris, from Wirksworth (and they'll be returning in 2023), who added, colour, sound and spectacle to the event and made a Mari Lwyd for it, a horse skull that leads the procession.

Central to a successful Wassail is having a good time, to make merry in the bleakest part of winter and maybe, just maybe, it might just do a little something to improve the crop for the following season. One thing a good wassailing perhaps can do is connect us all a little more closely to nature and the turning of the seasons. And that’s no bad thing.

We're holding our 4th Annual Wessington Wassail on 28th January 2023. For more information and to book click here. All the photos shown here in this post are of past Wassails at our orchard in Wessington, and show a true flavour of what our event is like. That is to say, rather extraordinary.

We're also listed in Tradfolk , the website that celebrates traditional folk culture. You can find us as the only listing in Derbyshire at this time just here .

The Wessington Wassail Cup.