October 2021 - the harvest is in - time to flavour some gin...

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As one of our 'rewards' for our Crowdfunding campaign we offered people a chance to find out all about  gin and make three flavoured bespoke gins! There are still places for others to book up, so if you like wine but LOVE gin, this is a workshop for you!

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email the office to book a place: office@tamarvalleyvineyard.co.uk

Plus, enjoy a glass of our 2019 sparkling wine!

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September 2021 - the harvest is in!

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Once again, a massive THANK YOU to all our family and friends who help us bring in the harvest. You do an amazing job, you work tirelessly aided only by coffee, snacks and a ploughman's lunch! You understand our desire to create a quality wine and your picking standards are amazingly high!

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Because Marcus and I were trying to work out how to use all the shiny new kit we didn't get a chance to pick as much as usual, so a double thank you!

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Once the grape harvest was over and was fermenting nicely it was time to start with the apple harvest for juice and cider!

September 2021 - nail-biting....

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Thank you to all the amazing people who saw what we were trying to achieve and have given generously to our Crowdfunding campaign.

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We have been touched, humbled and moved by people's words and encouragement, especially those who  knew Grandad Leo and who realise what this vineyard would have meant to him.

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If you supported us and pledged to the campaign we will be in touch shortly via the email address you used for  Crowdfunder. We will be getting your rewards ready as soon as we can and we will be putting dates in the diary for all the 'experiences' and workshops that were on offer. This may take us a few days, but we will be working on it!

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We hope we will be able to welcome as many of you as possible to the Vineyard next year when we will be opening to the public.

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But first - let's make some wine!

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Hold the front page! - OK... page 7!

August 2021 - Builder Steve saves the day!

There has been radio silence for a while, because nothing was happening on site for a while. Now we have the awesome force that is Steve (and Co.) our new builders in residence. They have taken apart things that builder no.1 did, pointed out problems and cracked on to make everything good and make significant progress. Here are a few pictures of what they have done since the end of July. If you can look carefully you can see Paula, Marcus and David all smiling - a rare occurrence since the beginning of this build!

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June 2021 - Teamwork - Vineyards of Devon

Devon is blessed with lots of lovely vineyards, some big and well known, some smaller, but all producing some lovely English wines for us to enjoy. Lovely Tom at Alder Vineyard (nr. Okehampton) came up with the cracking idea of us all joining forces to raise awareness of them. Tom has focused on our stories, the how's and why's of why we are all growing vines and making wine. The page is great for tourists, but also gives Devon-dwellers some great ideas of where to explore next. If you fancy a lovely day out to somewhere you've never been before check out the page.

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April 2021 - Progress!

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The first buds on the vines have just burst open! The little buds have just one chance to develop, if they get frosted at this stage, they won’t grow and any subsequent 'secondary' buds won't have time to develop, flower and fruit in our climate. You can get slightly obsessed looking at these little buds, but keeping a record of bud burst year on year gives us a good idea if we are earlier or later than other years and helpfully gives us an indication of when to expect the flowers to form. 

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We were patiently awaiting the arrival of the concrete for the slab on which the Winery will sit... and with a ‘hot off the press’ moment we can confirm that it went down today! Fingers crossed that the local wildlife don't walk over it tonight…

March 2021 - Running water AND a digger!

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After the excitement of finding the water there was the small issue of getting up to ground level. We have installed a pipe into the bore hole that will allow us to pump water up to the Winery. We've sent some of this off for testing and this will confirm what sort of filtering is required and that the water is safe to drink!

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The digger arrived much to the enjoyment of the 'Vineyard Supervisor'! The builder has been digging down to make the foundations of the Winery. It's amazing / shocking to see how thin the layer of top soil is before reaching the shale layer underneath, a reminder of how fragile our planet is. However, it seems to be perfect for the vines!

February 2021 - Project 'Winery' Begins!

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We are thrilled that our planning conditions have been fully discharged and we can get on with the important job of building our Winery on the Vineyard. The first job was drill down deep and find water! Can you believe it, we have never had running water on site, only the stuff that comes out of the sky! So we needed a bore hole, not sure why, after all we are going to have plenty of wine to drink... The water was found using the art of divining. Not only could they tell where there was water, they knew how far down it was and how fast it was flowing, impressive. Many thanks Trevor and Co. at Cox Plant Water Borehole Drilling from Barnstaple.

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Divining rods can be made of many things but are traditionally hazel twigs, these are held in a certain way by the diviner while walking over the site. The presence of water is indicated by the spontaneous movement of the rods.

Water divining is a fascinating and extremely useful art!

December 2020 - Festive Wreath Making!

We all had a great time making a festive wreath and appreciating the wonderful foliage that is abundant at this time of year! Same time next year? Hopefully without face masks...