NEWENT’S Three Choirs Vineyards recorded its earliest ever harvest, possibly due to this summer’s temperatures.

The UK has "almost certainly" had its hottest summer on record, according to provisional statistics from the Met Office released this week. These statistics did not come as a surprise to Three Choirs Vineyards' winemaker Martin Fowke.

Martin has been overseeing the start of the harvest from Tuesday, August 26, which started earlier than he has ever experienced in over 35 years of winemaking.

Martin Fowke said: “The weather this season is well-documented, with high temperatures and levels of sunlight that we have not seen before. The earliest we have started picking prior to this year was 2018, when we started to harvest on August 31. We started work five days earlier this year, the earliest harvest in the vineyard’s history.

“We expect to continue to harvest approximately two weeks earlier than normal. Sugars are high across the board and acids are dropping slowly which is precisely what we want to see at this stage.

“This year we have managed to keep the grapes clean throughout the season and so we are not under pressure to pick before we have optimum analysis. This is a very different situation to last year. The yield also looks good, so we will have a fairly full winery by the time we reach the end of harvest”.

Work began to bring in the first batch of grapes, Siegerrebe. However, the vineyard grows several different varieties which ripen at different times. A team of 16 will handpick two to three acres a day on average throughout the harvest.

Some best-selling wines include Classic Cuvee, Coleridge Hill, Rose and Bacchus, and Jeremy Clarkson recently selected Three Choirs Vineyards Rose wine for his new pub.

More information about English winemaking at Three Choirs Vineyards can be found on its website.