It is a predictably grey, drizzly February morning when we catch up with Vineyard Manager Jon Pollard, sheltering in the cab of his pick-up. The ground at our Butness vineyard is, in his words, “wet through” – and it has shaped the rhythm of the season so far.
But, in spite of the damp, winter work is progressing. Pruning is nearly complete. “We're maybe a week or so away from finishing the cutting part of the job,” Jon says. The remainder of March will be devoted to tying down, repairing trellis wires, tidying headlands – the quiet reset before the vines begin to stir.
“We also need to get the tractors out for a fertiliser round,” says Jon. Timing is everything: organic fertiliser needs moisture and biological activity to begin releasing nutrients, but “it’s just too wet at the moment; we’d just compact the soil,” says Jon.
Meanwhile, our regenerative viticulture project continues its (muddy) momentum. This week, we hosted a gathering of growers and agronomists as part of the Regenerative Viticulture Foundation’s One Block Challenge.
The format is deliberately practical. “A quick bit of a get together… a walk and talk around regen and how things are going”. Cover crops dominated the conversation – a natural starting point.
“A lot of growers have been doing a bit with cover crops anyway, so it’s about trying to perfect that – establishing them with different machinery, on different soils, at different times of year.”
Sheep, soil and compaction
Our winter sheep were also part of the discussion. “They’re there to keep the grass down, so we don’t have to go out in the tractors quite so early in the growing season,” Jon says. “There’s a small amount of nutrient input, and there’s obviously the biology that comes in that nutrient as well.”
But in wet clay soils, even their little hooves matter.
“Tractors and sheep compact soil at different levels. Sheep will compact the first five or six centimetres of soil, maybe a little bit deeper. Tractors will be more like ten or twelve centimetres down – that’s where that compaction layer is.”
Understanding those differences is part of the regenerative journey: less assumption, more observation.
Closing the loop: from marc to compost
Every harvest leaves something behind. Once the grapes have been pressed and the wine begins its slow transformation in tank and barrel, there remains the marc – the grape skins, pips and stems. For years, these piles sat quietly on the edge of the vineyard, turned once or twice and left to compost.
“Three years later, you could still tell it was a bunch of grapes,” Jon says. “There wasn’t enough biological activity going on there.” The intention was always good. The outcome, less so.
“We’ve started adding woody material – a highly carbon material – to help compost it more efficiently.” Nitrogen-rich grape waste needs carbon to come alive. So prunings are chipped and woodland cuttings are used. The aim is to create the right alchemy of green and brown, moisture and oxygen, so that biology can do its work.
“I’m hoping that if we get the woody material into the 2025 pile early in the summer and turn it during the growing season, then overwinter it, it’ll be ready by spring ’27. I want to know that we can get a nice friable compost. Then we’ll look at the nutritional status before we spread it.”
The bigger ambition is resilience and self-reliance.
“I’m trying a few bits and pieces to see if we can keep production circular, rather than buying in tonnes of compost every year like we used to.”
One of those “few bits and pieces” involves willow. “Willow roots really easily,” Jon says. “We’ve got some gappy bits of hedgerow on the farm, so we’re filling those gaps with willow. The view is that in about five years’ time we’ll be able to coppice it, chip that material, add it into the compost marc – and have that on a five-year rotation.”
If successful, it may extend further.
“If it establishes well, we could do some lines of willow across the grazing ground as well. It adds diversity, gives the sheep shade in the summer, and provides more woody material we can use and eventually add back to the vines.”
This long view - looking and thinking five, ten years ahead and beyond - is typical of Jon's diligent, sustainable approach. But, for now, he's looking ahead to next week. Eyes firmly fixed on the weather forecast, and praying for sunshine.
