Whilst camping down in Lyme Regis, Matt surprised me with a vineyard and winery tour at Furleigh Estate. I was really excited as although I've been on some vineyard tours in Australia, New Zealand and France, I was too young to a) take it all in properly and b) drink the wine and also, how exciting is it that we have wine production here in the UK!
Matt had booked us onto the 2pm tour, so we arrived and had a nosy at the gift shop first before going to sit on the Terrace which overlooks the vines.
Soon we were joined by the other members of our tour, and we got going. We first had an introduction to the estate and the history of wine making which was super interesting - I loved that the owner of Furleigh Estate had grown up on the farm and bought it back after her father sold it, and turned it into a vineyard. Our guide was super knowledgeable and I also found out you can get a degree in Wine Production or Wine Business at Plumpton College right here in the UK (I know what my next degree will be....!).
We moved on to walking alongside the vines where we learnt about the different kinds of grapes, and sparkling wine. I never knew a cuvee was a mix of three different types of grape! Everyday is a school day, right!?
After learning about the growing process of grapes, we moved onto the winery. Another fun fact I learnt is that not every vineyard has a winery (basically the production of the wine after the grapes have been picked).
After looking at the equipment used in the production process and the explanation of how the wines are made, we moseyed back to the tasting room where we tried 5 different wines. 2 sparkling, and 3 still. The still wines we tried were the Bacchus Dry 2018, Bacchus Fume, White Pinot Noir 2019. The sparkling wines we tried were the Classic Cuvee 2015 and the Blanc de Blanc 2016.
We were taught how to properly taste the wines and we discovered lots of different flavours within the wine. My personal favourites were the Bacchus Dry 2018 and the Blanc de Blanc 2016 (and yes, we bought a bottle of each!).
I would hugely recommend going to an English vineyard for a tour and tasting. It was so interesting, and I've learnt so much about wine. I think a little more now when selecting my wine off of a supermarket shelf!
Molly
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