Sustainable wine and the future of our vines

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Time ebbs and flows in a vineyard. There are many paces of life, from the patient care with which we nurture our vines through the annual cycle, to the sudden flurries of activity that punctuate the growing season. But there is also the longer story of Ridgeview, one that incorporates three decades of joyful memories, perpetual growth and hard-won lessons.

Matt Strugnell, Vineyard Manager standing amongst the vines smiling

Our roots, our heritage, our future

As proud custodians of our beautiful Sussex estate, we feel a deep duty to preserve our land for generations to come. Embedding sustainable vineyard practices to protect the long-term health of our vines is a vital part of that.

Our estate vines include some of the UK’s oldest: each of them is a little piece of English winemaking history. They are our pride and joy as well as our livelihood, and we diligently apply the latest viticultural techniques to keep them healthy and productive for the years and decades ahead.

We recently caught up with Matt Strugnell, Ridgeview’s Head of Viticulture, to talk vineyard sustainability. A viticultural expert and a mentor to many, his eyes were, as ever, on the distant horizon as well as the thriving vines in front of him. Long-term planning informs every intervention he and the vineyard team are making, many of which are now bearing fruit.

“The focus is on the really long term. It’s not just looking ahead to what the vine’s going to do next year or the year after. It’s looking well beyond that.”

Sustainable Pruning

Above ground, we’re continuing to employ the sustainable vineyard pruning method that is transforming the longevity of our heritage vineyard. Pioneered by Italian viticulturist Marco Simonit, these techniques reduce the stress on the vines when we prune them by reconnecting them with their natural growing patterns.

So far, Matt is thrilled with the results:

“Basically what we’re doing is building up the layering of healthy wood year on year. It mimics what the vines want to do but in a controlled way, and they’re responding really well. The longer we do it, the more healthy wood is produced and the stronger the vines get. It’s not a quick fix but in time I’m hoping we’ll start to see an increase in vigour and then from that, more production. We’re giving them a new lease of life.”

Ridgeview Wine Estate, Chardonnay Vineyard

Improving soil health

A healthy sustainable vineyard is rooted in healthy sustainable soils. Given the age of our vines and our commitment to taking the best care of our land, this is another long-term measure Matt is paying particularly close attention to. He talks of “setting a roadmap” for our soil, with the goal of increasing vine longevity and vigour, as well as fruit quality.

“We keep working with Marco to get the top part of the vines sorted, and now the focus is very much on soil health. Something that became apparent last year is: where we’ve got better soil in patches of the vineyard, there’s a real difference in the canopy, the colour of the leaves. Also less disease pressure. The vines were a lot healthier.”

Fortunately, the composition of our soils gives us a good medium to work with – perhaps the best, according to a recent conversation Matt had with Professor Alain Deloir from L’Institut Agro in Montpelier.

“We got chatting about soil types when we were guest speakers at a pruning festival in Tuscany. Alain is probably the world expert on vine physiology and he said that, if you know what you’re doing with it, clay can be a fantastic growing medium for vines.”

Letting nature takes its course

Nevertheless, the composition of clay means it takes a lot of work to create those conditions. The particles in clay soils are small and tightly packed, which means it can easily become compacted and waterlogged. Taking measures to loosen the texture, oxygenate the soil, allow good drainage and encourage fine root generation is essential.

These measures include mechanical subsoiling and growing grass or cover crops around the vines to reduce compaction below the surface. The latter explains Matt’s current approach.

“What I’m doing at the moment is kind of letting nature take its course on the vineyard floor. And then strimming the vegetation we’ve introduced in the rows – all that organic matter will help to get more oxygen into the soil. It’s good for carbon sequestration too, so sustainable in different ways.”

“For me, the last three years has been a bit of a reset on viticulture in general. It could be quite easy to lose focus on remembering how to grow grapes properly. With too many interventions, some of the fundamental stuff gets a bit lost. I’m trying to keep it simple, not overcomplicate things.”

Tradition and Technology Unite

Another way we’re planning for the future is by learning more about the unique growing conditions around the Ridgeview estate. Happily, there is some incredible emerging technology to aid us here. This year we’ve been part of an exciting new project using cutting-edge weather tech to guard against frost damage.

The system involves installing sensors around a network of vineyards to monitor temperatures and provide hyper-localised forecasts. It’s given us an incredibly detailed temperature map across our vineyard, meaning vital new insights into our terroir.

But more vitally, it’s already helped to rescue our 2024 growing season by alerting Matt to an unexpected frosty night earlier this year.

Pruning the vines at Ridgeview Wine Estate English sparkling wine Sussex England

One night, during the spring...

“…we had a shock frost. I was at a pub quiz at the time, but luckily I was driving. I logged into the dashboard to check the temperature at half time and it looked pretty much the same as the previous night. Then we got to the end of the quiz, I checked again and it had gone from 7-8 degrees to about 2. I thought ‘Right, I’m going to work!’

“I had two other guys available, so the three of us came in and got candles going. It’s a good job we did: at one point the weather station outside the vineyard was reading -3, and that would have caused quite a lot of damage.”

For Matt, that timely victory in the vineyard more than made up for not winning the quiz. For us, it’s a great example of how emerging technology can dovetail with ancient viticultural practices to promote vineyard sustainability.

Experimenting to conserve: it’s a philosophy guided by our core values of innovation and heritage, and aligning with our proudly-held B Corp certification and gold award from Sustainable Wines of Great Britain. Long may it continue.