Boutique Vineyard in North Devon, near Saunton Sands and Croyde

Lobb Vineyard is a boutique vineyard in North Devon situated in the beautiful hamlet of Lobb near Braunton.

The vineyard is planted on south-west facing slopes with uninterrupted views over Braunton Burrows and the North Devon coast, a stones throw from the famous surfing beaches at Saunton Sands, Croyde and Putsborough

marking out the vineyard before planting the vines

Preparation

A lot of preparation went in before the vines were planted. We have chosen a double guyot VSP (vertical shoot positioning) trellising system with rows marked out 6ft apart and vines at 4ft centres, spaced marginally differently depending on the grape variety and its vigour. The VSP system has a main fruiting wire at approximately 75

Planting

The best decision we made was to get some help with the planting, the original plan was to do it ourselves. We had a team of 6 and all the vines were planted in under 4 hours! Vines planted were Rondo and Solaris all grafted on SO4 root stock.

Barn restoration

The barn is over 200 years old and was derelict when we bought the land. We struggled to find anyone to take on the challenge to restore it, due to its remote location and lack of services. We found Clive a local stone mason and builder purely by chance he did an amazing

Beautiful view over Braunton Burrows and Saunton Sands

First years maintenance

The first planting was a test planting to see how things went, go through the learning curve and understand how intensive the full annual cycle would be along with getting a feel of the demand for the wine before seeing how many additional vines to plant. One of the first tasks was shooting

Annual pruning

The first annual pruning in the vineyard took place in February 2020 and had been booked in the diary for some time. This is the only photo I can find... presumably because our hands were either in gloves or firmly in our pockets for the next couple of days. The weather was horrendous,

Wildlife push

Big push promoting wildlife in the vineyard this year. Feels like nature should be one of the biggest winners out of this crazy time. Want to make sure we are doing our bit Homes for bugs, flying insects, snakes, frog, newts and birds To avoid confusion the bird boxes are clearly sign posted Tawny

So far so good

There has been good growth this year in the vines and we are on track with cane diameter and root setting. There was a bit of wind damage as a result of the back to back storms in August so we need to look at the hedgerows and trellising to minimise the

Preparation for more vines

Marking out for more vines to be planted in the spring, we are letting the hedges grow up for wind protection. The Cavalry arrives; we are ploughing, mole ploughing and rotavating today. Lots and lots of worms. Ploughing finished, mole ploughing and rotavating this afternoon. Last pass with the rotavator, we have been lucky with the

The Grapes

Solaris

Solaris wines are most often made in off-dry styles, but the variety’s extremely high natural sugar levels make it well suited to the production of sweet wines. It is disease resistant, and ripens earlier than almost any other wine grape. The name Solaris, which means “sun”, is particularly apt, as the variety is used in regions noted for their cool climates and low sunshine levels

*information from www.wine-searcher.com

Rondo

As well as its ability to reliably ripen, Rondo is also well regarded because it is highly resistant to diseases and produces good-quality, full-bodied, deep red wines

*information from www.wine-searcher.com

Gallery

Preparation for more vines

So far so good

Plastic free north devon