I regret to inform my loyal readers that, for only the second time in our history, there will be no harvest at Godstone in 2024 (2012 was the other year). We have, with heavy hearts, raised the white flag after an unforgiving climatic year which culminated in sustained crop damage caused by starlings, pigeons, badgers, and pheasants.

The weather in 2024 has, for vines and many other crops, been horrendous - hereunder is a recap of what we have endured thus far:

• Spring 2024:
• March - cold and very wet
• April - cold
• May - warm and very wet
• Conclusion - triple the long-term average monthly Spring rainfall.
  
• Summer 2024:
• June & July - below average temperatures
• August - slightly above average temperatures
• Conclusion - the coolest Summer in South East England since 2015 with average rainfall.
  
• Autumn 2024:
• Unrelenting rainfall making disease control almost impossible (at the time of writing it shows no signs of relenting).

Many people are asking me where the most damage occurred and the answer is the Spring - a brief period of warmth encouraged the vines to open their buds only for this to prove a false dawn as a band of very cold nights descended upon the vineyard and caused significant bud damage. The buds which survived were then faced with biblical rainfall during the flowering period which resulted in very low fruit set.

We spent the Summer nurturing the remaining bunches of grapes in the hope that a crop could be salvaged but all to no avail, anything that survived the elements was eaten by ravenous birds!

It’s been one of those years and, of course, immensely disappointing; however I have learnt many valuable lessons which will be implemented from next year and - thankfully - we have sufficient wines in store from the years of bounty to see us through a desperate one such as 2024.

Thank you for all your kind words of support and we hope to see you at the vineyard either on October 26th or in early December.

Jonathan

Our boutique vineyard will be open for wine sales, walks around the vineyard, carefully curated platters, and hot food options.