Harvest 2025

 

 

Overview

The grape harvest at Woodchester is the highlight of the growing season. We only get one harvest a year and it is the culmination of all the hard work by the vineyard team from pruning in the cold, winter months to bud rubbing, shoot thinning and tucking in during the spring, followed by leaf stripping and canopy management of the vines throughout the summer. Most of this is done manually and when you have 80,000 vines, this requires a dedicated team.

Ahead of harvest, we need to protect the grapes from all sorts of wildlife including birds, badgers and insects. Bird and insect netting is being deployed on more and more vines each year as the wildlife in or passing through our vineyards at harvest time, has become accustomed to enjoying a pick your own grape fest. 

The harvest weeks are the busiest time of year in both the vineyard and winery. Harvest can last anything from 4 -8 weeks from September to November. It is a full on team effort. The vineyard and winery teams are on call around the clock - the fruit needs to be picked when it is ready and then pressed the same day. We are negotiating the unpredictable weather of an English autumn and making last minute picking decisions to avoid rainy days or to allow more ripening time. Some years are more stressful than others, but there are always challenges. 2025 was an easy harvest by comparison to some.

All our grapes are hand harvested and quality control is done in the vineyard to ensure only the best fruit arrives at the winery. Quality fruit is essential for quality wine.

At the end of harvest we raise a glass to the vineyard team in recognition of their dedication to producing the best quality grapes the season allows.

 

Single Estate 

Woodchester Valley is a single estate vineyard and winery, which means we make wines only from grapes we harvest from our own vineyards. We want our wines to reflect a sense of place and time… the limestone soils of our Cotswold vineyards and the growing season of each particular vintage. We are proud to produce wines that are genuine Cotswold wines from the grape to the glass.

 

Harvest 2025 was Super Early

The 2025 harvest started on the 2nd September and was the earliest start we have ever had at Woodchester. One week earlier than the previous earliest start on the 9th September  and one month earlier than the start of the 2024 harvest which began on the 5th October. This is a good example of the variability we get in our English cool climate.

 

Why so early? 

The warm spring and  lovely weather in June and July led to an early and quick flowering and a good pollination and fruitset in almost all varieties before the end of June. This is super early. Flowering times vary each year, but in an average year, flowering in our vineyards starts mid June and usually continues into July. 

Veraison is when the ripening process begins and the grapes start to soften and change colour as the sugars rise and the acidity starts to drop. Veraison started in the still varieties at the end of July as opposed to August which was a good indication of an early start to picking.

 

Moderate yields but excellent quality. 

The yield potential for this year was set to some extent in summer 2024 - the previous growing season when bud initiation occurs. Sunny and warm weather in early summer will be good for bud initiation but you will also need good weather in the current year to make the most of that fruit potential.

The 2024 growing season was wet, wetter, wettest. Overcast and cool conditions in June and July were less than ideal for flowering which led to our lowest yield since opening our winery - just 47 tonnes. 

The 2024 poor weather impacted bud initiation for 2025. It was evident  from early spring 2025 that most shoots were carrying only one or two inflorescences (flower clusters) whereas in some years there can be up to three. This meant that most shoots had the potential to carry one to two bunches of grapes. In contrast, in 2018, a bumper year when we picked 180 tonnes off fewer vines, many varieties had shoots with three big bunches. When you put this in the context of yield potential, bunch counts for 2025 were about 50% of 2018 (but we have more vines now).

The excellent summer conditions this year made the most of that fruit potential, maximising the yield that we could bring in this year.

We picked 115.3 tonnes of grapes in 2025. Our biggest yields came from Pinot Noir (which is not surprising as this is our most planted variety) followed by Bacchus and then Chardonnay.

 

Highlights of Harvest 2025

• The excellent summer meant ripening was well ahead of average and there was plenty of time to let the grapes reach their full potential. We picked some of our ripest fruit ever.

• The early harvest meant fewer issues with birds, wasps and other grape-eating wildlife and so fewer sleepless nights for Fiona and the vineyard team.

• The fruit and vines were disease free and there was no botrytis to speak of, so picking was easy and straightforward – little was needed in the way of quality control in the vineyard.

• We welcomed on board some local harvest help as a lovely addition to our regular vineyard team. 

 

Not all smooth sailing

• After no rain during the summer, the heavens opened at the start of harvest. Rain and unsettled weather were the story of the first two weeks of September resulting in a harvest hiatus as we waited for some dry picking days and for the grapes to recover from the dilution effect of the rain. 

• The summer heat waves did cause a small amount of sunburn on some varieties like Bacchus. The lack of rain over the summer caused some stress to our younger vines but the mature vines with deep roots mostly coped well. While the grass was a scorched brown the vines were a vibrant green

 

As the frenetic energy of harvest simmers down, the last tanks and barrels are quietly fermenting and delicious smells are wafting into the office from a full and satiated winery. Another harvest and another vintage brings us to the end of a truly epic season in the vineyard as the grapes progress from vine to wine.