Spring and Summer 2013

Summer started in enjoyable fashion with a visit to Beech Hill Hotel on Windermere which put on a special Taste of Cumbria dinner featuring our fruit wines. We were impressed by the high standard of food and cooking and so are planning a repeat visit next year. We recommend you do too, but don’t forget to ask for special deals for the night! If in doubt the following menu should tempt you:

The past few weeks has seen a lot of activity at the winery. All of our 2011 wines have sold out (except elderberry wine which is matured for two years before releasing) and we have started labelling our 2012 wines for the shelves.

We have started this year’s wine production with fermentation of elderflower, rhubarb, gooseberry, blackcurrant and raspberry wines. The rhubarb produced large quantities of stems earlier in the year and the recent hot weather saw a bumper display of elderflowers.

Elderflowers being destemmed and deleafed on the winery floor!

Part harvest of rhubarb from a local Appleby supply.

The end of July saw the start of our summer art exhibition, this year opened by the Appleby Mayor, Andy Connell, and Mayoress, Caron Baines. Nineteen local, mainly professional, artists have their work on display at the winery on the theme of the Eden Valley. A list of the artists is available on our website.

Opening of Art at the Winery 2013. Photo by Karen Morley.

The renovation of our large barn continues slowly. We are attempting, in the first part of the barn, to include insulation and air tightness to near passivhaus standards. This has thrown up some interesting problems for which we hope we have found solutions. We can go into this in more detail if anyone is interested.

Earlier in the year we had to deter nesting jackdaws by sealing off all openings with temporary sheets of plywood. It was difficult as jackdaws will enter through surprisingly small gaps. However, we finally triumphed. At the same time we have managed to provide nesting places for this year’s visiting swallows and house martins.  We have decided to brighten up the appearance of the barn by allowing interested family and friends to paint some of the visible sheets of plywood. The first two sheets are finished. Daughter Deborah and grandchildren Lily-Rose and Theo painted three owls in the moonlight, while friend and artist Margaret Brown painted the winery with glass and carafe of wine in the foreground. The two works look fabulous. We are now hoping more friends and family will take up the challenge of painting the other doors and small windows.

 

Murals (dorals? portals?)

Visitors to the winery will have seen our collection of amusing wine related cards and cartoons. A recent addition is this one which recently appeared in a trade magazine:

Catch up - Early 2013

The fine weather in recent days has at last persuaded people to venture out to enjoy the countryside - and some have even visited the winery! Here we have good supplies of most wines, although our damson wine will be in short supply this year. This is due to the failure of the damson harvest in 2012, which meant we were forced to buy expensive frozen damsons from the Lyth Valley to enable us to make just a third of our normal quantity. For this reason we have had to increase the price of this wine at the winery to £8.50 per bottle.

Our elderberry wine is near the end of fermentation and has reached an alcohol content of 15%. We have halted the fermentation here as to go further would mean we would have to charge at a higher duty rate - £2.53 instead of £1.90 per bottle!

Visitors on Monday 24th February would have experienced an easterly wind – a Helm Wind – blowing off the Pennines. When the wind is from exactly the correct bearing, a cloud formation known as the Helm Bar forms parallel to the fellside. The Helm Bar seen on Monday was one of the best for a couple of years.

The Helm Bar - seen from the winery on 24th February, 2013 

Last Saturday was the annual High Cup Nick Fell Race. This year the fell race attracted 141 competitors, slightly fewer than last year due to snow blanketing the northeast and preventing some from arriving. During the race runners had to fight through a sudden snow flurry and three runners were forced to retire.

The race was won by Ricky Lightfoot of Ellenborough AC in 1hr 1min 56sec, just 45 seconds off the course record. Second was Stuart Bond of Dark Peak Club  in 1.04.02 and third was Jim Davies of Cliburn in 1.05.56.  The women's race was won by Edie Hemstock of Pennine FR in 1.23.55, followed by Rachel Hill of Wharfedale in 1.24.01. 

There have been many favourable comments from runners who have praised the organisation of previous events, the marshalling and the welcome they receive from the village. The event raises necessary funds for the Village Hall. Thanks go to Morgan and Lucy Donnelly for organising the whole event so brilliantly. And, of course, the Village Hall thanks all who contribute soup for the runners and cakes for the cake stall.

High Cup Winery sponsors a prize (wine!) for the winning women's team.

Runners approaching the winery - Dufton Pike in the background and snow just starting.

A Busy Weekend

We had a fair day at Orton Farmers' Market today. The sun brought out more visitors than normal - so said some of the other stallholders. One of the great things about the event is the very tasty bacon butties served by the ladies of the village hall. We had two each and plenty of coffee to see us through.

Tomorrow (Sunday 14th) we are at Apple Day at Acorn Bank (our nearest National Trust property). The weather prediction is good, so hope to see some of you there.

August 2012 happenings

We’ve now bottled more Blackcurrant wine and Elderberry wine, so have finished bottling all our 2011 wines. All except Elderberry are available in the winery - the Elderberry will be kept a few more months  for longer bottle maturing.

Bottling Elderberry Wine in the confined space of the fermentation room.

A corking picture!

We have finished picking raspberries.  The crop was good in spite of the late start.  We completed the supplies by collecting 50 kg from Rowley’s Pick Your Own at Glassonby which they picked for us. So 2012 Raspberry wine is bubbling away. Gooseberries have been collected from Milnthorpe and these have been crushed and pressed and are now fermenting vigorously.

We have not had as many visitors as last year so we are speculating with other places whether it’s because of the weather, recession or the Olympics….  

Our stall at Dufton Show was successful and the gazebo didn't blow away in the sudden gusts of wind. Considering the dire forecast we were all lucky that the rain didn't start till the afternoon and was never heavy. The next day we had a stall at Eden Foodival. For us this was disappointing. Entry ticket prices were high so people didn't have spare money to buy things like wine. It was a lively event with plenty of entertainment especially for the kids so maybe it can be tweaked for next year. Entries were low and at 2.30 the heavens opened and everyone melted away.

Angela womanning our stall at the Dufton Show

And again - at Eden Foodival, Brough.

White Elderberry

We have just bottled a limited edition white elderberry wine which was made last year. It is a lovely dry wine with crisp elderberry flavour. Without the strong red colour it has matured quickly and is almost indistinguishable from a white grape wine. As we are only able to produce a small amount of this wine, it will only be available from the winery.

July 2012 Rain and more rain

So much rain and for what good?  Well, rhubarb loved it! We picked continuously over the month and have started off this year's wine production.  We are grateful to Tirril Brewery in Long Marton for a couple of raids on their front garden rhubarb to supplement our own. Elderflower is normally the first into the tanks but the lack of sun put this behind a week or so.  Finally the sun put in a brief appearance and Angela was out picking the aromatic flowers.  They are now in the tanks fermenting.  The lack of sun delayed the raspberries but after the first picking on 19^th July  we are now picking madly.  Meanwhile we have  adjusted and bottled last year’s Elderflower and Apple wine, Rhubarb wine and Raspberry wine.  The 2011 Raspberry wine has a much deeper colour than that of 2010 – we wonder why?!

We had visits from the Penrith Soroptimists, Melmerby WI, Warcop WI, and Langwathby and Edenhall WI.

At the end of June our art exhibition, Art at the Winery 2012, opened with some stunning works of art by Haydn Morris, Debra Esterhuizen, Maureen Bennett and Roy Fleming.  The opening evening attracted more than 70 people and the place was buzzing.  The free wine helped to loosen tongues and possibly wallets as several paintings and felt artworks had been sold by the end of the evening.

The preview evening in full swing!

Blencathra in snow by Haydn Morris

Evening owl by Debra Esterhuizen

Our non-wine activity was slates!  We bought 12 tons of reclaimed Westmorland Green slates supposedly from a school in Prudhoe for the barn.  These came unsorted and dirty from years of grime and lichen so we spent many days size sorting and pressure washing them, often in the rain.

'Attractive blond lady' (see June posting) in another guise!

More June 2012

The group tasting season has begun and one of the first to arrive was the West Cumbrian Veteran Vehicle Club. Thirty-three members arrived in a vintage coach hired from Cumbria Classic Coaches of Kirkby Stephen. A merry time was had by all and a brass plaque was awarded to the winery.

Veteran Vehicle Association members arrive for tasting.

A well used footpath runs adjacent to the winery and many walkers like to stop off for a tasting. One recent visitor stopping off from his walk was Billy Norman who reviews wines for his Facebook wine site Billy-Nose-About-Wine. He seemed to like most wines, but chose to review the rhubarb wine. You can find his review at: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Billy-Nose-About-Wine/330683643657434

Billy Nose About Wine

Here is a short quote from his review, which Angela found very amusing for reasons you will see:

'The sign outside says ‘Free Wine Tasting’ and also boasts a geological display. Benjamin and I can’t resist and go straight into the High Cup Wine’s Winery. We enter the converted barn to be greeted by a very pleasant, attractive blond lady who’s hospitality was second to none. Her name is Angela and she is married to wine maker Ron Barker. We remove our waterproof garments and settle down for a fantastic wine tasting session. Angela offers us a wide range of fruit wines to sample, all of which are seasonal and mostly using locally sourced fruit. We try Gooseberry, Elderflower and Apple, Rhubarb, Raspberry, Elderflower, Damson, Blackcurrant and Spiced Beetroot. 

I must say all of these wines tasted fantastic and so choosing one to take away was difficult. All of the wines were very well balanced and quite delicious.'