High Cup Wines Blog: Countryfile

19th August: The BBC Countryfile film crew arrived. Two weeks earlier we'd found ourselves sitting on the next table to John Craven at Fusion Cafe, Brougham Hall. He was filming a programme called Britain at Risk, to be broadcast in 2012. On the way home we'd discussed an idea that Countryfile should make a programme about some of the businesses that had been awarded diversification grants after Foot and Mouth, to see how things had worked out. Not 30 minutes after we arrived home, Countryfile phoned! However they hadn't read our minds; this was a different idea. They wanted to be involved in making one of our wines, but the only one we make in August is our spiced beetroot wine. So when it came to filming, Matt Baker picked some beetroot at Carleton Farm near Penrith, and brought it to us to be made into our spiced beetroot wine. Matt helped Ron mill the washed beetroots and then pour the mush into a fermentation tank. Finally Matt tasted some beetroot wine we'd made earlier - our last bottle from 2010. It was all a good laugh with Matt being very willing to pose for our personal photo record taken by Sam, our son-in-law. Matt even put up with me standing on his dancing foot! No idea how much will be on TV but it's scheduled to be transmitted on Sept 4th.