Stephen Skelton has been involved with UK viticulture for 35 years and has been consulting to vineyard owners since selling his vineyard at Tenterden in Kent, now the home of Chapel Down Wines, in 1986. Since then he has made wine for, advised and worked with dozens of different UK vineyards and wineries. He is also unique in being the only Master of Wine to be working as a viticultural consultant in the UK.

Stephen started his career in wine in 1973 when he took an interest in the then very small UK wine industry, joining the English Vineyards Association (now the UKVA) and visiting the major vineyards of the day. He then decided to gain experience abroad and spent 12 months working in the vineyards and winery at Schloss Schönborn in Germany’s Rheingau winegrowing region. After this valuable practical experience, he attended the Geisenheim viticulture and winemaking school where he was mentored by the late Professor Dr. Helmut Becker, the well known plant-breeder and vine geneticist.

2 year old vines at Hush Heath Estate

In 1977 he returned to the UK to establish the vineyards at Tenterden. There, he developed the vineyards and winery, eventually selling the business, although continuing to manage and make wine for the new owners until his last vintage as a full-time winemaker in 2000. In all, he made wine there for 22 vintages, winning the prestigious Gore-Browne Trophy for the English Wine of the Year in both 1981 and 1991. Between 1988 and 1990 he was also winemaker and general manager at Lamberhurst Vineyards, then the UK’s largest winery, where he also won the Gore-Browne Trophy in 1990.

Client Vineyards – past and present

Supply of Vines

100 year old vines in the Barossa Valley

Since ordering vines in 1976 for planting at Tenterden, Stephen has worked with some of the best pepinieristes and vine-nurseries and in France and Germany, obtaining and supplying vines to UK growers. The vines supplied are all certified virus-free, true to type and carry EU plant passports. Whilst no plant can be guaranteed to grow, over 30+ years of supplying vines, incidences of failure (over 2%) are rare and reasonable replacements are offered at cost. Prices of vines depend on many factors: quantity, variety clone and rootstock and a quote will be given once individual requirements have been established. Because Stephen tends to deal with larger quantities of vines (5,000 or more – although smaller volumes can be supplied) prices are exceptionally keen. All vines are kept in temperature controlled stores until dispatch and go straight into cold storage in the UK until ready to be planted.

Site assessment and selection

Wherever vines are grown in the world, it is accepted that site is the most important factor in the many that determine quality. All other things being equal – vines, management, winemaking, weather – the difference in quality between one wine and another is the quality of the site. In warm and hot climates, where sunshine is abundant and water can be supplied, differences in site quality can often be overcome, especially if lower priced, high-volume wines are produced. But, in cooler climates, such as the UK’s, this is not the case. Sites that have natural advantages will produce more grapes and better grapes. Sites that are at lower levels of altitude, better sheltered, and with a beneficial aspect will always outperform sites without these natural advantages. This is why site selection is THE most important aspect of setting up a vineyard, especially in a marginal climate like the UK’s. Once chosen, once bought, once planted, you cannot change the site.

Of course there are other considerations which may not appear immediately obvious to the novice vineyard owner. Think ten, fifteen, twenty or more years ahead. Where do you want to be with your vineyard? Whilst you may want – for example – to grow grapes under contract to another winery, your successors, whoever they may be, may want to establish a winery, a visitor attraction and a retail shop. Where will the winery go, what is access like, what about the waste-water disposal? It often pays dividends to think about these before planting.

What does it cost to establish a vineyard? What does it cost to run a vineyard? What are the returns likely to be? Working with vineyards as diverse as small, 0.5-hectare ones such as Pheasants Ridge or Fawley, right up to larger concerns such as Squerryes Estate, Hush Heath and Sandhurst – who together farm over 35-hectares of vines, Stephen has a very good understanding and knowledge of vineyard costings, both establishment and annual, and can work with you on your site to help you run a profitable concern.

Variety, clone and rootstock selection

Selecting a variety and clone to plant and deciding what rootstock to grow it on is not a straightforward affair and there are many considerations. The selection of the variety to grow will differ according to several criteria. Are you growing under contract and being paid per tonne with price varying according to sugar and acid levels? If so, you want varieties and clones that maximise your income. Tonnes x price less costs = income. Or are you hoping to make your mark with your wines? Still or sparkling, red, white or rosé – what are your options? Oak-aged wines with bottle age or young fresh fruity wines ready for drinking within 6 months of harvesting? Which offer the best returns? Where can they be sold and at what price? These are the questions you need to consider BEFORE you plant. Three to four years after you have planted is too late.

In some varieties, clones are almost irrelevant. It surprises some people to know that the success of New Zealand Sauvignon blanc was based upon a single clone. Likewise, in the UK, Bacchus shows very little clonal variation and is much more influenced by site-quality, viticultural aspects and yield levels. With the UK’s two most widely planted varieties however, Pinot noir and Chardonnay – and also for Pinot Meunier – the selection of the right clone is more critical. Clones vary in a multitude of ways: yield, sugar and acid levels, bunch shape and type, growth habit, skin colour, flesh colour plus many others. Selecting the correct clone for your vineyard, to suit your individual requirements takes an understanding of not only the viticultural requirements, but again, of the end goals of the enterprise.

Site measurement

Using a combination of a Garmin E-Trex GPS position logger and a Leitz DISTO-D5 ultra-accurate laser measurement device, a correct planting plan of you site can be drawn up allowing you to properly plan, cost, order vines for and plant your vineyard with no more over- or under-ordering.

Soil and drainage surveys The soil of any vineyard is its most precious – and most demanding – resource. It pays to establish what soil type you have, what its pluses and minuses are and how it is to be treated and managed. Using soil and drainage experts, plus profile pits, magnetic resonance surveys and intensive soil sampling, a plan of soil treatments and preparations can be arrived at prior to planting to give your vineyard a perfect start.

Drainage machine about to drain a new vineyard site in East Sussex

Site preparation

Site preparation, especially with certain soils and when using machine-planting, is the key to successful vineyard establishment and therefore to income maximisation. For each site, a programme of pre-planting treatments – drainage, green-manuring, subsoiling, fertiliser and lime applications – can be specified. Site preparation also covers vermin control – rabbits, hares, deer, badgers – all of whom can damage both establishing and established vineyards. It also covers vine nutrition and correct soil sampling and the use of a soil laboratory conversant with the nutritional requirements of vines, will result in a tailored fertiliser programme for both pre- and post-planting.

Row width and vineyard machinery requirements

Which tractor should be bought for the vineyard, how wide is it, what must the row width be to accommodate it? These are critical decisions. What other equipment is required? Pesticide sprayers, weed sprayers, mowers, flail -mowers, leaf-trimmers, leaf-trippers – the list is a long one and it takes specialist knowledge to know where to start and which are the correct choices for the scale and scope of the enterprise.

Pruning and trellising decisions – planting density

Having established the correct row width, how far apart should the vines be planted, what pruning system should be used and how should the vines be trellised? 0.6-metres or 1.5-metres apart? 2,500 vines per hectare or 10,000? Cane or spur pruning? Single or double Guyot? Blondin, GDC, Scott Henry or Sylvoz? These are all decisions that, once taken, often cannot - or at least are very inconvenient and costly - to change. An experienced consultant can answer these questions and make sure your vines produce a profitable crop.

Planting and vineyard establishment

Many vineyards these days are machine planted, taking care of much of the backbreaking manual work. However, with machine planting, site preparation is even more critical for good establishment. With a planting rate of between 12,000 and 15,000 vines per day, it pays to have someone on site to supervise and make sure everything gets planted in the right place and at the right row width and intervals. It also pays to make a planting plan as the work proceeds so that vine numbers, varieties and clones and positions can be recorded before they get forgotten.

Once planted, vines do not manage themselves. The aim must be to get them established at the lowest cost, with the minimum number of failures and with the greatest number brought into cropping as soon as possible. Although in some countries – usually ones with very different growing conditions to the UK’s and with added cultural and appellation considerations – vines are not brought into cropping until they are four and five years old. Under UK conditions and with many sites and soils, a small crop can be obtained in the second year with a 30-50% crop in the third and a 90%+ crop in the fourth – all without any harm being done to the long term health and cropping pattern of the vines. How this is done is no secret. It takes inputs of labour, good weed control and attention to detail, with timely trellising and good disease control.

Vineyard management

Managing a vineyard requires experience – something new vineyard owners never have. Knowing what you costs ought to be and keeping them under control are both part of creating a profitable, and therefore successful, enterprise. It is often easier to improve a vineyard’s returns by cutting inputs than it is to increase outputs (i.e. yields).

Problem solving

Too often, vineyards (and their owners) get into bad habits that require reviewing. If a vineyard is not performing well, if crops are too light, sugars too low, or costs too high, then it is time to step back and consider what can be done.

Planning permission

Getting planning permission for vineyard accommodation and for wineries often requires a viability study for the financial justification requirement. Stephen has carried out a number of these.

Stephen has also written Viticulture - An introduction to commercial grape growing for wine production, which is also available online: lulu.com/content/688007

spskelton@btinternet.com
07768 583700
1B Lettice Street, London, SW6 4EH