Harvest time at Two Beacons

As summer slowly blends into autumn, we’ve been busy preparing for one of the biggest events in the Two Beacons calendar: the annual grape harvest.

Here’s what’s been happening down at the vineyard.

Preparing the vines

To make sure our grapes are at their absolute best for picking, Tim and Jason have been carrying out “green harvesting” on the varieties that are showing greater variations in ripeness — namely the Bacchus and Pinot Noir. This involves thinning out the green, unripened grape bunches from our vines during the growing season, which reduces the total amount of fruit. This helps the remaining grapes to concentrate their flavours, ripen more fully, and increase in quality, body, and sugar content.

We’ve also carried out a few passes of leaf stripping: one at pre-flowering earlier in the year, and another at veraison (the stage when the grapes transition from growth to ripening, signalled by a change in colour, softness, and size). The earlier leaf strip focused on the sides of the vines that are exposed to the morning sun, allowing extra air to reach the grapes and help stave off unwanted fungi and diseases. The later leaf strip helped to increase sun exposure as the grapes grew in size, aiding ripening and allowing for better pest management.

As harvest time approached, we made our final preparations for the long days ahead, including washing bins and baskets, and gathering pruning equipment for our pickers.

Ready to harvest

Aided by an early spring, and the near constant sunshine that has drenched the Malvern Hills throughout the summer, our grapes were ready for harvesting by the second week of September. 

This is our earliest harvest yet, a full two weeks earlier than any previous year at Two Beacons. 

Seven of our twelve Pinot Noir Précoce rows were picked first, yielding a bumper crop of 2,460kg. A further 1,832kg were picked a week later from the five remaining rows. 

The sugars this year were the highest we’ve seen from the Précoce, which is no surprise given this year’s growing conditions.

The Bacchus grapes were harvested in a single day, yielding another impressive crop of 4,500kg. The pressing analysis showed even higher sugar than last year - our highest sugar levels to date.

The final grapes picked from our vines were the Pinot Noir, which we use to make our award-winning sparkling rosé. We harvested another healthy crop, with the total weight coming in at 4.8 tonnes, and once again the grapes showed impressive ripeness and sugar levels.

Overall, this year’s crop has been exceptionally clean and healthy. The continuous dry weather, with warm, sunny conditions throughout July and August, has given the vines plenty of light to help ripen the bunches. 

This wasn't a typical British summer, which often lapses into overcast days or showers in August. These conditions have presented a good year for grape vines to develop healthy fruit, although with possibly lower than expected yields, ironically due to the lack of rain to swell the bunches.

We’ll have more to share as we begin producing our wines from this year’s harvest. And keep an eye out for updates on our 2024 releases, which will be ready to buy very soon! 

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