Harvest Season at Artelium
Autumnal hues begin to paint the Sussex countryside, there is a bite to the air in the mornings, and the smell of the land has transformed from freshly cut grass to earth and woodsmoke. Harvest season is here.
For the English wine industry, October is the most exciting and important month of the year. It is the culmination of the meticulous care taken in the vineyard, with the vineyard team both collaborating and resisting the effects of this year's weather to create a bountiful crop. These golden green and dusky purple grapes hold the taste and quality of 2024’s wines. They are an almanac of the year’s weather, telling the story of stretches of sunshine, heavy rainfall, or cold snaps through the medium of sugars and acids. From the vineyard team who tend and encourage, to the winery team who balance and enhance, harvest is about collaboration and expertise. It is, in many ways, the ultimate reflection of Artelium’s core values – craftsmanship, community, and connection to the land.
Harvest begins in the vineyard with the vineyard team, harvest crew and members of the local community helping to hand pick the fruit. Each bunch is carefully analysed for ripeness, cleanness and any signs of disease. This ensures that only the best grapes are delivered to the winery, resulting in top quality juice for our finely crafted wines.
Alice Richards, one of our vineyard operatives, finds harvest exhilarating: ‘It’s very satisfying; it’s the literal fruits of your labour coming to fruition. Every ounce of your effort is poured into this short, intense period of time. I like the rush of harvest. Everyone who works it is in the same boat, pepped up by the same intensity. Everyone is working just as hard as you are – it ends up being really fun.’
Once a day of hard-labour is complete, the days yield of hand-selected grapes are transported to our winery team over at our site in Madehurst. The fruit, tilled and cared for by the vineyard team, is handed over to the winery like the passing of the Olympic torch. It is now up to our winemaker Solly Monyamane and his team to take the grapes on the final stretch of their journey from land to bottle.
‘I love this time of year,’ says Solly, ‘it is a culmination of the vineyard teams’ hard work – everything they’ve put in since last November. Harvest is really a celebration of what they have achieved, often against the odds of fluctuating weather. Once the grapes get to us, it is our chance to work with the fruit, crafting what the vintage has given us.’
The winery team, like those in the vineyard, are in for a period of vigorous industry. ‘I love the business of harvest,’ continues Solly, ‘It’s not something I see as a tough time, although we’re all working really hard. It’s a time of diving deep into winemaking for 18 hours a day for a three-to-four-week period. Those three weeks are going to matter for the next ten years. It is when we begin making wine that potentially won’t be drunk, due to being put in reserve, until 2034, so you need to have constant focus.’ It’s a little like planting a tree: you’re not necessarily thinking about the seed in the ground but projecting what it will look like once it has grown. It’s like looking into the future.
Far from a sign of the year ending, for us, harvest is a beginning; holding all the possibility and promise for next year's wines. We can’t wait to see what this October brings us...