Forty Hall Vineyard is the only commercial-scale vineyard in London and we're committed to creating the best quality, organic English wines.
Each of our single estate wines reflect the distinctive character, of the vineyard's organically grown grapes.
Chardonnay, Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir produceour award winning Sparkling London Brut which is made in the traditional Champagne method, with all the fermentation taking place naturally in the bottle.
Bacchus and Ortega grapes produce our two single variety still dry white wines.
Read more about the grapes here.
We grow our grapes naturally, with as little intervention as possible, so that the wine produced from our grapes truly reflects the terroir - which means the unique characteristics of the place, the soil and its microclimate.
In our vineyard, we do not use synthetic fungicides, herbicides or fertilisers. This encourages sustainability, biodiversity and natural balance. We work holistically with Forty Hall Farm bringing in the sheep during the winter months to graze and fertilise the soil.
The vines grow in a living soil, free of chemical residues, drawing optimum levels of minerals from the soil, becoming stronger with better natural resistance to disease. These vines will produce fruit for years to come. We have introduced cover crops inbetween rows to encourage good soil health and improve biodiversity and our volunteers have initiated a greening project, building bug hotels, creating bird houses and sowing wild flower meadows around our fields.
Pests are controlled by biological methods and mildew problems are also managed by salts such as elemental (not man-made) sulphur. The use of these methods is carefully controlled and limited.
There is a rapidly growing interest in so-called real or natural wines and a number of new wine fairs now specialise in showing these wines including the Real Wine Fair and RAW. The emphasis for natural wine makers is on creating a healthy ecosystem in the vineyard where soil micro fauna and flora are respected and where chemical input in minimised.
In the winery the focus is again on minimising chemical additions, particularly sulphur dioxide, and, when possible, using naturally occurring yeasts for fermentation.
Our winemaker is Will Davenport who runs Davenport Vineyards in Sussex.
Will is a pioneering organic winemaker who has won countless awards for his own low intervention, certified organic wines and has advised us since the early days, helping us to produce wines that let the unique character of our grapes speak for themselves.
By not using pesticides in the vineyard, the grapes remain clean of residues and Will says, "The fruit then becomes a true expression of the grape variety and the soil that it grows in. Chemical fertilisers and pesticides are there to make life easy for the vineyard manager, but often result in wine that lacks character and balance. "