A Year in The Life of a Vineyard

Kayleigh Ireland and Rebecca Nee who form part of Whitehead Monckton’s Agricultural and Rural Land Team recently visited Mereworth Wines.   Kayleigh is a Legal Executive who specialises in commercial property and has worked at the Firm for over 15 years.  Rebecca is a commercial property solicitor and joined the team in August 2021.

“Having recently joined the Firm’s Agricultural and Rural Land Team and both having a love for the outdoors, we were keen to start to learn about the finer detail of the sector.  With wine making being one of the fastest growing industries in the agricultural sector in England (particularly in Kent), we thought we would start there.  Not only do we have a love of the outdoors, but also a love for wine!

Mereworth provides a great example of the high-quality wine being produced here in Kent. Mereworth’s first harvest was in 2018 and they have since made an award-winning English sparkling wine.   They produce three types of sparkling wines – Pink, White from White and White from Black, as well as Harvest Gin and Oak Aged Gin.

Mereworth’s Head of Production, Scott Gebbie, gave us a tour of the winery which is located in Brewer’s Hall Oast.  The tour gave us a behind the scenes insight into the complexities and processes of wine making.  As we walked through the production areas and tank rooms, Scott talked us through the wine production process after the grapes are harvested from fermentation to blending.  At the time of our visit, Scott and his team were in the process of pruning and tying the vines and were soon to be bottling.