14/06/2024
Special Air is the secret
I am frequently asked a sensible question: why do you make wine in the Cotswolds when you bang on about using fruit from the fabled Crouch Valley and elsewhere in in Essex. Why not just move there?
Cotswold Air is the answer. Air is a major component of winemaking, most of my wine is made in oak barrels which breathe, and even the stone and concrete eggs encourage an amount of aspiration: air exchange develops flavours and texture in the wine. So air is the second most important ingredient after the grapes - the wrong air is not going to develop such exquisite notes, and could even spoil the wine. So, what’s so special about my Cotswold air?
1) I’m at altitude, about 135m, so there’s just less of it. This simply means I can can control the effect more easily, it is more gentle, more subtle, a delicate touch. Air at near sea level (SL) is just a bit of a blunt instrument leading to clumsy wines
2). It’s lighter - as a consequence of the altitude the wine is slightly less dense when it goes in to bottle, hence it is a bit more elegant than SL wine.
3) We’re quite some way from motorways, conurbations, even towns of any size, and the population is low density So the air is clean - no whiff of diesel with my wines.
4) The limestone in the soil round here imparts a slightly minerally quality to the atmosphere and thus the wine. It’s what we call airroire.
5) It’s damp. It rains all the bloody time - so the humidity is high, meaning the barrels are happy. And you know what they say: happy barrel, happy wine.
6) The views. The views are gorgeous, and views are 96.3% air, so it stands to reason that this gorgeosity imparts itself into the wine.
So - that’s why.
NB. It is possible that most of the above is somewhat hot air.
