Whinyard Rocks is two people trying to make wine on a hillside in Wales. With impressive results.
James and Susan left behind London life, working as a scientist and at a sustainable food & drink startup respectively, for very rural Powys, after James had the wild idea of planting a vineyard on a slightly lower lying field on the family sheep farm. And just to make things even harder they followed through on their values and decided to make the wines as naturally as possible, farming regeneratively and making the wines with no additions, no fining or filtration, and using the naturally occurring yeasts for fermentation.
A few of our team visited this weekend for a tour and taste, and picked up stock of three wines; Col Rondo, a sparkling red, a Pet Nat made from Solaris and Ortega, and their still red made mainly with Regent.
Natural wine from just down the road. Admittedly a rather winding one… but so worth the journey.
PS they also have a rather beautiful cottage to rent if you fancy a holiday in their rather lovely part of the world, handily near Presteigne and Hay-on-Wye.
