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A Cave Long-Lees Ageing Project with Heights of Abraham

Barry Lewis • 25 August 2023

Amber Valley Vineyards Collaborates with Heights of Abraham to Age Sparkling Pink Wine Underground in Historic Rutland Cavern


DERBYSHIRE, UK — Bridging the realms of history, geology, and viniculture, award-winning Amber Valley Vineyards is thrilled to announce a unique collaboration with the amazing Derbyshire award-winning tourism attraction, Heights of Abraham, located in Matlock Bath. This visionary initiative will place 200 bottles of Amber Valley's sparkling pink wine from the outstanding 2022 vintage deep within the historic Rutland Cavern, a place with a legacy of its own.


The region's fascinating geology and connection with the mineral Galena, an ore of lead and silver, mined since Roman times, provides an evocative backdrop to this venture. The Great Rutland Cavern, earlier known as the Nestus mine, has a history rich in mining activities tracing back to at least the medieval era. This collaboration symbolically unites Derbyshire's mineral-rich past with its promising vinicultural present.


Long lees ageing, a technique where sparkling wine is allowed to mature on its 'lees' (residual yeast particles) for an extended period, will be employed. Historically favoured by prestigious champagne estates, this method offers wines additional complexity and depth of flavour. Underground locations, like Rutland Cavern, provide the consistently cool temperatures, stable humidity levels, and protection from light, all essential for producing exceptional sparkling wines.


Barry Lewis, owner of Amber Valley Vineyard, remarked on this historic partnership, 


"Our ambition to produce a limited-release prestige sparkling wine found its perfect setting within the storied depths of Rutland Cavern. Derbyshire's mining history, combined with our innovative spirit, will craft a wine echoing both tradition and modernity. 


We are aiming to long-lees age the wine in Rutland Cavern for at least two and a half years and post disgorging the wine will be allowed some quiet bottle time before being released but it should be worth the wait.  And when we do, we should hopefully have something quite extraordinary.


We’ve long wanted to work in a partnership of this nature in our home county of Derbyshire, we have a unique county with a unique history and story to tell and this collaboration with the Heights of Abraham really is a perfect example of that.  We’re weaving a new story, utilising that unique history and bringing wine, nature and history together to tell it.”


Expressing his enthusiasm, Rupert Pugh, Development Director and member of the Pugh family, custodians of the Heights of Abraham, stated, 

"This partnership with Amber Valley Vineyards is a celebration of Derbyshire's rich heritage. The confluence of our historical attraction with the nuanced craft of winemaking promises an unparalleled experience. Over the centuries the Rutland Cavern has been used for many things, from candlelit concerts to spectacular weddings, including one where the bride was lowered down the cavern shaft on a rope to meet her new husband! Soldiers used to store their artillery and dynamite in the caverns, and now a new historic partnership has begun with Amber Valley Vineyard. We look forward to serving this unique sparkling wine in our Vista restaurant in the future.”

This sparkling wine, a masterful blend of around 70% estate grown Seyval Blanc, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier, hails from Amber Valley's Doehole vineyard, situated near Wessington and Ashover, and is being crafted by winemaker Jack Abbott of Three Choirs Vineyards, Gloucestershire, the long-time winemaking partner of Amber Valley Vineyards, who added,


“This Amber Valley Rose from the exciting 2022 vintage is a typical sparkling blend for the region, with 85% Seyval Blanc for the body and Pinot Noir and Meunier adding interest with their classic red fruit and floral characteristics. The gentle pressing of the grapes and aging on fine lees prior to secondary fermentation have created a wine which is textured with bright acidity, ideal for sparkling wine production. Aging in these caves with their stable temperature and dim lighting should provide the ideal environment to allow this wine to age gracefully on lees for years to come; maturing to what we believe will be an exciting and complex wine.”


Amber Valley Vineyards have previously released sparkling wine vintages, which have been small but perfectly formed and highly sought after, have included Lindway Brook 2018, a white sparkling wine made in the méthode traditionnelle or traditional method, of secondary fermentation in the bottle and Lindway Brook Pink 2019.  Both these wines have won international awards for their quality, comparing favourably with high quality grower Champagnes.


As history enthusiasts and wine aficionados await this unique sparkling wine, Derbyshire stands poised to mark another significant chapter in its storied legacy.


For more details about Amber Valley Vineyards, their wines, and this collaboration, please contact.


About Amber Valley Vineyards:
Owned by the Lewis family, Amber Valley Vineyards Estate (established in 2011) is a beacon of vine-growing and winemaking excellence in Derbyshire, renowned for its dedication to creating high-quality wines, with a special focus on providing immersive and interesting vineyard tours and tastings at their Wessington site.  Proponents of regenerative viticulture, eschewing herbicides, and pesticides, and preferring to work with nature by protecting the soils and enhancing local ecosystems to provide ecosystem services in the vineyard to keep pests and diseases under control; Amber Valley Vineyards has been at the forefront of this type of viticulture since 2017. 


Contact Barry Lewis on 07920484207 (please text first). barry@ambervalleywines.co.uk

www.ambervalleyvineyards.co.uk


About Heights of Abraham:
Owned by the Pugh family, Heights of Abraham is Derbyshire's treasured gem, famed for its iconic cable cars and offering visitors an immersive journey into Matlock Bath's limestone hills, caverns, and its rich mining legacy. It remains an unmissable attraction for those exploring Derbyshire.

The Rutland Cavern hosts guided cavern tours every day until November 5th, and a Halloween Grotto will once again be created in the cavern during October half-term. Entrance to the cavern is included with the purchase of a cable car ticket. 

This year the 60 acre Estate is celebrating a “year of fantastic happenings”, full details of which can be found on the website.
Email: office@heightsofabraham.com
Website www.heightsofabraham.com
Press office mobile: 07515 747658 (David Thornton)

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Pruning is underway

by Barry Lewis • 1 January 2022
Pruning is underway in the vineyard’s and you can’t help but get a bit excited for the new season ahead. Pruning is the most essential job in the vineyard, in many ways the most costly and most necessary work, which can dictate the quantity, and more importantly, the quality of the crop in the following season. I t sets up the expectation of a hoped for season, of a frost free spring, a dry warm flowering period, a long decent summer with abundant sunshine, warmth and just enough rain and culminating in a long, balmy perfect ripening season. Then a clean, abundant and beautiful harvest is the great prize. Then we want the most perfect wine we can make as a consequence. Of course it rarely goes like this but it’s what we work for and pray for. Keep your fingers crossed for us! Every snip of the vine is carefully considered and works towards making a balanced vine to optimise it's potential. As you can imagine we generate huge quantities of vine clippings (they make great kindling) and it's hard and often cold work. We wait till the depths of winter so that the wood is fully ripened and no longer green. Soon will follow the process of tying-down the new seasons canes at a point when we hope the risk of spring frost has passed. Tour bookings are open on our website if you want to hear more about the trials and tribulations of growing vines in Derbyshire.

What is Wassailing?

by Barry Lewis • 1 January 2022
The ancient Celtic tradition of Wassailing has roots as deep and old as even the very oldest apple trees in our most ancient orchards. Whilst today it is seen as a West Country tradition it was also very much a Midlands one, with well documented examples found in Lincolnshire that have been revived in recent years. In fact, anywhere that had orchards tended to have their own variation on the Wassailing theme. Derbyshire is no different and so we’re hoping we are reviving something that has long been forgotten. In folklore, mythology and religion the humble apple or apple trees have taken centre stage throughout the millennia – think of Adam and Eve for example. The humble apple has symbolised life and rebirth and it is this that has been placed centre stage where Wassailing is concerned. If you’ve ever visited a mature orchard during winter they can be mysterious places in the coiling mists, their often distorted boughs and trunks, encrusted with lichens and mosses and adorned with ethereal mistletoe, can seem otherworldly and special. Their centrality in the lives of the past as an important food source well into the winter months must have made them even more special. Wassailing, depending where in Britain you were, was often celebrated on what was known as ‘Old Twelvey night,’ 17th January, but in other parts it was celebrated around Christmas or New Year. In more modern times, the geographical spread of where this tradition has clung on perhaps better reflects the importance of apple growing and cider making in those places, with a particular focus on the West Country in the counties of Devon, Somerset, Herefordshire and Gloucestershire. The origins of Wassail though are far, far deeper and more rooted in Celtic pagan traditions, now Anglicised (but barely) and done mainly for fun but as with all superstitions like this, it maybe tinged with a sense of covering all bases to ensure a good season. Wassail is derived from the Anglo-Saxon waes haeil meaning 'to be healthy' and the aspects described below were designed to drive evil spirits from the orchard and to encourage a good and healthy crop in the coming season. The selection of a tree as the ‘Apple Tree Man’ who is feted as the guardian of the orchard and becomes the focus of the celebration or ceremony is key. We have one in our orchard that for some reason just stands out as the right choice. There then follows some variations on a theme of noisemaking with the clattering of pans, blowing of horns (and shotguns in older times!) and a torchlight or lamp light procession to surround the Apple Tree Man and the singing of a traditional Wassail song. In some orchards a tall, hooded horse skull leads the procession. Then cider is poured on the roots of Apple Tree Man and cider-soaked toast is hung on his branches by the orchard King and Queen, usually two local children are selected for this honour. A Wassailing cup or bowl is used to dip the toast before hanging in the trees. A wassailing bowl was often specially made from turned ash, maple or chestnut and kept especially for the purpose. We commissioned our own Wessington Wassailing Cup back in 2019 (from Shaun at Natural Earth Woodcrafts) and it is hand carved from a piece of locally grown and felled oak. We’re delighted to be leading the charge in Derbyshire for the revival of this fascinating and ancient rural tradition and making it a community event and hope that with a growing revival of orchards comes a revival of more wassails across the county that can really connect people with their orchard’s and their communities. In January 2022 we had the participation of T'Owd Man Morris, from Wirksworth (and they'll be returning in 2023), who added, colour, sound and spectacle to the event and made a Mari Lwyd for it, a horse skull that leads the procession. Central to a successful Wassail is having a good time, to make merry in the bleakest part of winter and maybe, just maybe, it might just do a little something to improve the crop for the following season. One thing a good wassailing perhaps can do is connect us all a little more closely to nature and the turning of the seasons. And that’s no bad thing. We're holding our 4th Annual Wessington Wassail on 28th January 2023. For more information and to book click here. All the photos shown here in this post are of past Wassails at our orchard in Wessington, and show a true flavour of what our event is like. That is to say, rather extraordinary. We're also listed in Tradfolk , the website that celebrates traditional folk culture. You can find us as the only listing in Derbyshire at this time just here .
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