We had terrific winter and spring rains leading up to vintage 2017, a marked contrast to the previous year, proving once again if proof were needed, that every vintage is different. We had a cool early part to spring too, combined with the spring rain. Flowering was about 3 weeks later than the previous year which of course meant that vintage was 3 weeks later than normal, or as some old locals said sagely, back to the old normal. There was a very long and slow ripening period which is terrific for allowing grapes to develop their flavours. We had a pretty dry February March and April, once the spring rains finished in mid-January. Overall a late vintage with some incredibly promising reds and outstanding whites.

We make this wine just like we do the Bosworth Cabernet Sauvignon, but the Cockscomb spends less time in new oak and less time maturing in oak generally. Bosworth lite? Not really, but certainly very approachable young. We pick the grapes when they are sugar and flavour ripe and then bring them to the winery where they go through the crusher and de-stemmer. Then to the open fermenters, where the sugar to alcohol fermentation begins. The grapes and ‘pumped over’ twice daily. This means the fermenting juice is pumped off the ‘cap’ of skins and pumped back over the skins, to make sure we get as much flavour and colour as we can from them. once nearly through ferment, the wine is pumped into barrels (mainly Older French oak) to finish ferment and mature. We usually bottle the Cockscomb in the same year as it is made. However not in the this case as it turns out!

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