Our Vineyard
County Louth, Ireland
Our vineyard is located on the banks of the River Dee, which is on the picturesque East Coast of Ireland in Co. Louth.
We currently boast 12 acres of land and are constantly growing and evolving our vineyard – with a total of 20 acres being used to grow vines by 2025.
On the east coast of Ireland we have an oceanic temperate climate – boasting calm weather, plenty of rain and sufficient, but not excessive, sunshine.
There are a number of factors that make our vineyard unique.
First, it is the largest commercial scale vineyard in Ireland, with grapes and varieties which will be perfectly adapted to the Irish soil and climate. We are working closely with INRA in France (National Institute for the Agricultural Research), following soil analysis and climate data, those varieties are adapted to the Irish soil and climate.
With 4450 plants of red grape variety and 14500 plants of white grape varieties, our wines are produced and elaborated following an approach based on permaculture, which allows us to work in symbiose with nature.
Secondly, all the grapes will be harvested by hand, reducing any risk of damage to the grapes before they get to the press.
When developing our vineyard from its beginning as an open field, we created key-lines, and we planted each vine following those key-lines. We also planted 2400 native apple trees to bring back the bio diversity needed.
With the creation of 6 ponds we managed to control the excess of water and develop an eco-sytem where our vineyard was adapted to the surrounding environment and not the other way around.
Our products are grown using the principles of Permaculture, which hold that the edges of forests have a particular richness of resources. We hope that our handcrafted, estate-grown and produced wines express that richness.
As Ireland’s largest commercial winery, our mission is to create the finest Irish Wines and to show that Ireland will be a recognised winemaking country in the future.
The quality of our grapes is of prime importance when looking after our vines throughout the year. Each vine is independently assessed during pruning to judge the strength of the vine, which in turn determines the amount of buds we can leave to grow.
We use specific hands-on canopy management from the first stages of bud burst in spring, right up to harvest time in early autumn. These jobs can be very time consuming but are a far more precise way of looking after our vines, than it would be if we mechanised the jobs.
The world is changing, the climate is changing, and Ireland has all the qualities to become a key player in the wine industry.
We will make the impossible possible
