Flint Vineyard Founder and Winemaker, Ben Witchell, was recently interviewed by Tim Atkin, Master of Wine and expert wine writer, for his podcast Cork Talk. Tim is a true champion of English wine and well-respected, so it was an honour for him to feature Flint Vineyard on his channels.
Ben talked through six of our wines, including the Charmats, the Fumé, and the Chardonnay-dominant Silex 23. It was also an opportunity to reflect on how far we’ve come from our early experiments, beginning in 2016. From the initial planting of 12,000 vines, we now have 40 acres (c. 60,000 vines) and are planting a further 40 acres this year.
The first plantings focused on stills: Bacchus, Pinot noir, Pinot blanc, and Pinot gris. The newer plantings focus on PIWIs for our Charmats, which are ideally suited to the UK climate.
Processing all of these grapes involved expanding the winery and adding new equipment, including an 8-tonne press and additional tanks and barrels. We believe we now have the largest concentration of concrete and stainless steel in the country.
We’re of course continuing to experiment and push the boundaries of English wine. Almost all of these experiments are small batches reserved just for the Flint Wine Club. But who knows, maybe like the Fumé and Charmats, we’ll stumble upon another stand-out wine that becomes part of our core range.
Listen via Podbean, also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
