Bringing in the harvest

This morning a friend took us to Danebury Vineyard between Stockbridge and  Salisbury, where we joined  about twenty other volunteers in picking, by hand,  their Schonburger grapes. The vines have done well this year, producing  large bunches of good quality fruit. It took us about four hours, including a coffee break,  to pick the entire crop of about 3 tonnes, which were taken  by lorry to Andover to be pressed later today.
We were very well looked after, and afterwards, given a good lunch,  accompanied  by freshly pressed grape juice and the delicious  Schonburger dry white wine. We also enjoyed good  conversations with other pickers about planting woodland, wildflower meadows, and butterfly monitoring, all subjects of interest to us.

Danebury Vineyard occupies a seven acre site on south -facing Hampshire chalk  downland, and has been in production for over thirty years.