A Bumper Harvest for Biddenden!

Throughout September and October, the team at Biddenden has been extremely busy, picking and pressing this year’s harvest. Starting on the 18th September with a small team picking Ortega, they have been harvesting for nearly 5 weeks now, working through each variety when individually ready.

2023 has so far seen harvest records broken across the UK with vineyards bringing in huge crops and recording their biggest ever harvest. At the halfway point at Biddenden they had picked more tonnes of fruit than the 2022 harvest all together!

Affectionately dubbed ‘the monster of 2023’ the last time Biddenden picked a crop of this size all three Barnes boys were off at college and Mum, Sally, was the driver of the 3910 tractor, built in July 1983- one of the earliest on record in this county according to Haynes!

Growing twelve different varieties here at Biddenden is a key to their success come harvest time as each one can be harvested when individually perfectly ripe, rather than having large areas of one variety that need to be picked all at once. This, coupled with their strong focus on vine health year round, experience across three generations, and the same tractor still going strong (all be it with some minor unplanned adjustments!) have once again paid dividends.