Peter Hall
Breaky Bottom – Peter’s Note – November 2024
This month we’re launching Breaky Bottom’s special Kir Royale, and celebrating my receiving an exceptional award, ‘Diplome d’Honneur’ through the Wine Guild of the UK. 50th Anniversary Kir Royale In 1999 I decided to dedicate a small area of my vineyard to grow blackcurrants for producing a Crème de Cassis which I used as a…
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Breaky Bottom – Peter’s Note October 2024
October is usually the month of harvest, the culmination of a year’s work in the vineyard. 2024 has been hit with indifferent weather which triggered severe attacks of downy mildew in the UK and on the European continent. I have insufficient quality fruit to justify picking and below is the email I sent to the…
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Breaky Bottom – Peter’s Notes – August 2024
I was recently rummaging through folders of ancient newspaper cuttings and bumped into this – an article from the ‘Sunday Express Magazine’ (circa 1987) by my old chum Oz Clarke. I was one of a small number of UK vineyards back then, all of us still winemakers. I feel embarrassed reading much of the text,…
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Breaky Bottom – Peter’s Notes, July 2024
2024 has been a difficult growing season for English and Welsh vineyards. Earlier heavy rains were followed by two weeks of overcast cool weather. Some vineyards have good potential crops while others, including Breaky Bottom, will harvest a more modest crop. However, the sun has been shining during early August, so fingers crossed! Cuvée Names…
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Breaky Bottom – Peter’s Notes, June 2024
As I start on Peter’s Notes for June, already rather late in the month because of the pressing work required in the vineyard for the 2024 crop, I am still looking to think back to the early days soon after planting. The photographs I choose will be rather higgledy-piggledy, but they are ‘of-the-time’ – my…
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Breaky Bottom – Peter’s Notes April 2024 – 50th Anniversary!
Special announcement – 2024 is Breaky Bottom’s 50th Anniversary! My livestock farm before planting vines I planted the vineyard back in April 1974, so this month I am looking back to the very start – the ploughing of the proposed site, the initial planting of vines and the posting and trellising of the individual rows.…
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Breaky Bottom – Peter’s Notes March 2024
A Spring morning Work continues in the vineyard and the ewes are about to start lambing; yet forgive me, but for some reason, loudly, I can hear the speaker of the House of Commons shouting “Order, order…..!” So instead, I have chosen to focus on the delights of spring and the animals and plants which…
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