News
15th Jul 2010
Sparkling Success at RidgeView
Last Monday a group of around 33 members and friends gathered in the beautiful setting of RidgeView Wine Estate for a social evening hosted by RidgeView and led by General Manager Tamara Roberts.
The formalities of the evening included the Annual Meeting, led by the Chairman, Mike James, of Bio-Productions, and the business was dealt with quickly and easily.
We handed over to Tamara, and she took us briefly through the history of the company before we embarked on a short tour of the wine estate. She explained the difficulties the weather can cause and reminded us of the sharp frosts in May which could have spelled disaster for the grape crop. We saw the remains of the large candles they used for keeping the frost at bay during those cold nights.
The grapes are picked by hand in October, and the process of extracting the precious juices to make wine then begins. We saw the huge vats in which the wine is produced and we saw the various smaller machines for bottling, corking and labelling.
Incredibly, much of the process is still done by hand in a labour intensive way. This very successful family business is still very young. In 1998 they bottled 25,000 sparkling wines and ten years later the figure was 230,000. Tamara is hopeful that by 2014 it may be 400,000, such is the strength of the business.
After the tour we sampled some wines, and even I could tell that they were very good. We discovered how to best appreciate the taste of the wine. Tamara answered questions from interested members before leaving us to eat our way through some delicious sandwiches and baguettes. Everyone seemed to regard the meeting as a great success, and feedback this week confirms that impression.
Thanks go to Tamara for her hospitality and generosity, to Sussex Cleaning and Care and Calico Print Solutions, for providing the food, and to all those who came along to support the BHBPA. Thanks, too, to Paul Noble for providing these excellent photos of the event...
http://gallery.me.com/pnoblephoto#100401&view=carouseljs&sel=0
