Parva Farm Vineyard

The Wye Valley seems to nestle in it's own little time warp. Here amongst wooded hills and gently bending flows, streams of day trippers lick on fluffed up fatty cones and pay through the nose for pub grub fresh from the freezer. You wouldn't be surprised if Terry Thomas ran you off the road shouting, "Hard cheese old man". It's a little piece of Britain that's stuck forever in the 1950s.

It was the 1950s that witnessed the first tentative steps towards establishing vineyards in this country. A movement led mainly by retired colonels with a little too much shrapnel left in the brain. Who else would try? They persevered and gradually, as the years passed by, innovations in the vineyard and the winery, together with a spot of global warming, meant some of these wines actually became drinkable.

Around one bend, waved on by a pitchfork yielding yokel, and up a steepish hill, you'll find Parva Farm Vineyard. First planted in 1979 and under the present regime since the mid 1990s.

There's an unmistakable and not entirely unexpected whiff of 'The Good Life' about the set-up, but some of the grapes growing here are a real surprise.

For a small fee you get a signed walk around the vineyard followed by a tasting. It's well worth it.

The views across the Wye towards Tintern Abbey are profoundly genteel and they even throw in a bit of rural leg pulling. My grandfather was a farmer, fond of both literal and metaphorical leg pulling, I could hear his voice whilst reading this.

Aye, right, Romans is it. We came back down into the midst of a minor crisis. The owner's daughter had lost her new puppy. I was impatient to taste the wines so after a brief glance around said, "Don't worry, I'm sure he'll turn up", as '101 Horrible Farm Deaths' flashed through my mind.

I tried to block out images of sad puppy eyes sinking slowly beneath a pit of silage and concentrate on the wines. Annoyingly, and this is a problem with a lot of English and Welsh wine tastings, you have to make do with little disposable plastic thimbles. That said, even a decent glass probably wouldn't have helped the first few offerings. They were, at best, "interesting". Also, they don't do tastings of the sparkling wine. However, spirits lifted immeasurably when the wastrel turned up unharmed.

Then we tasted this...

This is a delicious wine. Off dry and a blend of several varieties. It's aromatic, with a refreshing acidity and that beautiful purity the best UK wines have. I bought a half dozen on the spot, it's the most enjoyable Welsh wine I've drunk, by quite some way. After a few glasses in the garden with my sceptical brother he grudgingly conceded it was very good. My Dad opened a bottle of expensive Italian white afterwards and it just tasted 'dirty'. Hard cheese old man! We nicknamed Parva's Afon Gwy "the spoiler", Terry Thomas would have loved it.

CLICK HERE FOR THE PARVA FARM VINEYARD WEBSITE

What were the skies like when you were young?

My early years were urban, then, as I began reaching an age capable of appreciating the city's bounty, my parents started moving. Move by move we ended up further and further away from the metropolis.

At school I spent a lot of time staring out of the windows. I'll never forget one class, within sight of the Brecon Beacons, a teacher was extolling the virtues of Wordsworth's Prelude while sheep bleats drifted slowly on the breeze. "Breath in, breath in, can you not smell the genius?".

What seemed to fascinate him most was that way back in the 18th Century, someone was capable of expressing a desire to flee city squalor and head for pastoral peace. As classmates turned up late after helping their fathers castrate bullocks, all I could think of was heading in exactly the opposite direction, and as fast as possible.

Aside from plotting my escape, there was something else keeping me sane. Global Warming had just been invented and suddenly, for me, there could be a purpose to the countryside. A vineyard, and not any old hippy, dippy British style 'Good Life' nonsense, but a proper, full on, 'watch out Burgundy' one. I'd been to Beaune and while there, decided in a fit of precociousness, that it was going to be my favourite wine. Also, I'd read that Pinot Noir was very difficult to grow and all attempts to ape Burgundy elsewhere had failed. A challenge.

After months of research, mainly spent staring out of the school bus window, I'd isolated a site. It sort of faced in the same direction as the Cote D'Or and the soil looked suitably vineyardish, especially after a very dry summer. The fact that it belonged to someone else didn't seem to bother me.

Summers went by, plotting continued and eventually I escaped, so my vineyard dreams got left behind. Whenever I'm back I still cast a glance across the plot, one day, one day... then, just the other day, in Abergavenny Farmers Market, I stumbled across this...

Organically grown near Monmouth. Somebody else is living my dream! "Oh it's very nice. Has a bit of fizz to it, spritz is what they do call it my love". I was very excited.

After the fizz blew off, the bouquet was nice, more New Zealand than Burgundy. Unfortunately it tasted a bit odd, actually very odd. Not unpleasant, but a small 'novelty' glass is quite enough. The same people make delicious cider and perry. Really funky proper old school stuff, refreshing, complex and with more than a hint of badger's bath.

Click here for Wernddu's website: makers of organic wine, cider and perry

The Orb - Little Fluffy Clouds by real mccoy16