about
Galleywood Vineyard
Galleywood Estate vineyard started its creation in 2009. The vineyard now covers 20 acres of land and has several varieties of vines planted including Pinot Noir 5 clones, Pinot Meunier 2 clones, Chardonnay 8 clones and Bacchus 2 clones.
We are proud to be part of the developing wine industry in Great Britain. We started our Vineyard with some trial vines in 2009 and now have vines planted in three vineyards within the estate. Each vineyard bringing its own soil characteristics and micro climate, allowing us to choose the best terroir for each vine variety
The Winery has been created in a water mill style building whose architectural proportions let us embrace this iconic Essex agriculture style of building with a new and exciting use - our wine production!
Why do we have a hook as our logo? For two reasons, a mill building would have originally had sack hoists in the Lucams to hoist in the grain. We now use hoists in the winery with hooks to lift and lower the gravity feed tanks for our unique system.
We produce both still and sparkling wines all of which benefit from the gentle pressing by a traditional coquard press and look forward to releasing more styles in the near future.
“very few things in life are of the moment and timeless.”
Winemaking
Galleywood Winery
We wanted the winery building to be of an architectural design that reflected our counties agricultural heritage. Based in a region with several inland waterways, a watermill style building reflected this perfectly. The opportunity of high ceilings and multiple storey design, was ideal to create a gravity feed winery.
We have overhauled a 1950's traditional Coquard press which we sourced from the Champagne region of France and installed it in a unique elevated position to commence the gravity feed system. The next part of our wine making method was to create two raiseable receiver tanks to accept and decant the gently pressed grape juice avoiding unnecessary gravity fall. Once settled the lift tanks are raised to allow the juices to flow by gravity into the temperature controlled fermentation vats, again with the minimal head required for the operation. We believe temperature control and minimal intervention is critical to achieve quality wines. We have also installed a historic Staffordshire potteries narrow gauge train that allows transport of Chardonnay Barrels and bottle crates to underground cellars for ageing which allows precise manoeuvring through confined spaces.
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If you would like to learn more about our wine making and viticultural practices, then please click the link to see our available tours.
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