Everflyht: a journey into regenerative viticulture with this excellent English wine producer
Website: https://www.everflyht.com/
This was an interesting day out. I headed down to Ditchling in West Sussex with a group of buyers from The Wine Society to focus on regenerative viticulture at Everflyht, an exciting English winery headed up by Luke Spalding, who has been implementing regenerative practices on the farm now for a while. He was very honest and open about his experiences, which was really interesting. This was warts and all.
Everflyht was planted in 2016, and at that stage was 2.8 hectares under vines. The family who own the vineyard got stuck in Australia and New Zealand with the Iceland volcano that caused flights to be grounded, and while they were there visited vineyards, and decided they’d like to do this. They set up the company in 2012 but took a while to find the right land, which they did in 2015. The site looks up to the Ditchling Beacon behind, which is chalk from the South Downs. But the soils here at the bottom are Wealden Clay, which is 10-15 m deep. It’s a flat site in a frost pocket, and there are issues with drainage. But it makes lovely wine, and in particular has a talent for Pinot Noir.
Luke was working at Ridgeview from 2015-2018, farming fully conventionally. He consulted here in 2018, and that year planted cover crops. He then moved to Everflyht full time in 2019, and was running the vineyard conventionally. In 2019 he started taking things out (as in using fewer inputs), removing all insecticides and doing one round of organic fertilizer granules. He did a scholarship to understand vineyard floor management and canopy management better, and visited Champagne Lanson’s Green Label estate, where he learned all about permaculture.
In 2020 he began moving towards organics. In 2021 he was 50/50 organics and conventional, then in 2022 75% organic. In 2021 he sprayed Mancozeb once. ‘In this country, organics in 2021 was a write off,’ he says. In 2023 he was fully organic bar three applications of botryticide. He has been using plant nutritional aids. The vineyard expanded to 7 hectares with new plantings in 2023. He’s avoided copper until the 2024 growing season where he has had to use it.
So the approach is more pragmatic than following a recipe. For example, for floor management he does one herbicide pass after emergence just to knock back the weed growth in the vine row. With mowing the row, he uses a side-discharge to send the cuttings under the vine which forms a mulch and also fertilizes.
He’s avoided trimming the vines, just letting them grow. One of the advantages of this is that it causes the rachis to expand in the bunches, and you end up with better cluster architecture: the berries are spread out more in the bunch, and this reduces botrytis risk.
They have a tunnel sprayer, which reduces spray drift and water usage, and recycles anything that doesn’t hit the target. Ridgeview were the first to get this technology in the UK.
2024 is shaping to be a bit tricky, with lots of growing season rainfall. Luke says viticulture is like a game of chess, and he things the biggest worry towards the end of the season will be botrytis: there’s lots of dead material in the bunches from poor flowering, so his strategy is to anticipate high botrytis pressure and do what he can to reduce this. He’s using bio blockers and stimulants to increase protection.
We had a discussion about floor management and cover-cropping. ‘A vineyard with just grass cover is not so good,’ says Luke. ‘You only have one root zone.’ He also maintains that just 2 or 3 different species isn’t a proper cover crop. ‘You need eight, and ideally 12-16,’ he says. ‘You need different rooting zones that will connect and help draw up moisture in dry years.’ These should be sown together. ‘The biomass is much higher, and they all help each other out.’ He cites Ian Wilkinson from Costwold Seeds as being particularly useful on the topic of cover crops. But in recent years the weather has meant it has been quite difficult to establish cover crops.
Luke points out that with arable farming you have a two-tier system, with soils and crop. With orchards and vineyards you are adding another tier.
We talked some figures. In the UK, the average yield over the last 15 years has been 5.8 tonnes/hectare, working on plantation densities of around 4000 vines/hectare. It takes 14 cm2 of leaf area to ripen one gram of fruit. The vines here are 1.1 m apart and have 1.2 m high canopies. This means that each can ripen 1.5 kg of fruit.
He’s been experimenting with cordons, which he thinks work well with Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, and even Chardonnay. He had already trialled them at Ridgeview. ‘You get better quality of fruit and better vigour,’ says Luke. There are more carbohydrate reserves producing hardier buds less prone to frost. We compared two rows of Chardonnay: one is with guyot pruning and one with cordon. With the same clone and rootstock there are marked differences in vigour. Luke is going to test the soil to see whether the cordon changes the soil, too. It’s possible to have extra buds on the cordon to balance the vine. The danger is if the vine is too vigorous you can get bud necrosis.
We had a look at a soil pit. The O horizon, at the top, is now 6 inches deep. Luke describes this as ridiculous (it’s not normally so deep). This is all organic material and has nice aggregation. Below this is Wealden clay, and below this is the sticky blue sandy clay that’s quite a solid layer. He’s planning to sow tap-rooted cover crops to try to open up the clay layer more. Some block are much less vigorous because the prep work wasn’t good enough (there wasn’t enough deep ripping) and the vine roots have ‘J’ rooted when they hit the clay pan.
He’s been using biochar, and the new plants have had 1000 g of biochar mixed with vermicast, hand applied.
The last stop of the vineyard tour was a block of colluvial chalk soils, and here mustard and radish work well as a cover crop. Mustard acts as both a pollinator and also a fumigant of the soil, especially against nematodes.
Luke is not keen on organics, even though he has been farming pretty much organically. The main problem is using tillage and copper. In terms of regenerative certification, he thinks they shouldn’t be tied together. ‘If it’s regenerative and organic, I’m not interested,’ he says, ‘because it’s not sustainable.’ He adds that with certficiation schemes, ‘anything to do with organics we discount straight away; anything not on-site audited is a no-no.’ Luke says that Sustainable Wine GB is not on-site audited. ‘We would pass 10 certifications tomorrow. Some would stop me from being economically sustainable. Others are not monitored well.’
How is progress measured? Luke looks at the biomass of the cover crop, the yield, and pruning weights. Every three years he’s doing detailed soil tests at a cost of £800 each. He does sap analysis on the vine four times a year. The first is at the eight leaf stage where the inflorescences are showing so any deficiencies can be corrected. There’s another pre-flowering and then one post flowering and one at veraison. These cost £15 each.
Any mistakes? ‘I don’t think I was brave enough when we first started,’ says Luke, ‘and this has hampered where we are now.’ He also admits that he made mistakes when he helped establish the vineyard at Tillingham with Ben Walgate. They decided to do a cover crop straight away and this hampered the development of the vines. At Everflyht they put in cover crops at year two and this also inhibited the vines. ‘In the UK a 5% vine loss is normal over establishment,’ he says. ‘In organic/regenerative there is a 15% loss and it’s 4-5 years before you see a harvest.’
THE WINES
All the wines are made at Hambledon, but they own all the barrels, clay vessels and tanks. They have started using puncheons and clay vessels (500 litres). Luke ferments in oak and clay now, not steel. All 100% malolactic fermentation. ‘It really opens up the fruit quality,’ says Luke.
Everflyht is a 10 hectare site, with 7 hectares under vine. 3 hectares is given to biodiversity creation. The varietal make up was 45% Pinot Noir, 45% Chardonnay and 10% Pinot Meunier. New plantings have changed this to 30% each of the main Champagne grapes with 4% Pinot Gris, 4% Gamay, 2% Pinot Precoce. He might make some still wines in the future. ‘I think Pinot Gris is the future grape for the UK, says Luke. Everflyht have 0.5 hectares, there are 25 hectares in the UK.
Production is currently 17 000 bottles a year, and with the new plantings this will rise to 40-50 000 bottles.
Everflyht Brut MV England
The next release of this wine will be labelled edition 4. Base year is 2020. 2 g/l dosage. Chardonnay dominant. In 2018 they harvested 6 tons and put it all in a reserve wine. This has since then become a perpetual reserve. This has 5% reserve wine in it. This is lively and bright with lovely acidity and tension, with pear, citrus and subtle dried herb notes. Zesty and linear with great precision. There’s some depth and structure, too. 92/100
Everflyht Late Release Edition No 1 NV England
Base of 2019, aged for an extra 18 months. 20% reserve wine, Pinot-dominated, 6 g/l dosage. Concentrated aromatics with pear, peach and faint toasty notes. The palate is concentrated with richness and some cherry notes and a touch of pithiness. Bold and intense with lots of flavour, and nice acidity. Nice intensity here.
Everflyht Rosé de Saignée 2019 England
For Luke Spalding a rosé de saignée has to have 6 h minimum on skins. 60 PN, 40 PM. This was 6 h on skins. 2 years on cork. 6 g/l dosage. 2000 bottles, and this sells out quickly. Wonderful aromatics of cherry, herbs, a nice green sappy note, with some stewed plum. There’s a nice savouriness and some structure with lovely weight and precision, as well as a hint of creaminess. Lovely depth here with balance and complexity, finishing with a hint of negroni and rhubarb. 94/100
Everflyht Rosé de Saigné 2020 England
20 h on skins. 8 months on cork. 1 g/l dosage. 66% PN, 34% PM. This has good colour, with lovely bright but ripe fruit with strawberry and cherry. Nice texture and fruit, showing some notes of negroni and sappy green notes hovering around the lovely fruit. There’s generosity but also a bit of tension. Lovely. 93/100
Everflyht Blanc de Noirs 2020 England
80 PN 20 PM, 30% oak fermented. 6 g/l dosage. 2400 bottles, will be released in November. Fresh and focused with taut cherry and lemon fruit with nice concentration and intensity showing tart lemony fruit with nice spiciness, and a bit of grip on the finish. Juicy and expressive with nice richness, showing good acidity. 93/100
