Winemaker David

We sat down and had a chat with winemaker David at Knightor Winery to find out what goes on behind the scenes at a winery and what drove him to wine making in the first place.

How did Knightor Winery come to be?

It started off by first planting vineyards just the other side of Looe in a place called Seaton. We planted a couple hectares of vines there in 2006 and the following year we planted another 2.7 hectares near Portscatho around the Roseland Penninsula. So we had about 17,000 vines and they then take at least three years to actually crop. We had our first crop 2010 at which point we had no winery so the wine was pressed in Devon. It was only in 2011 that this site was bought and the winery installed.

Have you been with Knightor from the start?

Nope, I’ve been here since 2012 so I came in the second year here and I came in the second year which was an odd year to come in that it was a really poor year for growing grapes. It was a really small harvest and not the best quality so it was a bit difficult.

You started working on a vineyard when you were 15 is that right?

I started off basically working in vineyards in the southeast of England in Sussex just doing basic vineyard work like growing plants.

How did you progress from a 15 year old growing plants to a winemaker?

Haha, good question. I guess I was quite focused, so I thought I’m not old enough to study Viticulture and Etiology and I wasn’t old enough to taste the wine so I studied Horticulture at college and then straight after that did the Viticulture and Etiology which is a degree in everything grape and wine related essentially. Then started to look for jobs thinking I would heading off somewhere exotic and warm and ended up in Cornwall.

What do you think it is about Knightor that sets it apart from the other wines, what makes it so special in your eyes?

It’s hard to say but compared to other places we have a bit more of a relaxed approach in terms of the experimentation. So the slightly sweet wine you had earlier that was basically a bit of fun and a random idea that we did. It was pretty much the same with the vermouth, just some fun and experimenting and nowhere else in Cornwall is making a vermouth.

Are your grapes all grown in Cornwall?

Well as the winery size is larger than what our vineyards could ever produce we also get grapes from other local growers, it’s all English but some of the grapes do come from Devon. Every year is completely different but I would say the majority is Cornish grapes.

Could you talk us through a normal day at the winery?

It’s impossible! I say that just because being such a small company every day is so varied. One day I could be bottling and the next day just cleaning tanks and another day making up orders and labelling lots of bottles. Tomorrow is going to be a bottling day, so I start off nice and early before everyone gets here set up all the machinery, get the wine ready and make sure it’s in a good condition to pass through the filter. Lots and lots of cleaning then the staff arrive a bit later and we start bottling for the day, it’s very hands on and a little bit monotonous if I’m honest. It’s a case of filling bottle after bottle until the tank is empty, hours and hours of that. Until the tank is empty the staff don’t go home.

What kind of day is your ideal day at the winery?

I think for most winemakers the perfect day is a blending day where you’re coming up with blends. Either that or a day during harvest where you’re pressing, especially if you’re pressing something quite good it’s always exciting.

Could you talk us through the process of taking your wine from grape to glass?

All the grapes are picked by hand by a team of pickers who pick into small crates. We then bring the crates to the winery, usually we whole bunch press so we just load the crates into the press and we just press really really gently. The press can hold about two tonnes, we turn it on to the press cycle we want and usually the press keeps going for about 3 hours. Essentially, during that press cycle you have the first lot of juice that comes out that is the best quality. As the pressure increases the quality decreases. So we keep the different pressed juice in different tanks, we cold settle them so any of the solids drop out of the juice and then we rack that juice off to a different tank. We then inoculate that with yeast and fermentation begins the ferment usually is 10-14 days at a nice temperature. Then after that the yeast die and drop to the bottom of the tank we then rack that wine off into another tank and we usually let that sit there and age for a good 6-8 months after which we’ll put it into bottle or put it through a filter and then into bottle to make it clearer. It’s really really simple, it’s just grape juice basically I don’t like the idea of adding anything odd or nasty or anything that isn’t grape related so we keep it really simple.

Where do you supply your wine to?

We’re quite fortunate being in Cornwall as there’s such a big tourist interest which plays to our advantage. So the majority of it is hotels, restaurants, pubs and the shop here. We have a few companies who distribute for us and they take the wine from here and give it to their clients.

With summer around the corner is there a particular wine that suits the warmer temperatures?

Incredibly hard question but for me probably my ideal summer day would be a glass of sparkling with the odd nibble, reasonably cold but not too cold, sitting out in the sun with something savoury to nibble on.

So what was it that attracted you to wine?

The most attractive thing is the actual taking something and growing it all the way through, growing it from a young plant to a fruiting plant, taking the grapes from that plant after growing it year on year, there’s only one harvest a year. Then taking that product and doing something with it. As a job it’s a unique process, it’s very satisfying to actually take a raw material and then to see it all the way through.

If you'd like to check out any of the wines that David makes, head over to the Knightor Winery website or give them a visit at the winery where they do tours! You can read all about the tour we went on here