Urban Wine blog

I feel as if the winter is never going to end and I have been spending long periods of time cycling over London dreaming of the warmer weather. One of the best things I discovered at the back of the store cupboard has been sloe gin made from sloes picked off Tooting common at the end of last summer. Making sloe gin is simple. All you need to do is to take the sloes and prick them with a sharp and clean needle. Be careful of your fingers! Put them in a large sterilised and sealable jar. Cover the sloes with 8oz of caster sugar and 1 ¾ pints of gin. Some people go for good quality gin, but I don’t think it makes a great deal of difference and so it’s fine to use the stuff that’s on special offer in the local supermarket. Store in a cool and dark cupboard and shake every day for a week. Then shake once a week for two months. A gentle shake will do and there’s no need to pretend you’re playing the maracas. The gin is ready after 2 months and just in time for Christmas. If you can leave it longer it’s worth the wait. If you’re lucky, you will end up with a sloe gin with a beautiful ruby colour. To serve strain through a muslin cloth and add ice.It’s also possible to also use blackberries which are also freely available over Tooting common and other local commons, and can be added to brandy to make delicious blackberry brandy. This is perfect if you are thinking ahead and are looking for credit crunch beating Christmas presents.

For those of the blog readers who are interested, I will be organising fun foraging trips towards the end of the summer so we can go and pick and make sloe gin and raspberry brandy and have a picnic afterwards. For those of you who want to sign up email Richard@urbanwineco.com it would also be good to hear from you if you are interested in introducing raspberries and sloes to your allotments and gardens and we will see what we can do to help you.

By the way, the gins very alcoholic and so if you open the jar and have a few drinks be careful if you are cycling or walking. I just arrived at my destination and realised that even though the bike ride was very pleasant, I have been weaving in and out of traffic for the last hour. Maybe this is the perfect way to beat the winter blues, I just need to work out if it’s legal to fit a hip flask to my handle bars.

Read more articles by Richard Sharp at:

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/features/boxing-a-really-intensive-workout-1331671.html
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/chateau-tooting-inner-city-vintage-398519.html
www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/go-with-the-flow-commuting-by-river-could-be-the-cleaner-greener-way-to-get-to-work-779048.html
www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/fancy-exchanging-your-car-for-a-pony-horse-power-may-be-making-a-comeback-934033.html
www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/jul/07/premierleague.germany

Happy New Year to you all. January has got off to a cold and frenetic start, as well as welcoming a new baby boy called William into the Urban Wine household, we are also expectantly awaiting the arrival of 100 baby vines for the urban vineyard. The vines arrive in March this year and   any readers who would like to establish vineyards within their own communities are welcome to contact the Urban Wine Company and we will try to help you. We have gone for Phoenix and Rondo varieties as these will be good croppers and will enable us to produce the all important white and red wine that we look forward to drinking in future years. Planting vines requires patience and I dream of the day when we have leafy and green vineyards springing up all over London. It would be fantastic if fertile corridors greeted everyone on their approach into London, just like in areas of South West France. Without picking on Croydon, it would certainly help those trips when all you can see are the twin towers of Ikea looming up on the Horizon. It’s good to dream.

We have been busy developing exciting partnerships. Yesterday on a cold and chilly morning, I dragged myself away from the wood burner and home made muffins at Urban Wine HQ and sleepily cycled over to Brixton for a meeting with Bonnie from the Brixton branch of Transition Town (BTT). Transition Town is a community-led initiative that seeks to raise awareness locally of climate change and to reconnect with the planet, and local community.  One of their key themes is the growing of local food. The welcome cup of tea presented to me on my arrival was very welcome, as I attempted to defrost my hands that were frozen to my cycle handlebars. Bonnies idea is to plant fruit and vegetables around the housing estate where she lives, which  will not only create valuable locally sourced produce, but will also make better use of the communal areas that have gone to seed over the last few decades. We discussed vines on our walk around and the plan is to plant vines in suitable areas around the estate to compliment the other varieties of fruit and vegetables that will be planted out. Here at UWC we are really eager that we populate the ground with as many vines as possible.  It’s exciting that we will soon have a housing estate, as well as a hospital, that are growing vines for future wine. I spent an inspiring  hour thinking how wonderful the estate would look planted out with amazing varieties of fruit and vegetables and what a difference it would make for local residents. It also demonstrates that even though in urban areas there appears to be little green and open space, if you are creative you can find lots of space in unlikely places. I was really impressed by the plans for vegetable gardens in existing planters that had clearly seen better days. A fantastic morning and it certainly put a spring in my step as I cycled on to my next meeting, avoiding the maniac bus drivers on Brixton Hill who had clearly been overdosing on too many re-runs of ‘Duel’.

My New Year resolution is to drink more wine and smoke more cigars. I also hope to start experimenting with producing beer and cider on a small scale. I would love to hear from you if you are doing the same. Please contact Richard@urbanwineco.com

Bye for now. I’m going to get more logs for the wood burner, brew up more coffee, play the Fleet Foxes CD for the seventeenth time, and eat another muffin. After that I will probably look out of my window onto my Narnia like winter garden and carry on day dreaming of a vine covered London.

This week has been another amazingly exciting week in the lives of the Urban Wine Company (UWC). Last week on a crisp autumnal day in Clapham, I spent the morning within the beautiful walled garden of Trinity Hospice measuring out a site for an urban vineyard. We agreed that one side of the hospice’s garden would make an ideal site for the vines as it’s sheltered, catches lots of sun and the soil is superb, thanks to the loving care and attention of Michael who is the gardener for the centre. The vines will face the new state-of-the-art in-patient centre that is near completion and will eventually (in around three years) produce Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes for both white and red wine. It’s a lovely idea that we will be able to produce a Trinity wine and we are honoured to be associated with such an amazing establishment that provides care for people with advanced illnesses, was founded in 1891 and is the oldest hospice in the UK.

As well as getting the all important vines in the ground at Trinity, we are busy identifying other open spaces so we can populate urban London with good quality vines that will be laden with abundant fruit to be produced into the all important wine. As well as the grounds of Trinity Hospice, we are on the look-out for other sites including allotments, schools and community centres. If any readers of this blog have any suggestions where we might be able to plant additional vines, we would love to hear from you and so please drop me a line at richard@urbanwineco.com – any weird and quirky ideas would be gratefully received. Keep an eye on urbanwineco.com for more news on the urban vineyards we are introducing to the capital.

I have treated myself to an early Christmas present which is an Italian wine press that has tapped into my inner train-spotter. At the Urban Wine cottage we have been idling away our evenings experimenting with a selection of local grapes and apples. The wine press is a hulking beast made out of hernia-inducing cast iron and is finished off in a beautiful and striking pillar box red. I am convinced that every home should own one and it won’t be long before Italian wine presses become the ‘must have’ accessory in every designer kitchen alongside the Dualit toaster and espresso making machine. The press has an inner wooden cage and great big wooden blocks that are placed inside to help the spindle press the grapes into juice. We hope to take it out on the road with us when the Urban Wine Company are at local events and, after a few sessions heaving and pulling the press around London, I feel confident I can trade in my gym membership. Either that or I will be booking myself into my local physiotherapist’s for another bone realignment session.

September proved to be every bit as busy as I’d imagined. Amongst the vine visits undertaken by our intrepid team, we have discovered an extensive black grape vine at the allotments within Vauxhall City farm. Over in Balham on a stunning Indian summer evening we were introduced to two separate and abundant black grape vines, one of which was positioned in an exquisite Chinese-themed water garden. All of the visits are carried out on bike and therefore the local network of vine owners has had to endure me, slightly out of breath with claret-like complexion, appearing at the doorstep. Fortunately, most of the vine owners have presented me with a glass of wine and so, by the time the vine-checking duties have been completed, I was cycling off across Tooting common two sheets to the wind on my way home.

Today’s lunchtime was pleasantly spent whiling away the hours with Stuart Mungell, the owner of Patio Garden Centre in Tooting. Within this hidden garden of tranquility just off Tooting Bec Road, is an impressive black grape vine that covers the entrance to the nursery shop. Stuart is going to throw his black grapes into the mix this year and was inundated with requests from ITN news earlier in the week.  They are extremely eager, along with the BBC, to accompany us down to Sussex this year as part of the pressing. I have a crazy image of helicopters and a convoy of press tailing our every move as our convoy of grapes heads in a southerly direction towards Brighton and the pilot on a live feed back to the studio announces: “Yes, they have made it through Croydon”.

We have been busy getting our event sorted out which is to take place on Friday November 14th from 8.00 p.m. to 12.00 p.m. at the brilliant and quirky Balham Bowling Club (BBC). The evening will feature English wine tasting and will provide the opportunity for Urban Wine Company members to share advice and gossip on vines and wines with other Urban Wine Company members. As one new member said to me since joining: ‘I haven’t spoken to so many people since my first child was born. Vines are a talking point and in a way our new vines do feel a little like having a new member of the family. All new members have something in common and how your vines are doing is a real talking point’. I hope that people who turn up at the event will make some new friends and a few glasses of wine will help them let go of their inhibitions.

At the moment no one week is the same as the last and, just before updating this blog, I was on the phone talking to Julian Abbott who has an allotment in Roehampton. Julian is growing Seyval Blanc for white wine and Triomphe d’Alsace for red wine and is a great example of someone who is completely unsnobbish about wine and speaks about growing grapes with such enthusiasm and warmth. I came off the phone beaming from ear to ear and marvelling at the amazing vine-growing community that’s springing up around London.

My partner in vine, Tim Edghill, has been equally busy this week and the last thing he shouted to me as he cycled off was: “I’m off to get nets, the birds are attacking the grapes just off the Kings Road.” The image of Tim gallantly fighting off the birds to protect the Chelsea grapes conjures up images of an Urban Wine superhero, webbing the grapes in a sort of Hitchcock-themed movie. I think perhaps the cycling and wine consumption may be responsible for the slightly surreal imagery I have started to conjure up.

Once the wine pressing is out of the way, we will be focusing on getting new vines into our urban vineyard and local allotments across London. This will be so that we can increase the scale of vines over future years so we can produce greater quantities of urban wine. Future Urban Wine Company events will include visiting members’ vines and learning more about viticulture. I have included a photo of a great wine van that I spotted in South West France this summer so don’t be too surprised if you see the Urban Wine team driving around in one of these soon!

For more articles by Richard Sharp click onto link below
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This month promises to be really busy, as new Urban Wine Company members are starting to take delivery of their vines from us which I am delivering by hand. It’s good to meet members face to face and get to now them. It does feel quite momentous at the moment, as we are starting to get the vines planted in gardens across London and it’s an exciting prospect that in a few years’ time we will have even greater numbers of grapes for our urban harvest.

The last vine to be delivered was a Seyval Blanc which will produce good grapes over time and is proven to do well in the UK climate. It did feel a little like leaving a new child to fend for himself at school as I rode away. The vine growing members will be able to access the urbanwineco.com website for tips and advice on how to get the best out of their vine.

We have been getting lots of hits on the website and the recent article in rise magazine has led to lots of people with vines coming forward. I have a number of vine visits planned over the next couple of weeks in Tooting, Balham, Vauxhall, Richmond and Chelsea and so the words spreading.

It’s brilliant meeting people and last Sunday morning I met Will Venn (whose grapes are shown above - shot in early September 2008) in Tooting who did his best to disguise his hangover after a wedding reception the night before as we discussed his vine. It was great standing in the rain using his vine as an impromptu rain canopy talking about wine and some of the Urban Wine events we are planning this year. It brought it home to me yet again that the Urban Wine Company is a great way of bringing people together and it really feels like we are creating a community of wine growers.

One great way for Urban Wine enthusiasts to meet will be an event which is being planned in November at the Balham Bowling Club. The event is a tasting of English wine. We are really looking forward to this and are busy preparing for it. Check the website for more information or email info@urbanwineco.com

Much of the next few weeks will be taken up with visiting people who are interested in becoming members and want to discuss either the vines they have in their gardens or allotments or who are interested in joining and gaining a vine as a new addition to the family. As I travel mainly around London on bike the visits are a great way to get fit and I have considered getting a bike trailer so that the grapes can be transported around London in an environmentally friendly manner.

We are also putting a letter through the doors of people who we have noticed have vines growing over their garden walls. The thing with cycling around is that you can’t help noticing vines and once you start looking it gets really addictive. We will be encouraging people to email us pictures of vines in interesting locations so we can include them on the website.

Anyway, have to jump on a bike and get to Vauxhall to look at some vineyards. More news soon!

PS Had to take call from BBC whilst cycling. Not for the faint hearted. The BBC want to cover this year’s harvest and so word really is getting around.