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Vineyard Journal
August Edition
Green to Gold - August in the Vineyard
August is one of the most fascinating months in the vineyard. After months of careful nurturing, we're finally rewarded
with the first real signs that harvest is edging ever closer. While there's still plenty of work to be done, the vineyard
begins to transform before our eyes as the fruit starts its journey towards full ripeness.
It's impossible to talk about vineyards this summer without acknowledging the wider picture across Europe. From
prolonged heatwaves and drought conditions to devastating wildfires in parts of France and Spain, 2026 has once again
highlighted just how delicately close farming is tied to the climate, and just how quickly things are changing.
Winegrowers across the continent are adapting to increasingly unpredictable weather patterns, carefully balancing fruit
quality with the wellbeing of the vines. Here in Dorset, we've been fortunate to stay safe considering the extremes seen
elsewhere, but like all growers, we're constantly monitoring conditions and working with nature rather than against it.
Every vintage tells the story of its growing season, and 2026 is certainly proving to be a memorable one.
So, what exactly is happening among the vines this month?
Veraison - the vineyard changes colour
Perhaps the most exciting milestone of August is veraison - the beginning of phenolic ripeness.
This is when the grapes begin their remarkable transformation. The black varieties slowly change from hard, dark
green berries to beautiful shades of red and purple, while the white grapes soften from deep green to a lighter, almost
translucent green. As sugars begin to accumulate and acidity naturally starts to soften, the fruit takes its first real step
towards becoming the sparkling wines we'll eventually enjoy.
It's one of our favourite moments of the growing season, as the vineyard starts to take on a completely different
appearance almost overnight.
Counting bunches
Alongside admiring the changing colours, there's plenty of practical work to be done.
Throughout the vineyard we have designated monitoring bays within each block. During August we carefully count
every bunch across two bays, divide that by the number of vines (usually twelve), and calculate an average bunch count
per vine.
These figures give us our very first indication of what harvest might look like. It's still far too early to know exactly how
much fruit we'll pick, but it provides an exciting glimpse into the potential of the vintage. As anyone who's worked a
harvest will tell you though-the only number that truly counts is the weight of the grapes when they finally arrive at the
winery.
Canopy management
While the fruit is ripening, we continue with essential canopy management.
Leaf stripping improves airflow around the bunches and allows more sunlight to reach the fruit, helping it ripen evenly
while reducing the risk of disease. Regular trimming keeps the vine focused on ripening grapes rather than producing
excessive leafy growth, and mowing between the rows maintains healthy access throughout the vineyard.
Protective sprays are also carefully timed throughout the season, ensuring the vines remain healthy as we move into the
critical final weeks before harvest.
Keeping watch for vineyard visitors
Not every visitor to the vineyard is welcome.
Throughout August we continue checking traps for LBAM (Light Brown Apple Moth) and SWD (Spotted-
Winged Drosophila), two pests that are particularly attracted to ripening fruit. By monitoring activity closely, we
can respond quickly if required, helping to protect both fruit quality and the health of the vineyard.
It's another example of how much of viticulture is about observation. Small changes noticed early can make a
significant difference later in the season.
Looking ahead...
Although we're enjoying these warm August days, our attention is already beginning to turn towards September.
The pace in the vineyard will soon quicken as we begin taking bunch samples, measuring sugar levels, acidity and pH,
weighing fruit, and making the final decisions that lead us towards harvest. Every walk through the vineyard brings us a
little closer to picking, and there's a growing sense of anticipation with each passing week.
We'll share more about those final preparations in next month's Vineyard Journal, when harvest season is almost
within touching distance.
Until then, we'll be watching the vines, hoping for kind weather, and enjoying one of the most beautiful stages of the
growing season.
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A Tribute to Steven Spurrier
Vineyard Journal August 2026
The 50th Anniversary of The Judgement of Paris
A tribute
From Bride Valley Vineyard, Dorset - in honour of the 50th Anniversary of the Judgement of Paris, and of our vineyard founder,
the late Steven Spurrier
There is a particular kind of courage that asks uncomfortable questions. It refuses to accept that the way things have always
been done is the same as the way things must always be done. Steven Spurrier had that courage in abundance - and on the
24th of May, 1976, he changed the wine world forever.
What Steven organised that spring afternoon in Paris began, in his own words, as something of a historical footnote: a modest
tasting to mark the American Bicentennial, arranged at the InterContinental Hotel by a British wine merchant who had made
his home and his name in the French capital. He had founded L'Académie du Vin, France's first private wine school, and run
his shop, Les Caves de la Madeleine, from the heart of Paris. He was, by any measure, a man of the French wine
establishment. And yet it was precisely that insider status that gave him the idea.
Steven assembled nine of France's most respected palates - sommeliers, critics, educators, winemakers - and set before
them two flights of wine: California Cabernet Sauvignons alongside the finest Bordeaux, and California Chardonnays
alongside Premier and Grand Cru White Burgundies. The judges were asked to taste blind. The assumption, shared by almost
everyone in that room, was that the exercise would confirm what everybody already knew: that the greatest wines in the world
came from France.
They did not anticipate what came next.
The results shocked the wine world. The Stag's Leap Wine Cellars 1973 Cabernet Sauvignon was awarded the highest score
among the reds, placing above the famous Château Mouton-Rothschild and Château Haut-Brion. The 1973 Château
Montelena Chardonnay took the highest honour among the whites. The judges, all French, all distinguished - had, with their
own scores, handed victory to wines from California.
The only reporter present that day was George Taber of Time magazine, who had attended largely because it had been a slow
news week. He promptly revealed the results to the world. The horrified leaders of the French wine industry responded by
banning Steven from their prestigious tasting tour - apparently as punishment for the damage his tasting had done to their
former image of superiority. It was, perhaps, the finest inadvertent tribute they could have paid him.
The Judgement of Paris was not simply a competition. It was the moment an entire philosophy cracked open. For generations,
fine wine had been understood to be a European - more specifically, a French - inheritance. Origin was assumed to be destiny.
The great châteaux of Bordeaux and the domaines of Burgundy were not merely producers; they were the definition of what
wine at its finest could be. The unexpected victories of California in Paris demonstrated, for the first time, that wines from the
New World could defeat some of the most prestigious estates in France in a blind tasting judged by French experts
themselves.
The landscape that followed was extraordinary. California's wine industry stepped onto the world stage overnight. Investment
flooded into Napa Valley. Winemakers from France travelled west to understand what was happening in those sun-warmed
hillsides. The conversation about what made a great wine - soil, climate, ambition, technique, terroir in its fullest sense -
opened up to the entire globe. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Argentina, Spain, Italy beyond its classic regions: all
found new confidence, new markets, new possibility. The old hierarchies did not collapse, but they were joined by something
new - the understanding that greatness was not the exclusive property of any single place.
It is no coincidence, as Steven himself observed, that the first vintage of Opus One - the landmark collaboration between
Robert Mondavi and Baron Philippe de Rothschild - was 1979. The Judgement had made the conversation between the Old
World and the New not just possible, but desirable. France and California were no longer adversaries. They were, at last,
colleagues.
Steven never claimed the Judgement had been a grand plan. He was characteristically modest about it, writing that it seemed
to have had a much bigger effect on most everyone else than on him. But he remained its custodian with grace, correcting the
record when it was distorted, and participating in the landmark 30th anniversary retastings - simultaneously in London and
Napa - where, to the astonishment of those who had predicted French redemption, the Californian wines were not humbled by
age, but proven by it. The winning wine on both sides of the Atlantic was the Ridge Monte Bello 1971, with California
occupying four of the next positions before the highest-ranked Bordeaux appeared in sixth.
The Judgement had passed its own test of time.
50 years on from the Judgement of Paris, we raise a glass here in the Dorset hills. We raise it to a tasting that rewrote the
map of the wine world. We raise it to the curiosity and the courage that made it happen.
And we raise it, above all, to Steven.
Copyright (C) 2026 Bride Valley Wines. All rights reserved.
