VINUM LAETIFICAT COR HOMINUM —“Wine Makes Glad the Heart of People”.

An exhibition of paintings at Tillingham by Annie Mackin. We interviewed Annie to discover the stories, landscapes and memories woven through her paintings, and what it means to show her work at Tillingham.

Your exhibition is titled VINUM LAETIFICAT COR HOMINUM “Wine Makes Glad the Heart of People”. What does this phrase mean to you, and why did it feel like the right title for this exhibition at Tillingham? I liked that it’s a popular medieval saying and is still applicable today, not only that but works
perfectly within the setting of Tillingham. I did however swap the word man for people!

Your work often brings together landscape, folklore, memory and mythology. What was the starting point for this particular exhibition at Tillingham? I wanted this exhibition to be a celebration of how my paintings, full of individual stories, can come together to communicate a larger message. Although full of medieval allegory and folklore, memory, loss, life and ancestry connects my works, and I hope add to the idea of coming together within the setting of Tillingham.

Tillingham is such a distinctive place, surrounded by the East Sussex landscape. How has the setting influenced the work you’ve chosen for the show? It’s so fitting to me to show at Tillingham as it is based in the heart of East Sussex where a lot of my inspiration comes from, I think all of my work has at least one connection to the landscape.

There’s a strong sense of history and ancient storytelling within your paintings. What draws you to myths, legends and stories that have been passed down through generations? Coming from an Irish and Scottish working class family that lived in London there was a lack of stories growing up so I think I’m trying to recapture something from the past that got lost in the struggle of today’s society.

Your paintings often have an ethereal, almost dreamlike quality. How do you create that atmosphere through your use of colour, light and oil paint? My painting style is very instinctual and I don’t think I could paint the same thing twice! I work alot in pastel colours which I think create the light and dreamlike aesthetic well but I’m trying to ground them more in earth tones at the moment. I’m intrigued in the juxtaposition of balancing
ethereal with something more earthy.

You’ve spoken about memory, grief and nostalgia in relation to your work. Do you see painting as a way of preserving memories, or perhaps transforming them into something new?
I think of them as a way to work through grief and try to create something positive out of loss and trauma. I think that’s why the light and more pastel tones can create a sense of hope even if the subject matter is darker or melancholic.

Nature and the changing seasons appear to be important threads within your practice. What does the East Sussex landscape give you creatively that you might not find elsewhere?
I think the beautiful landscape, intertwined with the folklore and traditions is very special and magical. Its so beautiful and green and surrounded by the sea and such joyful celebrations that mark different times of the year, like Jack in the green or summer solstice celebrations to the bonfire societies making there way around different towns and villages.

There are often references to ancient rituals, sacred places and pagan traditions in your work. What is it about these older ways of understanding our relationship with nature that continues to resonate with you? I think initially I was rebelling against organised religion and Catholicism in particular, the religion
I was brought up in, and perhaps I needed some sort of ritual to replace what I had known. But now I see it as an extension of celebrating the changing seasons as well as honouring ourselves and our place on the earth.

Women, goddesses and female figures from history and mythology feature strongly in your paintings. What do these women represent to you, and has your relationship with these figures changed over time? I think the celebration of women of any kind is so important in today’s society, but when I became a mother, celebrating what it means to have a baby and be a caregiver felt so natural. But within that, finding goddesses about the nurture and comfort of mothers felt comforting. Since having another baby 6 years later, I’m again finding comfort within these figures.

Some of your paintings seem to exist somewhere between the real and imagined worlds. When you begin a painting, do you start with a particular story or place, or does the narrative emerge as the work develops? I sometimes have glimmers of ideas I want to paint about or I have an inspirational object I’d like to paint, sometimes I just know the colours I’d like to use. But I never draw on a canvas, I always play in paint and see what emerges, which is the beauty of oil paint, you can move it around, add and take away. It’s a much more conversational way to paint, I think. When I started painting my work was purely abstract so I think I still carry the same mindset when painting but it ends up more figurative.

How important is it for you that viewers recognise the stories and references within your paintings, as opposed to simply responding to the mood or feeling of the work? It’s not important for me that viewers understand my meaning within a painting, it’s far more interesting if they connect what I’ve painted to their own lives, Even within a painting of me and my kids.

What does exhibiting in a place like Tillingham – where art, landscape, food, wine and community come together – offer you that a traditional gallery setting might not? It’s like having a private view every day! Tillingham is such a place of celebration, I want my paintings to feel like an extension of that. It also allows the viewer to see how the work might look in their home’s surrounded by lovely furniture and food and wine.

Do you think being rooted in East Sussex has changed the way you see and make art?
Yes, moving to Hastings 10 years ago impacted every aspect of my life including my ability to have a studio space and how and what I painted.

Your work often seems to suggest that the past is still present in the landscape around us. Are there particular places in Sussex that you return to again and again for inspiration? I love to visit castles ruins and Battle abbey, especially during the reenactment. My friends have taken over the events at Hastings castle, so it’s magical to be amongst the ruins but celebrate the now. The long man of Willington features a lot in my work and I love going to the long man pub with my family. Last time we were there, there was a horse parked in the car park, if that’s
not the past blending with the present, I don’t know what is!

Is there a particular painting in this exhibition that feels especially personal to you, or that you’d like visitors to spend a little more time with? Anything I have in the the show with my children are very personal as well as the triptych in the studio based on three stages of my life through grief, pregnancy and birth. They are quite big so there’s lots of symbolism and elements to look at.

Finally, what would you hope people take away with them after seeing your work at Tillingham? I’d hope people enjoy being around my paintings and find inspiration or connect to my work. And encourage people to explore the landscape and stories of East Sussex.

The show ends 30th September 2026.

“Everything old is new again. Maybe not. I come close sometimes to believing that nothing actually ever changes.”

If you’ve recently watched Season 9, Ep. 8 of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown, in which he visits the city of Porto, this opening line may have also stuck in your head. The first sentiment there has been cycling through my brain recently. Over the past few years I have been looking for a way to visually bring together the wines we feel show our finest efforts in winemaking. I love our entry level wines, but there are reasons that certain cuvées command a higher price point and I wanted that to be reflected visually. The answer, was of course, to look to the past.

A label shared by the first ever release of Chardonnay and Traditional Method held the answer. Those of you who have followed along from the beginning and remember those, may have noticed this cropping up in the releases of our Qvevri Ortega and Pinot Noir Précoce last year.

Now the next few wines are nearly ready, and we’ll soon be at a point where the entire family will start to stand side by side, visually tying things together. Time moves differently in winemaking projects, and it can be a long while before an idea makes it from conception to fruition, and as a result the change can sometimes feel unnoticeable. But it is there.

SO…

The third wine to join this family is something very special.

There are things in the world that one can believe in, but don’t exist. Unicorns, say. And then there are things that are very, very unlikely to exist, but with belief, can. I don’t know, something like… a still Chenin Blanc, raised in Georgian qvevri, from fruit farmed biodynamically in the UK. Just 478 bottles of something like that…

Oh, and that’s what it is!

As far as I’m aware, this is something that has never existed before, and I’m so glad a few people did believe along the way, so that it now does. This week I opened a bottle of this wine, to write the tasting notes for its tech-sheet before release.

I got a little lost in the wine. It’s ethereal nature. It reminded me of drinking Dominique Belluard’s Le Feu with some friends a few years ago. It had so much to say, but did so very quietly, like the most pure glacial water. It is hard to explain, so I will just share some of the sentences I wrote down while tasting our Chenin Blanc. Please feel free to chuckle.

A greengage or mirabelle plum that wasn’t quite ready to leave the tree

I am Didimi from Dimi and this is my Krakhuna

Fennel, mint, wheatgrass & lemon verbena

The breath of someone chewing gum

Wildflower honey over fresh ricotta

If you would like to make up your own mind, please follow the link below to purchase a bottle. It’s a wine to spend some time with, to follow in the glass. I think those with the patience to tuck it away for a few years will be greatly rewarded too. Shipping next week.

And lastly – continuing on the old is new train of thought – we’ve uncovered some stock of a couple of wines that had been sold out. So if you’re in the market for some pet nat or orange wine please follow the links below to buy the very final bottles of PN23 and Orange Ortega, which are both now in quite a lovely place.

Adieu

SHOP NOW

We’re pruning, SNIP SNIP!

Pruning is personal. Facing each vine, you are given a moment to shape its future. Not just this year, in the growing season ahead, but in the years to come too. To make a wound now with the intention of giving each vine the best chance to grow in balance and give quality fruit over as long a lifespan as possible. To work with their strengths, and guide them through their weaknesses.

The cuts of previous years, visible in the wood, are sometimes a reminder of a previous mistake, a lesson learnt, or a small but proud achievement. The experience of living, unfolding in 30 seconds or so, over and over and over and over and over in front of you. Possibly with Hot Chip in your head, who knows…

If you hadn’t caught on by now, we have started the long process of pruning the vineyards. Over the next three months we will make our way through the different plots, getting everything ready for the spring ahead, taking the chance to train the team as we go, in what is such an important annual task. It is both a romantic and purely practical task and I think there is value in approaching it with both in mind, in equal measure. Long days outside through the winter may be bad for your circulation, but are good for your resolve. With the added blessing that we do not prune in the rain – to abate the risk of fungal infection. Less romantic, fungal infection.

Inside, the winemaking calendar rolls on, and we are tasting through all the different ’25s to check in on their progress ahead of our first spring blends. The last two wines from ’24 are just about ready to bottle before they have another rest before release, and excitingly, we are very close to the final wine from 2023 being ready to see the world.

After finishing our dosage trials, our first release of Traditional Method in a long time is almost ready to disgorge, making it one step closer to release later this year. A bit of time under cork and we’ll be good to go! Traditional by name, but the blend is far from – Pinot Noir, Müller-Thurgau, Chenin Blanc and Ortega… WHOOSH. Keep an eye out in a few months time for this one.

With these colder times, we’re turning to some of our more robust wines. Something to enliven the senses in these grey days! If you are reaching for the cheese (very accepted, and actually highly encouraged) our FLOR is the perfect wine. The third release of our smallest production cuvée, details in the link.

Or if you’re sticking to reds, our elegant and spicy 2023 Pinot Noir Précoce should do the trick. Go on…

SHOP OUR LATEST WINES HERE

Wine manager | Tierney Beames

October Wine Journal

Harvest is both a joyous and intense period. The culmination of an entire years work, leading to a single opportunity to do justice to everything that went into it. There are always surprises, and decisions made on the fly. A quick conversation or comment, eye contact and a nod before you commit and move on. For me, those are the moments of magic that take something from feeling rigid and choreographed into something fluid and natural, where the wines give you the chance to let them make themselves.

That being said, this kind of improvising only works when you’ve all rehearsed and learnt the same material. The winemaking and ‘the plan’ for this year is, I think, the most intentional it has ever been at Tillingham. The relatively young vineyards finally showing us the wines that ask to be made here. I can’t wait to share what we have in the works.

Harvest also presents many surprises outside of the winemaking, whether it is kit failing, getting stuck, not arriving, last-minute picks etc. etc. etc… So there is a long list of people inside and out of the winery that none of it would be possible without. To everyone who lent a hand, or a tractor lesson, or a morale-boosting double thumbs up, just a massive thank you.

Wednesday this week marked the end, with a final pick of an unlikely pairing for the UK – Pineau d’Aunis & Trousseau – which, after some foot-treading and slow pressing, are now happily co-fermenting in a 1300L fuder, which, after writing this, I will pop off to taste!

The winery is full to bursting, and after one final pressing in a week or so, the vessels will be put to bed. It’s a drastic change of pace, from the pedal-to-the-metal of harvest, to the quiet calm of ferments and wines slowly shifting in their vessels.

And with the end of harvest it suddenly feels like autumn proper. All the tell-tale signs. Which in Sussex happens to be a bonfire obsession. So much so, that the towns have to share them out over a string of weekends, with our first local one being Hastings this weekend.

There are wines for that kind of behaviour, naturally. Introducing the bonfire bundle, and the first opportunity to try our 2023 Pinot Noir Précoce, of which there are only 590 bottles. Allez.

Wine manager | Tierney Beames

YOU CAN BUY OUR BONFIRE NIGHT BUNDLE HERE OR PICK UP FROM THE FARM

September Wine Journal

This will be a short one folx because there are 7 tonnes of Müller-Thurgau on its way to the winery.

We’re mid-harvest… Things are rolling through nicely, and the winery is starting to fill up. Siegerrebe in steel, Ortega in qvevri, Regent in concrete, Pinot Gris all over the place, you name it, we’ve got it!  We’re tractor-ing, trailer-ing, forklifting, surprising visiting local businesses with 2 hours of hand sorting (shout out to the crew from The Union & The Plough), pressing and stomping all kinds of fruit. Despite the recent turn in the weather, everything is coming in clean, and we’re really excited about our winemaking prospects this year. If you’re visiting, please do say hey to the crew in the winery, ask what’s going on, and offer a morale-boosting double thumbs up.

This time of year is all about spinning plates, so alongside harvest, we’re also labelling some new releases. Next month should see our Qvevri Ortega, Pinot Gris & Pinot Noir Précoce all being released, so keep an eye out. We can’t wait to share these wines!

The turn in the weather naturally has us reaching for reds, so we’re leaning into drinking R at the moment. With lovely bright fruit and peppery tannins, it’s perfect with the endless pizzas that are fuelling the winery team…

Wine manager | Tierney Beames

YOU CAN BUY OUR R HERE OR PICK UP FROM THE FARM