July Wine Journal

”We certainly don’t want to count our chickens, but as it stands, this year is shaping up to be a good one… We’ve had pretty consistent warm weather with regular intervals of rain, keeping things topped up and growing at a rapid rate. Today a crew is making their way through the vineyards, tucking in all the stray shoots and leaf stripping as they go, keeping the sun and air flowing over the bunches that are now well on their way to the fruit we’ll be picking in a few months time. It’s a lovely time of year – seeing the berries develop. Seeing the difference across the varieties we have, and how they all move at their own pace. Starting behind, overtaking each other, pausing for breath.

A bunch count of the entire site has been done, and into the spreadsheet the results go. Over the coming week we’ll start to put together a tentative initial forecast of how our 2025 harvest might look. This in turn feeds our ‘soft plan’ of the wines we hope to make. Certain fruit being earmarked as possibilities. It’s very easy to get excited, but essential to remind oneself that everything could change at a moments notice. Or turn in the weather.

Indoors, set to an eclectic playlist, is the old familiar sound of the labelling machine. And the subsequent muttering and cursing as it decides not to behave. For no discernible reason. Really none. Other than maybe it doesn’t like our music taste? Either way, at the end of the day – joy! We get to share with you that our trio of staple Tillingham still wines are once again ready to share with the world. Endgrain, Rosé and R are all back on the shelves, online, and heading out the door.

These midsummer months are a busy time!”

Wine manager | Tierney Beames

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‘In Between Suns’ 

Art Exhibition at Tillingham 23rd July to 30th August

An Interview with Artist, Chiara Perano

In Between Suns is such a poetic title. Can you tell us about what inspired the name and how it reflects the themes of this body of work?

It’s the feeling of the in-between days, when life is just happening and quietly moving on, always passing through the seasons, whether we’re paying attention to nature or not. 

This exhibition explores the space between daylight and dusk, between seasons and cycles. What draws you to these in-between states, and how do they inform your creative process?

I love the in-between phases, the colours before the sun is up, twilight, moon rise. My favourite seasons are also the transitional ones, Spring and Autumn, I just feel there’s something exciting and fresh about these times of year. 

My creative process does depend on how inspired I am, like literally how long has it been since I sat and saw a dreamy dusky sky. Luckily, that’s quite often because I live by the sea, and so paintings emerge eventually, colours change during the process, and I get to a point where I’m happy, a process of exploring and discovering until the balance is right. I’m not a classically trained painter, so my work feels quite unique in that way, and the text that sometimes features is poetical, and the inclusion of folk symbols are down to my more illustrative background. I studied illustration and graphic design in London, and this background probably informs how I approach creating. However, I am trying to unlearn the rigidness and planning that comes with that.

The paintings have a beautifully ethereal, layered quality. Please share a bit about your techniques and how you build up these misty, abstract forms.

I want the work to have a feeling of depth and interest to it, so it’s lots of background layers, colours evolving, softening. Sometimes I leave a painting for a while and come back to it completely fresh and inspired, ready to take it to the new stage. 

Nature clearly plays a huge role in your work. What kinds of places, plants or natural phenomena were most influential as you created this collection?

Every month I watch the full moon rise over the sea, and it never fails to feel new and magical. It also reinforces thoughts around cycles and our planet, biodynamic farming and gardening, how lunar and planetary cycles affect us. My garden also brings me so much joy and I am constantly photographing and sketching it, I love how it changes so fast, sometimes even at different points in the day, when flowers open and close in relation to the sun.

You mention connections between humans and plants, land and sky, sun and moon. How do you hope visitors to Tillingham will feel when they spend time with your work in these surroundings?

I would love for the viewer to look at my paintings and discover a feeling of connectivity to the rest of life – people, plants, skies, oceans. I feel like that’s so important in this modern world, especially as it feels like we are losing our connection to nature. The big open skies of the countryside here are a really great place to do that from. 

Tillingham itself is closely connected to the seasons, the land, and a slower pace of life. How did exhibiting your work here influence or align with the collection?

From the first time I came to Tillingham, I loved the stripped back and effortless atmosphere here, the slower pace, the views, the connection to the land. The fact that it’s all natural, experimental, and the wines depend on that season is super cool and unique. So it was a perfect place to exhibit this work because it’s about what I am exploring, the way we are all connected. 

Can you tell us about the materials and formats you’ve used, we understand the show includes both canvas and framed works on paper?

The show brings together large scale canvas pieces and smaller works on paper which I hope add an immediate feel, and are beautifully framed, playing with colours from nature. The canvases allow for a much deeper type of work, the layers, colours and scale can feel dream-like, and I love exploring this way of working. Painting on paper is more delicate and effortless, it flows from my hand, and you can get a real feel of the brushwork which I love too. 

Do you have a favourite piece in this exhibition? If so, what makes it particularly special to you?

I’ve painted this work quite recently so it feels very fresh and new, all like extensions of my mind. I like the pieces with gold details, they change with the light, which is fitting and can be interpreted from different angles. My husband is a framer (B-Side Framing) and we share a studio, so I love colour matching the framing straight from the easel! We have done this on some of the boards and works on paper, and I love it as I think it complements the piece. 

How do you see this exhibition sitting within your broader artistic journey? Is In Between Suns a continuation of past work, or a new direction?

There are pieces in the show which are definitely a step in a new direction for me, my work is evolving. I think we are constantly changing as humans, going through different seasons of life and my work is just an extension of that for me. As I moved from city to seaside a few years ago my work has taken on a far more natural feel and approach, as well as growing from my Italian heritage, and it feels very exciting for me. I just want to keep exploring my practice.

What’s next for you after the Tillingham show? Any projects or ideas brewing that you’re excited about?

I’m exploring making my own pigments so that my painting feels as holistic and natural as possible, and really connected to the land. I’m also super interested in the ideas of ancient rituals of seasons and moon phases, and I want to travel to Southern Italy, where my family is from, to develop this. 

To view the whole exhibition, book a table in our Upstairs Restaurant here and explore the artwork around Tillingham. 

Sign up for our Celestial Summer Art Workshop with Chiara Perano  on 13th August at 6.30pm and join us for a beautiful evening under our Dutch Barn £55pp includes a glass of fizz – Learn more here

June Wine JournalOver the last few weeks, the new growth on the vines has continued at a rapid pace. The shoots reaching up and meandering their way towards the top of the trellising wires. A promising amount of inflorescences have been growing, and each day over the last week we’ve taken trips around the vineyard searching and waiting. And today, the first flower! A single little flower on a Pinot Meunier vine.

Now begins the process of each cluster bursting and pollenating, before we get an idea of fruit set, and can begin to forecast our 2025 harvest and start the soft plan of the wines we look to make.

The winery is bracing for a full speed week next week as all of our sparkling wines from the year get bottled. This is always an exciting process as the wines go to bottle with the development of secondary fermentation yet to come. The anticipation of opening those first bottles down the line as they finally reach their finished form is a satisfying moment.

Fizz is the theme of the day, and in celebration of English Wine Week around the corner, we’ve done a little bundle of our current range of sparkling wines with free shipping for you to enjoy in the wall to wall sunshine we’ve been experiencing!

Tierney Beames | Wine Manager

Monday this week brought with it two of the more exciting and also nail-biting deliveries of the year. 16,800 glass bottles for our still wines, just in time for the first round of bottling next week. After the lorry arrives, so begins the performance of a very tense forklift ballet to lower the pallets to the safety of the ground… Its actually not that bad, and the driver was very patient. Thank you Chapmans. Bottles are all good and exciting, but not much use without something to seal them. The second delivery was a similar number of corks! This time resplendent with an updated printed design.

Whilst everything really comes together when the labels are finally applied to the bottles, this is an important moment. It marks those wines as finished, being laid down to rest a while before they are released and we finally get to share them. A great deal of care and passion from an array of people goes into getting the wines to this stage, and there are some beautiful things to share.

Outside its sun sun sun and the vines know it. This weather is driving the vines onwards and growth is a little ahead of where we usually are at this point in the year. Bud-rubbing and shoot selection are the two big jobs in the vineyard at the moment. Bud-rubbing removes those growing from the base and trunk of the vine, and shoot selection is where we thin out the growth at the crown to improve air flow, and focus the vines energy. These vineyard jobs come in waves, reassuringly persistent. The season is well underway.

Tierney Beames | Wine Manager

After the leaves drop from the vines, though late October/early November, the vineyards can feel quite empty and austere, on a cold and dreary winter day, to look out and see no growth or canopy, some of the romance of a vineyard can sometimes be lost. If you’re not into traipsing around in the English winter drizzle, doing manual labour that is. Which by default must mean that vineyard folk LOVE doing just that. What a funny bunch.

After 5 or 6 months of there being no green growth on the vines through the winter, this moment becomes all the more exciting – budburst! With the last few warmer weeks, the vines have fully woken up, and this year’s growth is underway. What starts off as tiny woolly tufts emerging from the canes, there is now a sea of leafy emeralds, gleaming in a huge array of colours.

After months of all the vines looking pretty much the same, it’s the first time we get to see the character of the different varieties emerge again. Looking out over Saw Pit vineyard in front of the terrace, there is a clear distinction between the colour and growth in the shoots of the Pinot Noir (bright lime green), the Pinot Meunier (silver & pink), and the Ortega somewhere between the two, but already much bushier. Each has its own character, just as we see in the wines.

Speaking of wine, the first round of kegging has started for the 2024s. A format we’ve been fond of for some years, but have now really leant into. The goal is to have our core range of wines entirely served from keg on site, omitting the need for glass – a fizz, white, rosé & red. This year will be the most we’ve ever done with c. 12,800 bottles going into this format. The first kegs of the 2024 Rosé and R will be tapped this weekend if you’re keen to try – English gamay anyone?

Tierney Beames | Wine Manager

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