WHEN consultant viticulturist Simon Day was commissioned in 2007 to help establish a vineyard on a farm in the village of Shrawley near Worcester he spotted what turned out to be the perfect site.

The landowner was reluctant to use this particular field because it was a pasture for his cattle but Simon, from Ledbury, persuaded him to try it.

“It was just the right spot and ticked all the boxes,” said Simon, who now uses the Pinot Noir grapes from that field to produce wine for the Sixteen Ridges brand.

The field was almost bowl-shaped, said Simon, and gets sunshine most of the day, while offering shelter for the vines too.

In 2014 the Sixteen Ridges Pinot Noir was awarded the Decanter Bronze and International Wines and Spirits Bronze Award.

Simon, who has 20 years of experience in the wine business a viticulturists and winemaker, said: “I was surprised by the quality of the grapes. What exceeded expectations was the quality of the grapes and the yield.

“It was a tricky year in 2013 with poor harvesting conditions and low ripeness but all the flavours were there and it has these fantastic characteristics. It tastes amazing and we made about 4,500 bottles.”

The company also now uses grapes from Redbank vineyard near Ledbury and has expanded its products to five different wines – red, white and rose still wines and most recently white and rose sparkling wines, which were launched in January this year. Simon hopes to produce an English red sparkling wine at some point in the future.

The sparkling wines were launched at a series of Taste Talks hosted by Royal Artist in Residence Jeremy Houghton at his gallery near Broadway and Charlie Beldam, founder of the award winning Cotswold Gold Rapeseed Oil.

The event also featured ciders made under the Once Upon a Tree brand also produced at the winery based at Dragon Orchard near Ledbury.

Simon started making cider from apples grown at Dragon Orchard as a bit of a hobby business. He could see the apples, which had been grown under contract to Bulmers, were of exceptionally high quality and felt they were going to waste being mixed with all the other Bulmers apples.

“I could see that the apples looked stunning and the husbandry was really good. I felt the apples were being wasted,” he said.

In its first year Once Upon a Tree made 7,000 litres of cider as an experiment and followed that up by making three different ciders which were entered into the International Cider and Perry Competition held at the cider museum in Hereford. They won first prize in each of their categories.

This year the business is making 160 thousand litres and one third of that is being exported to the US.

The wine and cider businesses have really taken off and production is outgrowing the winery at Dragon Orchard so the team at Sixteen Ridges and Once Upon a Tree has decided to move production to the bigger site at Redbank.

“Our ambition is to produce the very finest of ciders and wines. For the ciders we want to get this area on the map and we want to export more. Where the wine is concerned it is all about quality.

“ There is no way English wine can compete on price with the bulk producer of the Old World and the New World wines, so we have to be the very best quality we can be,” said Simon.