Vineyard's earliest ever harvest after extreme heat

A record-breaking summer has prompted an English wine producer to begin harvesting grapes earlier than ever before.

Nyetimber's staff have had to contend with extreme weather conditions from late frosts to drought.

The scorching weather means picking is due to begin at its West Chiltington and Amberley vineyards on Monday 14 September - five days earlier than its previous earliest harvest on 19 September 2018.

Around 500 pickers will then descend on its 11 vineyards across Kent including near Maidstone, West Sussex and Hampshire from 21 September.

They will carefully handpick around 400kg of grapes each day, to ensure the fruit remains in perfect condition.

Senior wine maker Brad Greatrix said: "There will be challenges because of the heat and even a relatively small amount of rain means the fruit can be susceptible to damage and spoilage.

"Because it was so dry until September, the vines are now slurping up water, berries are swelling and splitting.

"We have to be diligent with the triage in the vineyard to pick the very best fruit."

The team will to continue to carefully watch the weather over the next few weeks.

In 2025, the harvest began on 24 September, a shift from the usual mid-October harvest.

Greatrix, who is in his 20th harvest for Nyetimber, said: "Last year was pretty challenging but we had extreme layers of challenge in 2026 due to how dry it was.

"No two years are the same, there's always something, this year pushed us to the extreme, we're learning and adapting all the time."

He explained a late frost in May initially prompted concerns about a low yield but the summer heat allowed the crop to recover.

Greatrix said that although warmer summers would allow wine producers to create more ambitious still wines, particularly reds, sparkling wine producers just need a typical English summer, with typical temperatures (around 20C) and rain to create world class wines.

The award-winning producer is expecting a harvest of around 2,500 tonnes of grapes which has the potential to create more than 1.5 million bottles of sparkling wine from the 2026 vintage.

Head winemaker, Cherie Spriggs, Nyetimber's added they were expecting "another unprecedented vintage".

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