The ground
The chalk holds water in a dry year and drains in a wet one, and it keeps the acidity up that English wine is built on. We farm without irrigation, green-cover between the rows, and pick as late as the birds allow.
The estate
Grown on the chalk, made in the barn, drunk down the lane
Marledon is a small family estate on a south-facing shoulder of the Ledbourne Vale. Thin soil over deep chalk, forty acres, and a way of working that has not changed much since the first vines went in.
The making
Small open ferments, gentle pressing, a year in seasoned oak for the reds, and time in bottle before release. Nothing is rushed and nothing is fined more than it needs.
The family
Three generations now. The first vines were planted in 1979; the current winemaker grew up between the rows and took over the cellar in 2009.
One honest control
The same photograph, graded and ungraded
Every image on this site is graded down to a low-chroma, cellar-lit register on purpose, so the wine colours are the only saturated thing you see. Here is the proof, side by side: the left frame is graded and shipped across the site; the right is the same file untouched. If the treatment were doing nothing, the two would match.
