In Crondall, John Wilkins is overseeing rapid expansion at Penncroft and Itasca Wines, whose state-of-the-art winery opened in 2020. Formerly a holiday rep, John’s love of wine was first sparked by Rioja while leading tours in Spain. Now he is firmly rooted in English wine’s growth trajectory. Their winery has quickly earned a reputation as a regional model, with advanced water recycling systems and sustainable designs that draw vineyard owners from across the South East to visit. Recently, they planted a new vineyard adjacent to the winery to enhance their visitor experience, alongside the popular Cellar Door Café.
00:00So now we're in our winery which if we go back five years ago there was hardly anything in here
00:17at all and now we have the capacity for 650 tonne which is round about half a million bottles now
00:24what's happening is we're getting ready for harvest which all things all the indicators
00:29are it's going to be a really good one this year so you can see we vary in size 15,000 litres
00:3410,000 20,000 even down to 1,500 so you can see from over there that's been going 24-7 more or less
00:45the last few days this is the bottling machine this is why it's very quiet now because the staff
00:51are going over a well-deserved rest a lot of this pipework and extra tank sorry were put in last
00:57year but our press is 8 tonne 5 tonne and 3 tonne and during that harvest period it could be six
01:04weeks we're operating 24-7 with teams of guys that are working around the clock and it all gets very
01:12frantic and very exciting here we are with a fantastic view of the Orphanest Mansion there we have our what they call our Aussie pond that holds half a million litres and what they say is between six and seven litres to make one litre of wine
01:30so it gets pumped into that pond there and then gets pumped through these lovely straw bales and then gets pumped up to the top wetland and then you can see there are three different wetlands around about 200 pieces of wildflowers and then that gets pumped through to the back
01:52so we are trying to do everything we can to be to be green to be sustainable and do the right thing
02:11i mean it's actually really really tidy at the moment there's a lot of work in here
02:15getting ready for this harvest so it's not as full as it would normally be a lot of the stuff this side is
02:21is our wines and our central broad spots and then the other places then um can't find that some of it
02:29uh sparkling will be distorts maybe next year maybe the year after
02:36other stuff already done and ready to be collected and then plenty of space ready for
02:41this harvest and everything kept at 10 degrees which is great now this time of the year when
02:48it's 27 outside but in january it's jolly cold
