oUR Story
A pASSION for WINE since 2010.
Kerry Vale Vineyard is a family-run business, owned by husband and wife team Russell and Jan Cooke.
In February 2020 we purchased the vineyard from the Ferguson family who founded it ten years earlier. Prior to being a vineyard, the site was home to an old blacksmiths house called Brompton View, sixteen old out-buildings and six acres of farm land.
Consultation on the land revealed ideal growing conditions for vines and so 6,000 vines later in March 2010, Kerry Vale Vineyard was born!
We love to share the vineyard with our guests and during your visit we welcome you to explore at leisure, take in the stunning countryside and experience the beautiful sense of space and tranquility the vineyard offers - we're confident you'll love it like we do!
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Our Team
We think people are important. Say hello to the friendly, hardworking and committed team behind everything we do.
If you’d like to join our busy team , take a look at our Job Vacancy section to see current recruitment opportunities.
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Our Roman Heritage
The land on which Kerry Vale Vineyard sits is of great archaeological interest. It was once part of the ancient Roman site of Pentreheyling Fort, a vicus (a provincial civilian settlement) and is on the edge of a number of Roman marching camps.
As well as our Roman history, two decades of archaeological research show the site was once occupied by Bronze Age funerary monuments, a druid road, and a medieval settlement! With Offa’s Dyke just a field away.
The Roman fort, settlement, and marching camps were first discovered by aerial photography in 1969 and 1973. Subsequent excavations have uncovered a quantity of Roman pottery – including a large amphora handle, glass, and metalwork, including coins, and metalworking residue comprising iron smithing debris and litharge cakes (a by-product of extracting silver from argentiferous lead only known at a very few Roman sites in Britain). [Bayley and Eckstein, 1998].
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Our Grapevines
Kerry Vale Vineyard is home to 6,500 vines. We have four varieties - Rondo, Pinot Noir, Phoenix & Solaris, all ideally suited for our English climate.
Spaced at 1.2m in rows 2.3m apart - there are 62 rows with a combined length from the first vine to the last of just under 13 kilometres or approximately 8 miles!
To support the vines we use just over 100,000 metres of wire, around 1,200 posts, wire tensioners and post anchors to ensure the rows don’t fall over. The vines are pruned on a Double Guyot trellising system, which as the name implies, is French in origin and trains the vines to adopt a T shape.
For that special and unusual gift idea, we offer an Adopt a Vine package.
