I WANTED TO SIP OUR VINTAGE IN A COUNTRY GARDEN

BETH DERBYSHIRE, 48, is a visual artist and university lecturer and lives with partner Linda, 45, who works in retail. She says:

THREE years ago I planted around 1,000 vines on an acre of land in the grounds of our barn conversion, in a bid to experiment to my heart’s content and see what wines I might be able to produce.

The land had previously had nothing on it except a few sheep, and we loved the notion of the country garden and being able to sit out and drink our own wine to the sound of birdsong.

If anyone had told me a few years ago that I would end up making red and rosé wine at home as a hobby, I’d have laughed them out of the room.

The grapes are pinot noir and Bacchus — both premium grapes. If all goes to plan, they should produce enough wine for 3,000 bottles of red, white and rosé when we get our first vintage harvest later this year.

I knew a bit about growing wine, having had to learn quickly when I inherited my father’s four-acre vineyard when he died in 2015.

I did a wine course and employ a team to oversee Dad’s vineyard, Furnace Projects, selling the wine through Wanderlust Wine. But I tend to my hobby vineyard myself, doing everything by hand, from pruning and mowing to harvesting, which takes up to ten hours a week.

It can be back-breaking but it’s also incredibly therapeutic.

There have been plenty of challenges, including the floods this year when our 8 ftwide brook swelled to 200ft wide and left trees floating through the vineyard.

But the thought of drinking that first glass of my very own wine spurs me on.