Western Morning News (Saturday)
Wine and cheese open day shows the best of our region
Martin Hesp enjoys an educational tasting tour around the beautiful Sharpham estate
Like spring itself, you can almost feel and smell the world of food and drink coming to life after a long dark and, financially at least, chilly period of lockdowns. Of course, the people who make our food and drink have been busy all along and many have adapted their businesses to operate more in the digital sphere – but now we are beginning to see the producers, makers, growers, retailers and the like taking steps to actually show off their wares once again. And you could argue that never has such a thing been more important. So many within the food and drink industry have a lot of catching up to do – and the easing of lockdown this summer should provide an ideal window of opportunity, with record numbers of visitors already booked for accommodation across the South West. So expect to see plenty of tasting events and open days staged around the region in the coming months.
First out of the starting blocks was a wine and cheese open day held in the beautiful Dart Valley this week. The folk at the Sharpham Estate are old hands when it comes to telling the world about the things they produce – both the wine and the cheese have been winning awards for the past 40 years. Now the winery and the cheesemaking concerns are run by two entirely different companies – and, indeed, the wine-makers are in the process of moving across the River Dart to a new base and visitor centre at the Sandridge Barton Estate – but that didn’t stop them combining forces on Wednesday to show a group of tourism providers and other movers-and-shakers what they do. If you’ve got it, flaunt it... goes the old phrase. And, indeed, if you make really good wine and fabulous cheese in a beautiful place, why would you not tell the world about it? As I say, hundreds of others will no doubt be following in Sharpham’s footsteps over the coming months as visitors flock to the Westcountry – which is why I asked Taste of the West chief executive John Sheaves about the importance of open days and tastings in 2021. “It’s massively important – we’ve missed these kinds of events” agreed John. “The whole thing about food is that it’s so evocative. It really gets the senses – we’ve just been drinking fantastic sparkling wine from the estate. You miss actually being in the field. We are about to taste some cheese. Okay, you can go to a shop and taste stuff at home but it’s not the same as coming to the place where these things are made. It’s a reawakening of the senses. For producers, this summer will be a massive opportunity to put this region on the map. It could be a bumper summer – and it needs to be a bumper summer if I’m honest. A lot of these small producers have been hit very hard.” John continued: “At Taste of the West we’ve been the first to advise them over the years to look for alternative markets – like pubs, restaurants, cafes and so on – and what’s the one sector that has been shut over the last 12 months? The food service sector – so these guys have been hit really hard.” Greg Parsons, who’s in charge of the cheesemaking operation at Sharpham, told us: “We had a couple of objectives – first to remind people we are open. This is a great destination to visit – you can do lovely walks, and see the cheese products being made. But also we are mindful that people
are going to flock to the Westcountry and we are hoping these guys (the tourism providers) can tell people about this place. Even if the visitors can’t make it here, they can be encouraged to go to the delis and the restaurants and support these products.”
Referring to the lockdown period, Greg said: “It might just wake people up to what is around us. We all like going to places like France and visiting the vineyards to enjoy the produce and so on – and actually this feels a bit like that today. I think that goes for artisan food across the region – there are so many gems out there and hopefully the lockdowns will encourage people to think again about just shooting off abroad each year in the future.”
Radio presenter and well-known gardening expert Toby Buckland, who was one of the visitors at Sharpham, added that open days and tasting were “hugely important .... There was BC and AD – now there’s Before Covid and After Covid,” he told me. “We are in a whole new paradigm. One silver lining is that we’ve learned to appreciate what’s on our doorsteps. Everyone in the South West ought to be supporting our industries like never before – because anyone who’s come out the other side of Covid deserves all the help we can give them.”
Head wine-maker Duncan Schwab, CEO of the new Sandridge Barton Estate winery which makes all Sharpham’s vinous products, commented: “Our goal is to produce world-class wines in the Dart Valley, with all our grapes from the Dart Valley. We’d like visitors to come and discover how they are made and grown – people do find it fascinating.” Leading socially-distanced tourism providers through the vineyards, Duncan added: “So yes, it is a funny old year, but we have some exciting things happening on the other side of the river. We are moving out of our home for 40 years at Sharpham and into a state-of-the-art winery which we built last year. The first grapes over there came in during 2020 – we were literally sweeping the builders out of one door as the grapes were coming in the other. We are converting some beautiful traditional barns into a tasting rooms, shops and offices – and a cafe. The cafe at Sharpham, known as The Cellar Door, has been so
successful over the years and we are delighted they are coming with us.”
Ruud Jansen Venneboer, who has a holiday cottage business at Mazzard Farm, Ottery St Mary, and is also involved with tourism groups such as East Devon Excellence, said: “It was absolutely worth coming here today – it exceeded my expectations by quite a margin. This is such a beautiful part of Devon. We are also blessed with visitor opportunities close to us, so people don’t have to go far – but we have a lot of people who come year after year who are looking for new things and this is ideal. People are realising that you can’t put a price on experience. People are getting a bit sick and tired of materialist stuff. More and more people want to spend money on an experience and have quality time. This year people will be putting this into practice.”
Sally Everton, director of Visit Devon and Meet Devon (which drives business tourism) was also at the Sharpham event. “For me a tour like this is all about awareness,” she said. “For leisure visitors, this is an all-round experience. Domestic tourism is going to be very busy this year and having visitor experiences like this for Devon is vital for our prosperity. Local produce is vital – the supply chain for tourism is huge. One of the key things we need to do is have visitors sampling the local produce.”
The event at Sharpham raised a flag for local produce and showed just how important the industry is to this region. And the great news for us foodies is there will be many more such events – all designed to show how fortunate we are when it comes to the fine food and drink being grown, caught, made and served west of Bristol.