Butness Vineyard: where Gusbourne began
Just across Kenardington Road, west of the winery, you’ll find Butness Vineyard. In the farthest corner, where the first row of vines begins, a small metal tag is fixed to the end post. It is weathered now, dulled by more than two decades of rain, frost, sun and wind. Yet the spare language of viticulture remains clear enough: “1 CH 95 3309”.
Row one. Chardonnay clone 95. Rootstock 3309.
It might be an unassuming square of metal, but it marks the beginning of Gusbourne: the precise point where a bold idea became something physical. A vine in the ground. A future waiting to be proved.
Here, in 2004, Jon Pollard – Gusbourne’s first employee and Vineyard Manager – put his spade into the soil alongside our founder, Andrew Weeber. These were the first vines planted at Gusbourne. In 2006, they gave us our first fruit. The picture above shows that first harvest, 20 years ago.
At the time, English wine was still a risk. There was no guarantee that Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier would ripen here with the consistency, concentration and character needed to make fine sparkling wine. Butness was the test and two decades later, the vineyard has more than answered.
Today, Butness is, by English wine standards, a mature vineyard. Viewed from above, its 66-and-a-half rows of Chardonnay, 30 rows of Pinot Noir and 20 rows of Pinot Meunier resemble a sparkling wine cork lying on its side, the tapered rows of Chardonnay swelling into longer rows of red-skinned grapes. The varietal mix reads like a traditional-method blend written into the landscape.
The vineyard’s five hectares of vines are sheltered on three sides by the ancient woodland that gives Butness its name. The trees form a natural boundary, enclosing the vineyard and offering some protection from wind and frost. English vines are always grateful for any help they can get.
Dig into the ground and you’ll discover more of what makes Butness special. The soil here is intense clay, deep and mineral, with a scent like a potter’s studio. It is rippled with swirls of dark, inky sand – a clue to geology shaped by an ancient coastline.
The Saxon Shore Way, a public footpath from Gravesend to Hastings, cuts directly through the estate, following the line where sea once met land. Appledore, the nearby village, was once a port town facing open water. The marshes it looks upon today were drained over centuries through channels and dykes, the landscape remade by human hands.
This year, Jon has chosen Butness as the focus for Gusbourne’s One Block Challenge: a regenerative viticulture project created by the Regenerative Viticulture Foundation to test what works in a single, clearly defined area of vines. The approach is practical: establish a baseline, make measured changes, observe what happens and share the learning over time.
For Jon, Butness is the right place for that work because it is “big enough to be meaningful, but small enough not to waste too many resources if trials don’t work out.” That balance matters. Experimentation in a working vineyard has to sit alongside the real business of growing fruit.
The focus is cover cropping: how to establish a more diverse mix of plant species on Gusbourne’s heavy clay soils. Jon is trialling different methods side by side, including direct drilling, mowing existing vegetation very short before drilling to reduce competition and lightly disturbing the top of the soil surface with a spring-tine harrow before sowing.
The question is simple: what works here?
Regenerative farming cannot be lifted wholesale from one vineyard and dropped into another. Soil, climate, slope, rainfall and timing all matter. In Butness, where clay can move quickly from too wet to too dry, progress depends on close observation and patience.
As Jon puts it: “We’re talking about soil. And soil takes decades to change.”
The same close attention shapes how we think about single-vineyard wines. A wine from one block or vineyard asks a clear question of the fruit: what does this particular place have to say?
In 2019, we crafted a Blanc de Blancs entirely from Butness Chardonnay. Made from one grape variety, one growing season and one corner of the estate, it brings the character of this vineyard into focus.
It’s a wine with the freshness and mineral drive we recognise as unmistakably Gusbourne, with its own particular depth and definition. It is the taste of a vineyard that has been planted, tended, tested and understood over two decades.
That is what makes this release so compelling. Butness Blanc de Blancs 2019 comes from the place where Gusbourne began, and from a vineyard that is still shaping what comes next.
As we mark our 20th vintage, there could hardly be a better bottle to open. It shows how far that first row has taken us, and why we are still paying such close attention.
This limited-edition Gusbourne Blanc de Blancs Butness Single Vineyard 2019 is available now. We're pleased to offer complimentary UK delivery on this wine.
