Thank you for taking the time to read this through and share your thoughts. Right now this is just an idea, something we think we would like to try, but we would really like your honest feedback.
Over the last five years we have been pouring our hearts and souls into redesigning how Elvis & Kresse operates. We weren’t unhappy with what we were doing, but we had to do more. We wanted to be truly regenerative in how we operate. This is why we came to the farm, built our wonderful straw bale workshop, established the wetland system, planted 3000 trees and 11,829 vines, and still feel like we are just getting started!
New Barns Farm is a 17 acre farm characterised by south facing chalk slopes. We bought the farm in December 2020 and spent the first two years on infrastructure, building a 320m2 double height straw bale workshop, restoring several barns and dwellings, shifting from fossil fuels to renewables and then planting the vines in 2022. These images show just how busy we have been.
We are asking for help for the first time, but not in a traditional way. We are incredibly focussed on what we need to do and no matter how we look at it, we can't do it alone.
Here are just a few of our plans.
We could raise money more conventionally, but we need actual hands-on help, supporters and collaborators... effectively the Farm needs Friends. We think we have a good model for this. If you are keen? Read on.
Almost everyone we meet has at some point dreamed of picking and squishing grapes and making their own wine. Understandably, running a vineyard simply doesn’t fit into most schedules and for us, running a vineyard is just more fun when it is filled with people, pitching in, who love nature and love wine too.
A vine produces, on average, about 1.5 bottles of wine each year but ours are young, and unproven, so it could be more or it could be less, and could reach this capacity in the next few years or much later. So there is risk. Farming is risky. Farming in the face of climate change is outright defiant.
Becoming a Friend of the Farm means you are taking a stake in our 11,829 vines, a stake in our completely regenerative and chemical free way of farming. No synthetic fertilizers, no pesticides, herbicides, fungicides… Nothing that brings death, only the wonderful biology that brings life. We have planted two red varieties - Cabaret Noir and Pinotin - and two white varieties - Souvignier Gris and Rinot. Our wine will be artisanal, experimental, and as we are synthetic free it will give a true and honest expression of this site; this means it will actually have terroir.
You will receive a 40% discount on up to 50 bottles of wine over time. It is likely that if we reach our membership target that it will take more than 5 years, but we will be completely transparent with all FoFs about how much we produce each year and then allocate on a first ask/order basis. After your 50 bottle allocation we will continue to offer all FoFs an ongoing discount of 20%. We are currently thinking that our wine will retail between £15.00-£25.00 per bottle.
A 50% discount on everything available on the elvisandkresse.com website, up to the value of £1000.00, and after that an ongoing discount of 30%. This includes all farm events including stays in the Field House.
Early access to new releases, rare or limited editions.
Invitations to events at the farm before they are released to the general public.
Pruning Festivals
Harvest Festivals
Film Screenings
Dinners
Composting Lessons
Market Garden Design
Willow weaving
We are limiting this offer to a maximum of 1200 Friends of the Farm
From a technical perspective, part of your membership will represent the lease of vines. Why? Because when you lease vines it means that we can make your wine for you, and provide it to you without charging you Excise Duty.
Our wine might not be bottled traditionally. We are working on how to eliminate the footprint of bottles which can make up 50% of the carbon footprint of wine! Don’t worry, a bottle holds 750mL, so your allocation will be 37.5L.
There is no limit to how much time you can contribute on site but we are limiting pure volunteer FoFs to 50.
