Denmark Hill Station in South London is the only train station in the UK that doubles as a vineyard, with grapes for Château Denmark Hill grown on site and tended by Nick Mair and Tony Coleman. The wine is not for sale, but used for personal consumption and cooking by the Camberwell Society.
The Vineyard at Denmark Hill Station
Nick Mair, a 67-year-old modern languages teacher and Chair of the Camberwell Society, gave MyLondon exclusive access to the vineyard. He has lived in Camberwell for 22 years. The station also features 37 art installations, including a chaos wheel with colourful buckets based on a penny farthing wheel, a flock of birds, and a gallery of faces and figures made from milk cartons.
The vineyard consists of 25 Bacchus vines, a grape variety popular for winemaking in South East England. The vines are south-facing. Tony Coleman, who helps tend the vines, mentioned he used to make wine as a child in the 1970s, which was a 'big thing.' He recalled finding wine Nick had made around 40 years ago, saying: “One bottle was like Martini and one bottle went into a risotto.”
Challenges and Hopes for the Harvest
Nick hopes this year will improve on last year, which produced only two bottles. He said: “The grapes are very sweet. We need a bit of rain to flesh them out a bit, but I think if we got one bottle per vine, that would be good. If you produce too much wine from a vine, then the quality goes down. But I think if we got in this our first year of proper production, a bottle per vine, I think be quite happy with that. It'd be nice if they swelled up a bit. So, fingers crossed for a bit of rain.”
Timing is crucial, as leaving grapes too long attracts birds. The hardest part is terracing the land, as there is no electricity on that side of the station. Planting the vines takes about half a minute each. Nick added: “It's all a bit like painting and decorating. It's all in the preparation. There's only really two of us doing it, but generally you've got to cut them right back to get to kind of a base shoot.” He and Tony also remove excess grapes and leaves to prevent mould from forming due to lack of wind.
Making the Wine and Weather Impact
Nick described the winemaking process as 'fairly easy.' He said: “Put in wine makers' yeast, which is special yeast because alcohol eventually kills it. If you put in bread yeast, it kills it at around five to six degrees. You shove it all in a big bucket and let it do its thing. I've also got a wine press that my grandfather made when my father got married. He made his single bed into a wine press, which I've been using, and it works very well.” Currently, Nick presses the wine at home, but if yields increased, he would need commercial processing.
London has had an exceedingly dry summer, with the UK forecast to have its hottest summer on record, according to The Met Office. Nick noted: “What's unusual about this place is that it's really, really sunny; we get sun from pretty much dawn until dusk. It's got a very low horizon because of the lack of buildings opposite. I did a trial run with sunflowers to see if they got enough sun to make the vineyard work, and that was successful. So I thought, okay, vineyards possibility. Obviously have different soil needs, but generally, a bit more rain would be good, but light absolutely can't complain, and lots of vineyards, both amateur and otherwise, will be having the same issue.”
Nick added that global warming could benefit UK winemaking, as parts of France are so hot that they've been 'buying up bits of England to grow grapes' for years. He said: “The top end of British wine and sparkling wine is award-winning, but as global warming changes, bits of southern France are presumably becoming increasingly harder to produce wine in southern France. It's just too dry. That sort of band of cultivable land is going to shift north.”
Not for Sale and Future Plans
The wine, dubbed 'Château Denmark Hill,' is not for sale due to a strict agreement with Network Rail. Nick said some will be drunk by the group, some used for cooking, and 'some of it may be some of the finest wines produced in England,' he quipped. He added: “We think it's the first vineyard in any UK train station, but I think Denmark Hill station, which is obviously in Camberwell, used to be frankly a real mess. People used to just dump stuff over the railings.”
