Peter Hall Biography: 1943-2025

Peter Hall Biography: 1943-2025

Peter Hall lived his life like a character from a Dickens novel: his fortunes were made and broken innumerable times across his long career as a pioneer of English wine. Peter took an empty and forgotten valley and, alongside his first wife Diana and the community they inspired, he turned it into a lush and Bacchic utopia. Breaky Bottom was a secret place: a slip between the Sussex hills that in time was filled with vine-rows, animals, art and culture.

As the years passed, Peter and Breaky Bottom endured floods, plagues of pheasants, soggy summers and fruitless harvests. Through it all Peter continued with his meticulous work: tending the vines by hand, labelling each bottle, ensuring that every aspect of the vineyard came under his design and his vision. In his later years Peter was internationally recognised as one of the foremost English winemakers of his generation, a legendary storyteller, and a lover of art and culture.

1.     Background and Family

·      Peter’s paternal family, the Inglis Halls, were well-off philanthropists at the start of the 20th century. Peter’s grandfather Tom Storey Inglis Hall had died in 1915 during the First World War, when his son – Peter’s father John – was only five years old.

·      John Inglis Hall had a varied and accomplished career. A talented linguist fluent in German, he was selected by Churchill as a Special Operations Executive and worked undercover during the Second World War. Following this he became the head of Public Relations for English Electric, a role he balanced with his evening work as a popular writer of both fiction and non-fiction.

·      The influence of Peter’s father lies partly behind his great love of literature. John’s short stories were regularly published in Argosy magazine during the 1950s, alongside contemporaries such as Ray Bradbury and John Steinbeck. His book ‘Fishing the Highland Stream’ is still regarded as a classic by the fly-fishing community.

·      Peter’s maternal family were the Merciers, a French family that split their time between the continent and Britain. Their home was occupied during the Second World War and their collection of fine wines consumed by the enemy. It was in part from the Merciers that Peter learned to love and appreciate great wines.

·      Peter’s grandfather Alex Mercier had run a high-end French restaurant (Le Petit Savoyard) in Soho, prior to the First World War. Alex moved back to France when Peter was young and Peter would visit Alex and his partner there.

·      Peter’s mother Jeannine Mercier was born in Soho in 1914. In her lifetime both John and Peter regarded her as a saint, and Peter never had cause to revise this opinion.

·      Peter’s great-great-uncle was Lafcadio Hearn, AKA Koizumi Yakumo, the acclaimed translator and compiler of Japanese folklore. Peter was always very proud of this connection, and named his 2010 Seyval Blanc Brut Cuvée in tribute to his distant relation.

·      The comedian, musician and artist Gerard Hoffnung was a close family friend. Peter kept a Hoffnung self-portrait beside his armchair and was a keen collector of his works and promoter of his comic legacy. Hoffnung is another of the figures Peter memorialised through his cuvées, in this case the 2009 Chardonnay Pinot.

2.     Childhood and Education

·      Peter Anthony Inglis Hall was born in Rangeworthy Court, Gloucestershire, on 21 April 1943. He was raised in Notting Hill with his older brother Rémy and his younger brother Patrick.

·      Peter regarded himself as a ‘born and bred’ Catholic, but not ‘active’. He was particularly fond of his namesake Saint Anthony, patron saint of lost things.

·      As a child, Peter’s dream was to join the Royal Navy. He read books about Columbus and the great explorers, completed puzzles of wooden sailing boats, and floated his toy yacht at the Serpentine Pond in Kensington Gardens. This interest was fed by his eccentric great-aunt Princess Beatrice de Colonna de Montecchio (a former traveller in the Amazon who had broken her neck skinning buffalo in Canada, heralding her return to Britain), who supplied him with newspaper cuttings. At the age of ten Peter saw a newspaper advert for the modern Navy: a steel warship, a world away from Hornblower and the high seas. The interest died overnight, but Peter kept up the ruse for the sake of his aunt.

·      Peter’s toy boat is featured in the opening scene of the classic film The Thirty-Nine Steps – he happened to be sailing it during filming, and was happy to grant a request from the production team to incorporate it into the scene.

·      Peter and his siblings often visited Rangeworthy Court, their family’s country home and his place of birth. The working farm on the estate introduced Peter to animals and agriculture, and developed in him an interest that would direct the course of his entire life.

·      At the age of six Peter and his brother Rémy were sent to France, to stay with a family friend. Peter found the experience difficult but it provided him an opportunity to perfect his French accent.

·      Peter returned to England aged 7 to begin at boarding school – Barrow Hills and then St George’s College in Weybridge, where every year the students were required to watch Oliver Twist (1948) for the headmaster’s birthday. It was here that Peter met his (and his brother Patrick’s) lifelong friends Nick Lear and Richard Monje.  

·      On Peter’s first night of boarding school, his beloved wartime teddy-bear was unexpectedly beheaded. Later repaired by a kindly older boy, the bear has remained on Peter’s windowsill to this day, besides the ashes of his brother Rémy. Each morning Peter would greet them both. The bear was regularly maintained by his daughter Emily, but in recent years authentic replacement material proved impossible to source. Weathered and worn, the bear remained with Peter until the very end of his life.

·      For Peter, his uncle Tony was the very model of an honest antique dealer. The next part of his education came in the time they spent together. Driving Tony on his rounds, Peter learnt to love rare and beautiful things, a love that survives in his brother Patrick, himself a successful antique dealer. Peter also credited Tony and his wife Janey with teaching him to drink whisky and smoke tobacco. Both remained consoling passions for the rest of his life.

·      When Peter was 19, his family relocated to Fen Place Mill in East Grinstead. Keen to bolster his slim agricultural experience, Peter worked a trial week at Longleat where, to his surprise, he was selected to work with their pride of five lions. He did not return past this trial.

·      Peter achieved two A Levels (Geography and Geology), which he failed initially due to a renewed interest in boating. With his retakes completed, he phoned Cambridge University to make doubly sure they would not offer him a place, before applying to study agriculture at his second choice, Newcastle. Once more Peter’s qualifications were against him but he travelled north to meet with an admissions officer, and talked him round into offering a place on the course. He went on to study in Newcastle from 1963-1965.

3.     Life in Farming

·      In 1967, Peter had moved back to Fen Place Mill, and was working at Northease Farm in East Sussex as a relief stockman and tractor driver. The position had been suggested to him by his friend Nick Lear, following Nick’s chance meeting on a train and a conversation with Diana Robinson, the farm owner’s daughter.

·      Peter’s degree in agriculture gave him a theoretical grounding, but this was his first time working on an actual farm. He had never milked a cow, and traded information on skills like these with the other workers in exchange for poetry.

·      On Peter’s second day, in pursuit of some lost ewes, he discovered the valley of Breaky Bottom, and a flint farmhouse that had lain uninhabited for decades. The nearby barn, also composed of flint, had been raised in 1827, and would one day become Peter’s winery, known as ‘The Opera House’. Peter was immediately struck, and asked the farm owner, Harris Robinson, for the land that same day.

·      It was while working at Northease that Peter met Harris Robinson’s daughter Diana. Peter lived at Breaky briefly in the months that followed, before a return to the family home of Fen Place Mill.

·      Diana and Peter were married in 1969 and took tenancy at Breaky Bottom: 30 acres, which Peter and Diana used as a mixed farm for livestock, primarily pigs. Their first children, Emily and Kate, were born in 1970, followed by Tom in 1971 and Toby in 1974.

·      In springtime 1972, Peter was shopping in Elphick & Son in Lewes for seeds and plants. The nurseryman showed him a magazine with a back-page advert for two books by Nick Poulter: ‘Growing Grapes’ and ‘Wines from your Vines’. A visit to Breaky from Nick and his wife followed soon after.

·      In 1974, the first vines were planted at Breaky Bottom by Diana and Peter. These were primarily Müller-Thurgau, with ‘nine good rows’ of Seyval Blanc also, along with Richtensteiner and Wertzer. At this stage the vineyard totalled only four acres.

·      Along with the first vines, the couple had to put in place the entire infrastructure of the vineyard. 1974 was a year of driving in end-posts and intermediaries, each laboriously punctured into the thickness of Sussex chalk. Soon the outline of a vineyard was raised across the land.

·      In 1975 Peter began to transfer his focus towards viticulture and away from livestock. The pigs went that year, and the poultry soon followed. Soon he was a shepherd only, and his herd of sheep endured alongside the vineyard for the remainder of his life – another 50 years.

4.     Career as a Wine-Grower

·      Breaky’s first harvest came in 1976. Peter did not have the funds for any equipment so the crop was sent for processing at Lamberhurst, then the UK’s largest vineyard. Despite this, Peter determined that one part of the crop would be vinified by him. He fashioned a grape crusher from a broomstick and a bucket, extracted the juice with a hand-press and fermented the result in oak barrels. He regarded the result as a decent ‘first attempt’. Peter’s career as a maker of still wines had begun.

·      Peter’s subdivision of this batch proved a blessing in disguise, as Lamberhurst’s winemaker failed to deliver the dry white wine Peter had envisioned. Following this experience, wine production would swiftly move to Breaky Bottom itself.

·      Soon after, at the encouragement of the wine chemist Mark Russell, Peter purchased six large fibre-glass tanks to allow fermentation on site.

·      By 1978, Breaky Bottom had managed to obtain additional equipment, including an antique French winepress that was already over a century old. By 1980 the demands of production required this to be replaced with a larger Vaslin press.

·      1978 also brought with it the first of many setbacks: stray herbicide from a nearby farm destroyed the crop. The miserable summer weather of 1980 took another crop, and in 1981 more herbicide claimed a third. 1979 brought 3000 bottles, a shallow oasis in the desert of adversity.

·      In 1979 Peter began replacing Müller-Thurgau with further Seyval Blanc, the hybrid variety he championed across his long career.

·      In 1986/7 the vineyard was extended to six acres, of which 4.75 were Seyval. Peter also kept an experimental plantation which included Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Noir.

·      1987 and 1988 brought further hard times, with no wine in the former vintage and 1000 bottles only in the latter. Peter was a self-professed pauper at this time and his fortunes were only saved by the excellent summer of 1989.

·      Peter and Diana’s marriage came to an end during this period. In time Peter remarried Christine Lowe (known as Chris), and she became a full-time resident of Breaky Bottom.

·      In 1993 Breaky Bottom won its first gold at the International Wine Challenge for Seyval Blanc. This was a hard time for Peter personally. His father John died in 1993 and his brother Rémy and uncle Tony died the next year.

·      In 1995, Peter began his transition to sparkling wine. This first harvest was released in the year 2000 and dedicated to his mother, as the Breaky Bottom Millennium Cuvée Maman Mercier. 1995 saw another experiment from Breaky Bottom: the Müller-Thurgau vines had noble rot and Peter’s family suggested that on this occasion a sweet dessert wine be created to use this otherwise spoiled crop. This was the family’s one ‘sweet harvest’.

·      1995 was also the year that Peter purchased Breaky Bottom at auction.

·      Around the turn of the millennium, Peter decided to plant blackcurrants and experiment with making cassis. This in turn grew into the beloved Breaky Bottom Kir Royale.

·      Over the next three decades Peter went on to enjoy widespread acclaim for his sparkling wines. He averaged 10,000 bottles per year, with peaks of 20,000. In time  he fully replaced the Müller-Thurgau vines to focus on Seyval Blanc and the noble champagne varieties.

·      These decades were not without difficulty: setbacks and disasters plagued Peter, and he spent years mired in legal difficulties. Despite this, Breaky Bottom went on in this period to become a favourite of royalty, government, and countless people the world over.

5.     Awards and Distinctions

·      It would be tedious – and perhaps impossible – to list all of Peter’s and of Breaky Bottom’s accolades. Early signs of recognition are lost to time, and recent victories came so frequently that it can be hard to choose. We have however compiled a list of Breaky Bottom’s more recent medal and competition triumphs.

·      In 2025, Peter received the Diploma of Honour from the Fédération Internationale des Confréries Bachiques (FICB), the first time it has been awarded to an English winemaker.

6.     The Peter Factor

·      Peter Hall was a unique winemaker. We consider this to be something of an understatement. His son Toby, in collaboration with Peter’s other children Kate, Emily and Tom, has written a brief description of Peter’s philosophy and his approach: the ‘Peter Factor’.  It is this, in combination with the chalk soils and slopes of the farm, that has made Breaky Bottom wines renowned across the world.

7.     Peter and Fishing

·      Peter followed in his father’s tradition as a keen fly-fisherman. At school he would go river-fishing behind the cricket pavilion, partially as an excuse to smoke a covert cigarette, a plan that was ruined when others decided to follow his example.

·      As a teenager Peter would travel to Scotland to fish with his family. Although a reluctant traveller in adulthood, Peter continued to visit the Truim and the land described in his father’s book Fishing the Highland Stream into his sixties. His love of fly-fishing was a passion Peter passed on to all his family.

·      During the 1970s, the family lakes at Fen Place Mill became a popular fishing destination, not just for Peter and his family but for celebrities such as Sophia Loren and Sir Michael Hordern.

·      For Peter, fly-fishing was an exemplification of his entire philosophy: an unhurried communion with the natural world, both solitary and communal, unconcerned with anything beyond the process and experience itself.

8.     Peter’s Other Pursuits

·      Peter was a great lover of orchestral and classical music. At boarding school his bedroom was situated above the music room, and he would lie there during the day to overhear the piano practice coming up from below. In the 1970s Diana and Peter invited an opera to be performed within the winery and soon there were full musical and artistic performances being staged at the vineyard, courtesy of the nearby artistic community.

·      Peter also loved the early Blues movement and even wrote to Louis Armstrong, who replied, under the impression that Peter was a jazz performer known only as ‘Breaky Bottom’.

·      Peter loved books and he loved poetry. Family favourites like John Inglis Hall, Lafcadio Hearn and Gerard Hoffnung rubbed shoulders on the bookshelves with Flann O’Brien, John Keats, Seamus Heaney, William Burns, Edward Lear and W.B. Yeats. He read devotedly to his children (although for a period he insisted on reading Edgar Allen Poe) and his rendition of The Hobbit was even transmitted to the next generation.

·      Peter was a keen rower and Master of Boats at both school and university. His love of sport never ended. He was at his happiest listening to a five-day Test Match, played through the transistor radio hung about his neck on a piece of macrame string.

·      Peter was a vocal defender of Ukraine and Ukrainian sovereignty. In his final years he was rarely pictured without a Ukrainian flag pin, and he did his best to incorporate his displeasure with Putin into media appearances.  

·      Peter had an unusual (and deeply-held) belief that there was an escaped puma stalking its way along the vines of Breaky Bottom. In 2014 the ‘puma’ repeatedly attacked a 2,500 litre domestic fuel tank, and Peter’s plot to find fame and fortune by capturing further attacks on film sadly came to nothing. When the tank was next filled, Peter discovered by happy accident that the driver was a big cat expert, who concurred with Peter’s suspicions.

9.     Setbacks and Difficulties 

·      Despite critical acclaim and success, Breaky Bottom lived on a knife-edge for its early existence. It came close to the verge of bankruptcy on several occasions. Spray drift from an adjoining farm claimed two harvests, and there were flooding instances and crop damage from pheasants that took Peter several years to resolve and overcome.

·      Peter managed every aspect of Breaky Bottom himself, and as the years passed he was increasingly reluctant to leave its valley. He has been variously described as a hermit and a recluse, but he was always pleased to receive visitors, both expected and unexpected. Peter’s storytelling abilities were well-known, and he became a familiar media presence, on television, radio and in print.

·      Peter and Diana’s children were hugely engaged with Breaky Bottom throughout their lives, working with Peter regularly and supporting both Peter and Chris in their daily lives during more recent years. As a maverick and pioneer, Peter found it challenging to mix family with business. In the meantime, they found their own successes, although a full handover during his lifetime never came.

·      Peter died peacefully early in the morning of 2 October 2025, following a short illness. His four children were all with him at this time.

 

10.  The Breaky Bottom Community

·      Peter was a prolific patron of art in all its forms. He was one of the four founding members of the New Sussex Opera, which first began as an in-house production at Breaky Bottom, with contributions from Joe Staines, Rebecca Meitlis, Nicola Lefanu, Nigel Kennedy, Keith Lewis, Joe Bearman, Nick Logy, the Endellion Quartet, the Chilingirian Quartet, the Hilliard Ensemble, and the visual artist Roger Dean.

·      Breaky Bottom put on many summer exhibitions of art over the years, championing mostly local artists. These included Richard Long, Peggy Angus, Peter Gough, Stephanie James, Harvey Daniels, Antony Inglis Hall and Mike Patterson.

·      Breaky Bottom thrives on community and there is no better illustration than the teams of pickers that arrive each year to help bring in the harvest, from keen amateurs and future friends to wine luminaries such as Stephen Skelton MW, Dermot Sugrue, Emma Rice, and Andrew Jefford. Other friends in the world of wine include Oz Clarke, Jancis Robinson MW and Jilly Goolden. There are too many names here to mention – so apologies for any omissions!

·      In recent years, Peter’s one full-time employee has been Louisa Adams, who came as an amateur for one harvest and went on to become a professionally accredited viticulturist. Louisa gained Peter’s trust (no mean feat) and there are few others with her knowledge both of Breaky Bottom and of winemaking itself.

·      Over the years Peter has nurtured many up-and-coming viniculturists and winemakers. He was always happy to share his knowledge, experience and passion, and it was occasionally hard to make him stop.

·      Each of Peter’s cuvées are named after a person of special significance in his life. This tradition began in 2000 with his first sparkling wine, Maman Mercier. A list of the current main cuvées is available on the Breaky Bottom website (https://www.breakybottom.co.uk/cuvees), alongside Peter’s brief biographies of each namesake.

11.  Family Today

·      Peter’s younger brother Patrick is a successful antique dealer primarily working in France and the south of England. He has three children with his wife Didie: Jeannine, Antony and Anna Inglis Hall.

·      Peter’s older brother Rémy was a respected translator of French literature. He moved to America aged 19 and died in New York in 1994, during the AIDS crisis. Peter and his mother were with Rémy and his partner Ronnie when he died.

·      Peter’s first wife Diana lives in Dorset with her second husband John. She is an internationally respected authority on medieval tiles.

·      Peter and Diana have four children: Kate, Emily, Tom and Toby. All four were by Peter’s side in his final months.

·      Peter additionally has five grandchildren: Louis, Felix, Kit, Basil, and Phoebe.

·      Peter is survived by his widow Christine Hall, a talented artist and teacher who co-founded Artemis Arts. Chris has two children, Danny and Keith.

·      Peter and Chris doted on their Bengali cat Toto. Aged sixteen, today Toto is thin, a little ragged, but still the undisputed master of the house.

12.  The Future of Breaky Bottom

·      Breaky Bottom will continue to function as usual under the management of the family. We will consider long-term options at a future time.

 

The Peter Hall Factor

 

Peter at home – image by Orlando Gili, please contact Orlando for high res version hello@orlandogili.com

 

When considering ‘The Peter Factor’, one should first understand that it was not beyond him to flick his cigarette ash into anything. Soup cooking on the stove, the turn-ups of his jeans, or wine in a tank! He enjoyed being irreverent – and loved smoking Old-Holborn roll-ups.  

Above all, Peter was an artist. This could have manifested itself in any number of ways, as a writer, musician, actor or poet. Instead, fuelled by the pragmatic need to earn a living, he decided (perhaps surprisingly) to study agriculture at Newcastle University. Surprising -- because his teenage years had been spent in London’s Notting Hill. Agriculture was a romantic calling, nurtured by childhood experiences at his family home, Rangeworthy Court in Gloucestershire, where Peter describes having a ‘private zoo’. The zoo was in Peter’s imagination, but memories of the small farm were many.  The shepherd who named each ewe in the flock after the ladies from the village; Mrs Emery the house-keeper throwing two piglets into the boys’ bedroom for a Christmas surprise; Peter the boy attempting to ride Peter the carthorse just once -- and being rewarded by a kick to the stomach; an exotic pure-breed cattery where the cat population was rotated between the house and extensive cages on the tennis courts; and lastly the daily routine of choosing not just the cow but the very teat that would be milked straight into cups for breakfast – all this created a world of such natural delight for Peter, Remy and Patrick that it did indeed feel like a private zoo.

Peter’s parents were all-important. Jeannine, his mother (or Maman) was a beautiful, staunchly French matriarch from head to toe, and an exceptional woman. In classic continental fashion, food was everything. Food was prepared and eaten, and whilst preparing and eating, was discussed, and the next meal was planned. Jeannine was not only an exceptional cook, but had a critical eye for clothes, furniture, art and style in general. She was a highly creative potter, artist and interior designer. Although English, John Inglis Hall was a linguist and Francophile, and on meeting Jeannine he slipped seamlessly into this French utopia. John’s lifelong passion was fly fishing, a love passed on to Peter and Patrick, as well as his grandchildren.

Wine flowed. Not in excess, but in appreciation. The children were schooled on wine evaluation by Jeannine’s father, a renowned restaurateur with restaurants in Paris and London. The question asked by all of Peter’s family elders as he developed was “ …but what do you really think?” – of this wine, this opera, this sculpture, this painting. The question created a radical free thinker, not constrained by any single belief system, but with enormous trust in his own instincts and intuition.

Perhaps the final ingredient needed was to be a gambler or risk taker. His family had both built and lost fortunes, and this helped free him to live with a level of risk that others might find intolerable, but that anyone contemplating planting an English vineyard in the 1970s needed to learn to embrace. Especially if determined to produce dry French-style wines of true quality – the secret of which Peter insisted, up to his dying day, was to start picking at least ten days after every other vineyard in the country had completed its harvest! High risk, but high reward in terms of quality of juice when the risk paid off.

From the outset Peter had a singular vision for what might be possible on this unique piece of land. Land sitting on the same Cretaceous chalk formations as the Champagne hills. When his very few, early contemporaries were pursuing a Germanic style of wine, Peter had other ideas. His lineage and upbringing gave him the strength and focus to reject the status quo, and to be the pioneer of Seyval Blanc in the UK from 1974 to this day. His palate and his instinct told him it would work.

Armed with an inherent love of nature, a Catholic upbringing that gave space for the mysteries of life, and a paperback book on wine making, he made a start.

Peter seized on the idea of terroir – and took it a stage further. In planting trees and a bank of 1,000 daffodils with his children to nurture the environment in which the vines grew, he understood that every facet of place would influence plants, culture and endeavour, and thus be evident in the resulting wines. He celebrated the annual cycle of the farm through solo winter pruning, tying down at dawn or dusk, and the much-loved labour of spring lambing. His children grew up safe in the assurance that he was always close at hand in the vineyard, a transistor radio hanging from a macramé string cord around his neck, content and deeply connected to his work. They’d find him there, happy to be interrupted … but even happier not to be.

Peter’s love and understanding of animals, livestock and animal husbandry was simply an extension of his character. Calm; cool; collected. Nature reciprocated in kind. Lambs revived by persistent pinching to stimulate the nerves of the apparently lifeless. Patient; knowing; loving.   And the shift from still to sparkling wine was another chance for him to reinvent, to evolve. It was a commercial advantage – but also a spiritual necessity. Champagne’s traditional method was the perfect fit for his painstaking and perfectionist approach, as well as an ideal evolution for Breaky Bottom’s propitious terroir. It represents the pinnacle of what these chalky soils could offer, and what ‘the Peter factor’ could give to the wine world.

Jeannine, Patrick, Remy and Peter taken by John Inglis Hall in the South of France where the family had a villa at Roquebrune

Peter planting vines in 1974

Peter and Jeanine sailing in Cornwall

Peter on the British Schools Antarctic Survey c1960

Peter's Note August 2025

I’m very sorry not to have submitted any ‘Peter’s Notes’ for some while. I have been particularly unwell recently but have finally got round to it! The new notes are a real triumph – I entered 5 wines into the Decanter World Wine Awards, three from 2018 and two from 2019, the youngest of my released vintages. And wow, they did exceptionally well, as you will see !!

Decanter World Wine Awards 2025 - Breaky Bottom results

Five wines entered, two from 2019 and three from 2018

2019 Cuvée Minnie Charlotte - Silver Medal 91 points
2019 Cuvée Manja Scott - Bronze Medal 88 points
2018 Cuvée Brian James - Silver Medal 90 points
2018 Cuvée Geoffrey Aldred - Gold Medal 95 points
2018 Cuvée Noella - Silver Medal 93 points

Great results from the most prestigious wine competition in the world! Bravo Breaky Bottom . . .

Note: Out of maybe 400 UK entries there were only 6 Gold Medals awarded!

Peter's Note March 2025

Hello subscribers,

I was delighted to receive noticed of the article below this morning (28th March) and couldn’t resist thinking . . . “go on, Pete, put it on your ‘Peter’s Notes’, albeit already late in the month. (I had made no posting for February, sorry!)

Chris Wilson is a notable and much respected freelance wine-writer and his article below (for The Buyer, 27th March) followed the spring portfolio tasting held by Corney & Barrow in London’s Belgravia.

His conclusion . . . .

 
 

“My top portfolio wines of the day

Breaky Bottom, Cuvée Marraine Pooks, 2016It’s not often that the first wine you taste turns out to be the highlight of the day, but in this case the Breaky Bottom fizz from 2016, wine number 5 in a list of over 130 was just that. Stunning and balanced, and fresh, so fresh even after almost 10 years in bottle. Bright, ripe fruit (apples and gala melon), delicious development (shortbread biscuits/cream cracker) with hints at more to come. With Champagne, Cava and Crémant all on show, it was the odd one out from Sussex, made from Seyval Blanc, which stole the show!”

My conclusion? . . .  “What’s not to like”!!

With all best wishes from the Breaky Bottom team, Peter and Christina

Peter's Note January 2025

My apologies for not finding the time to post a December Peter’s Note, and therefore my failure to wish all my dear readers a Happy Christmas and New Year – which I belatedly do now!  

I have chosen for my short January Note to describe the origins of the cuvèe names of the recently released 2019 Breaky Bottom wines, together with a short tasting note.

The Shop page now lists 18 cuvées from the different vintages, including four older wines on limited allocation.

2019 Seyval Blanc
Cuvée Minnie Charlotte

Minnie Charlotte Hearn was my great-grandmother, born about 1860, the mother of my Irish grandmother Marjorie Hall, née Atkinson. She was the half-sister to Lafcadio Hearn, my great-great uncle Koizumi Yakumo, who lived in Japan from 1890 until his death in 1904 and was hugely respected for his affection for Japan and for his writings and interpretations of old myths and legends.

Showing aromas of ripe citrus, this cuvée is clean and bright on the palate with a fine tension and long finish.

Varietals: 100% Seyval Blanc ABV: 12%

6,988 bottles produced

 

2019 Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier
Cuvée Manja Scott

Manja was born in Zagreb at the end of the Great War into a musical and artistic family. She trained as a dancer and travelled to Africa where she spent twenty years of her young adulthood, teaching, performing and choreographing as well as raising three children. She was a freelance textile designer selling world-wide, but in the 21st century embarked on a career of brilliant painting and printmaking. We have known her as a dear friend since our children attended the same local school in the early 80’s.

This classic cuvée has a fine creamy mousse and a sumptuous breadth of palate. Refreshing notes of windfall apple are balanced by almond and brioche.

Varietals: Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier ABV: 12%

5,978 bottles produced

 

With all best wishes from the Breaky Bottom Team, Peter & Christina

Peter's Note November 2024

This month we’re launching Breaky Bottom’s special Kir Royale, and celebrating my receiving an exceptional award, ‘Diplome d’Honneur’ through the Wine Guild of the UK.

50th Anniversary Kir Royale

 In 1999 I decided to dedicate a small area of my vineyard to grow blackcurrants for producing a Crème de Cassis which I used as a dosage to craft a Kir Royale.  I believe it was the only rosé wine of its kind in England and proved to be widely appreciated.

To mark Breaky Bottom’s 50th anniversary I have revived this cuvée, by disgorging just 1,000 bottles of my 2019 Seyval Blanc with cassis made from our own blackcurrants. 

The wine has a light pink colour with a crisp citrus and green apple bite, and subtle berry flavours.  The blackcurrant undertones make this an enjoyable and delightfully playful wine.

This Kir Royale is now available to purchase on the website as single bottles, half-cases, and full cases.

The Wine Guild of the United Kingdom to honour Peter Hall of Breaky Bottom Vineyard with the Prestigious F.I.C.B Diploma of Honour

London, 7th November – The Wine Guild of the United Kingdom is delighted to announce that Peter Hall, the visionary founder of Breaky Bottom Vineyard in Sussex Downs, will be awarded the esteemed F.I.C.B. Diploma of Honour at the upcoming Winter Banquet. The award, presented by Alan Bryden, President of the International Federation of Wine Brotherhoods (F.I.C.B.), celebrates Peter’s remarkable commitment to the wine industry over the last fifty years and his pioneering contributions to English wine.

The Guild’s annual Winter Banquet, held this year at Innholders’ Hall,is an evening steeped in tradition and elegance. This year, the Guild is especially proud to recognise Peter’s legacy. Since establishing Breaky Bottom in the Sussex Downs in 1974, Peter Hall has been instrumental in proving the potential of English wines on the global stage. His vineyard, based near Lewes in the South Downs has flourished thanks to his early insights into cool-climate winemaking and dedication to quality—a vision that has contributed to England’s growing reputation as a wine-producing region.

“The F.I.C.B. Diploma of Honour is awarded to those who have made exceptional contributions to the world of wine, and we are thrilled to see Peter receive this well-deserved recognition,” says Tal Sunderland-Cohen, Chairman of the Wine Guild. “Peter’s work has exemplified the dedication, artistry, and innovation that lie at the heart of English wine.”

Alan Bryden, President of the F.I.C.B commented: “On behalf of the F.I.C.B I am delighted to award our Diploma of Honour to Peter Hall. This is the first time we’ve awarded this Honour to a producer from England, and it reflects not only the considerable contribution Peter has made over the last five decades but the global reputation that the UK now enjoys as a wine producing region.”

Peter Hall commented: “It really is a tremendous privilege to be awarded the Diploma of Honour from F.I.C.B. Given the history and tradition of the wine brotherhoods worldwide, and the reputation of previous recipients. Since childhood I was brought up to be modest with any achievements, but today I gratefully accept and feel hugely honoured to be recognised in this way. It serves also to recognise the wine industry in Britain within the wider wine world.”

The Winter Banquet is not only a celebration of fine wine and food but also a time to welcome new members, honour long standing ones, and celebrate those who have greatly contributed to the Guild’s mission. This year’s distinguished Guest of Honour, Mr. Alan Bryden, will present the F.I.C.B. Diploma of Honour to Peter as part of an unforgettable evening celebrating tradition, community, and the shared passion for wine. Peter will be welcomed as a new member and all will be toasted, very aptly, with Breaky Bottom's 2016 Cuvée Sir Andrew Davis.

About The Wine Guild of The United Kingdom

Founded in 1983 by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, The Wine Guild of the United Kingdom blends a rich legacy with a forward-thinking approach under the leadership of Tal Sunderland-Cohen, a noted consultant, educator, and writer in wine and spirits. With a mission to bridge tradition and innovation, the Guild creates a welcoming space where professionals and enthusiasts alike can explore and deepen their appreciation for wine. Through immersive events, tastings, and educational programs, the Guild demystifies wine, making it accessible to all. As a non-profit, the Guild is dedicated to fostering a community, celebrating British producers, and bringing members closer to the stories behind each bottle.

Presentation of the Diplome d’ Honneur
The Innholders’ Hall, London, 6th November

President of F.I.C.B Alan Bryden and Peter

Alan Bryden with Peter and Christina

Peter, conductor-like, speechifying after the amazing banquet!

Wine Guild of the UK

Diplome d’Honneur

With all best wishes from the Breaky Bottom Team, Peter & Christina

Peter's Note October 2024

October is usually the month of harvest, the culmination of a year’s work in the vineyard. 2024 has been hit with indifferent weather which triggered severe attacks of downy mildew in the UK and on the European continent.

I have insufficient quality fruit to justify picking and below is the email I sent to the devoted friends and family who enjoy the annual harvest.

BREAKY BOTTOM - HARVEST 2024 

Greetings to all you devoted grape-pickers

 You will learn that 2024 has been very difficult for many UK winemakers.

Over the years I have only harvested grapes that have achieved a very high degree of ripeness, and free of botrytis and mildews. Today I have decided that there are insufficient quality grapes to warrant harvesting. Sadly, I will not be picking any grapes this year. It is possible that toward the end of October local devotees may wish to garner what remains, and they would be very welcome – stay in touch and maybe make your own demi-john of local hooch, or perhaps some grape jam! 

Meanwhile, my grateful thanks for all the help and support you have given us over the years, and the privilege of such good friendships – and fingers crossed for 2025.

Peter & Christina & the Breaky Bottom Team



My Footnote this month is rather longer than usual!


I’m continuing my reminiscences of the very early days of English wine. Some will recall the popular annual celebrations orchestrated by the much-missed Christopher ‘Topper’ Ann at the English Wine Centre next to Drusillas, near Alfriston.

The large Marquees were packed with visitors from all over the UK and beyond.

In those days lapel-badges were all the rage, and we decided to create about a dozen of our own rather cheeky selection. At least three of them where inspired to mimic current popular ‘drink slogans’ of famous beverages. Older folk may remember Heineken’s promise to “refresh the parts other beers cannot reach” or Carlsberg’s claim to be “probably the best lager in the world” – I do recall Yogi Bear’s strapline was “smarter than the average bear”!

I recall a story at one of our annual shindigs, maybe a little naughty, but nice….

A young woman, having enjoyed a tad too much alcohol, decided to pave her bottom with these medallions and having done so, parade herself ‘bottom-upwards’ to the applauding crowds – a short while later she could be seen slumbering gracefully in an easy-chair by the Breaky Bottom stand, recovering and smiling sweetly!

PS. Next month we are launching a very special celebratory Kir Royale.

 
 

With all best wishes from the Breaky Bottom Team, Peter & Christina

Peter's Note, September 2024

Andrew Jefford is one of the world’s greatest wine writers. I am privileged to have known him as a close friend since my early days of winemaking.

Photo by Jon Wyand, Wine Photographer

Back in 1990 Andrew was asked by The International Wine Challenge Magazine to write an article about Breaky Bottom each month for the entire year – twelve pages, one page for each month!

Andrew finally located the articles after rummaging through decades of historic archives. It was a delight to re-establish some wonderful memories of those early days. I have chosen to show you his first visit which was in October 1989, just before the harvest.

Please note - Andrew’s article cannot be amended as it is in a format that can’t be altered.
At the bottom of the second column Mike Lowe should actually read Mike Harrison!

Footnote:

2024 is proving to be a difficult year with above average rainfall and heavy cloud-cover. I’m aware that harvest in the UK appears very variable, some vineyards with good looking crops and substantial yields, others hit with Downy and Powdery mildews which have also affected large parts of Europe, including la belle France. Breaky Bottom has been struggling, particularly with the Champagne varieties. At this stage, harvest is difficult to forecast, but I may only pick the Seyval Blanc as the fruit remains clean and is slowly ripening.

Good looking, clean Seyval Blanc

Seyval Blanc - A feast enjoyed by hungry blackbirds and thrushes!

With all best wishes from the Breaky Bottom Team, Peter & Christina

Peter's Note, August 2024

I was recently rummaging through folders of ancient newspaper cuttings and bumped into this – an article from the ‘Sunday Express Magazine’ (circa 1987) by my old chum Oz Clarke.

I was one of a small number of UK vineyards back then, all of us still winemakers. I feel embarrassed reading much of the text, flatteringly ‘over-the-top’, as I still like to retain a degree of modesty about my achievements.

Nevertheless, it’s a great reminder of Oz’s visit, complete with photos, and the fun we had teasing each other, and chatting not only about wines of the world but our shared love of great music, acting, poetry and prose – and all this nearly 40 years ago!

Footnote:

A team of eight family and friends have just spent the weekend bottling last year’s 2023 crop, modest in size with just under 10,000 bottles, but tasting really good. I hope you enjoy looking at a few photos kindly supplied by James Bainbridge who has been filming at Breaky Bottom for a forthcoming Channel 5 broadcast!

Peter checking the unit prior to bottling

Good friends Joe and Charlie, preparing the bottles prior to crown-capping

Brian making a beautiful stack of the newly bottled 2023 crop

Stephanie and Daisy working at the seven-head filler

Brad, Louisa, Stephanie and Daisy

Paul, Brad, Louisa, Emma and Peter, a general view from above, everybody busy!

With all best wishes from the Breaky Bottom Team, Peter & Christina

Peter’s Notes, July 2024

2024 is Breaky Bottom’s 50th Anniversary!            

2024 has been a difficult growing season for English and Welsh vineyards. Earlier heavy rains were followed by two weeks of overcast cool weather. Some vineyards have good potential crops while others, including Breaky Bottom, will harvest a more modest crop.

However, the sun has been shining during early August, so fingers crossed!

Chardonnay – mid July

Seyval Blanc – mid July

Cuvée Names for Breaky Bottom Vintages

 
I am often asked about the Cuvée names I ascribe to each vintage – how and why……

The first sparkling wine I released was in 2000, honouring my dear mother, ‘Millennium Cuvée Maman Mercier’ (her maiden name). It was then I decided that for each subsequent vintage I would choose people close to me who have had a big influence on my life. Each, in their own way, has had a profound effect on me which I still gratefully cherish today.

Every individual is of course a ‘one-off’. Listed on the website under ‘Main Cuvées’ there is a brief description of them. If I was asked for more details of any individual this would run to many paragraphs!

Sir Andrew Davis

Many of you will know of the sad death of the great conductor Sir Andrew Davis. He died on the 20th April this year. From 1988 - 2000 he was the musical director of Glyndebourne Opera. He moved to Rodmell village and declared, as he knocked on my door one cold March morning, that he had become my new ‘nearest neighbour’. My love of music led to long discussions, and we became close friends. I told him of operas we had staged over three years in the winery at Breaky Bottom. After bottling the still wines in early spring, we moved the empty tanks out to make space.

In 2000 he moved to the USA with his famous opera-singing wife, Gianna Rolandi, and their son Edward. He became music director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, conducting nearly 700 operas, including Wagner’s Ring Cycle

Sir Andrew Davis conducting The Last Night of the Proms in 2000

A few years ago I sent him an email, what I called my ‘Blast from the Past’, asking him whether he would like me to name a cuvée after him – within 20 minutes the phone rang and he said ‘Yes please!’

[Please pass to Andrew Davis as a private message from Peter Hall]

Dear Andrew,

[Please forgive this ‘blast from the past’]

We met many years ago when you were working at Glyndebourne. You arrived at my door at Breaky Bottom wearing a grey tracksuit, declaring that you were my ‘new neighbour’ - it was cold, so we sat indoors by the Rayburn with mugs of coffee, chatting about the world and particularly of music. I recounted how years before I had staged operas in my winery and had Nigel Kennedy (among others) playing wonderful chamber music to raise funds for the soloists.

You were interested and asked so many supplementary questions………but eventually (I was well brought up!) I whacked you on the knee and said “anyway, what’s your trade” - you responded, “I’m Andrew Davis” and at that same moment I said, “Oh God, you’re Andrew Davis!” I remember my ‘excuse’ was that I only saw the back of the conductor’s head!

Breaky Bottom Opera developed, but when I began planning to stage Beethoven’s Fidelio, I realised that the Sussex Flint Barn - the winery - was not big enough to do Ludwig justice, so with friends I started ‘New Sussex Opera’ which is still flourishing today. We had just staged a production of ‘Peter Grimes’ with young Nick Hytner, which I was telling you about…….I then said to you “Oh heck, you’re doing Grimes at Glyndebourne this year!” Notwithstanding, I went on to describe our NSO as the ‘best production ever’ of Britten’s great work. I told you this because, at the end of our final performance, I noticed an elderly gentleman hovering by the stage apron. The auditorium had cleared. I rushed down to greet him and told him I was aware that he had attended all five evenings of the production. “Young man” he said to me, “I was a personal friend of Ben and I have travelled the world to see his shows - I was present at the first productions of Peter Grimes at Sadler’s Wells and Aldeburgh and I think this one is the best I have ever seen”.

With all the politeness I could muster I responded (cheekily?) ”But I already know this”………….He said ”Why?!”…………”Well sir, during countless rehearsals with music, lighting and staging etc. I sat at the back of the auditorium and felt the presence of Benjamin Britten, his ghost if you like, and he said to me, pointing with great enthusiasm at the stage “That’s what I wanted……..That’s what I have always been looking for!!”

And you were kind enough to arrange for me and my wife to see your Peter Grimes production from the conductor’s box.

Following our first meeting I remember delivering wine to your house and on many occasions enjoying our musical chats, including your affection for Brahms which I share.

I have a particular reason for recounting our meetings, now so long ago. I planted my vineyard back in 1974. In the first twenty years I made still white wines. Then I jumped ship, and for the past twenty-five years I have been making sparkling wines. Each year I give a special cuvée name to the vintage, drawn from family members, friends and others who have been linked with my living at Breaky Bottom. Each cuvée name has a story which intrigues my customers and I often recount the above meeting with you as an important part of my 50 + years at Breaky Bottom.

My question to you is this - would you allow me to name my 2016 vintage ‘Cuvée Sir Andrew Davis’? I can ‘hear’ you saying, “Well what’s the wine like”?

My wines have a very good reputation and are considered, despite the small-scale 6-acres, to be one of the best in the UK. In last year’s Wine GB Awards BB won five Gold Medals. You could visit my website www.breakybottom.co.uk to see more. If you were to consider my request, I would be happy to send you a sample of the wine for you to taste. Meanwhile, if you would give me your address, I could send you sample labels of previous vintages.

I eagerly await your response!

With my very best wishes, Peter

July’s Footnote

I’ve been fumbling through ancient newspaper cuttings collected over the years and discovered an article from the Daily Telegraph when Oz Clarke was selecting trophy-winners for the International Wine Challenge. Two whole columns about wines of the world, and the last paragraph reads as follows:

“The gold-medal winner that gave me more pleasure than any other was Breaky Bottom Seyval Blanc ’90. This is a delightful wine, ripe, honeyed, but slashed through with a meadow-fresh green acidity. I thought it was from the Loire Valley. Not a bit of it. It’s from the Sussex Downs near Lewes, and it’s made from a grape they’ve banned in the Loire, and that they would like to ban in England. Why can’t these idiotic bureaucrats leave well alone? (About £6.50 from the English Wine Centre 0323 870532, or the Wine Society 0438 741177)”

With all best wishes from the Breaky Bottom Team, Peter & Christina

Peter’s Notes, June 2024

2024 is Breaky Bottom’s 50th Anniversary!

As I start on Peter’s Notes for June, already rather late in the month because of the pressing work required in the vineyard for the 2024 crop, I am still looking to think back to the early days soon after planting. The photographs I choose will be rather higgledy-piggledy, but they are ‘of-the-time’ – my first attempts at winemaking, sweet memories of a long time ago.

The Sussex flint barn, dated 1827, was to become the winery. I had no money to buy any equipment so my first harvest in 1976 had to be sent for processing to Lamberhurst, then the largest UK vineyard at 50 acres. Nevertheless, I was determined to vinify a small portion of this crop. I put the grapes into a large bucket and fashioned a primitive grape crusher from a broomstick and a heavy lump of seasoned applewood. I bought a tiny hand-press to extract the juice and fermented this in small oak barrels. I recall the wine being palatable, a decent ‘first attempt’.

 

1976 – the first ever winemaking in the old flint barn!

 

My wine chemist friend Mark Russell used to travel the world checking the provenance of huge tanker-loads of wine before they were imported into Shoreham. This business had just come to an abrupt end as countries like Chile and Argentina learnt the extra value of bottling in the country of origin. Mark encouraged me to buy large fibre-glass tanks at something like £40 each! I bought six of these, some at 5,000lts, others at 2,500lts.

 

‘New’ tanks, Peter up the ladder

 

By 1977-8 I was able to acquire a little more equipment. This was the start of twenty years or so of my still winemaking days. For still wines whole grapes need to not only be crushed but de-stemmed to minimise any bitter stalky taste. We used wonderful old French half-barrels to catch the pulp.

Grape crusher/de-stemmer – Peter and Antonio

My wife Christina and I emptying heavy oak barrels after crushing, prior to pressing

I was fortunate when a friend offered me an ancient German winepress that he no longer required which was already over 100 years old – it would have been worth a fair bit, but I recall the seller loving the Breaky Bottom wines I had already made, and he was happy to settle with a few boxes! It’s an amazing piece of equipment and did a great job. It’s worth noting that today, as a sparkling winemaker, the 1.25 tonne press I use now is specifically designed for the job – the grapes are whole-bunch pressed, and pressed very lightly, programmed to only extract a finite juice volume per ton of fruit. After pressing the ‘waste’ pomace is stacked outside, and after a couple of years or more is returned to the vineyard to enrich the soil’s physical and chemical structure. In my still winemaking days this pomace was as dry as a bone, pressed very hard and extracting flavours from the grape skins to enhance the still wine – with my current sparkling winemaking, the pomace remains moist with sweet-tasting juice!  

 

Peter with his first press – an emblem of cast iron solidity which still stands proudly outside the winery

 

But I soon discovered I needed a bigger press to deal with the size of harvest as my little basket press could not cope - the speed of processing is important to maintain the quality of juice, whether for still wine or sparkling. Grapes must be pressed on the day of picking. I acquired a modest sized Vaslin press around 1980, and although small when compared with larger vineyards in the UK, it was real progress.

 

At last, semi-automation with the modest-sized Vaslin press

 

To complete the necessary equipment needed to bottle the wine I bought a corking machine and one to spin on the capsules – the top-quality branded corks came from Portugal and the bottles from AE Chapman, London.

Richard operating the super corker                   

Peter putting foils on the corked bottles

As footnote for the June Notes it’s appropriate to display a bottle, the finished article! Here it is 35 years on, with the original Reynolds Stone label, complete with the engraved vignette of the vineyard.

 
 

With all best wishes from the Breaky Bottom Team, Peter & Christina

Peter’s Notes May 2024

2024 is Breaky Bottom’s 50th Anniversary!

As I start on Peter’s Notes for May I thought it appropriate to show the oldest photo I have of Breaky Bottom, circa 1930. It looks much as it did when I first saw it in 1967. The cottage was tiny, shrouded by huge sycamores, though these had been felled before my arrival and I remember keeping warm for my first three years burning great logs in the little fireplace!

The original flint-built timber-framed barn and cattle shed remain, dated 1827, the lovely curves of the farm track still meander the same sweeps, the setting of the gate, the sheep graze in the paddock, and the dewpond remains, though now drained and planted with Seyval Blanc.

A brief comment on this year’s crop and lambing

Although I remain focused on the 50 years celebration, I must briefly update you on the current 2024 season. Vines are progressing well after the variable spring weather, plenty of rain but also bright sunshine and good temperatures – a long way to go but a good potential crop.

Chardonnay, a pre-flowering bud

Seyval Blanc, several pre-flowering buds showing great potential

Why do I love my sheep? The 26 ewes that start lambing around 1st April have reared 34 beautiful lambs, a joy to watch, especially on a sunny evening when, with a competitive streak, they seem to team up and try to out-race each other!

Number 1 with her single lamb warming comfortably on her back

Number 1 ewe, whose lamb appears to have chummed up with a mate!

Now back to 1974!

My youngest son Toby was born this year. Two years on, and I still had my pigs. I love this picture, Toby looking so casual alongside my favourite sow Porcelina. He appears to be posing as a famous film-star might at a photo-shoot, cooly cross-legged after endless camera takes.

Toby with Porcelina the pig

Post & Trellising

Before the end of 1974 we started driving in the heavy end-posts and intermediates within each row. We knew it would be a lot of work, and this was confirmed with the arrival of the lorry. I remember thinking this was an enormous load, surely too much for such a small vineyard, but we eventually managed to place them all in their allotted positions, confirming my original calculations – 300 end-posts, 750 intermediates.

A huge lorry - the vineyard posts arrive, fronted by Emily, Kate and Tom

My school friend Richard and I spent many hours driving the posts, particularly the heavy end posts at the top of the valley where the solid chalk comes within nine inches of the soil – some literally took half an hour or more to get them to the right depth.

Richard on the ground directing the post, Peter on the tractor

For my footnote this month I have chosen this picture of Toby and Tom at the far end of the smaller vineyard, named ‘Little Breaky’, the photo probably taken in 1976. With their stringed bows they display a rather defiant air, preparing to see-off all hostile intruders!

With all best wishes from the Breaky Bottom Team, Peter & Christina

Throughout 2024, in celebration of the 50 years, Peter’s Notes will feature further historic photos and text, reflecting more of the very early days at Breaky Bottom...
Enjoy!

Peter’s Notes April 2024

Special announcement – 2024 is Breaky Bottom’s 50th Anniversary!

 

 My livestock farm before planting vines

I planted the vineyard back in April 1974, so this month I am looking back to the very start – the ploughing of the proposed site, the initial planting of vines and the posting and trellising of the individual rows. I’ve recently re-discovered lost boxes of 35mm slides taken at the time. The photos show we were not teenagers, but we all looked about 50 years younger!

I first discovered Breaky Bottom while working at Northease Farm as part-time stockman/tractor-driver, starting in 1967. I had graduated from Newcastle University 1963-65, studying agriculture. The farmer eventually allowed me to reside there, a tiny flint-built dwelling which had remained un-inhabited for 50 years. There was no electricity and for three years I learnt the joy of following the change of season, and the candlelight in deep mid-winter proved enchanting, and a reminder of how human beings used to exist pre the invention of the lightbulb!

Three years on, and I was offered a tenancy within Northease Farm, a small-holding of around 30 acres, much of it steep-sloping grassy banks.

I decided to rear pigs as my principal enterprise, but also kept a small flock of ewes and their lambs, some geese, chickens to sell eggs and reared 100 turkeys for Christmas – a real old-fashioned ‘mixed farm’.

The two Joe’s and Peter sheep dipping against blowfly maggots

Some of my Light Sussex chickens and Dark Cuckoo Marans and cockerel, which lay the deepest brown eggs.

A few of my beautiful large white sows from a herd of about 30

An apparently tolerant ewe with my ‘ride-im-cowboy’ son Tom and my daughter Kate!

My Christmas turkeys, around November, so not far to go!

Winter, my first years at Breaky Bottom, with my landlord’s famous Shorthorn cattle

How did I decide to plant a vineyard?

My deep interest in wines started way back; my French Grandfather had a top-class restaurant in Soho London, Le Petit Savoyard, which he had started before the First World War. He taught us how to enjoy drinking; how to respect the label and the winemaker…. and after that to taste, and with a clap of his hands, he would say “remember children, it’s only fermented grape juice.”

In the spring of 1972, I was shopping in my favourite gardening shop, Elphick & Son in Lewes, for seeds and small plants. The friendly nurseryman showed me a gardening magazine and on the back page was an advert – two books by Nick Poulter who had a vineyard on the Isle of Wight, ‘Growing Grapes’ and ‘Wines from your Vines’. Nick and his wife kindly came to Breaky Bottom and he declared it would be a great place to plant vines…..the rest is history!

A friendly Iford village tractor driver kindly came to plough the virgin grassland, making ready for the vines

Peter on tractor, cultivating between the rows around mid-summer 1974

Peter and the dynamic Jack Pike, busy planting the vines; only 9,500 to go!

Peter tying young vines to the canes

Dear friend Bernie from New Zealand, with us in the early years, heeling in the thousands of vines pre-planting.

My first wife Diana looking beautiful amongst the vines in their first year, mother to our four delightful children!

A year or so after planting the vines (in 1974) I realised I couldn’t cope with so much work, and within a short time I waved goodbye (with some reluctance) to my lovely sows to focus on the vines and winemaking – the egg production and Christmas turkeys continued for a few years, but now only the sheep remain – and even at my age spring lambing is my delight.

As a footnote I can’t resist this photo of Emily, Kate and Tom – all dressed as old-fashioned shepherds in corn sacks, complete with their shepherds’ crooks… What’s not to like!

With all best wishes from the Breaky Bottom Team, Peter & Christina


Throughout 2024, in celebration of the 50 years, Peter’s Notes will feature further historic photos and text, reflecting more of the very early days at Breaky Bottom……. Enjoy!

PETER'S NOTES MARCH 2024

A Spring morning

Work continues in the vineyard and the ewes are about to start lambing; yet forgive me, but for some reason, loudly, I can hear the speaker of the House of Commons shouting “Order, order…..!”

So instead, I have chosen to focus on the delights of spring and the animals and plants which fascinate me. We have a 17-year-old cat called Toto and we speak an invented language that nobody else understands – it’s private……..  Yes, I talk to the animals.

SHEEP

Above is a photo of me in conversation with a friendly ewe – not sure if I am asking her a question or responding to something she has asked me, but we are clearly both very attentive.

BUTTERFLIES

Although Peacock butterflies don’t appear till around March, this one visited us in January of this year, pictured with me in my labelling room. It seemed very tame and friendly. Apparently when they are threatened, they rub their fore and hind wings together to make a hissing sound, audible to humans, but this one seemed amiable and remained silent!

Peacock butterflies lay massive numbers of eggs, chiefly on nettles – it’s so important to maintain our plant diversity, and nettles support a myriad of beneficial insects. Visitors sometimes politely raise their eyebrows at the number of nettles at Breaky Bottom, but I am always able to reassure them of the essential role they play.

FROGS & TOADS

Normally March is the busiest month for the welcome activity of amphibians in our ponds. Male frogs fill the night air with their croaks, hoping to seduce the females into submission…

Sadly, there has been no evidence of frogs or toads this year at Breaky Bottom and I have learnt of the relatively recent arrival of Ranavirus which is decimating frog and toad populations in the UK, particularly in the South-East.

So, with no frogs or toad pics, I have decided to show you my father’s bronze toad, one of my most treasured possessions – Why? See the story below!

It was given to him by a man in a restaurant who said it had brought him bad luck. It was in London, wartime. Pop said, OK, I’ll take it, but before the food was served there was something in his mind that told him to get-the-fuck out of there. He went out, with the toad. Soon after there was a direct hit with a bomb which blew the whole place up. So it brought my father good luck.

 
 

GARDEN BIRDS

And lastly, to roundoff my rather irregular Peter’s Notes, I want to mention the bird-life which has always been my special delight. Those who visit Breaky Bottom will be familiar with what I call my ‘Michelin-three-star’ restaurant which gets topped up every two or three days. I have to declare that the photos above of the Robin, Blackbird and Great Spotted Woodpecker were not taken here, but sourced from my computer. My pick is the Blackbird, whose sweet song is second-to-none in the world of music, from dawn to dusk.

With all best wishes from the Breaky Bottom Team, Peter & Christina

 Ciao Peter

PETER'S NOTES FEBRUARY 2024

February, the shortest month in the year, and I’m opting out of sending you a Peter’s Note.

Why?......... Because a dear friend of mine, John Hawkins, a man who loves wine and has always delighted with the cuvées I have made over the years, has cheekily elected to push me off my pedestal - he tasted the 2018 vintage a short while ago, and has recorded his tasting notes of these three wines in a variety of locations around London, which I find intriguing. 

If you have the time, his videos are worth watching, quite entertaining in fact - I’ve no idea if he employs a photographer, but if he’s on his own he makes a pretty good job of it!

If you only have time for one clip, try the Noella – he likes them all, but she’s the pick of the bunch (and be prepared for a surprise!)

 Brian James: (100% Seyval Blanc)

Geoffrey Aldred: (100% Chardonnay)

Noella: (Blanc de Noirs)

PETER'S NOTES JANUARY 2024

I know that I’ve failed to post my Peter’s Notes for December 2023, so please accept my very belated best wishes for Christmas and the New Year from all the Breaky Bottom team.

Winter pruning always signals the beginning of vineyard work, and we have already made a good start, having completed the Seyval Blanc, our principal variety - the Chardonnay and Pinots will follow in February. 

It’s my delight that the long established Corney & Barrow have chosen to include Breaky Bottom on their wine list for many years. And I was flattered when their chief wine buyer, Rebecca Palmer, invited me to their head office in London last Wednesday to make a film. She wanted to interview me and discover more about the history of my vineyard, how and why I chose to risk planting vines in the UK in those early days, intriguing questions of how I choose cuvée names for the various vintages, how my French grandfather was the springboard for my interest in wines (French wines of course!) – Even the ancient flint hand-axes I took with me to London, some of which unbelievably date back to 300,000 years!

I haven’t seen the footage yet, so it would be indiscreet of me to make further comments at this stage, but I certainly enjoyed the experience in the beautiful surroundings of their lavish HQ, so near the great Tower of London!

PETER'S NOTES NOVEMBER 2023

2023 Harvest

Photograph by Orlando Gili
Harvest Lunch - instead of the busy volunteer pickers enthusiastically snipping bunches in the vineyard, we find them all enjoying an extended lunch in the Autumn sunshine – the lucky buggers!

We picked all the Seyval Blanc grapes on the weekend of 21st & 22nd October, as I had forecast. Many UK vineyards started earlier and had already completed. The Champagne varieties were picked on the following weekend, 28th & 29th of October. The weather was unpredictable, very heavy rainfall and high winds, when we might have abandoned picking altogether! But luckily, on Sunday 22nd we had brilliant sunshine!

Many English vineyards had suffered mildews this year with a considerable loss of leaf, and because of this the Meunier (the worst affected) were not picked. We harvested about 6000 bottles of Seyval Blanc and 3500 bottles of Chardonnay/Pinot Noir.

Photograph by Orlando Gili
It takes all sorts, and here’s a wonderful picture of Jeremy Pellatt - a devoted harvester for many years, who walks for miles over the Downs to get to Breaky Bottom, come rain or shine. He is, among many other loyal pickers, an essential part of Breaky Bottom’s success – our grateful thanks to one and all…

Release of the 2018 vintage

In my August Notes I mentioned my excitement, anticipating the release of the three wines from 2018. I want to emphasise that of all the vintages over decades, this year was without doubt the best season I have ever experienced. I know that this is also the case for many vineyards in the UK – it was the perfect year!

After four years on the lees wines begin to show their true colours. With the exceptional high yield this was the only year with sufficient Pinots to allow me to make our first Blanc de Noirs. It was also the only year that I have ever made a Blanc de Blanc with 100% Chardonnay – so a double first! I welcome, with all the readers who enjoy Breaky Bottom wines, the excitement of monitoring their continued development in time to come.

Peter's Notes September 2023

Approaching 2023 harvest

 As the grapes continue to ripen, I have to allow that the 100% fruit-set (the result of perfect flowering weather) will need time to achieve full ripeness. We tend to pick at weekends, and I have provisionally earmarked starting on the 21/22 October for Seyval Blanc and the 28/29 October for the Chardonnay and Pinots.  Our great band of volunteer pickers will be contacted by mid-October.

A small diversion….. Yesterday I noticed our beautiful crop of quinces from the tree I planted over 50 years ago and naughtily dreamed of making a quince wine (as if I hadn’t enough to cope with the grape harvest!)

And I’ve had yet another thought - hard-by is an old medlar in full fruit which historically was also used to make wine……careful Peter! The French call the fruit ‘cul de chien’ (dog’s arse) while Shakespeare and Chaucer called the fruits ‘open-arse’!

Reynolds Stone

 I have decided to add to my September Peter’s Notes a rather extensive ‘extra’.

I am just sharing with the readership the story behind my Breaky Bottom wine label, and how I had the good fortune to meet up with the great wood engraver, Reynolds Stone.  

Those of you who have other matters to tend may well be happy to have just read the current pre-harvest update….. I leave it entirely to you!

 In early September I was privileged to have a visit from Humphrey, the son of Reynolds Stone.

A short while ago Humphrey completed a marvellous book ‘Memoirs of Reynolds Stone’ which took him a decade to put together, a real masterpiece showing the great respect and affection he had for his father.

 I will risk writing a ‘brief history’ to tell you how lucky I was to meet with Reynolds.

 In 1975 I needed a label for my first vintage and approached a dear friend, Diana Bloomfield, a brilliant professional wood engraver who lived in Lewes. She told me that with her fading eyesight she could no longer engrave and intended to spend what time she had left painting watercolours. Of course, I respected and accepted her decision and remember saying to her “who is the greatest wood-engraver in the world….” she paused for a moment, a little tear came to her eye, and she said, “….. well, there’s always Reynolds Stone”.

 I wrote to Reynolds, and he sent me a beautifully engraved card saying “I like the idea of doing your wine label” – So I drove down to Dorset where he and his wife Janet lived, the Old Rectory at Litton Cheney. A strong friendship arose, and I made frequent visits and learnt so much about Reynolds, a very modest, shy man who loved nature and whose passion was engraving on end-grain box wood. Alongside his brilliance as a wood engraver, he was also a self-taught letter-cutter of stone. He was best known for his skill as a supreme typographer. I learnt that many of the headstones at Poets Corner in Westminster Abbey were cut by Reynolds, including the memorial to Winston Churchill (1965) and T S Eliot (1966) – His last work (1977) was the gravestone of his friend the composer Benjamin Britten (also the year he completed the Breaky Bottom label).

Reynolds Stone – engraving of the Royal Arms for three monarchs.

1. The Royal Arms for the Coronation of HM King George VI - 1937

2. The Royal Arms for the order of service for the Coronation of HM Queen Elizabeth II - 1953

3. The Royal Arms of the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles – 1970

List of some of Reynolds Stone’s other achievements.

1. The Royal Arms for Queen Elizabeth II is still produced on the cover of all UK passports

2. He designed the £5 and £10 pound notes (1963 and 1964) including the Queen’s portrait

3. Many Royal Mail postage stamps, including the Dove of Peace Victory stamp, 1946

4. In the Grand Entrance to the Victoria & Albert Museum in 1952, he carved the memorial tablet to those who died in World War II

5. His bookplates (over 350) are distinguished particularly by the flowing elegance of the lettering

Breaky Bottom 2010 Cuvée Reynolds Stone

The fact that I named a wine after him continues my tradition of choosing cuvée names after family and friends who have had a significant influence on my life……and Reynolds is certainly one!

Reynolds Stone when he visited Breaky Bottom in 1975

One of the original still wine labels with the vignette Reynolds made of the vineyard when he came to Breaky Bottom back in 1975.

It amuses me to see that the label does not have any information regarding volume or alcohol content. How times have changed…!