On the 2nd July 2022, we welcomed our first ever Lokkelebery Vineyard volunteers into the vineyard. Not only was this our first ever volunteer day, it was also our first time officially welcoming members of the public into the vineyard, so in short, it was very exciting!

The day started at 9am sharp, with the arrival of our volunteers who had signed up in the weeks prior. We started with a welcome tea and cake, a talk on health and safety and a demo of shoot selection, which was the task for the day. Shoot selection is not for the faint hearted, as it involves bending over and individually removing excess buds and shoots to leave space and energy for the dominant vine. Despite the physically challenging nature of the job, all our volunteers attacked the task with gusto! In just a few hours, we had made it to our goal, the ancient chestnut tree which marked one quarter of the vineyard. Our marvelous volunteers managed to shoot select almost 6,000 pinot noir vines, an amazing achievement!

We would like to not only congratulate our first ever volunteers, but welcome them, their friends, family and any other new volunteers to the vineyard for future volunteer days. There was a great sense of community and comradery as we sped down each row, and a feeling of great satisfaction to look back on our work.

We hope that you will join us and sign up for the next volunteer days, all of which will be published here.