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Forget Chin Chin, because did you know London has its very own vineyard? Sadly, it might not for much longer, as three years of bad harvests means it might have to close.
Forty Hall Community Vineyard in Enfield, north London, said it urgently needed £85,000 before the end of May to protect its vines from disease. The vineyard, which is run by a team over 100 of volunteers, is desperately trying to raise funds to buy a new tractor and spraying system. Its last three harvests have been ruined by bad weather and powdery mildew, a fungal disease that destroys fruit.
The social enterprise claims to be London's only commercial scale vineyard ‘since the Middle Ages’ and is part of the wider Forty Hall farm, an organic farm run by Capel Manor College – London's specialist agricultural college.
London's community vineyard also offers health and wellness activities, including ‘ecotherapy’, and has recently been working with the local Ukrainian refugee women's support group.
A post on the vineyard's website called Forty Hall ‘a place of sanctuary and social connection for local people’. ‘Without urgent funding to improve our equipment and resources, there is a serious and very real risk of there being no harvest in 2023, meaning no more wine to sell - and the end of London's vineyard,’ it wrote.
The campaign for a new tractor has currently raised £15,000 of its £85,000 goal.
Want to help? You can donate online.
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