Penniless graduates, working on a rented farm, and living with Guy's grandfather, everything was done with equipment generously lent by Guy's father (also a farmer) or by hand. Who needs gyms!
Our vision was to create innovative, fresh exciting varietal English wine to sell to discerning customers. Vines take a long time to mature, up to five years to get a significant crop, and in the meantime a living had to be earned. Food being our mutual passion, and living in a generously sized farmhouse with adjacent fields, we spent a few years living the ‘Good Life’. Starting with our first pig, Snorkel (we ate Tank), we began to supply free range meats and to experiment with curing bacon and ham, as well as making sure we used every part of the pig, just like Fergus Henderson nowadays. We inherited goats (Daphne and Chloe), from whose milk we made cheese and butter, we kept ducks and chickens, made rabbit and pork pies and bread, selling our surplus through a local farm shop.
And, we made some elderflower cordial. Guy’s formidable Victorian Granny, Phyllis, had a bit of a reputation in the family for this delicious drink. As a Scot Sheila had never encountered this nectar before, and participated in the flower harvesting somewhat reluctantly. Flowers were hand picked, as they still are of course. But we experimented. Dawn, as maybe the sun’s heat spoils them. Dusk, ditto. Midday in case the fullest blossom was then. As it turns out, the main point is that the clone you’re picking has to be lovely, with large plate of flowers and a glorious Muscat scent. This happens to be what grows round that house, Highlands Farm, and this is what we took stock from when we planted our own acres.
Over the next years elderflower cordial edged out our viticultural ambitions, though we kept the vineyard until 1998, when we finally replaced the vines with more elderflowers. Cordial was instantly popular, with us selling out annually. We while we continued to keep our good life vibe going, we focused more and more on the soft drinks side of our lives, collecting some kit like a little wet glue labeller (our first labels were lino cuts made by Guy!) and a filter.
Our cordial was very different from the homemade drink people had known and enjoyed. Elderflowers are full of wild yeast, and drinks (like Elderflower Champagne) still have yeast active in them. If you don’t filter your cordial it is cloudy. Also, traditional recipes use the stalks as well as the flowers, something we never did, as in year one we discovered that there is a green stalky flavour in the batches made with stalks, and simply a glorious floral Muscat scent from the batches made with just petals.
Since we sold out each year, Sheila always wanted more to sell. Apart from co opting all friends and family to harvest with us (the first picking weekend always coincides with Guys’ birthday, so guess what you had to do after the party!) she was sure that simply adding a bit more water to the petals would make more drinks = more bottles = more happy customers. However this proved a sticking point with Guy and set the standards for our entire future development: NO COMPROMISE. EVER.
We discovered fast that what we had come up with was a concentrate with so much flavour that even though there is sugar in it (sugar is the medium we use to extract the flavour and scent of the petals) it never tastes sweet, instead the flavour of the flowers is carried right through in your mouth giving a very wine like experience, with mouthfeel and length, both unusual in soft drinks, which tend to depend on a sugar hit for impact.
The rest is history.