OUR REGENERATIVE APPROACH

Farming for the Future

Great wine should begin with a living vineyard — a diverse ecosystem.

WHY WE FARM THIS WAY

A healthier vineyard for generations to come.

At Kenton Park Estate, we don’t believe farming should simply be about taking a crop from the land each year.

Our ambition is to leave the soil, vineyard and wider estate healthier, more diverse and more resilient than we found them.

That means questioning conventional viticulture, experimenting with new ideas, learning from what works — and what doesn’t — and treating the vineyard as an ecosystem rather than simply a medium for growing grapes.

This approach is widely known as regenerative farming.

We believe it is the future of farming, but it also gives the vineyard a real sense of place. Each year, we learn what grows well here, which plants thrive, and how they influence the soil and the animals and insects we see.

We believe that sense of place is reflected in the wine we produce.

“We’re not trying to farm perfectly. We’re trying to make the land better every year.”

01 / SOIL

Soil first.
Everything else follows.

Healthy vines begin below ground.

Rather than focusing solely on what we can feed the vine, we are increasingly asking:

How do we feed the soil that feeds the vine?

Our soils contain an extraordinary living community of fungi, bacteria, insects, worms and microorganisms. The healthier that community, the better the soil can cycle nutrients, hold water, build structure and support the vines above it.

So instead of leaving the vineyard floor bare, we deliberately encourage life.

Cover crops between the vines

Throughout the vineyard, we use diverse cover crops and naturally occurring vegetation between the rows.

Different plants perform different jobs. Some create deep roots that open the soil, capture nutrients or produce organic matter. Others provide flowers for pollinators and beneficial insects, while helping to keep living roots in the ground for as much of the year as possible.

Rather than seeing everything that grows between the vines as competition, we see it as part of a living system working together.

A vineyard shouldn’t be a monoculture of vines surrounded by bare earth.

It should be alive.

Living roots between the rows - working soil, rather than leaving it bare.

02 / CARBON & RESILIENCE

Putting carbon back into the ground

One of our biggest projects is introducing biochar into the vineyard.

Biochar is a stable, carbon-rich material created by heating organic material in a low-oxygen environment. Its porous structure can help soil retain water and nutrients while providing habitat for microorganisms.

Our soil analysis has identified relatively low organic matter and water-holding capacity in parts of the vineyard. Rather than simply applying biochar and hoping for the best, we’re treating it as a proper experiment.

Different areas will receive different application rates and methods, alongside untreated control areas.

Soil sensors will monitor moisture, while laboratory analysis will track changes in organic carbon, soil biology and structure over time.

Can we make our soils more resilient to drought while locking more carbon into the ground?

Because this work forms part of a wider agricultural research project, what we learn here could ultimately help other growers too.

03 / BIODIVERSITY

Thousands of plants.
Not just vines.

The vines may produce the wine, but they are only one part of Kenton Park Estate.

Across the estate, we are transforming margins, banks, borders and underused spaces into diverse areas of planting:

Herbs.
Wildflowers
Native plants.
Flowering perennials
.Grasses.
Fruit.
Plants for pollinators.
Plants for compost.
Plants for us.

Over time, we want thousands more flowering plants across the estate.

Not simply because they look beautiful — although they do.

Every border can perform a function. Flowers provide nectar and habitat for insects. Dense planting protects soil. Deep-rooted plants cycle nutrients from lower in the soil profile. Herbs can be harvested, while other plants can be cut and added to compost or used to make botanical extracts and herbal teas.

The result is something closer to a functioning ecosystem than conventional vineyard landscaping.

And every year, we want that ecosystem to become more diverse.

BIODIVERSITY BY DESIGN — FLOWER, SHELTER, LIVING ROOTS AND HABITAT.

04/Closed loops

Making our own fertility

One principle we’re increasingly trying to follow is:

If the estate can produce it, why buy it in?

Prunings, grass, plant material, leaves, food waste and other organic matter can all become resources rather than waste.

Our goal is to develop an increasingly sophisticated composting system at Kenton. Material produced around the estate can be turned into mature compost and returned to the land.

Plants such as yarrow can be grown for their biomass and mineral content, cut during the season and incorporated into compost or botanical preparations.

We’re also experimenting with compost extracts and biological preparations designed to support beneficial microbial populations.

The vineyard grows the material.
The material feeds the compost.
The compost feeds the soil.

That’s regenerative farming in its simplest form.

05 / VITICULTURE

Less chemistry.
More ecology.

We’re deliberately reducing our dependence on conventional agricultural chemistry.

We don’t want the first solution to every vineyard problem to come from a container.

Instead, we ask whether problems can be addressed through better canopy management, airflow, healthier soils, greater biodiversity, beneficial insects, timing, observation and prevention.

We do not routinely use herbicides or insecticides across the vineyard. Vegetation beneath the vines is managed mechanically and culturally, while we encourage predators that naturally help keep insect populations in balance.

Ladybirds, spiders, predatory insects, birds, bats and countless other species all have a role to play.

That does not mean doing nothing when the vineyard is genuinely threatened.

Devon’s humid maritime climate makes grapevines susceptible to serious fungal diseases, and protecting the crop sometimes requires carefully targeted disease-control interventions.

Our goal is not to claim that farming requires no intervention whatsoever.

Can we achieve the same protection with less?

And each season, we try to move the answer further.

Not a Nuisance, part of the system

06 / HABITAT

Biodiversity isn’t decoration

A vineyard surrounded by life is more resilient than one surrounded by nothing.

So we’re deliberately creating more habitat.

Flowering borders provide food for pollinators. Longer grass creates shelter. Hedgerows provide nesting habitat. Wet areas support different plant and insect communities. Trees store carbon, shade the soil and create corridors through the landscape. Dead wood creates habitat too.

Even small changes matter.

A single flowering strip can contain thousands of individual flowers. Those flowers attract insects, which attract predators that move through the vineyard.

Suddenly, landscaping becomes part of crop protection.

That is the kind of farming system we want to build.

07/ WATER

Water matters

Climate resilience isn’t only about dealing with too much rain. Increasingly, it also means preparing for periods when there isn’t enough.

Our soils are naturally free-draining in many areas, which is useful during a wet Devon winter but can become a weakness during prolonged summer drought.

That’s one reason we’re experimenting with biochar, increasing organic matter and maintaining living vegetation.

Soil rich in organic matter absorbs and stores more water, develops greater structural resilience and allows roots to explore more easily.

The vineyard becomes slightly less dependent on whatever the weather throws at us.

We can’t control the climate.

But we can build a vineyard better prepared for it.

DEVON WEATHER IS PART OF THE TERROIR — RESILIENCE HAS TO WORK IN BOTH DIRECTIONS

08 / EVIDENCE

Measure.
Learn.
Improve.

Regenerative farming is a constant journey, seeing what works and what the impacts are on our environment.

If something doesn’t work, we want to know. That’s why we’re increasingly measuring what we do:

Soil analysis.
Organic carbon
Biological activity
Moisture
Yield
Fruit quality
Disease pressure
Plant diversity

The biochar trial is a good example.

Rather than assuming biochar will improve our soils, we’ll measure whether it actually does.

The same philosophy runs through the vineyard.

Experiment. Measure. Learn. Adapt.

Some ideas will become permanent

Others won’t.

That’s farming.

What it’s all about… Healthy fruit with a sense of place.

The Bigger Picture

The vineyard is part of something bigger.

Ultimately, our ambition goes far beyond producing grapes.

We want Kenton Park Estate to become a place where wine, food, farming and biodiversity reinforce one another.

The vineyard produces grapes.
The borders produce herbs, flowers and biomass.
The orchard produces fruit.
The gardens feed the kitchen.
Waste feeds the compost.
Compost feeds the soil.
Flowers feed insects.
Insects help protect the vines.
And the vines begin the cycle again.

There will always be more to learn and more to improve.

But that’s precisely the point.

We’re not trying to farm perfectly.
We’re trying to make the land better every year.

And if that also helps us grow healthier vines and make more interesting wine?

Even better.

Welcome to the way we’re farming at Kenton Park Estate.