Manstree Vineyard
42 years young! We now have the oldest commercially productive vines in Devon.
Since Yearlstone Vineyard removed their 35 year old Madeleine Angevine vines 9 years a go, our now 41 year old Madeleine Angevine and Seyval Blanc vines are now the grand old vines in Devon!
They still produce a consistently high yielding crop of top quality grapes which we now sell as a fresh crop to other local wineries. Our policy during the last few seasons has been to sell our grapes and we are now buying in wine from these estates to sell in our shop rather than having our own Manstree wines.
Manstree vineyard occupies a warm sunny slope 1 1/2 miles from the exeter city boundary at Shillingford st George and has been producing commercial grape crops for the last 36 years. Vines flourish in an area of the county known as 'devons frying pan' having a low summer rainfall due to the double rain shaddow effect from dartmoor and the haldon hills.
Manstree takes its name from the road that passes the farm and that of a nearby field indicating that there was once a gallows for sheep stealers and other felons, literally a man's tree.
There are currently five varieties grown on 4 1/2 acres the main 3 being Seyval Blanc, Madeleine Angevine a south west speciality vine & Siegerrebe a relation of the Gewurztraminer grape.
