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| | | From Shetland to the Scilly Isles, Open Country travels the UK in search of the stories, the people and the wildlife that make our countryside such a vibrant place. Each week we visit a new area to hear how local people are growing the crops, protecting the environment, maintaining the traditions and cooking the food that makes their corner of rural Britain unique.
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|  | | Archaeologist Mike Stokes at Wroxeter | |
Helen Mark follows a trail of grapes from Roman ruins in Shropshire to the Frome Valley in Herefordshire.
When the emperor Hadrian visited Wroxeter in AD 122 he decreed it would be the model Roman city. Nowadays it is a rural hamlet in Shropshire on the road from Shrewsbury to Ironbridge: a church, an hotel, a few big houses and a handful of cottages. It was once the fourth largest town in Roman Britain with 5000 inhabitants and it survived longer than most Roman towns and wasn’t abandoned until the seventh century. It then reverted to agricultural land.
The Wroxeter Project
Very little of the site has been excavated: there are the remains of the baths and the ruins of the Forum, but experts know a great deal about the place because of aerial photography and geophysical techniques: gradiometry, which measures minute variations in the earth’s magnetic field; resistivity, which uses electric currents passed through the soil; and ground-penetrating radar linked to a computer which records what lies beneath the soil at 15 centimetre intervals.
Of course, with the Romans came wine and with wine came heavy drinking and Bacchanalian frolics. Shrewsbury Museums' archaelogist Mike Stokes tells Helen that some of the pottery excavated from the site contain illustrations that would bring a blush to the cheeks of a reader of the Kama Sutra!
Shrewsbury Museums
 | | David Millington | |
There’s no direct evidence that the Romans had vineyards at Wroxeter, but it’s a good bet that they did. Temperatures were three degrees hotter then than now and Romans hated the local beer. Twelve years ago David Millington, a former agronomist, and his family planted eight acres of vines on the edge of the old city and now have a thriving business making wine and selling it to local people and busloads of tourists.
Further down the River Severn towards Worcester is Astley Vineyard, near Stourport on Severn. Jonty Daniels turned to grapes when he was made redundant as a farm manager and now has a passionate belief in quality wine that derives its character from the place it is grown rather that the grapes from which it is made. "Beer is a brand, you can make it anywhere", he says, "wine is a grid reference".
The ambition of every grape, Jonty says, is to become a raisin: the skill of the grower is in harvesting at exactly the right time. There comes a point when it stops growing and starts to ripen and the ideal point at which to harvest is a fairly small window. He tests the sugar and the acid and, importantly, tastes the grape.
Last year, David and Claire Longman made their first sparkling wine from grapes grown at Frome Valley Vineyard, near Bromyard in Herefordshire. Last Saturday they put 80 bottles of it to good use to toast the happy couple at a family wedding. David, who came to vines from a career as a dairy farmer and florist, was proud - and relieved - to be complimented on the wine by guests, many of whom hadn't been told it had started life on the hill beyond the wedding marquee.
Heart of England Fine Foods
English Wine Producers
English Wine
This week's competition
What is the Roman name for Wroxeter?
Submit your entry by emailing [email protected]
Last week's winner
Hazel Rae from Colchester, who correctly said that five Isles of Scilly are inhabited.
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