East Coker Wine Circle

East Coker Wine Circle is proud to be approaching its 32nd anniversary after steady growth since its small beginnings at a meeting at the local school in 1977.

The Circle was founded by a small group of villagers keen to learn more about the art of wine making, especially from ingredients obtainable from the hedgerow or the garden.

Each of the dozen or so members had their own reasons for wanting to make wine - some economic, some wishing to perpetuate a rural craft and others just curious to know more about the complexity of wine.

Advice was given by experienced winemakers from another village circle, Martock, sadly now defunct and East Coker Wine Circle was born. Committee meetings held in members’ homes were more of a social occasion in the early days and it was surprising that so much decision making was ever achieved.

The Circle has come a long way over the past 30 years when during the early years it met in the local sports pavilion with the electricity meter running out through lack of coins and plunging the room into darkness. However, the circle’s reputation for the enjoyment experienced by its members, aided most certainly by the regular wine tastings which lowered their inhibitions and loosened the tongues, soon spread and it was necessary to move into larger premises.

The Circle now meets in the village hall and for the past 10 years has attracted between 90 and 100 members, of whom some 40 per cent make wine and all enjoy drinking it.

Gone are the days of fermenting wine with dried baker’s yeast floating on toast. Gone are the days of most wines tasting medicinal, oxidised or looking like dirty dish water. Now equipment and ingredients are of the highest quality. Cultivated yeasts are used and imported grape juices are increasingly producing wines equal to and better than many commercial wines.