An evening of friends, farming, food and award-winning wine!…

What more could you ask for at the Whiteavon Consultancy’s Autumn social that was finally able to go ahead on Thursday 16^th September.

Over 160 guests joined us for a glorious evening in the sunshine at Home Farm, Lackham where we were kindly hosted and chauffeured by Wiltshire College’s farm team. It was great to see the new state of the art dairy buildings at Lackham, especially as so many of our guests would have remembered the spot from their own college days.

The building and two De Laval milking robots were part of a £2.4 Million investment that, as Ollie Symons, Deputy Principal for Curriculum Quality at the College explained, is an important and significant expenditure that will ensure the college is able to offer the very best and relevant education to the next generation of farmers.

Philip Steans, the Farm and Estate Manager explained that, despite being completed last November, covid restrictions have meant students haven’t yet been able to make the most of the new facilities, including an additional demo robot kindly leant to the college by De Laval for student training, and he is looking forward to bringing the new classroom to life.

From Lackham, guests were boarded onto ‘Touring trailers’ to the neighbouring Whitehall Vineyard, owned and managed by Peter Self and his family, where we were treated to a tour of the vines by Peter and his daughter, Charlotte, and given an insight into the “small diversification project” that has become the largest vineyard in Wiltshire.

Guests were invited to inspect the vines, now in their third year of harvest, and growing 5 varieties of grape enabling Whitehall to offer a range of 6 wines. The family have had enormous success since launching the Vineyard, with their Bacchus being awarded a gold award at the Independent English Wine Awards 2020, and just last week the Wine GB Annual Competition Committee Cup Best Dry White Wine, where it was said their wines “champion quality”.

It was great for everyone at Whiteavon Consultancy to share the successes of two great clients in one evening, whom we have worked with both collaboratively and individually on numerous projects, and we thank everyone who joined us in making the evening so enjoyable.