A family-run vineyard in Norfolk has lost around 500kg of grapes after thieves stripped two rows of vines bare, costing the business an estimated £8,000 in potential wine sales.
Lee Dyer, owner of Winbirri Vineyard in Surlingham, said the stolen Bacchus grapes would have been enough to produce around 400 bottles of wine.
While the grapes themselves were worth about £1,000, Dyer estimated their value as finished wine at around £8,000.
He said the grapes were still on the vines on September 20, but by September 22, two rows had been completely stripped.
“We’re a family-run business, we all work seven days a week and this is a year’s worth of work that we’ve had to do to get these grapes over the line,” Dyer said.
He said growing grapes required significant effort and criticised those responsible for entering the property and taking the crop.
Dyer said the theft had forced the vineyard to consider increasing security, including installing motion-activated cameras and a SIM card-based internet connection.
He also believes the scale of the theft suggests more than one person may have been involved.
Dyer said smaller quantities of grapes had gone missing in previous years, while a volunteer picker reportedly caught several men in the vineyard last year with electric bikes, modified trailers and secateurs.
He added that the vineyard had also received visits from people asking about buying grapes and saying they made their own wine, although he acknowledged it could be a coincidence that the visits happened shortly before the theft.
Dyer said his main hope was that publicity surrounding the incident would discourage those responsible from returning.
Norfolk Police confirmed it received a report on October 2 concerning the theft of grapes from a site in Surlingham, believed to have occurred between September 20 and 22.
A police spokesperson said an officer was due to speak with the person who reported the incident.
