Meet the Farmer
Meet The Farmer
minerva’s roots – meet emily
Just like our vintages, the farmer who tends the Minerva vineyard in Bath is unique. Not one to blow her own trumpet, I wanted to take the opportunity to sing her praises here.
A third-generation farmer, Emily Addicott-Sauvao grew up intrinsically connected to this land, the soil that her parents cultivated for over 40 years to high acclaim - even granted special status by the wartime government.
Over the years the farm has been host to many charity fundraising events, from open gardens to music festivals. Of greatest significance, the successful charity Send A Cow was an idea developed by Emily's parents Gerald and Ros, who directed the charity from the farm for its first six years, before it moved on to larger premises at Priston Mill, then to Newton St Loe where it continues to this day.
In 2017 Emily took over the tenancy whilst her brother James worked on his Phd 'The Precision Farming Revolution'.
As you can see this remains a family business at heart, with our own two young daughters - who enjoy copying their mother plant and grow - right at the centre.
Emily is not one to shy away from a challenge. She is the first Farmer in the Southwest of England to grow quinoa.
Following an intuition the local terroir has something unique to offer, the idea to plant vines over Bath limestone was conceived on a trip to visit the French side of Emily’s family in Beaune, the Burgundy winemaking region. After a morning’s wine tasting at the renowned Le Cellier de la Cabiote in arguably the best wine making province in France, Emily remarked that the soil looked verysimilar to that on the farm in Corston. 10 years on and we are bringing Minerva’s ethics, our first vintage and VineArt to the world, along with so many exciting opportunities for our growing family and founding members to be…
Terroir (/tɛˈrwɑːr/, French: [tɛʁwaʁ]; from terre, “land”) is a French term used to describe the environmental factors that affect a crop’s phenotype, including unique environment contexts, farming practices and a crop’s specific growth habitat. Collectively, these contextual characteristics are said to have a character; terroir also refers to this character.