In Old English its name meant “the land of the summer people”, after the local practice of coming down to the Somerset Levels after the winter flooding receded. Today, Somerset is still somewhere where seasons are felt vividly, as Sophie Brendel and Panu Long discovered when they and their two children moved to Thornfalcon, their farmstead in a village of the same name, 15 minutes’ drive from Taunton, at the end of 2022. Here, they are on constant weather watch, tending their young vines (Panu, now a winemaker, has a background in the drinks industry) and harvesting daily from the kitchen garden. They are also busy making plans for the apple harvest, which will go into the 150-year-old cider press.
