English vineyards have been the butt of jokes from the rest of the wine world, but a resurgence over the last five years has led to the vineyards of Kent and Sussex enjoying significant increases in sales. Earlier this year it was reported that English wine had even made it into Highgrove, the home of the Prince of Wales. Sadly, it was being used to fuel his Aston Martin.

The quality of a vineyard depends largely upon its global latitude and altitude. Between 35° and 45° is ideal. England is 51.14°. That’s not great, but neither is it as far off as our wine would have us believe. Our whites are generic and without substance, our reds are even worse.

The hills of Kent and Sussex possess land conditions very similar to the Champagne region of France. So it is unsurprising that around 15% of the UK’s 400 vineyards now concentrate on sparkling wine. Some of it has even been labeled as being ‘internationally competitive’. Nyetimber Premiere Cuvee Blanc de Blancs is widely regarded as the best we have. At £29.99 a bottle it is more expensive than many of the products coming out of the Champagne region and, sadly, not as good. Richard Balfour-Lynn, the owner of Hush Heath vineyard in Kent, believes his products will be taken more seriously if they are priced up. This may prove optimistic.

English wine and in particular sparkling wine have improved significantly over the last 20 years but there is still a long way to go before you can expect to see them being served confidently in dining rooms – as opposed to fuelling cars.

-Henry Sands

This entry was posted on Monday, October 20th, 2008 at 11:48 am and is filed under Finch's World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.