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English wine producers are no longer just eccentric dropouts |
No more whining about English vino
Our warmer climate and a more professional approach is making wine production a genuine succcess story
YOU will probably not have noticed but this is English National Wine Week. Like St George’s day, it is small beer.
Nonetheless, English wines have begun to impact on the international wine scene. English sparkling wines in particular have found respect abroad. The industry is proclaiming a national success story, and it has been achieved against the odds.
Although wine has been made in England since Roman times, it was always a battle against the elements. England was beyond the wine making fringe, being too far north, too wet and too cold. The vine could survive, but struggled to deliver wine. For a while between the two World Wars, production ceased completely.
Post Second World War, a handful of pioneering visionaries began to make wine in the English and Welsh countryside. They were eccentrics inspired by the romance of winemaking. Aware they had to battle against nature, they turned to extremely resilient, early ripening, offbeat German grapes.
Somehow, they managed – every now and then – to make a drinkable and uniquely English style of wine. Soon they had inspired a generation of middle-class dropouts and around 400 wineries sprang up. Most were tiny, five to 10 acres in size. No one expected to make money – this was about individual passion and personal commitment.
They inspired a joke – how do you make a small fortune? First, acquire a large one, and then invest in an English winery.
But times have changed. Four years of above-average temperatures have guaranteed a bumper grape harvest every year since 2002. Modern wine-making techniques can overcome viticultural shortcomings and produce good wine. Lately, making wine in England has become relatively easy.
A new breed of savvy business people are moving into the industry. The rugged individualism, fuelled by personal passion and inspired instinct is being supplanted by a more accountancy-driven, spreadsheet-orientated, market research-led business approach.
English Wines Group plc is the embodiment of the new style of English wine company. Quoted on the Stock Market and well financed, it is abandoning its short-lived wine-making heritage.
The original German vines are being dug up, replaced by Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. It produces wine from the usual international grape varieties, exploits modern, high-tech methods, is backed by wine-making consultants, and promoted by marketing professionals.
This tried-and-tested formula guarantees attention from the nation’s wine writers and supermarket buyers.
EWG makes most of the English wine sold in supermarkets including the Chapel Down brand and the Co-Op’s own-brand English wine.
Internationally, the Carr Taylor winery is one of this country’s most highly regarded producers.
David Carr-Taylor and his sister operate from their winery, near Hastings in Sussex, and have produced some of England’s most successful wines.
You may find them in a restaurant in France but you won’t find them in an English supermarket.
Although they have invested heavily in modern wine-making equipment, they refuse to compromise their principles and are consequently dismissed as self-obsessed, producer-orientated, wine-makers, who ignore the market.
You can buy English wines in a supermarket or independent wine shop.
Morrison has the Three Choirs winery, Parsons Leap brand on special offer at £4.59. Made from a blend of the traditional English grape varieties, the style labeled fresh and dry is particularly good.
Waitrose have the Chapel Down brand and Berry Brothers and Rudd offer the award-winning Nyetimber sparkling wine at £19.99.
But for a true English wine experience, have a break and take a trip to the south or even the west. There, in Kent, Sussex, Gloucester and even Wales, you will find beautiful countryside and iconic wineries, sometimes with visitor centres.
Most you have to drive to, but the Carr Taylor winery can be accessed by means of a train to Hastings and then a bus to the winery
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