Grape Britain
As the climate warms, is the UK becoming the world’s most exciting new wine producer? Oz Clarke urges us all to try a British wine this Christmas – here’s his guide to the best
I’m gazing down a slope of chalky soil that I used to race across as a kid… pasture and sheep and my dog Chunky, trailing away to the old Elham Valley train line. That was then. And now? Row upon row of proud, upright Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines, each boasting fruit ripened in the glow of a golden autumn day. These grapes will make wine as good as Champagne. And these grapes are grown at Simpsons’ Wine Estate, almost within earshot of Canterbury Cathedral’s bells. This scene repeats itself all over southern England and, increasingly, in the west, in Wales, in East Anglia and even in the Midlands up to Yorkshire.
In this challenging world of ours, which 2022 has revealed in all the blunt savagery of global warming and climate change, there is at least one fragile but glittering silver lining: the vineyards, wineries and wine of England and Wales. England wasn’t green and pleasant in the July and August of 2022. Our meadows and parks panted to survive as the heat sucked the green life out of them. But you could find green – in the vineyards of Kent and Sussex, Hampshire and Dorset, Essex and Suffolk. Refreshing splashes of green amidst the exhausted land around. The grape varieties of Champagne and Chablis and Burgundy, flourishing in Albion.
A generation ago they wouldn’t ripen here. The climate has changed so dramatically that many English sparkling wines now match Champagne for quality. In 2005 there were less than 1,000 hectares of vines in Britain. Now there are more than 4,000 hectares, and half of these planted since 2017.
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OZ CLARKE’S
TOP 10 BRITISH WINES
One thing the crises of Covid, Brexit and now the war in Ukraine have taught us is that we should support our local businesses whenever we can. Our local butcher, baker, our cheesemaker, pub, our local brewery. And now it is gloriously possible to support our local vineyard. There are 900 vineyards in England and Wales. And if you want to do your bit for our precious country this Christmas, drink English wine. There has never been more of it, and it has never been better.
WHITE SPARKLING
1. KENT: Simpsons Chalklands Classic Cuvée NV, £29
Simpsons is the winery established near Canterbury on those fields that were my playground as a child. Inclined to the warm south, catching all the summer sun, these are the billowing folds of the Kent Downs, and the deep chalk soil is exactly the same as that of Champagne, only a couple of hours’ journey over the Channel. This is bright, as tinglingly fresh as a Kent cox apple, but softened with savoury nuts and fresh toast. simpsonswine.com
WHITE SPARKLING
2. HAMPSHIRE: Exton Park RB32 Brut Reserve NV, £39
Winemaker Corinne Seeley is French. But she’s proud to be making wine in England. “I’m not here to make a copy of Champagne. I am here to make a new category of wine”. She has done that alright. Exton Park is on a high chalk ridge with blindingly white soils. The view of Old Winchester Hill is of heart-stopping beauty, and this wine zings with chalk freshness, softened by toast and nuts and the dry ripeness of a golden peach. extonparkvineyard.com
3. EAST SUSSEX: Oxney Organic Classic Chardonnay 2018, £41
This bucolic estate, hidden away down a rutted country lane near the pretty town of Rye, is the perfect antidote for any city wine lover tired of urban life. Oxney has huts you can stay in, but just to visit will ease your soul. And the organic Chardonnay grapes grown in the sultry 2018 vintage created this scented, foaming beauty, all apple blossom and ripe apple flesh, just flecked with cream. oxneyestate.com
ROSE FIZZ
4. BUCKINGHAMSHIRE: Harrow and Hope Brut Rosé NV No2, £32
The neck label on this delightful pink fizz states ‘Hard work. Good fortune’. It was certainly good fortune that alerted Henry Laithwaite to this plum patch of land overlooking the Thames at Marlow. And the steep, chalky slope, with a topsoil of gravel and flint so rough they broke two harrows preparing the ground, is a fabulous site for grapes. This enticing wine is pale pink, touched by apple blossom and shot through with the melting fruit of strawberry and peach. harrowandhope.com
WHITE STILL
5. NORFOLK: Flint Vineyard Silex Blanc 2021, £23.99
Isn’t Norfolk a bit cold for vineyards? Obviously not, because this site on the River Waveney is in one of the driest and sunniest regions of England. This Silex Blanc is proof. The year 2021 wasn’t an easy vintage, especially for late-ripening varieties such as Chardonnay, but this Chardonnay/Pinot Blanc blend is soft, fresh and surprisingly full-bodied – ripe apple with a teasing twist of green leaf. flintvineyard.com
6. KENT: Chapel Down Kit’s Coty Chardonnay 2019, £30
It’s a bit early to talk about anywhere in the country being the best site for anything. Most of our vineyards are hardly 10 years old. But the pale chalky soils of Kit’s Coty Vineyard, 38 hectares tucked beneath the Pilgrim’s Way on the Kent Downs, have a good shout. Every year they produce elegant, ripe, pale-golden nutty Chardonnay for everyone else to try to match. chapeldown.com
7. DENBIGHSHIRE: Vale Solaris 2021, £18
I usually think of North Wales as not very warm and not very dry. Well, the Vale of Clwyd, running down past Denbigh, is warm and dry, and some viticulture experts think it might turn out to be Wales’ best vineyard region. For now, these vineyards are brand new, and this Clwyd white made from Solaris – aspecial cool-climate grape – is soft and refreshing with a delightful flavour and texture like a juicy tropical melon. valevineyard.co.uk
PINK STILL
8. HAMPSHIRE: Black Chalk Dancer in Pink 2021, £19
Cool countries where the red grapes struggle to ripen can usually make lovely pink wines from their barely ripe grapes. English pink has been slow off the mark. But Black Chalk, nestled in Hampshire’s tranquil Test Valley, has produced a beauty. Fresh, dry, almost savoury and nutty, but with the perfect amount of pale strawberry fruit to keep your mouth watering. blackchalkwine.co.uk
STILL REDS
9. WEST SUSSEX: Bolney Estate Pinot Noir 2021, £19.99
Sam Linter, Bolney’s boss, has been making Pinot Noir longer than anyone else in England, and she claims, with a wink in her eye, that her south-facing sandy vineyard near Brighton is England’s sunniest. It could be. Certainly her Pinot Noirs get better each year – delicate but lively, the scent of summer earth splashed with cranberry and rubbed with rosehip. bolneywineestate.com
10. KENT: Gusbourne Pinot Noir 2020, £35
This comes from a slope of meadow at Appledore down by Romney Marsh that I have known since I was a kid. But there were no vines then. Now, what is possibly England’s best Pinot Noir grows here, the grapes catching every ray of sun in one of Kent’s warmest spots. And the wine is a sublime example of the tender beauty of English Pinot Noir – raspberries and red cherries brushed with herbs and sprinkled with warm dust. gusbourne.com
VINEYARDS TO VISIT
In one of those strange twists of fate, the Covid pandemic, which forced all of us into relative isolation for months, has acted as a massive spur to tourism in British vineyards. Our inability to travel abroad helped, but also our realisation that we have to support our own communities, help their businesses make a living, or we won’t have any communities left. We’ll all be living in ghost towns.
And this move towards self-sufficiency has also engendered a pride in our country, which is overdue. We had the opportunity to take possession of the numerous things that make our countryside so special – and we have seized it. People now visit their local vineyard with pride, buy its produce with pride and serve it to their friends with pride. And that fills me with pride, too.
Vineyards all over the nation now welcome visitors; local tourist websites will tell you where they are. Some have been entertaining visitors for years.
Denbies Wine Estate, London Road, Dorking (above) One of England’s biggest and best-established, nestling next to Box Hill, and very visitor friendly. denbies.co.uk
Camel Valley, Bodmin, Cornwall A pastoral delight for West Country visitors. camelvalley.com
Three Choirs Vineyard, Newent, Gloucestershire The leading vineyard and winery in the Midlands and West. three-choirs-vineyards.co.uk
Oz Clarke is a wine expert, broadcaster and wine writer. His passion for wine started while he was a student at Oxford University, where he won tasting competitions. The updated edition of his book English Wine is out now (Pavilion Books, £20).