INDEX:
Click on your choice
Features:
History
Variety
Celebration
Not British!
Where to buy
Learning more
Links
Vineyards:
Listing of vineyards
'Cornish gem'
- feature on Camel Valley Vineyard
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| Vineyards:
Want to be listed on the Number 1 English wine website?
- contact us (see foot of page for details) |
| We had 7,300 visitors, 16,347
page views and 77,003 hits in April 2009 |
| Questions
& advice: Due to the volume involved we no longer answer
individual requests for information or advice - sorry! Look around
our pages and you may well find what you are seeking! |
This website was launched 9 December 1999
Latest development:
15 May 2009
© 1999-2009
All rights reserved
www.english-wine.com |
|
Have
you discovered English wine?
Wine from grapes grown in a vineyard at Walthamstow, just 6 miles
from the centre of London, was enjoyed by the famous diarist Samuel
Pepys in 1667 – “I at Sir W.Batten's …. and there for joy he did
give the company that were there a bottle or two of his own last year's
wine growing at Walthamstow, than which the whole company said they
never drank better foreign wine in their lives”
Today it is even easier to find English wine which stands up well
against wines from any part of the world - welcome to
our website which can help you learn about English wine.
Bob Tarr, webmaster |
"A
Barbecue Summer" - what does it mean for English Wine? The
vine buds have burst now and the Met Office has predicted that the
summer of 2009 in England could be what it calls "barbecue weather".
If they are right it's obviously welcome news for a nation which has
had several wet, windy and cold summers on the trot. Of course, for
wine growers, what is needed is a long and consistently warm summer
with temperatures averaging as high as possible, but remembering that
grapes grow only when temperatures are above 10 degrees Celsius but
less than 30 Celsius. In England, it is achieving the minimum which
is the biggest hurdle as temperatures in excess of 30 Celsius are
extremely unusual. No gales or storms and some gentle rain from time
to time would be welcome features but most of all, good long periods
of sunshine especially later in the summer. If the mix is just right,
so will be the wine, though it's worth remembering that the vine is
a ornery beast in that it produces the very best quality in its fruit
when things have not been too easy for it - and that's why English
Wne can be so good as things are rarely easy for English vines!
© www.english-wine.com - 15 May 2009 |
TV's
'Odd Couple' put English wine on the map & pose the big questions:
Oz Clarke & James May in their latest laddish TV adventure together
have discovered English wine - Oz being the wine expert he is already
knew its virtues but James, something of a sceptic about wine wherever
it is from, discovered it for the first time and clearly was surprised
and impressed. The big questions they posed were whether the South
Downs are set to become the new Champagne as global warming makes
England more and more a wine growing region and, finally, is its wine
the truly distinctive drink of England, above even beer, cider, whisky
and gin? By what seemed to be quite a narrow margin they plumped for
tea as the drink of the country, but it seemed that English wine was
a very close second - now there's a turn up for the book...
© www.english-wine.com - 25 February 2009 |
| Key facts
about English wine |
| There are now around 400 English
vineyards producing around 2m bottles per year |
"Quality wines"
are subject to rigorous controls.
The quality of "Table wines" is not assured
but there are gems to be found |
Where's the biggest English
vineyard? Only 20 miles from London (Denbies, Dorking -
250 acres) |
| Whites - wide variety,
but traditional English whites have floral bouquets & high
acidity - very refreshing! |
Reds - Once thought impossible
- but it is and they vary from light, thru mellow and even full-bodied |
Sparkling - The great
success story - similar soils to champagne and edgier climate
mean truly great English sparkling wines - as evidenced in blind-tasting
international competitions where some English sparkling wines
now beat the best of Champagnes |
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What's
your favourite?
Do you have a favourite English wine? Is it one of the traditional
whites with floral bouquet and high acidity? Or one of the new-wave
whites? Or a mellow red? Or a champagne beating English sparkling
wine?
On 27 April 2009 Jane Purdon emailed us: "I was the biggest
sceptic around about English wine but the Biddenden Ortega was a revelation
to me. I have just indulged in a whole case of the stuff. Regards
Jane Purdon".
Let us know your favourites so we can pass on your recommendations
to all who visit this website. Send us your views - and, if you have
them, a photo or two of you and your favourite wine - e-mail: click here |
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|
A new way to buy English wine - online! Read all about buying online
on our Where to Buy? page, or
visit winehub now by clicking on logo |
Buying English wine the easy way
It used to be the case that buying English wine was one too easy -
you had a choice of buying the single choice which was all, more often
or not, that was on the shelves of your local supermarket or off-licence
or stocking up at the vineyard to ensure you got your favourite tipple.
Now with the advent of online merchants specialising in English wines
you are spoilt for choice, you can easily try a variety of English
wines and you can benefit from the merchants' expert advice and tasting
notes. Above and below this feature you will see advertisments of
two of these merchants - click on them to take you to their websites,
enjoy making your selections and within a few days you can be finding
out for yourself just how good English wines are now. |
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The latest addition to our listings
of vineyards is Stanlake Park Wine Estate which has a rich
and fascinating history going back to the 12th Century when it was
called Hinton Pipard. The name changed to Stanlake Park in the Tudor
period and the first vines were planted by Jon Leighton in 1979, when
it was known as Thames Valley Vineyards later shortened to Valley
Vineyards. This has now expanded to 25 acres with over 20,000 vines.
Stanlake Park now grows the greatest number of grape varieties in
England – including the classic Champagne varieties Pinot Noir and
Chardonnay. The vineyard offers wine tastings for a modest charge
and has a vineyard shop . Light lunches and snacks are available and
the home shopper can order wines online. To visit our vineyards
listings page - click here
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Three
Choirs Vineyards (left) is just one of the English vineyards you can find
on this website -please visit it both in our directory of vineyards
and in the real world - it's a great day out with a visitor centre and vineyard
and winery tour, a wine & gift shop and AA Two Rosette restaurant open
for lunches and dinners. You can even stay there in the on-site hotel and
really immerse yourself in the romance of the vine (if the romance is of
a different kind you can get married there too!). Visit our directory of
vineyards - click here