The English Wine site - everything about English & Welsh wine!
  English-Wine.com logo England's best secret!
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

Vineyards: Want to be listed on the Number 1 English wine website? - contact us (see foot of page for details)
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 update:
22 November 2011

© 1999-2011
www.english-wine.com
2011 - A year of two halves (weather & geographic)
Some English vineyards had a really vintage year in 2011 with rain at the right time, and the sun's warmth when it was needed. However, others didn't - the south-east and east Anglia seem, broadly to have got almost the ideal weather for grape-growing whilst the south-west, midlands & north got quite different weather and so very different results. However, we know there was a lot of variation in the weather pattern even locally so perhaps it's best to say that every vineyard had its own weather this year - but there will certainly be good quantities of interesting wines resulting from the 2011 harvest.
Good news for English wine buyers
One of the most frequent comments we receive is "why don't supermarkets stock English wine? Well, some do, especially of local vineyards (if they are big enough to have a surplus sufficient to supply supermarkets). And now, Waitrose Online is making a feature of selling English wine - along with specialist online supplier Best English Wine, this means it is now really easy to buy English wine even if you have no vineyards close to you.
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
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
 
Best English Wine website ad
click here to visit
Buying English wine the easy way
Finding English wine to buy used to be none too easy - some supermarkets stock none, some just one or two from the local vineyard and off-licences generally much the same.Only a few specialist wine merchants stocked a good selection. Now things are different with a number of vineyards selling online direct to the public and the emergence of specialist online merchants offering a wide selection of English wines, white, red and sparkling.
Stanlake Park Wine Estate has a rich and fascinating history going back to the 12th Century. The first vines were planted by Jon Leighton in 1979 and the vineyard 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
70 acres of vines at Three Choirs Vineyards, Newent, Gloucestershire - photo copyright Three Choirs Vineyards 2004Three 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
   
A bunch of Seyval Blanc grapes  from the 2003 harvest - copyright 2003
To contact us by e-mail: click here
www.English-Wine.com is a service to all consumers and makers of English Wine and is a venture of OakVine.net