More wine growers mean more vineyards: there are now around 2,500 hectares of them across England and the country’s wine is dramatically increasing in popularity (sales of English and Welsh brands increased by 31 per cent during 2021 according to WineGB). Though much of the attention is on Britain’s bubbles, “still wines have come on in leaps and bounds over the last five years,” says sommelier James Cusselle, who works at Kent’s The Pig At Bridge Place and has 26 English wines on his list, more than half of them fizzless.
A bumper 2022 crop caused by England’s hot, dry summer
The success of British wine tourism will no doubt be buoyed by news of a bumper 2022 crop caused by England’s hot, dry summer. In what might be one of climate change’s few happy side-effects, temperatures in southern England have risen by a degree since the 1980s, extending the grape-growing season.
There are vineyards in some surprising places (including parts of Yorkshire, where the chalky soil is similar to Champagne’s), but the UK’s main wine-growing regions are in the relatively balmy southeast. Nyetimber, probably the UK’s best-known producer, has sites spread across Hampshire, Kent and Sussex.
