Although it has been a tough few months for the UK wine industry, with frosts in late-winter and early spring wreaking havoc across vineyards, the business remains on course to post yet another impressive year of development.
In the past decade, UK wines – English sparkling in particular – have become known for quality and are now in many cases the first choice, even over Cava, Prosecco and Champagne. The number of acres planted with grapevines in England and Wales has grown by 135% in the last 10 years and demand for English bubbles comes from more than 30 countries around the world.
And stills from England are also impressing with reports suggesting that the UK will see a record one million vines over the next 12 months, allowing growers to produce an extra two million bottles of wine a year.
In this edition, our lead feature comes from Winbirri Vineyards in Norfolk where a young winemaker is intensely focussed on quality and as a result is producing wines of the highest order. We have to congratulate Winbirri Vineyards on winning the Gore-Brown Trophy from the UK Vineyards Association for ‘Wine of the Year 2016’. The 2015 Bacchus produced by Lee Dyer and team is simply sensational.
He tells us more about how the business started, developments that are underway right now, and what plans he has for the future and developing the quickly growing reputation of wines produced in East Anglia.
Be sure to look out for our Q3 edition, which is already well under way, as we’ll be looking at one of the world’s wine powerhouses, South Africa. we hear from one of the country’s most prominent businesses on exactly how hard it is to turn a wine business into a sustainable and profitable organisation. We’ve review Stellenbosch blends, Swartland single varieties, Franschhoek sparkling, and some remarkable Cabernet Sauvignon which we think is up there with the best in the business!