hips don't lie: England"s best vineyards: A holiday tour of award-winning wineries, seen through rosé-tinted glasses

By

Ted Thornhill

PUBLISHED:

04:24 EST, 9 July 2013

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UPDATED:

04:24 EST, 9 July 2013

When it comes to wine-tour destinations, the rule of thumb is to visit realms such as Burgundy in France, Rioja in Spain or Germany’s Mosel Valley. Not England.

After all, tourists want to see where the wine-making magic happens – and the rule stipulates that it’s not happening on these shores.

I consider this as a seductive red waltzes across my palate in the tasting room of the Chapel Down vineyard in Kent and decide this rule should be urgently reappraised.

Cheers: The south of England is home to a growing number of vineyards, proving you don’t have to go abroad to try good wines

For this is one of many wines I quaff during a jaunt around Blighty-based vineyards that fools my taste buds into thinking they’re on foreign soil.

What’s more, we have quantity as well as quality. England and Wales contain over 400 plantations, many of which are open to the public – so there are treasures aplenty to be explored.

My journey of discovery begins at one of the newest, West Street Vineyard – an impressive little pocket of Napa Valley in the heart of Essex that opened earlier this year.

Savvy owner Jane Mohan’s modest plot of pinot noir and chardonnay vines sit at one end of the charming village of Coggeshall – where Lovejoy was filmed – with a striking, cleverly designed Scandinavian-style wine ‘barn’ overlooking it that’s the last word in eco-swank.

Up close and personal: Ted wanders the vines at the Carr Taylor vineyard, just before the bus of elderly visitors arrives

Built partially from recycled materials by German energy-saving specialists Hanse Haus, it contains an airy restaurant with a self-service ‘wine wall’ and basement tasting cellar while outside there’s a playground for the kids and an expansive roof terrace that extends to within touching distance of the grapes.

Here we gaze beyond the vines to a

cluster of willow trees that are, Jane tells me and my travelling

companion Colin, the source of wood for the England cricket team bats.

And before long we’re served wine and food – all locally sourced – that knock us for six.

Delicious

smoked fishcakes and a toasted pearl barley and broad bean risotto are

accompanied by a selection of West Street and other English wines (Jane

likes to support her fellow growers) that include superbly crisp and

elegant whites and sophisticated sparkling varieties.

While West Street produces about 800 bottles a year, our next destination, Denbies in Surrey, knocks out 400,000.

Go west: The basement bar is a great place to sample the produce at Wets Street vineyard

It’s the single biggest vineyard in the UK, but before taking a nose around we rest-up in the sumptuous Mercure Burford Bridge Hotel at the bottom of Box Hill, of Olympic cycling fame.

This establishment is recommended not just for its comfy rooms, attentive service, gourmet food and beautiful wooded surroundings – but for being a mere mile from Denbies’ 265 acres of vines.

Now, if you like your vineyards to have a tumble-down charm, you may find Denbies a tad commercial. The 360-degree cinema experience, Indiana Jones-style train that takes visitors through the production facilities and tour around the estate in carriages pulled by a Land Rover give the place a slight theme-park feel.

Vine times: Denbies is our largest and most established vineyard, offering Landrover tours and a 360-degree cinema experience

Embrace it, though, because these attractions are educational and Denbies’ merely wants to help you understand how its top-drawer wines are made.

Consider too the gourmet restaurant serving seasonal, locally sourced produce, gigantic tea room and the gorgeous, blood-pressure-lowering scenery.

GONGS GALORE

English wine isn’t just good – it’s

award-winning. Here are just some of the medals picked up by vineyards

mentioned in this article.

Carr-Taylor

Rosé Sparkling: Bronze Medal – International Wine Challenge 2012

Chapel Down

Three Graces 2008: Silver – Decanter World Wine Awards 2012

Pinot Reserve 2005: Bronze – Decanter World Wine Awards 2012

Bacchus Reserve 2011: Silver – The International Wine and Spirit Competition 2013

Ridgeview

Decanter World Wine Awards, Best Sparkling (including Champagne) 2010

Marksman 2009: Gold – International Wine Challenge

Denbies

Chalk Ridge Rosé: Gold – International Wine Challenge 2010

The best way to view this is actually to jump on the £5.50-a-head Land Rover expedition.

It

rumbles up to the estate’s highest point, which affords splendid views

of the huge vineyard, the surrounding greenery and the National

Trust-protected Box Hill.

The

tour guide/driver explains how the local geology enables the estate’s

multitude of grape varieties, including the big-hitters pinot noir and

chardonnay, to flourish.

Firstly, along with several other English vineyards, Denbies shares the Champagne region’s chalky ground, enabling its sparkling wine to give French fizz a run for its euros in the taste department. It also retains water very effectively, so the vines rarely get thirsty.

Then there are the woodlands and hills encircling the estate like sentries. They dissipate incoming wind and ensure the grape bounty doesn’t fly off.

Geography lesson over, we descend to the cool dark cellars and make our acquaintance with the wine decanter. We try three whites – the refreshing, mango-laden Surrey Gold; an enthrallingly complex, vibrant bacchus called Ranmore Hill and Greenfields, a distinctive sparkling wine that tastes of marzipan-less Christmas cake.

As a one-stop wine-experience shop, Denbies takes some beating and its wines are fit for a king, but next we pootle south to Ridgeview in Ditchling Common, East Sussex, which makes wines fit for a Queen. And a President.

Tipple: Colin enjoys a taster on the terrace at the West Street vineyard

Queen Elizabeth II, we learn, served

bottles of Ridgeview’s Grosvenor sparkling wine to guests at her 80th

birthday party and a glass of its sparkling rosé, Fitzrovia, to Barack

Obama during a state visit – a special wine for a special relationship.

Ridgeview

lacks Denbies’ razzmatazz and scale, but it’s still fascinating to take

a peek at a fizz-producing hub that’s taken the wine-world by storm.

We

pop our heads around the office door and marketing executive Oliver

Marsh jumps up and conducts a tour of the 16-acre vineyard and the

swish, almost dustless production facilities.

Bubbling over: Ridgeview produces a sparkling wine favoured by the Queen

‘There’s always someone available who’ll happily show visitors around the place,’ he beams.

Oliver boasts that Ridgeview, founded in 1994, has a full order book every year, with Waitrose and Marks and Spencer among its customers.

‘We can’t keep up with demand,’ chuckles Oliver. ‘It’s a nice headache to have, though.’

A tasting of three of Ridgeview’s sparklers – the Grosvenor, Fitzrovia and Cavendish – reveals why they’re so popular with royalty and supermarkets alike.

They’re all Rolls-Royce wines in turn dropping honeyed, biscuit and strawberry flavour sensations on the palate.

That night we rest our heads at Drakes in Brighton, a beguilingly boutiquey hotel by the pier graced in the past by the likes of Kylie Minogue and Cate Blanchett. Hat-tip here to Ridgeview’s wines appearing on the drinks list.

Next comes the endearingly whimsical, shambolic and slightly dog-eared Carr-Taylor vineyard in Hastings, where a beaming member of staff excitedly pours us a brace of fruit wines and apologises for the ‘chaos’ brought on by the arrival of an elderly coach party.

Nice spot, but the wine’s not quite our style so we make tracks for our final, acclaimed stop: Chapel Down, near Tenterden, which doesn’t disappoint.

And neither does our final night’s accommodation – the uber-stylish Gallivant Hotel in Camber.
A

former motel brilliantly refurbished by a design team with an eye for

beach-hut chic, it lies just three-minutes’ walk from the beach – and

only 20-minutes’ taxi-ride from a vineyard that boasts of being the

‘home of English wine’.

It doesn’t take long to see why it’s made this bold claim. Not only do the wines hit the mark, but the whole set-up oozes class.

Rural idyll: Chapel Down has its own herb garden used in food served up at The Swan restaurant, alongside the vineyard’s wines

The manicured grounds are very easy on the eye and feature a delightful herb garden used by the chefs at the on-site restaurant, The Swan, to flavour their dishes.

Encircled by the rolling Garden of England countryside, it’s a place of such tranquillity it almost feels medicinal.

Eager to discover its secrets we take a guided tour of the vineyard and impeccably clean wine-making facilities that’s so lucidly insightful we feel we could have a stab at making a bottle or two ourselves.

Afterwards, generous measures of Chapel Down’s wines – all part of the tour – prove that the many awards the vineyard has won were entirely justified.

First up is the vineyard’s ‘house white’ – the Flint Dry 2012 – which at £9.99 puts plenty of pricier continental wines I’ve tried to shame. Then a gooseberry-infested bacchus, a sparkling, vibrant rosé that won gold at the 2013 Decanter awards, a punchy dry white with a fruity personality and finally an elegant red made from pinot noir, rondo and noir precoce grapes.

So far, so wonderful. What’s more, our taste buds have more pampering to come, courtesy of the inspired Swan restaurant, overlooking the vines and herb garden.

It’s a magnificent finale to a thoroughly enjoyable odyssey, consisting of four courses of fantastic fare expertly paired with Chapel Down reds and whites by an animated sommelier.

Who needs Europe? English wine tours are pure magic.

Travel facts

For more on each of the vineyards see: Chapel Down www.chapeldown.com 01580 763033, West Street www.weststreetvineyard.co.uk 01376 563 303, Denbies www.denbies.co.uk 01306 876 616, Ridgeview www.ridgeview.co.uk 0845 345 7292 and Carr Taylor www.carr-taylor.co.uk 01424 752 501.

Stay at Drakes in Brighton (www.drakesofbrighton.com 01273 696 934), Burford Bridge Hotel (www.mercure.com 0871 663 0627) and The Gallivant (www.thegallivanthotel.com 01797 225057).