The English Can't Make Wine

Really?  Is that still what you think?

A supposedly wise friend of mine once said “I tried a glass of English wine once and I didn’t like it.”  Well that’s one way to judge an entire industry.  Oh the uproar it would create if I were to say the Irish were stupid, or the Scottish were tight, based on a chance encounter with someone who did just manage to fit the stereotype.  But it seems perfectly acceptable to “English wine bash” based on the same principle.

Well, 183 medals in the three most prestigious wine awards tell us a different story.  They tell us that English Sparkling wine is amongst the very best in the world scooping seven gold medals with entries from Nyetimber, Gusborne, Hush Heath, Henners and Chapel Down.  To those in the know this isn’t really a surprise, but what is a surprise is that Denbies Noble Harvest 2011, a dessert wine, also won a gold medal, the first time and English wine has triumphed in this category.  With 68 silver medals, 79 Bronze and 25 Commended, it seems we are making leaps and bounds in all areas.  There are even English reds now making the medal tables from the like of Ancre Hill (who strictly speaking are Welsh), Bolney and Shapham.

So it appears the English, and the Welsh, can make wine.  We still don’t have the climate to make us as prolific as the French, Germans, Italians, Americans, South Africans, Australians – and the list goes on – as last year’s washout proves.  But in any good year, we’re up there with the best of the rest.

A full list of English winners can be downloaded here…