WSET Bitesize – What are England’s main wine regions

Over the decades, the reputation and quality of English wine has changed dramatically. While most famous for its fresh, complex sparkling wines, the UK now produces whites, rosés, oranges and even a little bit of red wine. Sam Povey DipWSET will look at the main grape growing regions of England and the styles of wine produced here.

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Hello to everyone that is joining I see lots of people flooding in uh welcome to this W Global webinar on the wine regions of England um if you’re joining us just now please feel free to say hello in the chat say where you’re from if maybe some of you it’s even late

Enough that you’re enjoying some some English uh English wine um we will get started in just a moment just seeing more people come in but let me tell you a little bit more about us while people join um so my name is Sam poovi I am an

Educator working for um the wine and spirit education trust we are the world’s leading provider of qualifications and courses in wines spirits and sake uh we teach qualifications in 70 different countries uh through 800 different course providers including the one that I work for in London um just a quick reminder

This uh webinar is being recorded and will be available um via the global events Hub on YouTube later today and if you have any questions at any point I will have some time at the end to answer them please put them in the Q and a box

And I will try to get through as many as possible um but I think we’ve got quite a few people in now so let’s get started um right I wanted to begin with just a little bit of History um of English wine so the the Great Vine is not native to

The UK uh it was brought here by the Romans when they invaded in 34 ad so going quite far back um all the way just just about 2,000 years ago uh so they they brought it originally and planted a small amount of vines but basically for

The last 2,000 years not very much has happened so we see small recordings of of plantings going through through the Middle Ages the best evidence is that they sort of came and went depending on the climate so for example there was a little bit more planting during a period

Of time known as the medieval warm phase when temperatures were a little bit warmer than usual and in fact in in 18 uh in 1087 the Doomsday Book records 42 Vineyards planted in Europe uh in in the UK rather um however you had then had something called the little ice age that

Came along for about 450 years is uh which pretty much put a stop to most lit culture in the UK moving ahead just a little bit to the 1950s we see very small scale commercial plantings happening but really only a handful of Vineyards including Hamilton which is a producer that’s still making

Wine today which was founded by the brilliantly named Major General s guy Souls Jones so if you can find a better name than that I please feel free to put it in the chat and so very very small scale planting not that significant in 1964 the UK produced a grand total of 1,

1500 bottles of wine to give you an idea of how little wine we produced as recently as the 1960s going into the 1980s the UK is importing a lot of German style wine so things like Le FR milch and at the same time you again see the beginnings of some plantings of

German grape varieties which we’ll discuss in a little bit but again production stays very small indeed things changed though in the late 80s and particularly in the 1990s so in 1988 there was an American couple called Sandy and Stewart Moss they purchased a medieval estate in Sussex called nimber and they were

Advised at the time not to bother planting any Vines to plant Orchards instead but they ignored that advice because they wanted to produce wine and specifically sparkling wine four years later in 1992 they produced their first sparkling wine and the following vintage 19993 was subsequently awarded the best

Sparkling wine in the world at the international Wine and Spirits competition and at that moment and that award was given in 1998 English wine um UK wine uh finally got the recognition that uh it had never received before and since the uh turn of the into the 2000s we’ve seen a massive

Expansion in plantings and in production of wine so let’s have a look at where we are today at the moment in the UK we have roughly speaking 3,928 hectares of vines to put that into perspective that is around about 10% of the vineyard area of a region like champagne for example and almost

All of that plant planting or certainly more than half of it has happened in the last 13 or so years so the 2010s so from 2010 to 2020 2,200 hectares of that nearly 4,000 hectares were planted at the moment at the rate of planting that we’re seeing in the 2020s

Um we’re projected to have almost double that size uh of Vineyard area by 2032 so around 7 ,600 hectares in total so planting is continuing at quite a big pace and as you can see from this map here the vast vast majority of that is located in

England so I might slip between saying British wine and English wine um of course we shouldn’t forget our friends in Wales as well who are producing a small amount of wine as well and we will discuss them in a bit more detail in a while so just want to take you through

Some of the great varieties that you’re likely to find in the UK the vast majority of plantings are Chardon P Noir and P munier so those kind of three classic great varieties that are used as a template for most sparkling wine production particularly in areas like champagne but also in California South

Africa Australia and New Zealand um we’ve also got a couple of more unusual great varieties bakus and seal Blanc so both Bas and seal Blanc were great varieties designed in Germany there backas is a crossing of a great variety called Silvana which you might not know and a great variety called reasing which

You may be more familiar with and basically these grapes were designed to ripen in very very cool climates and that is exactly what the UK has and particularly in the past had a very very cool climate so these grape varieties a little bit more uh they represent a

Little bit more of the heritage of wine production in the UK but they still make us make up a substantial portion of planting things and then again some other great varieties in smaller quantities things like Solaris riken Steiner no no prizes for guessing where that was invented pinoir prose which is

A mutation of p p Noir Rondo and a little bit of penree or pinio also planted as well in terms of the styles of wine that we produce in the in this country um around about 2/3 just over just over 2/3 is sparkling wine and about 1/3 is is still wine and that’s

Been pretty constant over the past 3 years of the sparkling wine that we make almost all of it is produced using the traditional method so that is uh making a still base wine putting it into a bottle adding sugar and yeast and then having the second fermentation take

Place in the bottle itself which is the same means of production for champagne Cara method cap class and many other premium sparkling wines throughout the world still wine has become uh important and I think it will become increasingly important in the future most of that is

White wine and grapes like uh bakus are a little bit more important for the production of these still white styles of wine a good chunk of that is Ros as well and a small portion is red there quite a lot of different stuff there by

The way guys just a reminder if you have any questions please put them in the Q and I’ll will answer them at the end but that’s just a very brief overview of the UK what I now want to do is get into the specifics of where you’re going to find

Vineyards in uh this country so about 75% of Vineyards are located in the southeast of England so if you see on this map here there’s a a gray splodge let me just bring up a a laser pointer there that gray splodge is London and when I say this Southeast I mean this

Kind of area through here so we’re looking at um Kent and then into East and West Sussex and over into Hampshire as well I’m also including Essex in that kind of 75% figure as well why is that why the southeast well we are in a fairly marginal climate and despite the

Fact that the climate has warmed over the past 150 years um we’re still at the very Northern limit of where you can ripen grapes we in the southeast of England we have a a climate that is roughly equivalent in terms of annual temperature to Champagne about 60 years

Ago there are some differences though importantly we have a much more maritime climate than they do in somewhere like champagne um so we’ve got lots more rainfall which can create all sorts of problems for our Growers and while climate change has enabled the expansion of viticulture in the UK it’s also

Brought some significant challenges with it for example we have um quite quite severe Frost that can decimate Vineyards in the spring uh there are problems of flooding and as you can see in this picture here this is from 2020 uh we get drought as well so even though the the

Climate has warmed and generally speaking that has made things easier in the UK it also brings with it much more unpredictability which makes England a particularly difficult place to grow grapes despite that though it is happening and one of the key factors in doing so successfully is choosing the

Correct Vineyard sites so generally speaking sheltered south facing slopes are essential for producing the best quality grapes so if we have a look at this picture here this is a a picture of a really small producer called Breaky bottom in Sussex and what you can see here is just how tucked away the

Vineyard is this is a photo I took on the top of this hill and believe you believe you me it was incredibly windy up here but when you go down into that uh into that kind of hollow it’s much more calm and as a result we can ripen

Grapes really nicely um soil is also very important as well now there’s quite a lot of discussion about Chalk if you hear people talk about the UK they often might mention to you that there is a seam of chalk that runs from Paris around through champag P under the

English Channel and then pops up again in the south of England particularly the North and the South Downs and chalk is very is a very important soil it drains uh rainwater very effectively which is fantastic in a country that is as wet as the UK but as you can see in this photo

Here from Exon Park it’s also quite pale in color which means it reflects sunlight which helps grape ripening however it’s not all about Chalk as important as it is we have lots of limestone in our soils which does a very similar thing it drains very effectively um but also things the type

Of sandy soil called Green Sands that again provides very effective drainage and for any of you that know a little bit about vulture you might be surprised to learn that um chalk H sorry that Clay is really important as well so this is a picture from danb Ridge in Essex and

These are some of the soils that they plant their vines on um in the wetest Years Clay is not always ideal but when it’s blended with things like gravel and sand it can provide the right balance between retaining water in the drier years and um draining water in the

Wetter years and one of the things that this kind of clay does when it’s very dry is it cracks like this which can make life a little bit easier for the vines because they can get their roots a little bit further down so not just all

About Chalk in the UK we’ve got lots of other soils where you’ll see very good quality wine planted as well very good quality Vines planted as well so that was the southeast of England if I just go back to that map there there we go so again the vast majority of plantings

Down in what is the warmest and sunniest part of the UK but we do have another 25% in the other areas in England and outside of England as well so let’s have a look at these um if we go back to the map here there’s a fair amount of

Production in the southwest of the country so we’re talking about areas like Dorset up in gloustershire over here and then down in Cornwall and Devon as well as you can see these areas here are particularly exposed to the Sea um you’ve got quite powerful uh weathers

Very wet uh very very wet weather lots of uh wind which again means that having those sheltered sites is more important than ever um but these areas are important centers of production especially for still wines um so lots of still wine being produced up in gloucestershire but also in Cornwall and Devon as

Well over in East Anglia we have Norfolk and then suffk and then Essex um these areas are becoming increasingly important um Essex in particular and especially in the Crouch Valley is the driest and sunniest part of the UK and that has resulted in a particular um reputation for high quality still wines

You need a bit more ripness in your grapes to make a good quality still wine than you do sparkling wine which is why historically or at least within the last 20 years we’ve really focused on Fizz however as you can see about third of our wine nowadays is still and some of

The best examples coming out of out of Essex here so again particularly an area called the Crouch River Valley has become especially associated with these top top quality chardonay and P Noir so if you’re looking for a good quality English red wine there are worse places to start than Essex all

Right and here we go this is the a picture of the Crouch River Valley here so it’s fairly flat um um you can just see the the river running out into the um into the North Sea just over there okay um we’ve also got Vineyards being planted in the Midlands so over

Here um up into Yorkshire as well and of course in Wales I think all together there are about 30 or so Vineyards in these areas production is very small it’s a small percentage of the total um because being a little bit further north and I think you can see from this map

Here in the green these are substantially wetter areas with less Sunshine um it has even with the warming climate been a little bit more difficult to produce um good quality wine in the past but that is changing and it’s changing very quickly so I think if we

Go to the next photo this is a picture of White Castle Vineyards in monou so they’re just outside of Cardiff in the south of Wales planted back in 2001 and I’ve tried some absolutely fantastic still wines from them particularly red wines that they’ve um produced in the

Slightly warmer vintages um so there are again a small but growing number of producers over in Wales and going up to um Yorkshire um this is a picture from jonesford which is in the veil of York just outside of the city uh itself um a relatively small family producer but

Again I think in the future if temperatures and let’s be honest they probably will be continuing to increase we’re going to see much more production in these parts of the country so just to give you a very brief kind of summary of of those different regions the vast

Majority of production down in the southeast of England usually the warmest and sunniest place the fact that we can produce as much wine as we do nowadays is mainly due to the fact that temperatures have increased and we now have a similar climate to Champagne

About 60 or so years ago um as the climate continues to warm I would anticipate that we’re going to see more and more vulture in these slightly cooler areas like Yorkshire like Wales like the Midlands so watch this space now that concludes a very Whistle Stop tour very Whistle Stop a Whistle Stop

Tour of um the UK and its different wine regions now I can see some questions so bear with me two moments if you have any questions at all please just pop them in the chat oh sorry in in the Q&A box um in the Q&A box and let’s see here um so

Crystal asks where is the biggest exporting markets for English sparkling wine um the United States is a very important market for um English and English sparkling and still wine as are Nordic countries like Sweden and Norway um and there’s also a significant amount being exported to places like Japan as

Well how much wine is exported uh LTE I have to double check that for you it’s certainly a number that is increasing um Alexander asks what about Vine planting densities and yields are they similar to champagne or are there any differences what I can say is that

The yields in the UK compared to places like champagne are much lower the main reason for that is the climate is still variable so in the best years yields are significantly um significantly higher from the national average so a good example of this would be 2018 where the annual production was

About double the long run average um but then they can plummet in the worst years and the main reason for that is if you’ve got quite heavy rainfall you’ll have significant problems with fungal disease the other thing that can really cut yields in the UK is Frost so um when

The temperature begins to increase in the spring and the vines wake up you have a risk of frost coming in to uh damage those Vines and particularly stop them from producing as much as many grapes in that year as you otherwise might be able to Andrew asks Sam what worries you most

About English wine production there are regular criticisms about price and the very fast expansion in the last five years leading to overproduction how do you see those issues being resolved I mean I don’t have too much in the way of worries about the English wine industry

Um in regards to the price the average price of English sparkling wine is high there are a couple of reasons for that the first reason is that as I was just discussing the yields are quite low and if you’re a small producer it means you

Have to charge a little bit more for a bottle to cover all of your running expenses the other reason is that the amount of time that many of these wines spend aging particularly aging on their leav is significantly in excess of the minimums required by law uh and

Significantly in excess of what you might see in someone like Cara for example and that adds cost the final reason that the costs are quite high is that this is still a pretty small scale industry by comparison to the likes of Cara prco and champagne and that means

That they don’t quite yet have economies of scale that these other more established regions have but that is changing um as individual producers grow you can see the costs that they sell their wine for decreasing um but also as the industry grows itself it can harness external economies of scale so for

Example getting access to the specialist training and Equipment providers that other regions have been more used to benefiting from in the past um and in terms of again in terms of sort of price you are beginning to see um certain brands selling their traditional method sparkling wines for you know just under

About 30 pounds of bottle which is comparable to traditional method sparkling wine of the Sim of a similar quality in other regions in terms of expanding too fast I don’t think it’s expanding too fast um at as I kind of you know just just said earlier the

Hector under Vine at the moment is about 10% that of shampagne for example and the style of wine the quality level of wine being produced in the UK is fairly high this is not an industry that is looking to produce vast quantities of wine but a sustainable amount that can

Be sold to the kind of markets that are looking for that really really topend stuff okay um Right Wesley uh Howell asks is there a system of regional designation or labeling evolving in the UK uh the answer is predominantly no and the reason is because the industry is still

Very new indeed and as a result um regions are still trying to figure out exactly the precise s of style so what makes a kentish wine kentish versus a wine from Essex um like a wine from Essex and that’s still a still an open question um there is a protected

Designation of origin for West Sussex um but that isn’t something that has been widely adopted and to be honest with you I don’t think it will be widely adopted in the future okay um Joanna uh comments I live near Rena Hall I think they’ve had Vineyard for quite a long time

Potentially before the second World War recently been producing really good quality and prizewinning wines absolutely um as I said while the production before the 1960s was was pretty pretty small there have been Vineyards here and there dotted around for for quite a long time um sometimes in in surprising

Places uh Mark Paul ask what are some of the red varieties for still wine that’s an excellent question uh the most important one is p Noir so um P Noir has really been the focus of quality red wine production in recent years uh if you go back a little bit further some of

Those Germanic grape varieties things like a Rondo and Regent have been important and are still planted particularly in those slightly cooler more Northerly areas but P Noir is definitely the focus of production in the future and you’ll see quite a lot more still red P NOA in the

Future um right what else do we have here because we a couple of questions again about GIS um uh ABA go gavi asked does England make fortified wine uh no no we don’t um we obviously have a long tradition of drinking quite a lot of it specifically

Port and Sherry I don’t think we’d see very much English fortified wine in the in the future purely because it’s a style it’s a category of wine where demand is dropping quite quickly and we’re very well furnished with our imports from Portugal and Spain um are English people drinking local wines yes

A very important component of the wine industry thank you Marina for the question is um cellador sales so it’s a very large proportion of your average producers um sort of distribution channels they’re getting quite a lot of wine by selling to people that are visiting The Vineyards that’s very much

Something that producers are investing quite lot of money in uh and the reason is very understandable you get to cut out all of the sort of middlemen that traditionally exist in the wine industry if you can sell directly so you’re seeing lots of people offering chores

Tastings but also wine clubs as well and very much taking that model that you see in places like California and Australia of connecting directly with the consumer so definely that’s really really important okay um what else okay um Rari says hi from Paris hi RAR could you be a little

Bit more specific about the style of still white wines is there a main style well again this is something that is evolving very quickly um so I don’t think I would say that there is a sort of one definitive style of English still white wine but there are a few different

Ones um bakus is a very important grape variety again this is that German variety a little bit more of a Heritage um has a bit more of Heritage status but is still really important and that produces a light bodied very floral uh style of wine with this distinctive

Elder flow quality little bit like a sovon Blanc um from a cooler region um the other style you’re seeing quite a lot of is still Chardon obviously that’s the most planted great Variety in the UK so it makes sense that people are producing still Chardon is from that

These range from being very light bodied and crisp sort of like a shab through to something that has fairly high acidity so is still nice and fresh but may have been matured in oak or maybe matured with significant leaves aging so that it has an additional level of flavor

Complexity and a little bit of extra texture I find that those examples particularly those that have been ased on their leaves tend to be the best because naturally English still wine has a quite high level of acidity so that’s texture you get from Le aging really

Helps to balance out the um the the the naturally high acidity Paul asks if climate increases will production of red wine increase as well yes Paul almost certainly of all of the styles of wine produced uh sparkling still white Rosé and then red red wines tend to require the most ripeness

Because you’re going to be extracting tannin and flavor from the skin of the grapes um and as a result it’s something that is in the past only been well done in the warmest vintages but what’s been changing is the fact that the average temperature is increasing so the quality

Of English red wine has improved and the consistency of that Quality quality has improved substantially in the last 10 years and I only see that um only see that increasing in the future all right um let’s have a look uh John with the frosts have there been any attempts for

Late Harvest or ice wine varietals that’s a great question um I have actually tried an English ice wine but it was produced by freezing the grapes in um essentially a very fancy freezer uh that producer no longer makes the wine because they realized that using lots of electricity probably wasn’t the

Best it’s not cold enough in the UK in the winters to produce ice wine naturally and that’s by virtue of our maritime climate so um Winters in the UK are not fun um but they’re certainly not as cold as they might be in parts of Germany or in Canada where most ice want

Is produced late Harvest is tricky to produce as well because we have quite a bit of rainfall and that can cause disease which damages the grape so you can’t make good quality wine as a result of that I think I’ve got time for just one more

Question um let’s have a look okay so um let’s see here oh a lovely question there um is Steven Spur’s Winery still in production after his passing H yes it is um so Stephen um spur was a famous uh wine merchant and educator uh and he has a

Wine located down in Dorset called bride Valley and as far as I’m aware yes it is still producing um but guys that’s about our time for today I’m so sorry I couldn’t get through any more questions um a feedback poll has just popped up so if you could please complete that that

Would be really helpful just a reminder that a recording of this session will be available to um everyone to watch on our W events Hub on YouTube and if you enjoyed this session we’ve got two more lined up with myself on the 14th of November so in just about two weeks time

We are looking at Argentina’s main wine regions and then on the 23rd of January I’ll be kicking off the New Year by looking at Greece so we hope to see you at those in the future if not if you want to find out anything more about studying for the W um qualifications

Please go to WS global.com but once again thank you all very much for your time I hope you have a lovely day and I hope you enjoy some English wine in the near future cheers everyone speak to you very soon thank you