A few years ago, the phrase "English wine" was pretty much only a figure of speech with no meaning to it. Today, however, it's a very different story. Last week, a sparkling wine, Ridgeview Grosvenor 2009 that was served at the state banquet to welcome the arrival of the Chinese President. World Renowned chef, Gordon Ramsay has listed not just one but several English wines at his new restaurant in Bordeaux.
At a blind tasting organized by Noble Rot magazine, English wine scored a victory over champagne, with two English wines, Hambledon Classic Cuvée and Nyetimber Classic Cuvée 2010, beating Pol Roger and Taittinger to conclude the event coming in first and second place. It's safe to say that England has moved from being just a consumer of wine to a country that also has its own little, respectable wine industry.
Our sparkling wine is so flavorful lthat there's a rush to expand new vineyards, with license applications to Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) from a newbie up 40 per cent in the past year. The most important question to ask, as production rises and more acres of our southern counties are covered in rows of the champagne grapes - chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier - is: how much farther can this go? Can England get a hold of a genuine position for itself as a world-class wine region? And is a larger English wine industry, which may need healthy exports and could not depend on local novelty value, economically reasonable?
Corinne Seely, winemaker at Exton Park in Hampshire (the Blanc de Noirs is the pick of the Exton Park bunch) understands it, they are entering the third phase of wine in England. The Frenchwoman has made wine all across the globe for the past seven years. A crucial part of this third phase is the marketing sell.
The crucial part of the third phase is the disposal of these wines. There is no one in English wine who talks about champagne anymore these days. However, they hold back at comparisons, unless it's referring to a blind tasting where English sparkling wine has routed champagne, and then everyone will be joyful. But sad to say, champagne did not become the most famous luxury drink brand in the world because it tastes good. It reached that level of success because of its, yes, flavour, but also to brutal and untiring marketing and a near-obsessive level of brand protection.
English wine producers are definitely good as they make its way to reposition their product from an inexpensive yokel fizz and embed them steadily in the more lucrative luxury market.