English wine comes of age

Apples have been growing in the "garden of England" for centuries, and Friday Street Farm is no exception.

The Skinner family has tended the farm in the parish of East Sutton since Victorian times. The modern crop includes coxes, Worcester pearmains, egremont russets, breaburns and sweet lillibuts. However, the apples with reliable, lyrical English names are now being joined by a foreign crop, the names of which display an undeniable glamour: chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier.

As the variety and quantity of grapes in our fields multiply, a startling truth is becoming evident: English wine is no longer a joke. It's a booming industry.

With dairy farming in meltdown and low prices being paid for arable crops, small and medium-sized farms are looking for viable crops in a future that looks certain to be dominated by enormous, intensive farms.

The name of the game is diversification. And there are other reasons why wine is on the lips of earthy farmers accustomed to handling root vegetables, hops, wheat or apples. English sparkling wines have left behind their amateurish image to become a critical success, even outclassing wines from France and the New World in blind tastings.

Global warming, a potentially catastrophic force, has neverthe-less markedly improved conditions for growing wine in Britain. Viticulture has also developed, enabling agronomists and winemakers to give precise and accurate information to farmers wishing to move into grapes. Wineries keen to exploit the popularity of English wine are encouraging farmers to plant new vines to satisfy the demand.

The East Anglian Growers Association says the acreage devoted to wine production in its area is up by 150 per cent in the past two years. One of the biggest wineries, Chapel Down in Kent, has increased its supply from 140 acres five years ago, to 180 acres now. A further 180 acres of vines are growing but not ready to harvest.

Down in Cornwall, a winemaker is having to turn down contracts with supermarkets because he cannot make enough.

To grow grapes, farmers must be adventurous, have good south-facing slopes, and an investment of around £100,000 to start a substantial vineyard of 15 acres. Even in a poor year, an acre of vines can fetch £2,000, compared with £300 for an acre of wheat.

Next month at his family farm in Kent, Tom Skinner will plant seven-and-a-half acres of champagne grapes in an attempt to find a viable future. At present, he grows 36 acres of apples, 14 of asparagus and six of strawberries, with the rest arable and grass. But to get his crops to market, Mr Skinner has to pay for several middle men: a marketing company, distributors and the supermarkets.

With wine, he can sell his grapes straight to a winery. "Most of the equipment we need we have got, because we are apple producers," the 31-year-old said.

"Putting in grapes is not cheap; there is all the wire work and trellis work. You are producing something which does not have to go through three or four parties before it reaches the consumer. But at the bottom of the ladder, we don't make a lot of money."

Mr Skinner, whose family has toiled the land since 1892, plans to plant 20-22 acres of vines by 2010. Because he already has small-scale mowers, tractors and sprayers for apple productions, his start-up costs are lower than they would be for an exclusively arable farm.

Nonetheless, the 31-year-old estimates it will cost him around £30,000, including labour, to plant the first seven-and-a-half acres. Despite the outlay, he is confident that vines could be part of the solution for hard-pressed farmers in the South of England. "It's been worked out that Kent is one of the best places to grow grapes for sparking wine. We have more or less the climate they had in the Champagne region 25 to 30 years ago.

"If you take the amount of wine drunk in this country, English wine makes up less than 1 per cent, but if that went up to 5 per cent that would be a huge jump. Those figures have got to be achievable."

For Tom Read, chief executive of the local food group Produced in Kent, diversification of farms is a way of keeping Britain's agricultural heritage alive.

With sales of £16m, English wine accounts for less than one per cent of the UK market - but demand is growing briskly. "At the moment, demand for English wine is excellent and some vineyards are finding it hard to fulfil demand," said Julia Trustrum Eve, of English Wine Producers.

New Hall in Essex uses pinot noir and a pinot blanc grapes grown in Essex for its wines. Piers Greenwood, chairman of East Anglian Growers Association and owner of New Hall, said growers had been helped by the favourable judging of English bottles at international competitions. "There has been an increase in demand which supply cannot meet," he said. "A number of the farmers in the region have taken the opportunity to plant grapes."

At Biddenden vineyard in Kent, they have noticed how attitudes to English wine have changed over the years. The winery makes all sorts of wine - red, white, rose and sparkling - and sells 35,000 bottles a year.

Most of Biddenden's wine, 85 per cent, is sold through the vineyard shop to visitors who tour the winery in the summer.

"A lot are very surprised," said the shop manager, Linda Hildige. "They comment on how English wine used to be, and how much better it is now. On the whole, it's a good response and they keep coming back. Some say they won't go to France any more to get wine."

Generally, English wine is grown in the south, in a swath stretching from Cornwall to Cambridgeshire, and is particularly prevalent in the counties of Kent, Sussex and Essex. Although the Romans had vineyards here, modern-day wine-making increased in the 1960s and 70s. Now, scores of growers and wineries exist, from amateurs with a few acres to commercial wineries which win awards. Among the better-known producers are Camel Valley in Cornwall, Chapel Down and Nyetimber and Ridgeview in Sussex.

At first, English growers planted German grapes that were thought to be the most suitable for the soil. But because of the similarity between the chalk hills and climate of southern England to the Champagne region, producers have begun to concentrate on sparkling wines, which is popular in Britain and commands premium prices.

Sales of sparkling wine at Chapel Down have risen from 30,000 in 2001 to 100,000 this year despite big price rises.

"We have 180 acres under vine but we have put in a further 140 that aren't productive yet," said Frazer Thompson, managing director, whose company supplies Waitrose and Sainsbury's.

"It's growing pretty rapidly and we are continuing to put down 70 to 80 acres a year, but the important thing is that we do that in a staged way because we don't want a glut of English wine.

"We would love to hear from anyone who had land in the UK who is interested in growing grapes. If you put up a sign saying 'vineyard' you will attract thousands of people a year, and you will be able to sell them wine and other products from a farm shop," Mr Thompson added.

Veteran winemaker Bob Lindo, of Camel Valley Wines, who has been making wine for 20 years, is well-placed to comment on the change to English wine. He makes 200,000 bottles a year, a vast increase on even five years ago. "We have doubled capacity every year for the past three or four years. But maintaining it will be difficult because demand has been growing so quickly," he said.

"English wine is really taking off and there are a lot of entrepreneurs and investors coming into the industry. It will be harder to source grapes."

He added: "There has been a revolution, there's been a complete change in the way English wine is perceived."

Mr Lindo has only enough wine to supply one of 18 Waitrose stores he is supposed to be stocking, and he recently had to end a contract with Asda. "We had to turn down Tesco because we didn't have the stocks. Tesco were desperate."

Simon Hume-Kendall, a shipping tycoon, has 20 acres under vine at Lamberhurst vineyard. Wine-making is a sideline for the one-time football executive, who makes the majority of his money from the Hop Farm tourist attraction, and from a string of executive appointments.

But he prefers to spend his time in the late Autumn picking pinot noir, pinot blanc and Bacchus grapes at Lamberhurst, near the Sussex border, where he is putting in another five acres of vines this year.

"It is profitable as an overall business, but it's not a profit-motive to do it,' said Mr Hume-Kendall, 52, a former director of Crystal Palace Football Club.

Back at Friday Street Farm however, the grapes could make the difference between poverty and survival.

When he harvests his first grape crop in 2010, Mr Skinner hopes to make around £1,200 a tonne.

In a good year, each acre might yield five tonnes, making a far higher financial return than other crops. But the wait will be long for the first crop, three years, and the future demand is far from guaranteed.

"It's very exciting to be involved in wine, but it's still a huge gamble," he said.

Richard Erlich's guide to the best British wine

Nyetimber

This West Sussex estate, now owned by a Dutch industrialist, produces sparkling wines which not only stand above all UK competition but can compete with some of the best of Champagne. Their Classic Cuvée is sold at Waitrose and elsewhere for a shade over £20, and it's worth every penny. World-class fizz.

Ridgeview

A close second-best, this time from East Sussex. They too make sparkling wine only, in four cuvées including one rosé. Again, a competitor to worry Champagne. Some wines can be bought in Majestic and Waitrose.

Chapel Down

Kent-based Chapel Down sources grapes from Sussex and Essex as well. Specialise in still wines made from Germanic grapes. The Bacchus and Flint Dry, a blend, are outstanding. Some wines are sold by Waitrose, Tesco and Sainsbury's.

Denbies

England's largest producer, with around 260 acres of vines, based in Surrey. Their best wines are from their Vineyard Select series, including a sparkling Greenfields Cuvée, a very serious Bacchus, and even a Pinot Noir which shows that England may yet deliver top-class reds. Some wines available from Somerfield and Waitrose.

Camel Valley

Fine wine from Cornwall? Believe it. From vineyards west of Bodmin, this small producer makes still and sparkling wines of high quality. Their Camel Valley Brut and Pinot Noir "Cornwall" Brut Rosé are both excellent, and Camel Valley Bacchus is stunning.

Richard Ehrlich is the wine critic for the Independent on Sunday