OUR PRODUCERS IN ENGLAND

Camel Valley – Cornwall  New!

With its vineyards planted on steep slopes leading down to Cornwall’s Camel River, this winery really is situated in one of England’s most picturesque locations. Sparkling wine is the speciality here, but they do also produce a deliciously fruity rosé and a fruity dry white wine from England’s very own Bacchus grape. As respected UK journalist Matthew Jukes succinctly puts it: “Camel Valley is the most impressive estate on our shores and without a doubt the number one winery in the Country”.

Gusbourne Estate – Appledore, Kent

Gusbourne Estate was started in 2004 by South African-born entrepreneur Andrew Weedon, with the sole purpose of producing England’s finest sparkling wines.
All the grapes which go into Gusbourne’s wines are grown on the estate’s own vineyards – they own 40 hectares in Kent and 22 in West Sussex – meaning that they have complete control over the quality of the grapes being produced. This combination of meticulous care in the vineyards, a state of the art winery, and lengthy ageing of its sparkling wines on their lees during the all-important second fermentation in bottle, has already won the winery many top awards. Their Blanc de Blancs 2011 and still Pinot Noir 2014 both won Platinum trophies in the 2016 Decanter Wine Awards for being the best wines of their type from England.
This is a hugely exciting and ambitious estate which will surely produce sparkling wines on their English chalk soils which will rival the best of Champagne for years to come!

Ridgeview – South Downs

Mike Roberts planted Ridgeview’s first vineyards on the South Downs about 20 miles north of Brighton back in the early 1990s. The chalky soils and globally-warming climate of this part of southern England are extremely similar to Champagne, and so it is Champagne varietals – Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier – which are grown here. In this part of Sussex you get lovely ripe fruit flavours due to the warm days, with crisp acidity and lowish alcohol due to the cool English Summer nights; the perfect ingredients for fine sparkling wine, which is 100% the focus here.

Ridgeview has rapidly become one of the top 3 sparkling wine producers in England and have received many awards and high praise from the World’s wine press in their short existence. English wines, similar to Swiss wines, due to the difficulties in growing ripe, healthy grapes, expensive vineyard land and their small production volumes, are by nature expensive. However Ridgeview’s range of sparkling wines is very fairly priced in comparison with other top English sparklers and particularly Champagne; and the quality is just as good as most Non Vintage Champagne brands. This is a winery to watch for the future!