Our new winery partner Langham Wine Estate featured in this Guardian article about the growth of wine-making in England!
Rows of vines stretch across the rolling hills of rural Dorset. Currently waist height, they appear bare against a bleak spring sky. Up close, you can see they are already dotted with tiny woolly buds as they exit their winter dormancy for a new growth cycle.
Come summer these rows will be laden with chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier grapes, ready to make the latest batch of English sparkling wine from the Langham estate near Dorchester.Although it was only 2009 when the first vines were planted here on former arable farmland, the estate has already produced award-winning wines that beat established European rivals.
“It was always at the back of my mind, as a way of diversifying and expanding the business, and doing something a bit more fun and interesting too,” says the estate’s owner, Justin Langham, standing in a barn on site. “When I’m making wine, the output per acre is many multiples of what we grow in wheat.”
Growing grapes in Britain on a commercial scale has been made possible by new growing methods and a shifting climate. “I don’t think we would have been doing what we’re doing going back 40, 50 years,” says Langham.
