It used to be the easiest way in the wine world to get a laugh - start extolling the virtues of
English wine. Oh how they would chortle! The old-fashioned view of English wine is that of a
cottage industry made up of amateurs struggling with the mud and the drizzle. The modern view
is of a country amazingly blessed with vast tracts of soil suitable for viticulture much of it
almost indistinguishable from the chalky slopes of Champagne and Chablis and of a country
taking full advantage of the vagaries of climate change to ripen Chardonnay and Pinot Noir to
levels perfect for sparkling wine. And it wouldnt be far off the mark to say that England is
now the newest of the New World New Wave wine countries.
