May 11th 2009 : Bristol Tasting Circle

With English Wine week coming up later this month, I thought it would be a nice idea to try some English wines. We tasted 17 altogether, 2 sparkling, 9 white, 2 rose, 3 red and 1 dessert. Importantly, we tasted them all blind so noone could be prejudiced by the label or the origin.

Favourite white was a Welsh wine called Cock Hill. Most intriguing red was Beenleigh Manor which is a Cabernet/Merlot blend grown under polytunnels in Devon!

There are some very good English wines being made these days. The sparkling wines are very professional. The whites are often light and delicate with around 11% alcohol (which is quite a relief after some of these hot, alcoholic wines we get nowadays). The reds are generally quite summery with light tannin, like a Beaujolais.

The prices may seem high for English wines but you have to remember that most of the vineyards are tiny and do not have the economies of scale of some of the larger vineyards such as Three Choirs, Chapel Down or Denbies.