Enthusiasm and new vines put fizz in English Wines.  Add/Read Comments

The English wine industry, long the butt of dinner party jokes, is being revolutionised by a new generation of professionals who are replanting orchards and wheat fields with vines and winning prizes worldwide. The wine is so good that at least one champagne house has moved across the Channel from France to invest in an English vineyard and will soon be producing sparkling wines it hopes will rival the great marques of Reims and Epernay.

Reuters.co.uk
"Helped by a warming climate, new varieties of grapes, modern methods and government grants, production is rising rapidly. "English and Welsh wines are getting better very quickly, and some of them, English sparkling wines particularly, are already exceptionally good -- world class," said Stephen Skelton, author of "The Wines of Britain and Ireland".