Wednesday 4 May 2011

Royal family to plant vineyard at Windsor

 Fizz from Sussex is often seen on the banqueting tables of Buckingham Palace; the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge had wine from Chapel Down in Kent at their wedding and now the Royal family is going one step further with plans to make an English wine of its own.
Next week 16,700 vines will be planted in a section of Windsor Great Park, the former hunting park in Berkshire to which Victoria and Prince Albert were so devoted. The vineyard will be planted with champagne varieties - chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier - with a view to making an English sparkling wine.
The Duke of Edinburgh is said to be closely involved and it is understood that Stephen Skelton, a Master of Wine and viticultural consultant who in 1976 planted the first vines at Chapel Down, now Britain's biggest producer, has been advising on the project.

The scheme has been welcomed by the English wine trade. "It is quite simply the biggest boost the English wine industry has ever had," says Bob Lindo of Camel Valley vineyards who had a royal visit in 2008. "It's fantastic."
English wine is having quite a moment. As recently as 1984 just 325 hectares of land were producing grapes that were being made into wine but over the past few years there has been a significant increase in planting.
"It's not all in production yet but we've now got 75 per cent more land under vine than we had in 2004," says Julia Trustram Eve of English Wine Producers. "The official figure stands at 1,323 though we estimate that the actual figure is even higher than that.

"There's been a lot of investment in sparkling wine particularly," according to Trustram Eve. "People have really embraced it - and they've been planting a lot of chardonnay and pinot noir to make that. "In 2009 roughly half of the total grape production was intended for sparking wine of one kind or another. "
Figures released yesterday also show that last year English wine had its biggest year, producing the equivalent of just over 4 million bottles, breaking the previous record of 3.5 million.

The Windsor Great Park wine will be just a small drop in this English wine ocean. As vineyards take three years to produce grapes that can be made into wine, it will be quite a wait before anyone can try it.
But perhaps by the time Prince Harry gets around to getting married there will be a royal wine to toast the royal wedding.

1 comment:

  1. Yeah it looks exciting. Regular Wino are predicting it as the Royal Wedding wine for Prince Harry's wedding (or Charles' next one) http://www.regularwino.com/news/royal-family-windsor-great-park-wine/

    I'd love to give it a sample when it's bottled.

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