A very sparkling bottom

To some, the idea of English wine is a bit of a joke, wrongly associated with those sickly sweet concoctions labelled as "British Wine". It's an unfortunate and confusing quirk of our labelling laws that "British Wine" is made from imported grape must, which often has sugar and other additives thrown in. English wine, however, is a different matter entirely.

There are now some 400 vineyards producing what is known as "quality wine" in the UK. Whilst all of red, white, rose and sparkling wines are produced, it's generally accepted that the whites and bubblies are where it's at.  In particular, English sparklers are now regularly giving their French equivalents a run for their money, with Nyetimber's 2003 classic cuvee taking the top spot at the 2010 World Sparkling Wine Championships in Verona. I would certainly agree that the Nyetimber is a superlative effort, as are the Camel Valley sparkling cuvees, however last week (thanks to Brixton Cornercopia) I tried a slightly lesser known Eng…