While the rainfall in July may have been unwelcome to some it came at the right time for wine producers in England, who are predicting bumper harvests after perfect weather this year.
Growers are expecting the highest and best yields to date, boosting the burgeoning wine industry in the UK. There are now 943 vineyards across Great Britain, according to a new report from the trade group WineGB. The industry produced 12.2m bottles in 2022, a large rise on the 5.3m bottles in 2017.
Additionally, exports are up from 4% to 7% and it is predicted production will reach 25m bottles by 2032, with 7,600 hectares (18,800 acres) of vines planted. At present there are 4,000 hectares (9,900 acres).
Augusta Raimes, a partner at Raimes English Sparkling, near Alresford, in Hampshire, said temperatures were just right, bringing back memories of 2018, which was a “phenomenal year” for growers. She said: “We have very nice, clean fruit and big bunches. It’s very exciting.”
Raimes put the success down to a good spring, when the frost came at the right time, and sun in June. Then, just as it got dry, “the rain did come”, she said. To finish off, she is hoping for a sunny August and September before harvest in October.
As a result the vineyard is expecting a “bigger harvest” this year. “We have only just started our bunch counts but we definitely have more and bigger bunches at this stage, so it will be a good harvest,” Raimes said.
Duncan Schwab, the chief executive and head winemaker at Sandridge Barton Wines, near Totnes in Devon, agrees. “A lot of what happens this year is affected by last year. We had a good year last year so the vines built up a good reserve and good flowers for the following year.
“What we do need now is sun over this August and into September,” he said. “We usually harvest 60 tonnes of grapes from our 25-acre site but this year the number will possibly be up to 100 tonnes.
“We had an amazing June so that the vines had a head start … We have that time where the berries are turning in colour, so the red pinots are getting pigmentation in their skins and that is happening two weeks earlier than we have seen before.”
He added: “The only danger is disease levels rise if it is wet and humid, so we need to make sure we have good air flows through the canopy, which means taking off some leaves. We have a good situation here because we are on the banks of the River Dart, so warm air rises and we tend not to get frost, as cold air drops down. A big body of water like the river means the vineyard is quite temperate.”
Schwab said this year had not been far off “the ideal summer for wine growing”. He added: “Last year it hit temperatures of 35C and some early varieties did not like that extra heat.”
He said: “The perfect year depends on what you are trying to achieve and grow. Last year, red wine was an amazing vintage but it was not so good for the lighter, cool-climate grapes we grow. This year is a good year all around.”
