English Still Wine: Much Promise, Much Afoot

BY ANNE KREBIEHL, MW | APRIL 15, 2025

Still wines, for now, play a minor part in the English wine landscape, eclipsed by the success of English sparkling wines, whose effervescent genesis I recounted in my recent report. England, an island in the North Sea, with its marginal yet moderate maritime climate and southern counties straddling the latitudes of 51 and 52 degrees, seems predestined to produce brisk, fresh sparkling wines. But what about the wines that do not sparkle?

A Checkered Past

Judging at regional competitions about a dozen or so years ago, I remember tasting often meagre English whites, with the odd exception, made mostly from varieties like Seyval Blanc and Madeleine Angevine, alongside Germanic crossings suited to these northerly climes. Reds were few and far between. I recall a stunning Pinot Noir from Stanlake Park that was a notable exception. A Merlot-Cabernet blend grown under a polytunnel in Devon remains memorable for entirely different reasons. In those days, English still wines were of a standard that could be sold to tourists at cellar doors when “proper” wines from Europe or the New World were conveniently absent. Overpriced for what they were, English still wines could not really compete. What happened in the past decade, however, is remarkable. Climate change, increased growing expertise and the exploration of new regions (hello, Essex!) have made all the difference. Much is afoot.

Still Wine Today

Wine GB, the British wine industry’s representative body, reports that still wine represented roughly between one-fifth and one-third of total production over the past eight years. Of this, two-thirds were white wine, with the remaining third split into varying proportions of Rosé and red (the balance tipping in favor of Rosé). In this report, however, there are more reds than Rosés.

Plantings reflect production. The top three varieties are Chardonnay with 1,228 hectares (ha), Pinot Noir with 1,141 ha and Pinot Meunier with 343 ha. This trinity is followed by 298 ha of Bacchus, 122 ha of Seyval Blanc and ever-decreasing patches of Solaris, Reichensteiner, Pinot Noir Précoce (a tricky, earlier-ripening mutation of Pinot Noir that seems to have found a natural home in England), Rondo and Pinot Gris. Pinot Blanc, Ortega, Sauvignon Blanc, Albariño, Riesling, Huxelrebe, Müller-Thurgau, Gamay, Pinotage and others are also planted but have too little surface to show up on the stats. Depending on your point of view, this is either a hodgepodge or a hotbed of experimentation. In any case, quantities are modest. How could it be otherwise when only 3,230 of the 4,209 hectares so recently planted are bearing fruit, and only 20-35% of these are made into still wine?