Discovering English pinot noir

Olive’s wine expert puts the country’s lesser-known red wines in the spotlight

- Kate Hawkings

Pinot noir is the most widely grown grape in England, making up 33% of the total crop, but little ends up as red wine. Nearly all of it, along with other classic champagne grapes grown here, chardonnay and pinot meunier, is used to make brilliant, highly revered English sparkling wines.

Our cool climate is perfect to produce the acidity in grapes that gives sparkling wine its essential steely backbone, but it has often struggled to provide enough warmth to develop the fruitiness required to make really good still wines. While English fizz has gone from strength to strength over the past decade or so, frequently beating top champagnes in blind tastings, its red wines were less acclaimed, often criticised for being too mean and too lean.

The long, hot summer of 2018 changed all that when pinot noir in England reached levels of ripeness more usually found in its spiritual home of Burgundy. Smart English winemakers used some of these grapes to make seriously impressive red wines that are now on the market, and their later vintages are looking equally fine. Climate change may mean that good ripeness can be achieved more easily, but the improving quality of these wines is also to do with more mature vines that give better concentration, as well as advancing wine-making techniques and technology.