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Susy Atkins 18 April 2019 11:04am BST English wine is on a roll, especially after the hot and gloriously productive 2018 vintage. Recently released figures from promotional body Wine GB show
that 15.6 million bottles of English (and Welsh) wine were produced in 2018, up 130 per cent on 2017’s frost-hit crop. Acreage planted to vines (mostly in the south of England, spanning
from Kent to Cornwall) has tripled since 2000 – 1.6 million new vines went in last year. And between 20,000 and 30,000 jobs will be created in the local wine industry over the next 20 years,
Wine GB predicts. Exciting though this is, many people don’t know where to start when buying English wine. And because it's not cheap (mainly due to no economies of scale, and low
yields), they are especially keen to know which are the best. That’s where the results from the recent Independent English Wine Awards (IEWA) come in handy. The 2019 Independent English Wine
Awards mark the third year for this rapidly growing event and delivers gold, silver and bronze gongs after a blind wine tasting by a panel of experienced judges. I was one of those judges
(the role is voluntary), joining a panel of wine merchants, winemakers, sommeliers, experienced wine writers and educators and two Masters of Wine. Our chair was the well-known Master of
Wine and winemaker Liam Steevenson. We tasted 132 wines between us, all bottle labels tucked away behind what looked like big black socks. The only information the judges were given by IEWA
founder Alex Taylor (who established the competition to shine a light on English producers) was the grape variety or blends of grapes in each wine, and the vintage (which year the wine came
from) or non-vintage (when blended from more than one year's harvest) status. I judged one flight of sparklers and another of still wines, and the fizz greatly outclassed the
non-bubblies. England’s cool climate delivers mouth-tingling fresh acidity and its best sparkling-wine producers balance this with a richer complexity that comes from long bottle ageing on
the yeast lees using the champagne method. The English wine producers moving onto beer, cider, vodka and more Of the 22 gold medals awarded, 13 went to sparkling wines, including Hampshire’s
Cottonworth Rosé NV, Surrey’s Denbies Classic NV and Dorset’s Langham Rosé NV. The category’s top gong, the sparkling trophy, announced this afternoon, was awarded to Wiston Estate NV from
Pulborough, north of Worthing in West Sussex, made by the renowned Irish wizard of English wines, Dermot Sugrue. The wine is made from one-third each of the classic champagne grapes –
chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier –the fruit for the first two grown at the estate, with the pinot meunier coming from Kent, all aged in bottle for 42 months before disgorgement (when
the yeast sediment is popped out and the wine completed). It seemed I was unlucky in my so-so flight of still wines, as golds from other flights were awarded to nine wines including
Polgoon's Sauvignon Blanc 2018, from Cornwall (the first sauvignon blanc ever produced by the vineyard), Devon’s Lyme Bay Chardonnay 2016, and Painter of Light 2017 from the urban
winery Blackbook in London. The still wine trophy went to the richly textured, soft but fresh and dry Stopham Vineyard Pinot Gris 2017. The Independent English Wine Awards | Who won what?
And what do you know? Stopham is only a stone’s throw from Wiston Estate near Pulborough, West Sussex. Clearly a great part of the country for wine… With 132 wines entered this year (after
88 in 2018 and just 63 in its inaugural year), the IEWA is one to watch – 80 per cent of the entries got a medal of some colour. If you want to get to know English wine better, these winners
are the place to start. TRY THESE... WISTON ESTATE BRUT NV, West Sussex, England _12%, wistonestate.com, £26.50, along with Harvey Nichols, Vagabond Wines, Butlers Wine Cellar, Seven
Cellars, Hennings Wine Merchants, South Down Cellars and Loki Wine_ This one scooped the IEWA sparkling trophy (top of the golds). It’s a fresh fizz with green apples and citrus that’s
lively but with an underlying yeasty richness. It’s reasonably priced, too. STOPHAM ESTATE PINOT GRIS 2017, West Sussex _11.5%, stophamvineyard.co.uk, £16_ A rare English pinot gris, ripe
and soft, with fairly rich apple and pear flavours. This would be delicious with cold chicken or fresh salmon steak. Trophy winner in the still section. LANGHAM ROSÉ ENGLISH SPARKLING WINE
NV, Dorset _11.5%, langhamwine.co.uk, leaandsandeman.co.uk £28_ I adore this sparkling pink, which is dry with subtle hints of strawberry and cranberry with a dab of cream and masses of
teeny-tiny, satin-like bubbles. Match with seafood.