ENGLISH WINE: FROM STILL TO SPARKLING: THE NEWEST NEW WORLD WINE COUNTRY

Once upon a time, in the world of wine, the simplest way to get a laugh was to start praising the virtues of English wine. Oh, how they would laugh! And they were right. Up until the 1990s, hardly any English wine was anything more than a curiosity to drink if there was no other choice. The outdated view of English wine is that of a cottage industry made up of enthusiasts grappling with mud and mist. The modern view is of a country surprisingly blessed with vast expanses of vine-friendly soil, much of it almost indistinguishable from the chalky slopes of Champagne and Chablis, and a country making full use of the vagaries of climate change to ripen Chardonnay and Pinot Noir to perfect levels for increasingly excellent sparkling and still wines. And it would not be far off to say that England is now the newest of the New World wine countries, part of the New Wave.