Our visit to Chapel Down

I have a particular fondness for the Chapel Down Winery near Tenterden, Kent. I was brought up just down the road in Rolvenden, although in those days it was of course all hop gardens and orchards rather than vineyards. The landscape of southern England is certainly changing.

Chapel Down is the UK’s largest producer of wines and, with a massive expansion underway, will soon overtake Denbies in Surrey in terms of vineyard acreage too. And, gosh, the wines they make are good.

I led a heavily oversubscribed Spectator visit to Chapel Down on St. George’s Day and we had a hoot (one couple even came specially from Brussels). Josh Donaghay-Spire, the winemaker, and Mark Harvey, the MD formerly of Moet-Hennessy (which tells us something about the state of English wine, that he’d rather be looking after Chapel Down than Moet & Chandon or Veuve Clicquot) led us on a brief tour of one of the vineyards and the winery.