Vineyards

Enjoy the grape in South Oxfordshire

Wine buffs can take their time to make a considered choice at one of the vineyards operating in South Oxfordshire.

Vines were planted in 1982 at Chiltern Valley Winery and Brewery in Hambleden. Since the first harvest in 1984 the vineyard has produced an ever-increasing range of award-wining English wines.

Six grape varieties were planted on 14 acres of land at Brightwell vineyard in Wallingford between 1988 and 1990. Throughout the summer the vineyard is open for group tours and tastings. Guests can walk through vines; explore woodland and lakeside walks and picnic next to the River Thames.

Fawley Vineyard at Fawley Green near Henley is another location offering English wines, but Boze Down Vineyard at Whitchurch now restricts itself to selling grapes to other producers and has closed down its shop.

Fawley Vineyard includes a house and shop behind the village hall. The shop carries a range of original gifts, including cartoon-embossed aprons with slogans such as 'Last mango in Paris' and 'Prawn to be wild'. Their wines have won awards and their sparkling wine is a regular medal winner at local and national competitions. The vineyard produces still and sparkling wines more or less in alternate years.

It has been said that Julius Caesar brought the vine to England and wine was certainly brought to Britain by the Romans, although it is not certain it was grown here.

It is more certain that by the time of the Norman Conquest, vines were grown, and wine made, in a substantial number of monastic institutions in England, especially, southern England. The legacy of street names (such as Vine Street or the Vineyards) in London and provincial towns and cities suggests that vines and vineyards were certainly no great rarities.

During the Domesday Survey in the late eleventh century, vineyards were recorded in 46 places in southern England, from East Anglia through to modern-day Somerset. By the time King Henry VIII ascended the throne there were 139 sizeable vineyards in England and Wales - 11 of them owned by the Crown, 67 by noble families and 52 by the church.