Pops away!
WINEMAKERS are celebrating the ‘miracle’ grape harvest of 2023, named Britain’s largest ever by national association WineGB—with an expected bottle production of 20–22 million, it tops the previous record year, 2018, by 50%. The largest driver of this is that, with 900 UK vineyards, hectares under vine have more than quadrupled since 2000, with a 75% growth in the past five years alone; the ‘lacklustre’ July and August followed by a warm September played a part, too. Call it ‘a silver lining to our miserable summer,’ says Nicola Bates, WineGB CEO.
The UK wine market is worth more than £10 billion and counting, with consumers ‘drinking more and more home produce and, at the same time, exports are going up, especially in the Nordics and Japan’. Our top four grapes remain Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Meunier and Bacchus, and all are performing ‘exceptionally well’, finds the report. Stephen Skelton MW, the viticulture consultant who wrote the document, believes that ‘2023 will be a vintage to remember’.
English and Welsh vineyards may also welcome the scrapping of EU laws on bottle sizes and packaging, which came into effect on January 1. Mushroom-shaped stoppers and foil covers on bottlenecks are no longer compulsory and both still and sparkling wine can now be sold in 200ml, 500ml and 568ml (or one-pint) quantities. Whether or not these changes will have a discernible impact is yet to be seen.
Sparkling wine bottles have to
