Last night, John and I were discussing the fact that it is so difficult to buy English wines even if you want to. Our local Waitrose stocks five wines – all from Chapel Down’s vineyard in Tenterden. We have not been able to find any at Sainsbury’s, Tescos or ASDA, and we’ve been struggling to find any at the smaller offies as well.
Supporting our local vineyards is important as we can see them getting better and more successful each year. But it is also important from an environmental point of view. At a time when “being green” is a concept that all industries have to embrace to survive, you would expect at least the bigger wine retailers to support products that don’t need to be shipped from all over the world. We’re not saying we should all stop drinking wine from other countries – a fine wine is of course a fine wine regardless of its origin – but we’d like to see more locally produced products in our local shops.
Starting this week, we will begin to search high and low for shops where you can buy English wines. We intend to name and shame those who don’t, and raise and praise those who do, stock wines for those of us who enjoy exploring the tastes of Britain.
Marks and Spencer have three of our Chapel Down wines and Sainsbury have a pink fizz made by us in their “Taste the difference” range. The problem is volumes. We just cant make enough and we’re by far the largest producer. The best way people can support the industry is to ask for it in restaurants, shop for it on-line or best of all, come and visit.
I found your English Rose at our M&S today, but that was the only one they had. Will definitely go and check out our Sainsbury’s again for that fizz…
We did kind of figure that demand might surpass the supply, but we would like to at least do our bit to make people more aware of English as a worthy alternative to other wines.
Thanks for stopping by again!