Black Friday: Save 20% on Annual memberships for a limited time! Join now

Britain's heritage-vine heroes

Whinyard Rocks Susan and James Kinsey-Jones

A new generation of pioneering hippies and bonkers Brits is restoring the UK's viticultural heritage.

Last year, after reading about Tim Wildman MW’s quest to restore Britain’s viticultural heritage, I set about gathering up all the commercially available UK wines I could find made from hybrid grape varieties and crosses.

It wasn’t easy. Over the last two decades, as vineyard plantings have grown exponentially in the UK, these deeply unfashionable varieties have been grubbed up, abandoned or quietly subsumed as anonymous components of blends. But with the help of Matt Hodgson of Grape Britannia, and WineGB, I collected...