NEWS - REUTERS

It's competing on a par with the best in the world, upmarket British
retailer Waitrose says sales are growing 120 per cent a year and farmers are
ripping out other crops to make ... English wine.

Although still a minnow in a very large pond, English wine is now being
taken seriously in some important quarters. In the past few years it has won
international awards, mainly in the sparkling categories, with some even
rivalling Champagne.

"There's certainly a real supply-and-demand scenario in favour of suppliers,
the future is very bright," said Simon Field, Master of Wine and buyer at
wine merchant Berry Bros and Rudd.

The days of producing wine only as a pastime are long gone, with demand for
English vintages outpacing production. England now makes around three
million bottles a year and wine growers estimate that will quadruple in the
next few years.

"We are New Zealand in the 1980s, really, but we have one thing going
against us - their climate is more benign than ours, so we will expand at a
slower rate, but we are at that birth point if you like," said Bob Lindo,
chairman of the UK Vineyards Association and owner of Camel Valley vineyard
in Cornwall, southwest England.

The award-winning Ridgeview vineyard in Sussex, southern England, plans to
increase production to 300,000 bottles by 2010, from its present 60,000, by
planting another 26ha of grapes.

"It's really exciting times. It's just gone from strength to strength," said
Mardi Roberts, marketing and sales manager at Ridgeview.

Farmers are increasingly realising the benefit of investing in the English
wine industry. The National Farmers Union said that each year 200ha of
farmland is converted to vineyards.

On average an acre (0.4ha) of wheat will earn a farmer £300 ($776), but an
acre of grapes will earn £5000. One acre costs anywhere between £50,000 and
£125,000 in southern England.

An EU planting ban exemption for English and Welsh vintners approved in
December will only serve to bolster the fledgling industry in Britain. EU
agricultural ministers granted the exemption because they weren't asking for
any subsidies, unlike wine-growers in many other member nations.

Right now less than 1 per cent of wine drunk in England is English, meaning
the potential for growth is huge.

The suitability of soil in the south, plus increased technical know-how
unimpeded by the constraints of tradition, is even proving attractive to
French vineyards.

"It's a certainty within the next two, five or seven years that French
companies will certainly start planting in southern England," said Adam
Lechmere, editor of Online wine magazine Decanter.com.


"It would certainly be a coup for a French vineyard to be first to grow
sparkling wine in England."

If the efforts of one Briton in France are successful, then some French
customers will be savouring English bubbly instead of their beloved
Champagne.

Paul Tracy, owner of Fine Wine World, which imports foreign wines into
France, is in negotiations with Ridgeview. "I am absolutely certain once we
get these wines into stock that they will do well. People will want to
confound their friends by serving English sparkling wine."