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[QUOTE]Seen it many times, I contribute to geography, flora and fauna articles on Wikipedia often.
If you mean the brown / red hills then I highly doubt it, those are Dartmoor and they're very wet, windswept and have poor soils.Especially around Exeter and Plymouth there are hills that could provide good conditions on their sun-exposed sides.
Basically that far north and close to the sea and at that altitude leads to a poor climate. Most of it is all hill farms, sheep, moorland and abandoned bronze age villages.
I know on the continent the hills are generally forested in meadows, but here rainfall significantly increases with altitude.
This isn't totally true. It's the mildest region with the warmest winters, but the south east from the Isle of Wight to Dover has the best summer temperatures.This is also the warmest region in England.
The summer temperatures are what really counts with wine. The vines can survive our mild winters easily, but they need a lot of sun and heat in summer and the hottest parts of England in summer are the south and east.
These tend to have a more continental-like climate whereas the south west is definitely temperate. The temperate climate in the south west means the winters are mild, but the summers aren't as hot as in the south east.
These are the real maps you need to look at:
Sunlight - notice how the South West is similar to Baden and the South East to the Rhine and Belgium.
See what I mean about the South West?
Sunlight and temperature are key. Some useful maps can be found here.
Lack of sunlight leads to more acidity in my opinion. That is partly why apples from northern climates tend to be "sharper" in flavour than ones from southern areas (compare Cox's or Elstar to Golden Delicious - the latter is grown here in the south east only).
Acidity is the key to making beverages.
On that map, the yellow marked hills would be much better for vines. They tend to be steep, if not high and have good soils.Now find a place with a good, warm ground and maybe some good white wine can be produced. The mild winters could allow some cottage and windmill palms to grow in the vineyard. Some people with the right vision could really produce a good wine and form a beautiful and unique landscape. It´s mainly about courage and passion.
Rich soils lead to vine growth at the expense of grapes, but Dartmoor's soils are just too poor and acidic I think.
The lower, yellow marked hills in the south west are like this:
The south east tends to be more like this:
Well there's plenty of hills like that, but if the hills are too steep they'll have their own micro-climate which here tends to be cool and wet leading to very acidic soils.I think hot, steep hills with warm stones are really the key to a good English wine. The difference between the average temperature in July in Southern England and here is as big as the difference between here and central Italy. This has to be compensated by choosing really warm places for the wine to grow - as steep as possible.
The south west can grow grapes but they're grown as far as southern Wales. I still think the South East is the better area since it has the warmest summers which is what grapes really need.
Grapes have been grown in the south east (especially Kent) since the Romans and have experienced periods of prosperity (medieval warm period) and periods of decline (dark age interruptions, little Ice Age, French competition).
The Little Ice Age and French competition finished the industry in the industrial period. It started recovering in the 1950s.
A vineyard near Cambridge - see your map
A vineyard near Canterbury
A lot of the German hardier varieties are grown here. I think as the climates warm you'll get viticulture migrating up the Rhine nearly to the Low Countries.As the climate gets hotter especially the northern German wine growers, who focus on Riesling, will get problems, because Riesling doesn´t like the hot summers we now have. But that´s not too big a problem, because red wine gets more and more popular and they can gradually exchange their varieties.
Many of the vines in England Vitis vinifera or hybrids. The most popular varieties grown are "Seyval Blanc" (hybrid), "Reichensteiner", "Müller-Thurgau" and "Bacchus". Notice how the majority are German.Here in my region we mostly grow Pinot Noir and other Pinots, which don´t have a problem with the hot summers and will still produce a great wine when the climate gets warmer. But the changing climate encourages wine growers to try growing more mediterranean wine like Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. More and more vineyards have those varieties.
Lesser grown varieties are "Chardonnay", "Madeleine Angevine", "Huxelrebe", "Ortega" and "Schonburger".
Amongst the few reds that are grown are "Dornfelder", "Pinot_meunier" and "Pinot Noir".
All our own cultivars were lost with our industry.
Now obviously it'd take a large change in climate and a lot of effort to compete with the great wine growing regions of the world, but I do believe we have scope for a decent industry.
For table grapes and cheap wines at least along with perhaps the odd superior wine or two to enter into the competitions.
The average man on the street isn't a connoisseur of fine wines. Most people accept good wines but aren't looking for anything special. When they are they buy quality at a high price.
The right places are there because they're already being grown here. I think you underestimate our climate and the hardiness of grape vines.I can imagine wines like Riesling, Chardonnay or Auxerrois to be successfully grown in England, if the right, warm spots are found.
Grapes need warm, hot summers which the south of England can increasingly offer. Even Denmark has a small industry based around hybrids now. although Denmark is really at the edge of cultivation.
If climate change does goes as predicted we may see some areas in Southern Europe lost to cultivation or switching to other varieties. England cannot compete with France but does have a lot to offer.
Some interesting quotes:
Even Scotland's having a go, but I do really think they're pushing it. This will be vinegar, Scotland is one of the cloudiest countries in Europe. It'd only work on Tiree, it has the sun but I'm not sure about the heat.The limestone soils of Kent and other portions of southern England are suitable for growing the grapes used to produce sparkling wine, and particularly on south-facing slopes
Chef Peter Gottgens, owner of the Ardeonaig Hotel in Perthshire, planned to produce a white Riesling wine in 2010 to serve his hotel guests.It would be the first wine produced in Scotland in commercial quantities. Gottens had planted 48 vines as an experiment in 2006, and planned to expand this to 800. Gottens said: “Cold is not the problem, the lack of sunshine is our biggest problem. If the wine is fit for consumption it will be served by the glass with our food. If it's not good enough we can make it into vinegar.”The Romans introduced wine making to the United Kingdom, and even tried to grow grapes as far north as Lincolnshire. It was successfully done till the cooling in the 800s although the remnants of this can still be seen to this day in the city of Lincoln in the gardens of the medieval Bishop's Palace. Winemaking continued at least down to the time of the Normans with over 40 vineyards in England mentioned in the Domesday Book, although much of what was being produced was for making communion wine for the Eucharist.Just as English wine began to recover from the epidemics of Phylloxera and Powdery Mildew in the mid 19th Century, brought back with the Explorers of New America, commercial English wine was dealt a heavy blow. In 1860 the government, under Lord Palmerston (Liberal) supported free trade and drastically cut the tax on imported wines from 1 shilling to 2 pence, a decrease of 83%. English wine was therefore out-competed by superior foreign products that could be sold at a lower cost to the customer. The twilight of British winemaking tradition, which stretched back to the very first Roman explorers, was brought to an end with the onset of the First World War, as the need for crops and food took priority over wine production. The rationing of sugar pushed the knife even deeper until, for the first time in 2000 years, English wines were no longer being produced in either Wessex, nor the rest of the country.Viticulture was revived in the 1970s onwards. The first English wines were influenced by the sweet German wines like Liebfraumilch and Hock that were popular in the 1970s, and were blended white and red sweet wines, called cream wine (creams). The largest vineyard in England is Denbies Wine Estate in Surrey, which has 265 acres (1.07 km2) under vines, and a visitors' centre that is open all year round.In 2004 a panel judging European sparkling wines awarded most of the top ten positions to English wines - the remaining positions going to French Champagnes. Similar results have encouraged an explosion of sparkling wine plantings. English still wines too have begun to pick up awards at most big wine competitions, notably Decanter, and the IWSC.
Winemaking has spread from the South East and South West and also to the Midlands and the north of England, with Yorkshire, Shropshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Lancashire boasting at least one vineyard each as of 2007.Significant plantings have been happening across the south of the country with a number of farmers contract growing vines for some of the major English producers. Farmers are looking at the potential benefits of growing vines as the return per tonne for grapes over more traditional crops are not to be ignored. A field of wheat might yield 3 tonnes per acre at around Ł120 per tonne. Growing grapes could yield 3 to 4 tonnes per acre at around Ł950 to Ł1100 per tonne.
There's definitely an industry for grapes in England, even if it's just for table grapes and cheap plonk. And if we can produce a handful of quality wines then that is good enough for me.
Sorry for the huge post, I just get carried away.
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