English wine has greatly changed in recent years. Royalty and heads of government drink it and pour it for foreign dignitaries, and it is sold to some thirty wine-drinking nations and even beats champagne in blind tasting challenges. Its main grape varieties are major international names and its makers are skilled professionals. From a largely amateur-instigated cottage industry it has become an increasingly serious, quality-led commercial proposition - one that regularly makes news at home and abroad. This book explains why and how that has come about, telling the story of winemaking in England from the Romans to the present era. Most of all, it celebrates the wine itself and the people who make it. Its pages takes readers on a virtual tour of many of the UK's most significant vineyards, long established or comparatively new, in the southern heartland of vine growing, on the western and northern fringes or at points in between. The reader will meet men and women whose expertise, character and belief have created wines of which all Britons can be truly proud. Foreword by Oz Clarke.

Author Biography

Liz Sagues is a journalist whose enthusiasm for wine has brought her acclaim at international level: she has twice been named Louis Roederer Regional Wine Writer of the year for her columns in the Ham & High series of newspapers in London. Living at the foot of the South Downs, she is ideally placed, by both experience and location, to tell the story of English wine.