Ancre Hill is a new vineyard in Wales and has just won a silver award at the Decanter World Wine Awards and a bronze at the International Spirit and Wine Competition.
Another leading wine show, the International Wine Challenge, also commended the 2008 vintage, which was the first to be produced by the new vineyard.
Say Welsh wine a gen ago, and the wine world would have laughed. Say here’s this shorefront in Arkansas that I’m anxious to sell. But like everything else, wine has become democratized. Truth is anyone can make wine if they have the resources. Same goes for cheese. Of course the quality is unpredictable.
For centuries the French owned wine — I still like best the layered subtlety of French claret — and managed to intimidate all contenders. But the elite has tumbled — it was i think Australian plonk that broke the dam. The British who apparently drink more wine than anyone else, loved overoaked Chardonnay as a cheap tipple, then glommed to NZ’s Sauvignon blanc so much sassier than France’s Sancerre. Now they’re preferring the juiciness of California to the dry sophistication of French blends.
The Welsh wine maker is a millionaire, of course. Making wine isn’t cheap. Richard Morris, a chartered accountant, sold his share of a logistics company in 1999 for thirty six million pounds. He started making wine four years ago, planting Seyval Blanc, Pinot Noir , Chardonnay – the soil is limestone comparable to the terroir that produces Chablis – in the field outside his house. The first vintage was 14,500 bottles, twelve pounds each.
He told The Independent: “It’s our first vintage. You don’t expect that to happen – to get three medals from the three most important wine competitions in the world.”
Next step — Champagne!
