South East Focus: English wines

I would imagine the first thought for anyone who finds themselves on the M25 motorway is to get off it as quickly as possible. But if you find yourself passing junctions directing you to the M20 you might want to turn off. For as you travel towards the coast along the Kent-Sussex border, it's not just hop fields you'll see, but the vineyards underpinning a mini-revolution in the English drinks industry.

English wine is unlikely to ever be a mass-selling product and its biggest fans - the producers and brand owners - are not pretending otherwise. But you do need to believe the hype - English wine is gaining real respect and momentum.

There has been a large amount of positive news around it, including a significant number of wine tasting and challenge victories and medals. Many English wineries in the South East, from Nyetimber in Sussex to Denbies in Surrey, have won a glut of medals at the International Wine Challenge (IWC) and the International Wine & Spirits Competition over the last three years.

For Frazer Thompson, managing director of Chapel Down in Tenterden, Kent, one of the best-known English wine producers, the big moment came when its 2001 pinot reserve won a gold medal at the 2004 IWC. "That was a turning point. It was fantastic to find someone else was in agreement with us that our wine was world class," he says.

The success of English wines in these blind tastings has surprised many and outraged traditionalists. Wine writer and Mr Superplonk Malcolm Gluck, for example, seems to have issued a fatwa against English wine, sneering at those who believe it is the next big thing. Only last week he wrote a letter to The Guardian railing against much of the recent good PR: "The idea that any English sparkling wine is 'as good or better than that from the Champagne region' is utter poppycock. I tasted most English sparkling wines recently and none came within a whisker of being comparable to even the cheapest supermarket own-label champagne."

But to throw insults at English wine is to cheapen its achievements. Unlike small brewers, English wine producers are not subsidised by the state but are still enjoying impressive production growth. Earlier this month the generic body English Wine Producers announced that the current harvest would be the biggest single crop on record.Plus they have attracted investment.

Three years ago Nigel Wray, the owner of Saracens rugby club, invested in Chapel Down, while Richard Balfour-Lynn, whose interests include the Hotel du Vin chain, chipped in with a cool £500,000. Last year Dutch investment banker Eric Heerema bought Nyetimber winery and injected £7.5m into the business.

Now many, Mr Gluck included, would argue that financial success is no guarantee of quality of wine. But Frazer insists the only market he and his fellow producers can go for is the top-end, meaning that quality is paramount.

"We are not in thousands of on-trade outlets but we are in some very good ones," he says. "We are in outlets that are looking for something different - places that won't just go to Matthew Clark and ask it to supply stock and a wine list."

Frazer believes Kent can be for English wine what Napa Valley is to California and the Garden Route is to South Africa. He points out that English sparkling wines are made to the same exacting standards as champagnes and that our native wines have developed an excellent style of their own, describing the bacchus grape as "England's answer to New Zealand sauvignon blanc".

But the biggest thing for wine growers across the South East is the benefits their products are bringing to local economies - and in this age of local sourcing and green miles, this can give English wine a real edge in the market.

"When you buy a bottle of English wine you are helping transform the landscape of the South East," says Frazer. "The money will go straight into the pockets of local farmers. It makes whole communities come alive."