If you can drink good wine today it is for the English too

Study time: 8 minutes

There are still some bad ones, and now there are some good ones. Not everyone knows yet but Alcohol Today English is booming. In 2022, such eventsEnglish Wine Week Celebrate what still sounds like science fiction in the last century. Currently, 800 vineyards Scattered throughout the UK. Climate logic, most of which are concentrated in the southeast, Kent and Sussex.

This is a lush and (relatively) sunny area Plumbton College. Surrounded by vineyards, the T-shirts and long-haired youth roaming school opened its winery in 1998. For some, the training provided between these ivy-covered walls had an impact on the development of English wine. Global warming.

“All the roads from the English wine industry lead to Plumbton,” Paul Harley, director of the department Liquor business Of the establishment. The two-year degree program began in 2012 and has provided everything that can be taught to control the climate of this country. Navy polo shirt, short hair and left wrist Google Pixel watch, from the Harley Berkshire family. “They don’t know about it and don’t want to change it. He smiled. When I was younger, very few families drank alcohol, especially good ones, but that is changing. ”

According to Harley, land Fish and chips Slowly progressing towards what he describes “More Mediterranean Culture”. The English like “To cook Anything else “ Will buy more and more quality wines. “We are Let’s drink Less, but better, He says briefly. At the same time, wine tourism in the UK is growing. It is really possible to follow the alcohol route via Sussex like champagne or Tuscany.

“Between Vomiting and Sour Apple”

Harley is 40 years old and a fond memory of his first class of English wine. “It’s a Bucks of the estate under the church. It is mild, strongly acidic, with gooseberry tips. All the classics of a box comparable to the Savignon Plank. Chapel Town is one of the most popular English wines.

Oz Clark, who wrote a book in 2018 entitled, 33 years older than him English wineThere is a very different story to tell. “In the 1960s, my mom took me to taste wine on a small hill above Sandwich, Kent’s old port. He describes. A strong wind blew, it rained, and the vines grew on all four sides. I tasted an acidic wine, from which I could only learn sensible spring notes. The future was very dark.

In 1964 the UK produced only 1,500 bottles a year. Oz Clark leaves with a sad expression on his face in memory of the still-scented pickets “Between Vomiting and Sour Apple”. Then everything changed. “Between 1990 and 2010, Temperature Champagne rose 2.6 degrees CelsiusClark said Community In 2021. In the south of England it should be 1.5 degrees Celsius cooler than champagne and our soil is similar. So, this means that we now have the best climate for sparkling wine.

Between 2012 and 2018, the number of bottles manufactured in the UK increased from 1.3 to 15.6 million. Sign of the changing winds, both Pommery and Taittinger have invested in English land. The local wine industry is still young Climate Capricious enough to not be able to confirm the number of bottles produced annually. But having their own wine can only transform the relationship of the English into a product that they have historically always considered a foreign drink and synonymous with European sophistication.

History of kings and social classes

When OldThe Romans were the first to cultivate vines imported from Germany and to cultivate champagne in the southeast. Britannia. “But it is believed that the valleys are not steep enough to receive loads The sun Necessary “, Reveals Charles Lutington, a professor at the University of North Carolina. By 2022, it will be the most northern working vineyard in the UK LevanthorpTwenty-five minutes southeast of Leeds, in Yorkshire.

If Wales There are seventeen wine gardens Scottish wine Not picked up yet. Some of the bottles were made of hebrides, and there is still wine called Sato Largo in Fife, northeast of Edinburgh. Non-drinkable. “The first to raise flags on these islands were the monks, who planted them in the south Scotland Downwards from the tenth century, The expert continues. They needed mass.

Wine production declined during the Little Ice Age – this climate cooling began in the early 14th century.^e Century – Before beheading by Henry VIII Dissolve the monasteries After his separation from the Pope in 1534. Most of the wine consumed in his kingdom was imported from the continent of Europe, and especially from Aquitaine. In 1152, Henry II married Plantagenet Eleanor de Aquitaine. Rewinds the historian. Two years later, he became King Henry II, and Aquitaine entered the throne of the King of England. She has been there for 300 years, during which time her citizens became accustomed to Aquitaine wine, which is an English wine.

In 1453, at the same time as the Hundred Years’ War, England lost its wine lands, but continued to drink French. At the end of XVII^e In the twentieth century, Colbert taxed the fabric of England, which counterattacked by imposing a higher tax on French wine. “The tax was the same regardless of the quality of the wineSays the historian. The makers of Bordeaux said to themselves that if the price of alcohol was high, it would be worth it. From 1697, Clairet, the wine between the red and rose varieties they had been exporting until then, disappeared in favor of a darker and more concentrated product, thus giving the rich Englishmen the value of their money.

A drink that sounds sophisticated

At the same time, English merchants had to set their sights on finding wine that was accessible to the pockets of petty bourgeoisie. PortugalThere they want to create wines that are similar to Bordeaux wines. “But the grapes, the terrain, the climate, everything was different. It was so hot and the fermentation was so hard to control. It was going so fast. So, to control the fermentation, they added brandy. That’s how the port was born.

From 1689 to 1815, the conflicts between France and Great Britain were linked. A Francophobic feeling develops in Albion and drinking Gaelic wine becomes a sign of betrayal. Petty capitalism embraced the port, but the elites resisted, asserting their superiority by drinking high-quality French wine.

The connection between the English and the wine has always been a delicate foreign food. In 1689, Orange WilliamA Dutchman, pushes King James II From the throne. Protestant, he transforms the DNA of the English aristocracy, he mixes with the class of merchants. “The lords of the sword do not have to establish its position, Restarts Lutington. The new rich needed a symbol of their greatness. The presence of wines over the age of thirty in their cellars gave them roots. This suggested that their family was not very new. The innovator justified his magnificence by means of wine.

In 1755, as the Seven Years’ War intensified, Britain lost the war after the war, accusing the army and navy of betrayal. Lutington explains: “They loved it Dance, Music, Language, Lace, Perfumes and Wines of France. They were accused of being female traitors. Like the French. ” To pacify the people, the elites surrender. The men slowly make their way to the port and the women to Cherry. “And because the elites don’t like to drink anything bad, the port turned out to be a great product.”

Until then, wine bottles had the form of oscillations between onions and melons. Cylindrical bottles were made in England in the 1770s. This is a revolution: they can now be stored on their side, the cork will be wet and the wine will continue to age in the bottle. As it contains a lot of tannin and alcohol, the port needs time to mature and benefit greatly from this improvement. “This technique has been applied to other wines as well. Restarts Lutington. Until then have to drink one wine a year. Henceforth, wine is made according to age.

Producers in Bordeaux and Burgundy have begun to produce wines that need to be improved over time. “But the French did not like it. Promises American with a successful smile. They were still drinking. Wine is something we drink every day and does not have to be soft. These aged wines were made for the British market. Wealthy Englishmen drank it because it was imported and it got a high quality status. Over time, the taste of the English finally conquered the palaces of the French elite.

Impact of Europe and Australia

In XVIII^e Century, however, taxes made French wine more expensive and the majority of Britons consumed more port and sherry, sweet and above all liquor.

In 1861, Treasurer William Cladstone realized that his fellow citizens were drunkards and decided to civilize them. To achieve his goals, he reduced taxes on alcohol. But experience pschitt. Gin manufacturers, Whiskey And Beer Alcohol disappeared from famous British livers until the 1660s, forcing the authorities to promote their brewing. “We first drank Spanish piquette before heading to the sweet German wines”, Oz Clark reports. In 1973, the United Kingdom joined the European Economic Community, and the less affluent classes began to go to the terrace and drink.

“The continent was once again seen as a place where the weather was better, with more people less surrounded, Restarts Lutington. The pro-European sentiment is growing and tourism is growing. The British travel and return with the taste of wine as a daily drink. Instead of sherry and port, they started drinking langudok piquette. In the 1980s, Australian winemakers completed the process of transforming Britain into a wine-drinking region with fruit wines and labels written in English.

Since then, the place occupied by wine in the country of liquor stores has continued to grow. In 2021, a Review by YouGov Revealed a surprising fact: wine has become the favorite liquor of the English. In fact, 32% of respondents said they liked alcohol, and only 25% of them liked beer.