Having spent much of my working life with winemakers who never had to leave home to find their dream job, I’ve sometimes wondered what it might be like to have been born and raised in a great wine region. Would it have stripped away the romantic lens through which British wine lovers like me tend to view places such as Burgundy or Barossa? Or would I now be filled with the same easy pride that Burgundians and Barossans, even those who don’t work in the wine business, feel about their local product?
Probably the latter, given recent developments in the part of Essex where I grew up. Praise for the latest wine produced within a 10-mile radius of where I was born always provides a little flutter of positivity and recognition, not unlike coming across my small town on TV as a kid (“Look, we’re on Lovejoy!”) . Over the past decade place names from bus routes of my childhood have been infused with a sense of glamour. Danbury, Althorne, Latchingdon, Purleigh are all home to vineyards, and wines, that have helped set the new mood in English wine.
