The rise of Welsh wines

“Here’s a tip: don’t use the term ‘British wine’ unless you really know what it means,” said Susy Atkins in The Telegraph. When talking about “home-grown grapes”, the distinction between English and Welsh wine is important.

While English wine production “dwarfs that of Wales”, there is an “undeniable buzz around the fizz and still wines coming from the country”.

Despite dealing with a “rollercoaster of variable harvests”, the summer of 2025 – the hottest on record for Wales – is expected to produce more complex wines and could mark a “turning point in recognition of Welsh wines”.

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The country is home to 56 registered commercial vineyards, mainly in South Wales, that often send their fruit “across the English border” to Gloucestershire’s Three Choirs and Staffordshire’s Halfpenny Green for fermentation. However, Welsh producers like White Castle Vineyard “have recently built their own in-house wineries”.

While not “well-known”, the solaris grape is “proving a mainstay” for Welsh wineries. “Early-ripening” and “disease-resistant”, it produces “quaffable, brightly fruity whites”. On the premium end, sparkling wines made using the “traditional champagne method” and “long-aged” champagne grapes, show “impressive” promise. The sparkling wines yielded from 2025’s harvest “should be top-notch”, and it’s worth keeping an eye out for experimental pét nats (pétillant naturel wines) and orange wines, too.

Welsh reds are also “improving by leaps and bounds”, said Jane MacQuitty in The Times. This year is being “trumpeted as [the] best still red vintage yet” thanks to the “exceptionally warm spring and long sunny summer”, resulting in “fully ripe grapes”.

Like solaris grapes, “hardy, frost-resistant” German hybrids thrive in Welsh conditions, making for unique, “smoky, sweet” flavours. While there is “still some way to go”, a handful of Welsh wines can be compared to the “best of Burgundy, overflowing with those ethereal, cool, floral, vibrant red berry and gamey forest floor notes that pinot noir connoisseurs just cannot get enough of”.

As for bottles to try, Velfrey Vintage’s Welsh 2020 sparkling wine, an “elegant trad-method sparkler”, delivers the “whistle-clean” acidity of any seyval with “light toastiness” and “succulent” notes of “pear, quince and apricot”, said Atkins in The Telegraph.

For fans of rosé, St Hilary Vineyard 2023 rosé is a “well-made still pink” with delicate flavours of “red apple peel and rosehip”, and a “soft, slightly yeasty edge”.

And for an excellent sparkling red, you can’t go wrong with Whinyard Rocks 2023 Col Rondo. Produced using “the ancestral method, aka pet-nat”, which gives it a “rich purple colour”, expect an “exuberant burst of blackcurrants and blackberries” and light bubbles. It’s “fab with charcuterie”.