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| a view across the Camel Valley |
(call it Duchy or County) not counting the Scilly Isles or the Channel Islands so you would expect a greater concentration of vineyards than actually exist there.
We were only able to find mention of the following, maybe half of which seem to be only hobby vineyards or even extinct:
Aaron's Vineyard
Barras Moor Vineyard
Bosue Vineyard
Camel Valley Vineyard
Cobland Mill Estate
Knightor Vineyard
Lambourne Vineyard
Looe Valley Vineyard
Pale Park Vineyard
Penberth Vineyard
Polgoon Vineyard
Polmassick Vineyard
Pollaughan Vineyard
Ruses Mill Vineyard
Struddicks Farm Vineyard
Titchen Farm Vineyard
Trevibban Mill
Camel Valley is the oldest, best established and most widely known of all the Cornish vineyards producing sparkling wine which wins quite a dizzying amount of awards and is the first English producer to acquire a royal warrant. It also is the first British vineyard to be given a PDO (Protected Designation Origin) by the EU for its Darnibole vineyard where the grape is 100% Bacchus.
Seyval Blanc is also grown but the main grapes for their celebrated Sparkling wine are Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay.
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| bottling plant |
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| Camel Valley tasting room |
Having made our pilgrimage to this rather obvious destination we struck out to one which featured something altogether unexpected.
When we arrived at Knightor Winery there was a wedding being celebrated and a notice on the door asking visitors not to enter. That wasn't the unexpected thing by the way; many vineyards not only in the UK offer their facilities for weddings and other events as supplementary income streams.
Happily a Japenese couple who clearly had an appointment (which we had not) appeared out of nowhere and were ushered into the shop by a representative who had been expecting them. We sheepishly tagged along trying to look like a wedding guest, or Japanese or otherwise inconspicuous.
The young couple seemed intent of buying a bottle of everything Knightor produces. This includes three Vermouths, Dry, White and Rose as well as sparkling and still wines of different colours.
Astonishingly one of Knightor's red wines is a Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon blend. This is not from imported grapes but ones grown in polytunnels right there in Cornwall (Knightor's grapes are grown in two vineyards on the coast, Portscatho and Seaton as well as at other English vineyards but not at the winery itself).
There was an actual polytunnel behind the shop but that was used for experimental purposes. So many vines were being trialled, no one could tell us what varieties were involved.
Growing vines in polytunnels is not unknown in the UK. We have even seen it on Angelsey and heard about it in the Hebrides. Beenleigh in Devon has produced a similar wine in polytunnels. We tasted it many years ago. No doubt it has improved since then. You can buy it from Peter Osborne Fine Wines for £25.99.
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| Regent Pinot Noir Rondo blend |
These grapes sound like a litany of what has been planted in the UK since the modern revival of viticulture. We have to confess harbouring prejudices against some of the old hybrids such as Schönberger but we let ourselves be persuaded to try Knightor's Schönberger despite previous encounters with this grape having been of the neutral and watery kind.
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| Knightor's Mena Hweg (Schönberger) |
We had planned to visit Bosue Vineyard next. Their grapes are the next generation on from some of the Knightor varieties:
Johanniter
Orion
Phoenix
Regent
Rondo
Solaris.
They also produce their own Brandy.
It all looked very nicely kept but we had failed again to make an appointment and nobody was home.
We had heard about an Orange wine made by Trevibban Mill Vineyard so that was our next stop.
The birds must sre like Trevibban grapes. This was the first time we had seen such extensive netting in an English vineyard.
Trevibban's tasting room and cellar door is downstairs from their restaurant and wedding venue. All rather impressive - you could be in Australia.
The tasting room seemed to be a magnet for local people to drop in for tea or coffee. Interesting.
The Orange wine mentioned earlier is from Orion, a grape we like.
Other grapes used by Trevibban include the traditional Champagne grapes as well as a mixture of old and newer hybrids similar to Knightor;
Chardonnay
Bacchus
Dornfelder
Madeleine Angevine
Pinot Noir
Reichensteiner
Rondo
Seyval Blanc
As at Camel Valley and Knightor, Trevibban's gear is modern and sparkling.
Penzance is the last major town before Land;s end and so its own winery Polgoon seems to be the most Westerly in the British Isles.
Polgoon seems to be quite a large operation making the following wines;
Seyval Blanc Sparkling
Pinot Noir Sparkling Rose
Bacchus white
Madeleine Angevine white
Seyval Blanc and Ortega white
Sauvignon Blanc white
Rondo and Pinot Noir Rose
Rondo and Seyval Blanc Rose
Rondo red
In addition they make a large variety of Ciders (Apple, Elderflower, Pear and Scrunpy), Apple juice, Elderflower presse, Lemonade and other non-alcoholic drinks.
Sauvignon Blanc was a surprise on their list but we enjoyed their Seyval Blanc/Ortega blend os much we bought a bottle and consumed it that very evening. We also liked their Rondo in tasting. Perhaps the best example of this grape we had found up to then. Rondo is sometimes denigrated not only because it was found not to have been derived from Saperavi as was first thought but also because some consider it only good for adding colour to blends including Pinot Noir for example.
Pale Park is a new vineyard specialising in Rondo. As with the Knightor Schoenburger and Polgoon Seyval Blanc/Ortega maybe there is mileage in the older hybrids when made as well as Cornish winemakers seem to be able to do.
So can one say there is a particular Cornish wine character? Perhaps not but the wineries we visited were characterised by the selection of grape varieties now becoming obsolescent and yet producing some good wines. As producers become better at handling these grapes the grapes themselves become perhaps better as they are more mature. The continued use of Seyval Blanc is a case in point. It was never a bad grape like Triomphe but it seems now to produce better wines than ever before. Camel Valley, the largest and best known Cornish vineyard uses it as a 35% constituent of one of their sparklers and 100% of another. Camel Valley's Raymond Blanc Blanc de Noir is from Dornfelder by the way.
Madeline Angevine is also alive and well and Bacchus is is pretty ubiquitous in Cornwall as it is elsewhere in England and Wales. It could be on the verge of becoming our national grape. We rather hope not because it requires so many treatments against mildew: 10 - 13 in a season. Better to grow something more resistant we think.
Rondo is a feature in several wineries and one can see why because at least it ripens which Pinot Noir struggles to do even in this southerly region. We haven't yet tasted the Knightor Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon from polytunnels but we would be surprised if that was the way to go in the future. Regent, Solaris, Ortega and Orion are doing well. Maybe someone will try some of the later PIWI varieties such as Souvignier Blanc, Muscaris, the Blattner varieties and we would suggest the new ones coming out of the VCR - Vivai Cooperativo di Rauscedo?
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