England: The World's Most Important Wine Nation?
If you’re curious as to how or why England could possibly be an important wine nation, you’ve obviously been paying attention while in the wine section of your local store. You didn’t miss the large wine section labeled England, for there really isn’t one - yet.
England is the world’s most important wine nation, not due to the quantity or relative quality of wine it produces (although through global warming, Southern England is now earning a reputation for its sparkling and still wine industry) but because of its consumption.
England has indeed been one of the dominant forces in the wine business for close to a 1,000 years. Like the rest of the former Roman Empire, England has been planted with vineyards for close to two millennia, but over time England’s taste for wine became distinctly French in persuasion.
By the 15th century, England had become the major customer of France’s Bordeaux region; a relationship spurred on by both the ever-improving quality of wines of this region and the marriage of King Henry II to Eleanor of Aquitaine. The love affair (with the wine!) continues to this day, as many of the award-winning wines of Bordeaux are thanks in large part to the English taste for this particular wine style. It makes one wonder if Cabernet and Merlot (grapes used to make the Bordeaux reds) would be so popular around the world today if not for the interest the English has paid them for centuries.
Our history classes have taught us that England and France have periodically gone to war with one another, despite Britain’s love of French wines. During these times of extreme unrest, drinking French wine was considered unpatriotic by the English and so their interests began wandering to new lands to satisfy their thirst for great wine. Both Portugal and South Africa are nations that can credit the success of their winemaking industries to English palates. Some might even say that Port is more an English wine than it is Portuguese.
This notion that consumption and demand has driven the creation of wine styles doesn’t stop at Port. Some might even argue that Champagne – the world’s most famous celebratory drink – is actually an English invention. Dom Perignon is often credited as the inventor of Champagne, but it was the English who made it the staple of celebratory occasions around the world. In the early 17th century, the still white wine of France’s northern Champagne region was only of mild interest in England, until British bar owners discovered that when placed in a bottle and allowed to warm, a magical secondary fermentation was created in the bottle and the sparkling wine style was created.
And that is certainly a discovery worth celebrating!